JESUS 
 
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 DWIGHT GODMRD 
 
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 PRINCETON, N.J. 
 
 
 Presented by 3\n ^ CAu\VnOV-; 
 
 BV 4501 .G62 1916 c.l 
 
 
 Goddard, Dwight, 1861- 
 
 -1939. 
 
 Jesus and the problem 
 
 of 
 
 human life 
 
 
Jesus 
 
 And the Problem of Human Life 
 
WORKS BY 
 
 DWIGHT GODDARD 
 
 JESUS 
 
 And the Problems of 
 Human Life 
 
 I2mo, clothy nety ^O cents 
 These discourses show the value and use- 
 fulness of the Good News of a Spiritual 
 Realm and the Way of Salvation to anyone 
 who has felt a desire to make that supreme 
 adventure in faith. They set the **Good 
 News" into its right relation with present- 
 day thought. 
 
 THE GOOD NEWS 
 
 Of a Spiritual Realm 
 Paraphrased by Dwight Goddard 
 
 Second Edition, i2mo, cloth, net, $r.00 
 An interweaving and paraphrasing of the 
 Four Gospels, bringing out clearly the unity 
 and reasonableness of Jesus* Life and Teach- 
 ings. Appropriate for devotional reading, 
 study classes, and as a gift book to those we 
 would like to become interested in our Lord. 
 
Jesus 
 
 And the Problem of Human Life 
 A Threefold Sermon 
 
 By 
 
 dwight'goddard 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 191 6, by 
 DWIGHT GODDARD 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
To my classmates of the Class of Ninety-Four 
 Hartford Theological Seminary 
 
 Ozora vS". DaviSy President 
 
 Chicago Theological Seminary 
 
 Willard L, Beard^ President Foochow College 
 
 Iso AbCf Dean of Sociology Faculty, 
 
 Waseda University 
 
 Frank S. Brewer ^ Dean of Theological Faculty ^ 
 
 Taladega College 
 
 Frederick A, Sumner^ Minister ^ Connecticut 
 
 Thomas f. Bell, Secretary 
 
 Colored K M, C A., New York City 
 
Preface 
 
 IN the early part of 1915 there was sent out 
 to personal friends of the author an inter- 
 weaving of the Four Gospels into one con- 
 nected account of the life and the teachings of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, in which the attempt had 
 been made by free translation and paraphrase 
 to bring out their unity from a modern point of 
 view. 
 
 From the hundreds of letters that were re- 
 ceived and the conversations that were held, it 
 became evident that a new line of appreciation 
 for the Good News of a Spiritual Kealm and 
 the Way 6f Salvation had been opened. The 
 present sermons are an attempt to set this 
 Good News of a Spiritual Eealin into relation 
 to present-day thought, and to show its value 
 and usefulness to any one who has felt a desire 
 to make that supreme adventure in faith, a 
 quest for a higher spiritual life, with Jesus as a 
 guide, an inspiration, and a Saviour. 
 
 DWIGHT GODDARD. 
 Ann Arbor J Michigan, 
 
Contents 
 
 I. Three Possible Solutions of 
 
 THE Problem of Human Life . 1 1 
 
 II. Jesus' Solution of the Prob- 
 
 lem OF Human Life . . 35 
 
 III. How TO Live as Jesus Taught 67 
 
I 
 
 Three Possible Solutions of the Prob- 
 lem of Human Life 
 
** Our Hff, says Eucken, does not move on a single level, 
 but upon two levels at once — the natural and the spiritual. 
 The key to the puzzle of man lies in the fact that he is 
 ' the meeting point of various stages of Reality »* All his 
 difficulties and his triumphs are grounded in this. The 
 whole question for him is, which world shall be central for 
 him — the real, vital, all-embracing life we call Spirit, or 
 the lower life of sense?** — Evelyn Underhill. 
 
 *« , . . there remains only the inexorable * either- 
 or * : either the power of a new world is operative in man, 
 and makes him strong outwardly and inwardly, or the 
 whole life of man is spiritually lost, a great illusion^ a 
 great error** — Rudolf Eucken. 
 
 ** The root question or outstanding controversy between 
 science and faith rests upon two different conceptions of the 
 universe. The one that of a self contained and self suffi- 
 cient universe with no outlook into, or links with anything 
 beyond, . . . and the other conception^ that of a 
 universe lying open to all manner of spiritual influences, 
 permeated through and through with a Divine Spirit, 
 . . . a universe by no means self sufficient or self-con- 
 tained but with feelers at every pore groping into another 
 supersensuous order of existence.** — Sir. Oliver Lodge. 
 
Three Possible Solutions of the Prob- 
 lem of Human Life 
 
 ONE of the strange things to a foreigner 
 going into China is to see the natives 
 openly worshipping at different tem- 
 ples at different times. The Chinaman is a 
 Confucianist in social relations and in official 
 life ; when he wishes to find a lucky day for 
 embarking in business, or building a house, or 
 getting married, he is a Taoist ; and when it 
 comes to sickness or death in the family he is a 
 Buddhist. ' 
 
 This sort of thing appears strange to us who 
 are accustomed to think that religion, and 
 morals, and truth are almost synonymous. But 
 wait a moment, is this so very different from 
 what we see about us every day ? In business 
 and social relations we see crowds of people 
 worshipping the god of money, Mammon, or 
 Billikin, the god of things as they are. The 
 people who do this are believers in a kind of 
 naturalistic or scientific interpretation of life 
 that I am going to explain more fully in a few 
 minutes. 
 
14 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 Now when these same people attend lectures 
 or read books and try to think a little more 
 seriously than common, when they let the in- 
 tellectual side of their nature come to the sur- 
 face and they become conscious of ideals of 
 beauty and service and conduct, then they are 
 worshipping at the shrine of intellectual ideal- 
 ism, about which I am also going to speak more 
 fully in a few moments. 
 
 Now once again, there come to these very 
 same people, as to every one, times of sorrow, 
 or moral conflict, or of sickness, when the 
 charms of pleasure and power and the excite- 
 ment of business turn to ashes, when even the 
 airy fabric of their ideals seems unreal and all 
 that but yesterday seemed most substantial 
 now seems vanishing into thin air. At such 
 times as these when pain and sorrow and lone- 
 liness are insistent then these same people turn 
 to worship the Christian's God of Mercy ; and 
 they do it without the least thought that they 
 are in a religious sense inconsistent. 
 
 How very, very few are the ones among our 
 own people that always worship at the same 
 shrine ; that are just the same in their religious 
 devotions whether in times of sickness or pleas- 
 ure, in wealth or in poverty, in the stress of busi- 
 ness or the leisure of reading. Is it not true 
 that most of us meet the different situations of 
 life in a kind of hit or miss fashion ? I do not 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 15 
 
 think that any one intends to be hypocritical or 
 inconsistent in their religious life, but as a mat- 
 ter of fact they are often very inconsistent and 
 habitually change the expression of such relig- 
 ious faith as they have, as the day brings 
 business or pleasure, leisure for intellectual 
 study, the hour of church worship, or the crucial 
 time of sickness or of misfortune. 
 
 It is hardly right to call such faith religious 
 at all, it is so formal and hypocritical, so empty 
 and selfish. It borrows the form of religion 
 without its heart and its virility. It is usually 
 the inherited faith of some godly parent or 
 ancestor, but so diluted that it does not call for 
 personal hardship or self-denial, and sometimes 
 it is the remnant of an earlier personal faith 
 that has lost its force. It usually accepts some 
 idea of an overruling providence, but thinks in 
 a hazy way that if one observes some routine 
 ceremonial, or joins the church, or lives up to 
 the conventional ethics of the day, that in some 
 general way things will work out all right in 
 the end. 
 
 Am I exaggerating if I assert that our times 
 are characterized by this absence of any clear 
 and definite religious faith ? If this is true, and 
 I do not see how any one can help but agree 
 with me that it is true, there must be some good 
 reason for it. The reason that I offer for this 
 general lack of deep religious faith is this : 
 
i6 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 There is a general lack of understanding of the 
 fundamental problem of human life. In fact 
 very few people appear to understand that 
 there is any such problem at all, and fewer still 
 are the ones who have thought out any reason- 
 able explanation or solution of this most serious 
 problem. 
 
 The purpose of this sermon is to bring this 
 great problem of human life clearly before the 
 mind and then to consider three possible ways 
 of explaining it. 
 
 First let us get the problem clearly before us. 
 When we begin to think about the place that 
 man occupies in the universe we are confronted 
 by emphatic contradictions. Man appears to be 
 the chief end of nature, but we see him forever 
 at war with his natural environment. When 
 he succeeds most in a worldly sense, he has the 
 strongest kind of an inner feeling of shame and 
 defeat. We are conscious of natural appetites, 
 desires, and passions, that are flatly opposed by 
 the aspirations of a spirit or soul within. We 
 can explain almost all his faculties and powers 
 as a development from a simple beginning to 
 their present complexity, but we cannot explain 
 all. There always remains something in the 
 ideals of man, in his spiritual longings, and his 
 altruistic unselfishness, that is inexplicable from 
 any scientific standpoint. 
 
 Why are we naturally selfish and yet honor 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 17 
 
 altruism ? Why is a man ever willing to lay 
 down his life for another ? Why is a man 
 willing to forego comfort and convenience in 
 order to satisfy an inner desire for the good, 
 the true and the beautiful ? To explain these 
 contradictions is the problem of human life. 
 
 There are three common ways of attempting 
 the explanation and as we accept one or the 
 other we very largely condition the conduct of 
 our lives and our religious faith. These three 
 ways are as follows : First, The scientific or 
 naturalistic. Second, The idealistic. Third, 
 The spiritualistic. 
 
 In order that we may face the problem of life 
 with more confidence and intelligence, and have 
 a surer ground for our religious faith, it is 
 worth while to study carefully these three ex- 
 planations. 
 
 The scientific, or the naturalistic, explanation 
 is based on a scientific study of nature. Ac- 
 cording to scientists, there is but one realm of 
 reality, the natural universe ; everything that is 
 can be studied and known ; everything that is 
 is a coordination of cause and effect under the 
 interaction of so-called natural laws, which if 
 fully understood would furnish a sufficient ex- 
 planation of all phenomena. The result of 
 cause and effect operating in a domain of time 
 and space is universal motion and incessant 
 change. There is going on an incessantly 
 
i8 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 changing correspondence with a constantly 
 changing environment, resulting in unlimited 
 variations and endless struggle for existence, 
 and a consequent survival of the fittest. Birth, 
 growth, struggle, decay, death, is the inevitable 
 cycle of a universal natural experience. 
 
 The human soul is simply the highest and 
 most complex result of this natural evolution. 
 Because of his good fortune in possessing an in- 
 tellect, by reason of which he can take advan- 
 tage of natural laws to control them for his 
 own benefit, man is in a better position to 
 survive in this cosmic struggle. Ideals and 
 aspirations are the inherited accretions of 
 millenniums of experience that have been passed 
 down by the laws of heredity to be interpreted 
 by the intuitive faculties as a guide in the 
 inevitable struggle for self-assertion and self- 
 preservation, and as a guarantee for the further 
 development of the organism. 
 
 The answer of naturalism, then, to the prob- 
 lem of human life is: that the contradictions 
 are only seeming and are the questions that the 
 mind raises as to whether the immediate hap- 
 piness that will come from gratifying a present 
 physical appetite is more to be desired than the 
 more remote happiness that will come to one 
 from considering social well-being, the larger 
 future good that will come from a present self- 
 denial. 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 19 
 
 The second or idealistic explanation starts 
 with much the same scientific explanation of 
 natural phenomena, but parts company with it 
 in its conclusions. The ultra naturalist says 
 that the interaction of natural forces is a suffi- 
 cient explanation of all phenomena. The intel- 
 lectual idealist says, no, it is not sufficient, it is 
 too mechanical. Even a man has a purpose in 
 life and plans his work. Surely in nature there 
 must be some purpose, some plan, some life 
 process. So the idealist sees back of the uni- 
 verse an intelligent purpose, or an ideal, towards 
 which everything is tending. Some idealists 
 see God in this Ideal ; others see only an ideal 
 goal ; still others are satisfied with the thought 
 that back of the universal life process is intelli- 
 gence. But all alike question the existence of 
 anything outside the natural realm to aid one 
 in attaining the ideal other than the help that 
 comes from keeping our lives in harmony with 
 the ideal or with the ideal life process. 
 
 The intellectual idealist explains the problem 
 of life by saying that it is the conflict in a 
 man's mind that goes on when he comes to 
 choose between a natural good and an ideal 
 good. To both the naturalist and the idealist 
 the conflict is all within the one realm of a 
 universal nature; they differ as to whether 
 there is above nature an intelligent and moral 
 purpose. 
 
20 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 The spiritualistic explanation of this problem 
 of life starts with the assertion that human 
 beings have connections with two entirely dis- 
 tinct and independent orders of reality. First, 
 they are children of nature and live in a world 
 of nature. Second, they have kinship in the 
 Spiritual Eealm also, and the antagonisms of 
 life are explained by natural life pulling one 
 way and the spiritual life pulling another way. 
 
 As children of nature we are subject to all 
 the natural laws. "We are conscious of being 
 surrounded by multitudes of other human be- 
 ings all engaged in a life struggle with a more 
 or less hostile environment. Physical advan- 
 tage is measured by strength of body and clever- 
 ness of mind. Natural happiness is sensual 
 enjoyment ; natural success is survival and the 
 accumulation of advantage and position, with 
 the consciousness that we must inevitably fol- 
 low the usual natural cycle of birth, growth, 
 labor, decay, death. 
 
 But in the spiritualistic explanation this is 
 only one side of life, the natural side. There 
 is another and a brighter side, the spiritual 
 side. Human beings have also kinship in a 
 Spiritual Kealm. Just as the intellect is given 
 us so that we may take advantage of sense per- 
 ception, memory and reason, in the struggle for 
 existence, so the intuitive faculties are given 
 to human beings to sense the immaterial and 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 2 1 
 
 spiritual forces such as the forces of love, friend- 
 ship, faith, honor and duty, that are all about 
 us and to which human beings are susceptible. 
 There is certainly something within us that 
 responds to these spiritual forces, that demands 
 our allegiance, that speaks of moral duty. We 
 have inner visions of something better than 
 physical strength and mental cleverness; we 
 feel instinctively that our highest interests are 
 not with nature and that we have a moral right 
 to rebel against nature's determinism. We even 
 feel that we are superior to natural time and 
 space; that life for us may mean far more 
 than mere natural existence. In fact the pres- 
 ence of so universal a longing for the homeland 
 of the soul becomes a proof that there must 
 be reality where so general a longing may be 
 satisfied. 
 
 We saw that the scientific naturalist was 
 content to believe that the antagonism in a 
 man's soul between the natural desires and the 
 spiritual aspirations was but the jogging of the 
 memory to remind him that the more remote 
 or social good might be better for him than the 
 immediate gratification of some physical de- 
 sire. To the one who believes in the spiritual- 
 istic explanation, this is far too trivial a reply. 
 To the spiritually minded man the antagonisms 
 of life are a life and death struggle for the pos- 
 session of a soul. On the one hand he sees a 
 
22 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 world of nature pulling him down to its own 
 low level ; on the other hand he sees a realm of 
 the spirit calling him upward to a higher order 
 of life and, not only calling him, but offering 
 help in his honest efforts to reach the higher and 
 the nobler life. 
 
 To the man who cherishes the spiritualistic 
 explanation there is very good reason why he 
 should be dissatisfied with the lower and tem- 
 porary and sordid pleasures of the senses, be- 
 cause he sees just within his reach the more 
 satisfying joys of a timeless spiritual life. 
 
 Having before us now the three explanations 
 of this problem of life, let us compare them, to 
 see which is the most reasonable. Let us freely 
 admit that natural science has thrown a flood 
 of light on the problem of life, and has cor- 
 rected many false notions, but let us hesitate 
 to believe that it has solved the problem. The 
 reason that it has not solved the problem is 
 this : it persists in maintaining that there is 
 but one side to life and that the natural side ; 
 it persists in maintaining that everything that 
 is real can be examined by test tube and micro- 
 scope ; it persists in holding that the interaction 
 of natural forces is a sufficient explanation of 
 all the phenomena of the universe. 
 
 We have the right to ask how the microscope 
 can explain the feeling that comes over us at 
 times that we have a right to dominate nature ? 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 23 
 
 "We may feel ignorant as to how we may claim 
 and use this higher power and yet feel certain 
 as to its reality. Science tells us that it is a 
 superstition and reminds us of our limitations. 
 How can a laboratory explain our intuitive 
 sense as to right and wrong ? The very gen- 
 eral belief in the immortality of the soul and of 
 a life after death are too ingrained in our deep- 
 est consciousness to be easily laughed out of 
 court by some cock-sure natural scientist re- 
 ferring to the book and page where it says that 
 time and space are universal and that natural 
 law explains everything. 
 
 The fundamental law of nature is self-pres- 
 ervation, but humanity is continually overriding 
 that law and making altruism and heroic self- 
 denying service its rallying cry. When nature 
 is most heartless that clarion call to self-forget- 
 ting service wins the day and the first law of 
 nature is forgotten. Nature can explain a 
 narrow selfish love for one's family, or for some 
 benefactor, but unselfish love, "The greatest 
 thing in the world," it cannot explain. 
 
 It is not enough to claim that evolution is 
 slowly but surely lifting humanity towards a 
 higher type of life and society; it is not 
 enough to claim that although there is uni- 
 versal death of individuals that there is a 
 racial advance. Some more adequate expla- 
 nation must be offered if we are to face the 
 
24 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 problem of life with confidence and serenity, 
 and in a truly religious spirit. 
 
 Let us now turn to the explanation that in- 
 tellectual idealism offers. We can all admit 
 that we are profoundly influenced by study and 
 thought of purely intellectual ideals without at 
 all admitting that intellectual idealism answers 
 the great problem of life. In the first place we 
 may well raise the question whether the intel- 
 lectual process is the source of the inspiration 
 that comes from study and thought ; or whether 
 repose and thought only place us in that recep- 
 tive condition by reason of which we are sensi- 
 tive to the action of the spiritual forces that are 
 independent of the natural realm and are in 
 themselves creative and dynamic. We will 
 very grossly deceive ourselves if we think that 
 the intellectual process is the originating source 
 of inspiration. 
 
 Again, the human intellect is too weak and 
 frail to be trusted as the source of, or a guide 
 to, the ideal ; the human will is too weak and 
 changeable to maintain the necessary attention 
 and continuity. 
 
 Let us suppose for the minute that there is 
 in nature a universal push or vitality that is 
 working out a resistless progress towards the 
 ideal, and in so far as we can understand and 
 conform the conduct of our lives to this ideal 
 life-process we shall be carried along with it. 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 25 
 
 Do you not see what a burden this places on 
 the mind, if our advance towards the ideal is 
 limited to what the mind and the will can 
 understand and appropriate? You will have 
 your opinion of the ideal, I will have mine ; 
 and as we try to work them out, we may be 
 helping each other or we may be hindering 
 each other. As the years pass our appreciation 
 of the ideal will be constantly changing ; there 
 can be no unity of ideal, no wholeness, no stand- 
 ard. If you drop your ideal in order to help 
 me towards mine, you will be disloyal to your 
 own ideal, which was to be the very thing that 
 was to be your guide. And even when we 
 think most surely that we are true to the ideal, 
 we may be mistaken; the true ideal may be 
 something quite different ; there will always be 
 present the tendency to make the ideal coincide 
 with the conventional. No, intellectual ideal- 
 ism is a beautiful dream that awakens enthusi- 
 asm, especially in youth and in good health, 
 but in the end it is limited, transient and dis- 
 couraging. 
 
 The problem of human life involves the pos- 
 sible connection of the soul with a higher order 
 of existence and intellectual idealism leaves the 
 solution of it to the intellect which is a natural 
 faculty and therefore is incompetent to judge 
 the problem. In fact both idealism and nat- 
 uralism belittle the problem and try to gloss it 
 
26 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 over. It is not until one entertains the spir- 
 itual solution that the real importance and 
 fundamental character of the problem is 
 appreciated, and then the problem assumes 
 transcendant importance. It is not until we 
 perceive within ourselves the beginnings of a 
 higher spiritual life that we recognize how 
 diametrically opposed are the physical passions 
 and spiritual aspirations. It is not until we 
 perceive that these antagonisms are the indica- 
 tion of a spiritual movement for which we are 
 in some way and in some measure responsible, 
 and whose issue conditions not only the few 
 passing years of the natural life but the eternal 
 life of the spirit, that we awake to the supreme 
 importance of a correct understanding of this 
 supreme problem of human life. On the one 
 hand is a world of nature that is entirely in- 
 different to our behavior or our sufferings, that 
 is steadily drawing us down to its own inexor- 
 able level, and on the other hand the realm of 
 the spirit beckoning us onward and upward and 
 offering to help us in our efforts to reach the 
 nobler and higher life of the spirit. 
 
 If we are honest with ourselves we must ad- 
 mit that the fight going on within us between 
 the sensuous and the spiritual is no mere rivalry 
 of ideals, but it is a fight to the finish for a 
 higher or a lower life. Naturalism and ideal- 
 ism both admit that the individual life wiU 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 27 
 
 probably fail and certainly die, but they say that 
 the race life will advance by an infinitesimal in- 
 crement. The spiritual solution alone holds out 
 the hope of certain victory for the individual. 
 The spiritual solution asserts that there are 
 spiritual forces, creative activities, acting within 
 human beings which if appealed to can so far 
 dominate the conflicting elements of natural 
 desires that the life process will be raised to a 
 higher level ; in other words that it is possible 
 for a human being with the aid of the benefi- 
 cent spiritual forces of the higher realm to 
 transcend the world of time and matter, and to 
 rise into and become a part of the higher 
 spiritual realm. 
 
 If a man in his heart of hearts believes that 
 the naturalistic explanation is the most prob- 
 able, he cannot help but conform the conduct 
 of his life to natural laws to a greater or less 
 degree. The most characteristic of all natural 
 laws is the law of self-assertion and self-preser- 
 vation. It forever prompts one to labor, at first 
 to gratify hunger and to ward off pain and 
 death ; then it prompts to the gratification by 
 indulgence of all the natural appetites and pas- 
 sions ; and then on and on in the accumulation 
 of wealth and position by reason of which one 
 can the more easily gratify all these natural 
 desires. 
 
 Yery few people accept the naturalistic ex- 
 
28 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 planation as the exclusive basis of their religious 
 faith, but very, very many people let it color 
 and practically control their conduct for six 
 days in the week and then some. It is true 
 that in times of sorrow, or in rare moments of 
 contemplative thought, they have their doubts 
 as to whether naturalism is adequate, but so 
 long as they dally with the thought that 
 natural law is supreme, they will unconsciously 
 tend to conform their life to its demands. 
 When we let the temptations of physical 
 pleasure and indulgence possess us we are wor- 
 shipping at the shrine of naturalism, even if 
 our names are written on the rolls of the most 
 orthodox church in town. When a woman in 
 order to make herself attractive bedecks herself 
 in costly apparel, forgetful of the needs of 
 her family, or her own soul life, forgetful of 
 sweat shops and child labor and unpaid sewing 
 women ; when a man pushes his business suc- 
 cess at the expense of under-paid labor, ruined 
 competitors, deceived customers ; when ambi- 
 tious kings and emperors plunge their nations 
 into a heartless war of aggression, regardless of 
 starving, wounded, dying men, women and 
 children, they are but following the natural 
 jungle law of tooth and nail and are nature 
 worshippers pure and simple. 
 
 The natural type of life is ambitious, ener- 
 getic, selfish and unsympathetic, except with 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 29 
 
 one's family or immediate friends. It makes our 
 civilization materialistic, efficient, restless, ex- 
 travagant, harsh and cruel, and grossly unequal 
 in the distribution of its benefits. 
 
 This is no suitable basis for a religion, for the 
 very essential of a religious faith is a sense of 
 dependence on an outside power that independ- 
 ently of ourselves is making for righteousness, 
 and religion is the intuitive response to that 
 power in an effort to propitiate it and to ap- 
 proach towards it. 
 
 Neither is the idealistic explanation of the 
 problem of human life a satisfactory basis for 
 a religious faith. It leaves too much to the in- 
 dividual fancy and inclination ; it is too depend- 
 ent on youth and health and prosperity; it 
 deals too much with the trivialities of dress and 
 decorum ; and ignores the more important things 
 of moral conduct and spiritual discipline. It 
 imposes no disagreeable duties and quickly 
 dissipates itself in faultfinding egotism. In- 
 tellectual idealism is at its best in youth and 
 vigor, but sooner or later will come the tired 
 days, the discouragement of opposing interests 
 and failing health ; then energy and action will 
 lag, one will inevitably begin to appropriate 
 and enjoy, and idealism will have been forgotten 
 or have lapsed into mere culture and enjoyment. 
 
 In intellectual idealism there is no power 
 making for righteousness, or at most if there 
 
30 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 be a current in the cosmic process that is tend- 
 ing towards the ideal, it is doing so entirely in- 
 dependent of humanity and its interests. Even 
 if idealism recognizes a beneficent life process, 
 it removes it so far behind a pitiless determinism 
 that there can be little hope of appeal to it as a 
 life motive. The only help such a belief can be 
 to a man is the very negative help that may be 
 his to the extent that he can intellectually dis- 
 cern its trend and succeed in forcing his life to 
 coincide with it ; ;and even then all the reward 
 that can be his will be the consciousness that 
 through his efforts the race life has been lifted 
 an infinitesimal increment nearer the ideal. 
 He may have the satisfaction of thinking that 
 he is living in harmony with the ideal, but 
 there can be no more personal and satisfying 
 reward, no fellowship, no worship. 
 
 On the other hand the spiritual explanation 
 by supplying a faith in two levels of conscious 
 existence, a natural and a spiritual, and over all 
 a Sovereign God who is infinite, holy and lov- 
 ing, who is, and who ever has been, working out 
 a moral purpose that most intimately concerns 
 the individual happiness and welfare, calls into 
 play the strongest activities of a man's nature, 
 and tends to make the quest of the spiritual life 
 the most energetic and worth while of all life's 
 adventures. According to the spiritual faith, 
 the continuance of man's enthusiasm and effort 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 31 
 
 is not wholly dependent on his own strength of 
 body or mentality, but is supplied and is reen- 
 forced by all the universal forces of the Spiritual 
 Kealm operating within him and ever cooper- 
 ating with his ever clearing ideals of spiritual 
 faith, duty and service, for his advancement into 
 the higher realm of the spirit. 
 
 It is the glory of the spiritual solution of the 
 problem of human life that it provides an out- 
 side aid that is of itself working for the redemp- 
 tion and advancement of humanity. The spir- 
 itual solution not only lifts up a vision of a 
 higher life for the soul, with all its promises of 
 ineffable harmonies, its fellowships of perfect 
 affinity, its intimacies of perfect knowledge, but 
 it also energizes the advance into those spiritual 
 relations. , So long as one is dependent for 
 courage and hope for participation in a higher 
 or more ideal life solely on his own powers of 
 discernment, his own self-control, his own per- 
 sistence of effort, and his own strength, so long 
 has one reason for discouragement, and the 
 horrors of ultimate failure will ever haunt his 
 steps ; but if the forces of the higher spiritual 
 life are coordinating for his advancement then 
 there is assurance that his spiritual aspirations 
 are well grounded and will ultimately be vic- 
 torious over the lower animal desires of the 
 natural life. His confidence and courage are 
 based not on his own failing strength, but on 
 
32 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 the beneficent and transcendent forces of the 
 Spiritual Kealm. 
 
 From what has been said it must be clear to 
 all that when one bases the conduct of his life 
 strictly on a naturalistic basis, that it will be, 
 nay must be, selfish, worldly wise, exciting, 
 and in the end, a disheartening failure. If one 
 honestly bases the conduct of his life on an 
 intellectual ideal there will be the temporary 
 enthusiasm, the noble effort of youth, but it 
 will almost certainly be followed by more 
 or less conformity to convention, by a selfish 
 withdrawal into a life of culture, by increasing 
 narrowness and egotism, and finally by a sense 
 of defeat and discouragement. 
 
 On the contrary those that build on a spir- 
 itual foundation have good ground for confi- 
 dence that their labor will not be in vain 
 because it rests " in the Lord." The experiences 
 of life will more and more confirm their faith 
 that above all and ahead of all is a higher life 
 of the spirit, whose glory the mind of man has 
 never yet measured and whose upward prog- 
 ress appears to have no end. Those who have 
 trusted in their natural powers, or in the chang- 
 ing ideals of their poor minds, as the end of life 
 draws near, will see a gross darkness shutting 
 down on a life of disappointment and failure ; 
 but to him who has trusted in a spiritual over- 
 world, and who has sought to live a life of 
 
Possible Solutions of the Problem 33 
 
 service according to the spiritual law of love, 
 and who has had faith in the redeeming power 
 of the Sovereign God of this spiritual over- 
 world of love, the end of the earthly life will 
 come as a setting sun, that hints not of failure 
 and oblivion, but that promises the glorious 
 coming of a new and a better day. 
 
 In the next sermon I shall try to show how 
 the teachings of Jesus established once and for 
 all time this spiritual solution of the problem of 
 human life. I will show that the proclamation 
 of the Good News of a Spiritual Kealm was the 
 chief concern of Jesus during all his earthly 
 ministry, and by his dying commission was be- 
 queathed to all his disciples. Nothing else 
 should take precedence of it, neither fellowship, 
 nor social service, nor ethical teaching. The 
 paramount duty of the Christian Church is to 
 proclaim the evangelistic message of the Mas- 
 ter ; which is : the assertion of the reality of a 
 Spiritual Kealm, and the way through faith 
 and trust and love into its timeless life. 
 
II 
 
 Jesus* Solution of the Problem of 
 Human Life 
 
{Nicodemus) " Tou speak of the Kingdom of God, 
 what do you mean by it?^' Jesus replied: ** The King- 
 dom of Godf or the Spiritual Realm, is an independent or- 
 der of reality that is higher than the natural order, and 
 cannot be fully understood except by one who is born from 
 above y Nicodemus said: ** How can a man be born 
 when he is old ? Can he enter the second time into his 
 mother'' s womb and be born?" Jesus answered: " It is 
 not a matter of physical birth ; but nevertheless I repeat 
 what I said, except one be born of Spiritual Vitality he can- 
 not advance into the Spiritual Realm, That which is 
 born of the natural flesh is flesh of course ; but that which 
 is born of Spiritual Vitality is Spirit'* — " The Good 
 News of a Spiritual Realm." 
 
 " But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so 
 be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. . . . But 
 if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 dwell in you. He that raised up Christ from the dead shall 
 also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth 
 in you''' — Paul of Tarsus. 
 
 " For the first time in history there appeared on earth 
 One who absolutely trusted the Unseen, who had utter 
 confidence that Love was at the heart of all things, utter 
 confidence also in the Absolute Power of that Absolute Love 
 and in the liberty of that Love to help Him'' — Principal 
 D. S. Cairns. 
 
II 
 
 Jesus' Solution of the Problem of 
 Human Life 
 
 JESUS approached the problem of Human 
 Life from the Jewish point of view. To 
 the Jews three things appeared to be of 
 prime importance : the infinite personality and 
 authority of Jehovah, the duties in the line of 
 worship and daily living that human beings 
 owed to this Sovereign Jehovah, and third, the 
 promised coming of the Messiah to establish a 
 Messianic Kingdom. 
 
 Jesus accepted in a general way these com- 
 mon Jewish religious ideas and made them the 
 basis of his system of thought, but he so far 
 transformed them by correcting misapprehen- 
 sions, and by adding new depths of meaning 
 that to the Jews his teachings seemed actually 
 antagonistic. 
 
 To the common conception of Jehovah as 
 the creator and ruler of a physical universe, 
 he added a revelation that showed him to be 
 the beneficent and paternal sovereign of a 
 higher realm of the spirit that infinitely tran- 
 37 
 
38 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 scended the natural universe ; he taught them 
 that if they were ever to know God aright 
 they must think of him, not so much as Je- 
 hovah the Almighty, as the Heavenly Father 
 in a Kingdom of Love. 
 
 The old Jewish conceptions of the relations 
 that existed between humanity and God and 
 the duties that man owed to God had become 
 crystallized into elaborate codes of ceremonial 
 law and moral precepts. Jesus brushed these 
 all aside and taught that all that was essential 
 in the Law and the Prophets was summed up 
 in the two commandments : " Thou shalt love 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with 
 all thy mind ; and thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 as thyself." 
 
 But by far the most important contribution 
 that Jesus made to the current religious ideas 
 of the Jews was his teaching as to the real na- 
 ture of the Messianic Kingdom. He did not 
 call it the Messianic Kingdom, he called it the 
 Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven ; 
 and the greatest part of his ministry was de- 
 voted to explaining what it was, and how hu- 
 manity could enter into it, and live in the 
 vitality of it. 
 
 If we are to understand what Jesus thought 
 about the Problem of Human Life we must 
 study his teachings about all of these things, 
 
Jesus^ Solution of the Problem 39 
 
 but it is especially important that we under- 
 stand his teachings about the Kingdom of 
 God, for that was the most important thing 
 that he had to teach and to reveal, and it lies 
 at the basis of all the rest. He refers to the 
 Kingdom hundreds of different times ; in fact, 
 he refers to it more than to all other subjects 
 put together. 
 
 Even the Prophets of old, who had foretold 
 his coming, made the Kingdom the outstand- 
 ing feature of their prophecies, and the angelic 
 presence in the vision of the annunciation told 
 Mary: "The Lord God shall give unto him 
 the throne of his father David; and he shall 
 reign over the house of Jacob forever ; and of 
 his Kingdom there shall be no end." 
 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all refer to 
 the mission of Jesus, using different expressions 
 to be sure, but all saying the same thing : " He 
 came to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom." 
 
 Jesus himself began his preaching ministry 
 by proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was 
 at hand. In the very first interview of which 
 we have any record, when Nicodemus came to 
 Jesus by night, the conversation opens by 
 Nicodemus' asking Jesus what he means by 
 the Kingdom of God. When Jesus sent out 
 the twelve and the seventy, he told them that 
 they were to preach everywhere the Gospel of 
 the Kingdom. And after his resurrection when 
 
40 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 the time came to give his great and final com- 
 mission he told his disciples, " Go into all the 
 world and preach the Gospel," the Good News 
 of the Kingdom. 
 
 His constant references to the Kingdom in 
 his teachings resulted in people calling him 
 the King of the Jews, and when Pilate began 
 to examine him, his first question was, *'Are 
 you the King of the Jews ? " and the last thing 
 that caught the eyes of the multitude at the 
 crucifixion was the sign high above that read, 
 " Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 
 
 Jesus certainly felt it to be his supreme mis- 
 sion in life to reveal and to proclaim the Good 
 News of the Kingdom of God, and we shall 
 make no mistake if we study carefully what 
 Jesus said about it. 
 
 In the beginning let us say that probably no 
 other teaching of Jesus has been so persistently 
 misunderstood as his teaching concerning the 
 nature of the Kingdom of God, and what is 
 more, it is still being misunderstood by many 
 of the foremost preachers and teachers of Chris- 
 tianity. As a preliminary to considering what 
 he did mean, let us first review some of the 
 erroneous meanings that have been held. 
 
 The misunderstanding began even before the 
 birth of Jesus. The Prophets of old had fore- 
 told the coming of the Messiah, who was to be 
 the descendant of David, who should receive 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 41 
 
 the Kingdom of his father David, and of his 
 sway there should be no end. The Jews, be- 
 cause of their political troubles and of the vicis- 
 situdes of their national life had construed this 
 to mean that when the Messiah came that he 
 would restore their national standing and lib- 
 erties, and give them their rightful place before 
 the nations as the chosen people of God, to 
 whom others would turn for religious light and 
 leadership. This erroneous expectation was so 
 deeply rooted in their national consciousness 
 that they came to value their idea of the Mes- 
 sianic Kingdom more than they valued the 
 personality of the Messiah ; and when it came 
 to a choice of either giving up their mistaken 
 notion of the Messianic Kingdom, or of giving 
 up the Messiah, they chose to crucify the Lord 
 and cried out in tumult, " His blood be on us 
 and on our children." 
 
 But Jesus' teaching concerning the Kingdom 
 was not only misunderstood by his enemies ; it 
 was misunderstood by his disciples and friends. 
 In spite of his reiterated teachings his dis- 
 ciples continued to think that he must mean 
 by "the Kingdom" a world kingdom under 
 Messianic control. On his way to Jerusalem 
 for his final rejection and crucifixion two of 
 his disciples asked for places of honor when 
 he should come into his kingdom ; when the 
 crowd thought that he was about to assume 
 
42 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 his Messianic throne they thronged about him 
 and gave him imperial welcome to the city ; in 
 the final hour before the ascension, the disciples 
 asked him, *' Will you at this time restore the 
 Kingdom to Israel?" and for years after, his 
 disciples looked for his second coming to estab- 
 lish his world kingdom. 
 
 After his ascension the true spiritual mean- 
 ing of his Kingdom began to dawn on the 
 minds of a few of his disciples, but only a few. 
 The disciple John, and later John the Pres- 
 byter, who wrote the Epistles of John, began 
 to understand, and then Paul with his master 
 mind entered still deeper into the Master's 
 meaning. But when Paul became engrossed in 
 his life-work of defending Christianity against 
 Judaism and against Greek philosophy, and 
 when he became more than busy meeting the 
 emergencies and the difficulties incident to es- 
 tablishing a new church organization, he let 
 doctrine and order monopolize his thought to 
 such an extent that his system of thought was 
 turned from its simple emphasis on the higher 
 spiritual life to an elaboration of dogma and 
 ecclesiastical polity. 
 
 In the years and centuries that followed, the 
 evolution of church and doctrine showed all 
 too plainly that the leaders of the Christian 
 Church had come to understand Jesus' words 
 in regard to the Kingdom of God to mean 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 43 
 
 the organized Church, to whose headship Jesus 
 would return in a visible second coming. In 
 the course of time the Pope, the Yicar of Christ, 
 claimed imperial honor and authority as the 
 head of the Kingdom of God on earth. To 
 their minds the organization of believers con- 
 stituted the kingdom. 
 
 In time the inadequacy of this conception 
 began to be felt, and under the leadership of 
 "Wyclif, Huss, Luther, and other Protestant 
 leaders another conception asserted itself. Hav- 
 ing substituted the authority of the Bible for 
 the authority of the Pope, they no longer felt 
 that the organized Church was the kingdom, 
 but held that the Kingdom of God on earth 
 was the whole body of believers in the true 
 doctrine as revealed in the Bible. This has 
 gone on until our own day when the emphasis 
 has very largely passed from creeds and doc- 
 trines to the spirit of life, and with this change 
 the Kingdom of God has come to mean com- 
 monly the invisible order of society upon earth 
 that is moved by Christian motives or the spirit 
 of Christ, i. 6., it is generally supposed to be 
 that ideal state of society where love reigns 
 and towards which the evolution of society is 
 tending. 
 
 All of these conceptions are erroneous and 
 entirely misunderstand the teaching of Jesus. 
 The thing to be noted in all these conceptions 
 
44 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 of the Kingdom of God is the presence of one 
 common element of error ; they all make the 
 Kingdom of God to consist of some state of 
 society here on earth as distinct from heaven, 
 or the Spiritual Kealm. 
 
 D. S. Cairn in a recent book writes f " The 
 Kingdom of God is a new spiritual society ; " 
 " a new order of humanity ; " " a great spiritual 
 structure to be built up as men have built up a 
 civilization ; " "a nascent commonwealth of re- 
 deemed humanity." These expressions are 
 quite typical of many other modern writers. 
 Rauschenbusch writes : " The Kingdom of God 
 is still a collective conception, involving the 
 whole life of man. It is not a matter of saving 
 human atoms, but of saving the social organism, 
 . . . of transforming the life on earth into 
 the harmony of heaven." Peabody writes: 
 " The Kingdom of God ... It was to be a 
 social regeneration." Dr. Lyman says, " It is 
 the working out of the Kingdom of God on 
 earth." By saying this he makes the meaning 
 of the Kingdom of God on earth the same as a 
 state of society on earth in which God's will is 
 done. This is the mistake. The Kingdom of 
 God is the Spiritual Realm, and it is not any state 
 of society upon earth, however ideal it may be. 
 It is true that the Christian purpose is not less 
 than the getting of God's will done upon earth, 
 but it is also a great deal more ; namely, it is so 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 45 
 
 to live that the soul may transcend this natural 
 life and advance into the Spiritual Eealm. In 
 order to do this one must live a life that is con- 
 trolled by Christ's spirit of love, and one result 
 of such a love-controlled life will be the getting 
 of God's will done among men, so that they 
 and every one may enjoy a richer and a more 
 abundant life and so that there may be a more 
 favorable environment for living such a love- 
 controlled life. But the resulting state of 
 society will not be the Kingdom of God upon 
 earth, for the Kingdom of God is the Spiritual 
 Kealm. I wish that there might be 8ome ac- 
 ceptable term agreed upon for this ideal state 
 of earthly society, so that there might not be 
 this continuing confusion of thought by using 
 the same term, Kingdom of God, for both an 
 ideal state of society and for the Spiritual 
 Kealm. 
 
 Jesus' meaning seems clear enough if we are 
 able to rid ourselves of these old material con- 
 ceptions. He says distinctly that his Kingdom 
 is not of this world and that it can only be ap- 
 prehended within a man. This can mean only 
 one thing; it can only mean that there is a 
 higher order of reality than the familiar 
 physical world about us that we know by sense 
 perception, an order that we can "sense" and 
 know only by the inner consciousness. 
 
 Jesus says distinctly : " . . . my kingdom 
 
46 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 is not of this world. If it were my men would 
 fight for me and I would not be delivered to 
 the Jews. No, my kingdom is independent of 
 this natural order. ... I have come into 
 this world for this purpose and for this purpose 
 only, to bear witness of the only kingdom of 
 true reality." * 
 
 According to Jesus the Spiritual Kealm is 
 independent of temporal and spatial considera- 
 tions, but we can truly say, nevertheless, it is 
 here and now and can be apprehended within 
 by the spiritual faculties. The thought of this 
 is so new and strange that it is no wonder that 
 Nicodemus exclaimed : " How can this be pos- 
 sible!" Jesus admitted to him the difficulty 
 of comprehending its full meaning, he admitted 
 that it was impossible for a human being, who 
 belongs to a lower order, to discover the secrets 
 of a higher order, but claimed for himself the 
 right to testify to it inasmuch as he had come 
 down from the higher Spiritual Kealm ; and he 
 insisted that what he taught about the King- 
 dom of God was true. 
 
 Even his favorite disciples failed to under- 
 stand his meaning and drew from Jesus more 
 than once a weary exclamation ; " Are you too 
 without penetration ? " 
 
 It is very difficult for us in this scientific age 
 when we so commonly think that everything 
 
 » " The Good News of a Spiritual Realm," p. 254. 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 47 
 
 that is real must exist in a universe of time and 
 space, and must be subject to cause and effect, 
 and that we can measure and weigh, to com- 
 prehend what Jesus means by the independent 
 reality of a Spiritual Eealm. 
 
 Even Saint Augustine, who is counted one 
 of the world's greatest thinkers, had extreme 
 difficulty in forming a conception of spiritual 
 existence and he looked upon this inability as 
 the sole cause of his earlier errors of thought. 
 In his " Confessions " he refers to it frequently. 
 He says : " Of what was meant by a spiritual 
 substance I could not (at first) form even a 
 faint and shadowy notion." " So slow of heart 
 was I . . . that whatsoever was not ex- 
 tended in space or diffused through it, I sup- 
 posed to have no existence at all." 
 
 While we admit the difficulty of thinking in 
 spiritual terms, to one who is unaccustomed to 
 it, the age-long history of religion and mysticism 
 proves conclusively that devout effort makes it 
 possible. The conception of a Spiritual Eealm 
 can be made to be not only reasonable, but the 
 only and necessary explanation of the many 
 and perplexing problems of human life. 
 Dr. Eudolf Eucken, the ablest thinker of to- 
 day, uses the line of philosophic necessity to 
 prove its reality; Dr. Keyser in his book, 
 " Science and Eeligion," uses the mathematical 
 line of reasoning based on the well-known proc- 
 
48 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 ess of limits ; still another scholar comes to 
 the same conclusion by following an accepted 
 line of biological reasoning. 
 
 But I think that for most of us Jesus' mean- 
 ing will be sufl&ciently clear if we think about 
 it in connection with some of the different lev- 
 els of life that we see in nature about us. We 
 see inorganic material and crystalline material ; 
 we see crystalline material and vegetable life ; 
 we see vegetable life and animal life ; we see 
 animal life and our own intellectual life. We 
 can easily understand all of these to be differ- 
 ent levels of life acting within the same physical 
 realm. But when we come to think of the two 
 separate life processes, the physical and the 
 spiritual, that are going on within us, they can- 
 not be so easily explained. We can understand 
 physical growth to be a natural process, but we 
 cannot so understand spiritual growth. 
 
 The spiritual life demands a different kind of 
 an environment. As long as we try to crowd 
 all of the ethical and moral and spiritual hap- 
 penings into the same realm that suffices for 
 the explanations of physical happenings there 
 is endless confusion of thoughts and misunder- 
 standing; but when we explain physical phe- 
 nomena by physical laws operating in a ma- 
 terial universe, and explain the phenomena that 
 have to do with the spiritual forces of love, 
 faith, duty where they belong in an independ- 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 49 
 
 ent and higher domain of the spirit, then we 
 simplify and make intelligible the teachings of 
 Jesus. 
 
 Jesus gives comparatively little time to as- 
 serting the existence of the Spiritual Kealm, but 
 devotes a great deal of time and care in conver- 
 sation w^ith his disciples, in answering the ques- 
 tions of his enemies, and in talks with those he 
 meets by the way, to making clear the* nature 
 of the Kingdom and their relation to it. 
 
 He seems to avoid abstract and metaphysical 
 terms but delights in figures of speech and in 
 parables. He says over and over again : " The 
 ELingdom of Heaven is like unto," and then he 
 likens it to seed, to yeast, to hid treasure, to 
 wages, reward, a fishing net, a shepherd's care, 
 paternal lOve, and many other different figures, 
 but all of them point to an overworld of love 
 that is hovering just within reach of humanity. 
 
 Both Jesus and John the Baptist spoke of 
 " the coming of the Kingdom," and of the King- 
 dom as " drawing near." In the prayer which 
 Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he said: 
 '' Thy Kingdom come." This thought of the 
 Kingdom drawing near has meant to many that 
 Jesus had in mind a visible second coming when 
 he would assume the Kingship of his disciples 
 in a Messianic reign. This was especially true 
 during the first millennium. In later years 
 and especially among the intellectual idealists 
 
^O Jesus and Human Life 
 
 of our own day, the coming of the Kingdom 
 means the gradual increase of the Christ spirit 
 in human society, a gradual approach towards 
 that ideal state of human society in which 
 God's will will be done among men. 
 
 It seems to me that this is not at all what 
 Jesus had in mind when he taught men to 
 pray : " Thy Kingdom come." It seems to be 
 much more in accord with his other teachings 
 which are uniformly spiritual to understand the 
 words to mean that the Spiritual Kealm being 
 non-spatial and non-temporal is all about us all 
 of the time as a kind of overworld of love, and 
 yet in a sense it is a long way off to those whose 
 faculties for apprehending it are dull and use- 
 less. They have eyes to see and see not ; they 
 have ears to hear and hear not ; and their hearts 
 are too heavy to understand. But as human 
 beings begin to take note of spiritual things, 
 there awakens in the heart a desire to under- 
 stand, the spiritual faculties are quickened, and 
 in a true sense the Spiritual Eealm draws near 
 to them. It is when we hunger and thirst for 
 righteousness, for love and sympathy, and pray 
 in spirit and in truth, " Thy Kingdom come," 
 that the shadows and the barriers that remove 
 the Spiritual Realm far from us dissolve away 
 and we realize that the Kingdom is drawing 
 near within us. And so to this materialistic 
 world with all its selfish, ambitious people and 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 51 
 
 nations, the Kingdom seems far, far away ; but 
 as peoples and nations come to heed the mes- 
 sages of Jesus and begin to cherish the Love 
 Idea, then does the Kingdom of God, the Spir- 
 itual Eealm, draw near. 
 
 It will not come as we put on a garment, by 
 gradually acquiring intellectual culture ; it will 
 not come as society gradually develops under 
 an increasing ethical organization and control. 
 No, not that ; when it comes it will come si- 
 lently to individuals, as one by one they open 
 their hearts, and as the spiritual faculties are 
 quickened, to welcome and to receive it. 
 
 We cannot test the nearness of the Spiritual 
 Kealm by statistics and observations, but nev- 
 ertheless we can be conscious of it, we can in a 
 true sense taste and see that God is very near. 
 We can yield ourselves to spiritual influences ; 
 we can launch out into the depths of his provi- 
 dential care ; we can love and trust God with 
 all our mind and heart and strength, and we 
 can love our neighbors ; we can loyally keep 
 his commandments and try to have our lives 
 conform to the spiritual law of love ; and then 
 he has promised us, we shall know. 
 
 The second thing for us to notice is this: 
 Jesus asserted that the spiritual law of love was 
 stronger than any natural law, and he proved 
 it by doing in a spirit of love greater works 
 than any man had ever done before. He healed 
 
3*2 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 the sick, he cured the lame, opened the eyes of 
 the blind, restored the insane and even raised 
 the dead to life again. He satisfied the hunger 
 of thousands with a few loaves of bread ; he 
 restrained the violence of angry men ; and even 
 the winds and the waves obeyed him. Yet 
 with all his supernatural power he was will- 
 ing to suffer the death of his own body on the 
 cross, in order that he might show how possible 
 it was for love to triumph over death ; and then 
 by repeated appearances after the death of the 
 body he proved beyond question, to the heart 
 of faith, the reality of the spiritual life here 
 and now and its continuance after the death of 
 the body. 
 
 He asserted that he did not do these things 
 in his own natural strength, but that he did 
 them in the power that was given him from 
 God who was Sovereign of the Spiritual Eealm 
 and who had sent him to do these very things. 
 Then he asserted that any of his disciples could 
 do even greater things than these if they trusted 
 in the same spiritual forces that he trusted in. 
 There was no equivocation in this assertion. 
 He said plainly and repeated it many times, 
 " Whatsoever ye ask in my name," that is, with 
 confidence in the supreme power of the spiritual 
 force of love, " that ye shall receive." " Verily, 
 verily I say unto you he that believeth on me, 
 the works that I do shall he do also; and 
 
Jesus^ Solution of the Problem 53 
 
 greater works than these shall he do, because I 
 go to the Father." " If ye shall ask anything 
 in my name," that is, in the spirit of love, 
 " that will I do." This was not an arbitrary 
 gift of power, but was an assertion that was 
 based on conforming to certain laws, and these 
 laws were the spiritual laws of faith and love 
 that he knew to be more powerful than the nat- 
 ural laws with which they would conflict and 
 which they would overcome. 
 
 The third thing for us to notice is the most 
 important of all, as it constitutes the Good 
 News of the Kingdom that Jesus came to pro- 
 claim. The Good News that Jesus brought is 
 this : There is an overworld of Love, on the 
 border of which humanity stands, and there is 
 a way by which human beings may pass over 
 the border into this higher realm of the spirit. 
 This message of hope comes into a world of 
 strife, and labor, and sickness, and hunger of 
 heart, with the Good News of a way of ad- 
 vance into the calm and peace of a realm 
 where love and righteousness and rest are ever 
 present. 
 
 The magnitude of this Good News is only 
 realized when we call to mind the wholly un- 
 satisfactory character of the earthly life. We 
 enter into the natural life with great anticipa- 
 tions, but find it replete with disappointment 
 and failure. From earliest days until the end 
 
54 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 comes we find ourselves in the midst of un- 
 sympathetic natural laws that force us into a 
 struggle for existence that we know must end 
 in ultimate failure and decay and death. The 
 more the problem of human life is studied from 
 a scientific or natural standpoint, the more does 
 it become a mystery of suffering, sin and de- 
 feat. Within there is the constant antagonism 
 of natural desires, appetites and passions, that 
 are in direct conflict with certain spiritual as- 
 pirations and visions that seem too good to be 
 true and almost too impossible ever to be real- 
 ized. 
 
 Into the dark shadows of this mortal life 
 Jesus comes to proclaim the Good ]^ews of a 
 higher Spiritual Kealm and a way of advance 
 into it. He tells men that this way of advance 
 is strait and narrow but whosoever desires may 
 enter. He tells them of the difficulties of the 
 transition, but also tells them of the Heavenly 
 Father's sympathy and cooperation ; he tells 
 them that all the forces of this higher Spiri- 
 tual Eealm will coordinate for successful prog- 
 ress in it, of all those who are ready to meet 
 the conditions. 
 
 The new spiritual life is not something that 
 is to come as a continuation of the natural life 
 after death, but is a present quickening and 
 beginning of a higher type of life within the 
 soul here and now. He that would make the 
 
Jesus* Solution of the Problem 55 
 
 quest for the spiritual life must be born again, 
 and this time not of the flesh but of the spirit. 
 The new life cannot come from the will of 
 man, nor from intellectual culture, nor from 
 the gradual process of natural evolution, nor 
 alone from a father's or mother's dear love ; it 
 can only come when there is present a real de- 
 sire for a better and more unselfish life, a will- 
 ingness to believe and trust and obey; when 
 the new spiritual birth comes it will result 
 from the meeting together of human aspira- 
 tion and divine grace; it will come from the 
 fecundating power of Divine Love Vitality 
 acting on a human heart that is already recep- 
 tive with a great and loving desire for the 
 higher life of the spirit. 
 
 " To as many as received him, to them he 
 gave power to become Sons of God, even to 
 them that believed on his name; which are 
 born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor 
 of the will of men, but of God." * 
 
 Many sincere and earnest students of Jesus' 
 words have difficulty in " visualizing " the in- 
 dependent reality of a spiritual life ; to them it 
 seems to involve a kind of dualism that is con- 
 trary to the monist basis of modern science. 
 It appears to them that a more reasonable in- 
 terpretation is to think that Jesus was present- 
 ing certain spiritual ideals of conduct, that if 
 
 » " The Good News of a Spiritual Eealm," pp. 17, 47, 116. 
 
^6 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 accepted and followed would have cultural 
 value in the development of character. To 
 them the Christian life is a process of spiri- 
 tualizing the natural life. 
 
 A careful study of the teaching of Jesus 
 shows that this view is entirely untenable. 
 Jesus had in mind not a process of spiritual 
 culture for the old life, but the creation of a 
 new and independent life of the spirit. It will 
 not be living the old natural life in an ideal 
 way ; it will be " a new life in Christ Jesus." 
 The true center of consciousness is to be ele- 
 vated into a new level of existence where love, 
 reverence, and unity reign, and where selfish- 
 ness, competition, envy, hate will be left far 
 below. 
 
 Then Jesus teaches that the new spiritual 
 birth will be sustained by suitable spiritual 
 food as it is written : " Man shall not live by 
 bread alone, but by every word that proceeds 
 from the mouth of God." Jesus said: "He 
 that drinketh of the water that I shall give will 
 never thirst." "It is the spirit that quicken- 
 eth, the flesh profiteth nothing." " The words 
 that I speak to you," that is, the spiritual influ- 
 ences that emanate from Divine Love, "they 
 are spirit, they are life." " Your fathers ate of 
 the manna in the desert and are dead, but they 
 that eat of the bread that I can give shall never 
 die." 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 57 
 
 If we believe in Jesus, and that means to be- 
 lieve in that which he taught, namely : in the 
 supremacy of the spiritual law of love, and if 
 we sincerely trust in the sustaining power of 
 the Divine Love Vitality, and if we humbly 
 and gratefully obey the spiritual influences as 
 they come to us day by day from the throne 
 of God, we shall grow, by his grace, in the 
 spiritual life. The roots of our human nature 
 that run back into the soil of the natural realm 
 will loosen one by one and lose their strength ; 
 and the bonds that hold us to the spiritual will 
 grow stronger with every passing ye?,r, until 
 with the death of the body the soul will be free 
 to live in its fullness the unfettered life of the 
 Spiritual Eealm. 
 
 Jesus does not belittle the difficulties of the 
 transition and growth. He says : " Strait is 
 the gate and narrow is the way that leads to 
 eternal life and few there be that find it." He 
 foretold that there would be conflict with the 
 natural order, that the institution of a new 
 order would necessarily mean conflict with the 
 old. He said : " You are not of this world, 
 even as I am not of this world." "If the 
 world has hated me, even so will it hate 
 you." 
 
 The interests of the higher spiritual life will 
 often conflict with the natural appetites and 
 the easier conditions of the world, and to live 
 
58 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 the higher spiritual life successfully the lower 
 must be subordinated to the aims of the higher. 
 As long as we live in the natural environment 
 there will be the need of incessant choice. For 
 a time, that is, until the death of the natural 
 body, the two modes of existence, the physical 
 and the spiritual, must go along together and 
 there is bound to be more or less friction. 
 
 It will be no easy task to establish and to 
 develop such a genuine and independent spir- 
 itual life, and yet there can be no half way. 
 Jesus urged his disciples to arouse life from its 
 apathy and resolutely oppose the lower desires 
 of the natural body that are inconsistent with, 
 and antagonistic to, the aims of the higher. 
 He said, " Ye cannot serve two masters." Sin- 
 cerity, gratitude, loyalty, faith, love, all of 
 them spiritual forces, must face and oppose 
 and overcome selfishness, laziness, indulgence 
 and lasciviousness. 
 
 The opposition is not ended with " joining 
 the church." The new birth is but the be- 
 ginning of a life and so long as the soul inhab- 
 its its natural body, so long must it expect to 
 be obliged to make hourly choice between the 
 natural and the spiritual, between the lower 
 and the higher, between the evil and the good. 
 Devoting one's self to the quest of the spiritual 
 life does not create these oppositions, they are 
 present in every natural life, but in the uncon- 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 59 
 
 seorated life the aspirations of the soul seem 
 but evanescent visions that must fade away be- 
 fore the supposed necessities of the physical 
 nature. It is not until the new birth that one 
 realizes that the antagonism between the natural 
 passions and the spiritual aspirations is a strug- 
 gle for the life of a soul ; that one realizes that 
 the so-called necessities of the natural life are 
 not necessary or essential, and realizes that the 
 interests of the spirit are higher and paramount, 
 that can be and will in the end be victoriously 
 established. The old and natural life was a 
 struggle for existence in the face of an unsym- 
 pathetic law of survival, and its cycle was at 
 best only one of growth, labor, a temporary 
 enjoyment, followed by inevitable decay and 
 death. But in the Spiritual Realm, into which 
 the new-born soul has now entered, all the 
 spiritual forces are coordinating for the tri- 
 umphant and endless life of the good and the 
 true. A human soul that is reborn of the spirit 
 has already passed from the realm of time and 
 natural death into the realm of the timeless 
 spirit ; for such a soul there can be no such a 
 thing as failure, or actual death. 
 
 The slur that used to be cast at the Christian 
 life, namely, that it was " other-worldly," has no 
 point when we correctly understand it to be an 
 adventure for a higher type of life. As Jesus 
 calls us to it, it demands all that is heroic and 
 
6o Jesus and Human Life 
 
 enduring ; opposition and difficulties will be on 
 every hand, " but they that be for us will be 
 more than they that be against us " and we can 
 meet them with confidence and zeal and se- 
 renity. 
 
 A man that is selfish is pitted against the 
 world, with only his own wits and strength of 
 body to help him, but the one who is trying to 
 make the quest of the spiritual life, the unselfish 
 life, is working not against others but with 
 others ; he is living in a realm where the inter- 
 ests and the welfare of the individual coincide 
 with the interests of all. Yes, even more than 
 that, if one's life is unselfish and love is the 
 controlling motive, he will be living in har- 
 mony with the infinite, — he will have become 
 an integral part of it — and therefore all the 
 energy and vitality of the Spiritual Kealm will 
 be at his service to supply his every need and 
 to reinforce and complete his work. There will 
 be opposition, but it will be external to the soul, 
 the opposition of natural desire, the desires of 
 others, intrenched and vested interests, the op- 
 position of evil in high places, enough surely to 
 discourage any one except for Jesus' sympathy 
 and help, and the fact that, " All things will 
 be working together for good to them that love 
 the Lord." 
 
 In spite of the difficulties and obstacles, Jesus 
 insisted that there need be no down-heartedness 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 61 
 
 or discouragement. He told his disciples to re- 
 joice if evil was spoken against them falsely, 
 and to count themselves blessed when perse- 
 cuted. They were not to be passive and quies- 
 cent, they were to be virile, active, joyous and 
 useful; and no matter how much the opposi- 
 tion increased, they were to be only the more 
 kind-hearted and forgiving. He said, " Be of 
 good courage, I have overcome the world." 
 " My grace is sufficient." 
 
 Jesus gave them no complicated rules or in- 
 structions. He summed up all commandments 
 into two, which are really one. " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord with all thy mind and heart and 
 strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself." Love was the supreme characteristic 
 of his Kingdom, love was the law of the Spiri- 
 tual Kealm, and love was to be the sole rule of 
 their lives. Jesus insisted that nothing was to 
 come before love ; one was to forsake native 
 land, and home, and father or mother, and 
 brethren and business, if they ever conflicted 
 with love and spiritual faith. The right hand^ 
 the sight of the eye, even life itself were never 
 to be valued more than deeds of loving kind- 
 ness ; and there must be no limit to the spirit 
 of forgiveness. The old maxims for moral con- 
 duct were set aside. He said, " But I say unto 
 you, love your enemies, do good to them that 
 persecute you." And Jesus set the highest ex- 
 
62 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 ample of self-sacrificing love by giving himself 
 a ransom for the sin of the world. 
 
 In the mind of Jesus, Love was the universal 
 spiritual energy and vitality. Love was to radi- 
 ate from the Heavenly Father into the souls of 
 those that made choice of the spiritual to lift 
 them up into the higher life of the spirit ; and 
 Love was to radiate from each redeemed soul 
 for the spiritualization of others. 
 
 As the spiritual life develops under love- 
 control, it will express itself in deeds of loving 
 kindness. The love-controlled life will interest 
 itself unselfishly in the good of others by seek- 
 ing the betterment of individual and social con- 
 ditions ; and by proclaiming and explaining the 
 Good ]^ews of the Spiritual Eealm. The love- 
 controlled life will go into all the world mak- 
 ing disciples among all nations. 
 
 But the goal for such a love-controlled life 
 will not be the establishment on earth of ideal 
 social conditions, nor the measure of its success 
 the extent of social betterment, neither will it 
 be the successful living up to one's spiritual 
 ideals. It will be something far higher than 
 that and far more difiicult of attainment ; the 
 goal of the Christian life is entrance into the 
 Spiritual Eealm. And the hope of it, the vision 
 of it, which the creative energy of the spirit is 
 ever unfolding is that which will buoy one up 
 for the diflficulties of the quest. One believes 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 63 
 
 that ahead of him are new beauties and new- 
 delights that are beyond compare, that one will 
 be advancing from glory into glory, beyond all 
 that the mind and heart of man can think or 
 imagiDe. 
 
 *^ Why should I shrink at pain or woe, 
 Or feel at death dismay, 
 r ve Canaan's goodly land in view, 
 And realms of endless day.'* 
 
 Jesus, by his earthly life and teachings, em- 
 phasized four things in relation to the problem 
 of human life. 
 
 First, He revealed all that we know about 
 the nature of God. He taught that God was 
 love, and that while he was Sovereign of the 
 Spiritual Realm, he could best be understood 
 by men as their Heavenly Father. In an in- 
 finitely loving purpose, God revealed himself to 
 humanity in Jesus of Nazareth. In other 
 words, Jesus was the incarnation of the 
 Heavenly Father's love for the world of men. 
 Jesus was sent into the world not to judge the 
 world, but that the world through him might 
 be tested and saved. And God will continue 
 to reveal himself to the world in the work 
 of the Holy Spirit, who is the Divine Love 
 Vitality that is forever generating and ener- 
 gizing the spiritual life of those who believe 
 in him. 
 
64 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 Second, Jesus revealed the fact that there 
 were two levels of reality, the material uni- 
 verse of nature with which we are familiar, 
 and a Spiritual Kealm or overworld, whose 
 characteristic is its law of love. 
 
 Third, Jesus asserted that the spiritual law 
 of love was operative not only in the Spiritual 
 Kealm but also in the world of nature as well, 
 and that, when it was appealed to in humble 
 and devout and loving faith, it was supreme 
 over all natural laws. 
 
 Fourth, Jesus revealed the way by which 
 human beings could transcend nature and ad- 
 vance into the Spiritual Kealm. This way of 
 salvation was the Gospel, the Good News, 
 which Jesus brought to earth. This summons 
 the followers of Jesus to a quest for the spir- 
 itual life; it calls for a sincere belief in the 
 spiritual law of love, a whole-hearted trust in 
 it, and a humble and grateful obedience to its 
 demands. 
 
 Jesus calls on all men everywhere to believe 
 in the goodness of God, to believe in the reality 
 of a Spiritual Kealm, to have faith in the su- 
 premacy of the spiritual law of love, and to be 
 willing to follow the way of salvation into the 
 spiritual overworld of love. He calls upon all 
 men everywhere to repent of evil, and to under- 
 take the quest for a higher life of the spirit 
 along the way of love which he has revealed to 
 
Jesus' Solution of the Problem 65 
 
 them. He urges them to be willing to make 
 any sacrifice, to seek it as they would for a 
 hidden treasure, and promises to those who are 
 willing to forsake all else for the sake of this 
 quest a hundredfold in this life and, in the age 
 to come, eternal life. 
 
 Men set out on a quest for the Antarctic pole 
 with great publicity and acclaim ; they endure 
 the most extreme hardships and danger, and 
 when they return they are proclaimed as he- 
 roes; they are flattered and feted and deco- 
 rated. Men must set out on the quest for the 
 Spiritual Kealm in obscurity and humilicy, and 
 they will often be opposed and laughed at and 
 maligned ; but with faith and trust and humble 
 obedience they must press on towards the mark 
 of the high calling. The quest for the Spiritual 
 Eealm calls for the highest courage and heroism, 
 for it will be beset with difficulties and dangers ; 
 the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
 pride of life, will all conspire to distract atten- 
 tion, to discourage and to overcome ; but, if the 
 loving purpose to seek first the Kingdom of God 
 is held firmly all the necessities of the physical 
 life will be forthcoming, and within the soul 
 there will be increasing calm and peace, and 
 the fires of faith and love will burn brightly 
 and steadily. 
 
 And when the journey of life is over and the 
 quest is ended, amid the rejoicing of the Angels 
 
66 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 in Heaven over the one more who has reached 
 the goal and entered into the fulhiess of Life, 
 there will be heard the voice of the One who 
 taught men the way and called them to the 
 quest, saying : " Well done, good and faithful 
 servant." 
 
Ill 
 
 How to Live as Jesus Taught 
 
** Come unto me all ye that labor a?id are heavy laden ^ 
 and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and 
 learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly of heart : and ye 
 shall find rest unto your souls ; for my yoke is easy and my 
 burden is lights — Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 " // is the Messiahy the Lord Jesus, that I proclaim; 
 I am only your servant for Jesus* sake. For God who 
 saidy * Light shall shine out of darkness,* has shone within 
 my hearty so that even I might illumine men with the light 
 of the knowledge of the glory of God, that was radiant in 
 the face of the Messiah. But I bring this treasure to you 
 in an earthen vessel, that it may be evident that its tran- 
 scending power belongs to God and not to myself.** 
 
 — Paul to the Corinthians. 
 
 " Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can 
 find no rest until they rest in Thee.** — St. Augustine. 
 
 " This is the power or virtue of love, that it maketh 
 thee to be like unto that which thou lovest.** 
 
 — St. Bernard. 
 
 *' O my sisters ! who can describe the point to which a 
 souly where our Lord dwells in so special a manner y neglects 
 her own ease ? , . . When she possesses the ceaseless 
 companionship of her bridegroom, how could she think of 
 herself P Her only thought is to please Himy and to seek 
 out ways in which she may show Him her love. It is to 
 this pointy my daughtersy that orison tends ; and, in the 
 design of God, this spiritual marriage is destined to no other 
 purpose but to the incessant production of worky work. 
 . . . To give to our Lord a perfect hospitality, Mar- 
 tha and Mary must combine.** — St. Teresa. 
 
Ill 
 
 How to Live as Jesus Taught 
 
 THE question is often asked : "What is 
 the Christian life? Some say that 
 it is living up to one's spiritual ideals. 
 This may be true, but it is not a satisfactory 
 answer because it is too indefinite. A better 
 answer is : The Christian life is a life that is 
 lived in accordance with the teachings of Jesus ; 
 and to find out more particularly what it is, 
 one must study the teachings of Jesus. 
 
 In a long conversation which Jesus had with 
 his disciples about this very question, he summed 
 up his teaching in the words that are recorded 
 in Matthew vi. 33 : " But as for you, my dis- 
 ciples, seek first the Spiritual Eealm and its Law 
 of Love, and all these necessary things will be 
 forthcoming." ' 
 
 In this verse there are four important ele- 
 ments. First, there is an assertion of the exist- 
 ence of a Spiritual Kealm as separate from, and 
 more to be valued than, the world of nature. 
 Second, there is the assertion that the spiritual 
 Law of Love is of higher potency than any 
 
 » •* The Good News of a Spiritual Realm," p. 80. 
 69 
 
yo Jesus and Human Life 
 
 natural law. Third, there is the earnest ad- 
 monition to his disciples to make the quest for 
 this Spiritual Kealm and its Law of Love their 
 first concern. Fourth, there is the solemn as- 
 surance that if they will make the quest for the 
 Spiritual Kealm their first concern, that all the 
 necessary things for physical and natural well- 
 being will be supplied. 
 
 Involved in this verse also as a logical in- 
 ference is the assertion, which Jesus makes 
 more plainly elsewhere, that there is a Way 
 along which this quest for the spiritual life 
 can be successfully prosecuted. Jesus asserts 
 that there is a way to live so that one can 
 transcend this natural life and advance into 
 the Spiritual Kealm. The Way is this, he 
 said, you must believe in the spiritual law of 
 love and make it the controlling principle of 
 your life. There is a depth of meaning in this 
 word " Pisteuo,^^ which our English Bible trans- 
 lates, believe. It means not only an intel- 
 lectual belief, but an emotional trust, and a 
 willing or volitional obedience. We are to 
 have faith in the law of love as a guiding 
 principle for our lives; we are to trust the 
 Divine Love Yitality to energize a spiritual life 
 process within us, to protect us from harm, and 
 to supply the necessary things of the natural 
 life ; then we are ever to obey the spiritual 
 influences that come from the Sovereign of 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 71 
 
 the Spiritual Kealm, who is our Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 To this quest for advancement into the Spir- 
 itual Kealm Jesus is ever calling humanity. 
 Abraham heard it in the call to forsake his 
 fatherland, and to go out he knew not whither. 
 The prophets of old heard the call and voiced 
 the longing of their times for its realization in 
 the coming of a Messiah. And all down the 
 ages in spite of the distraction of this mortal 
 life, the soul hears the call in an aspiration for 
 a higher and a nobler life. 
 
 When Jesus was asked if many were to be 
 saved, he said, " Strait is the gate and narrow 
 is the way that leads to eternal life, and few 
 there be that find it." Some are simply in- 
 different ^to the call, some lack courage or con- 
 fidence, some are unwilling to pay the price. 
 But there are always some in whom the desire 
 has taken root deep enough, who are willing to 
 take the first step in faith, that is, to desire to 
 believe. Then the Divine Love Vitality can 
 begin his gracious work, and he will begin it, 
 and what is of more importance, will see it 
 through to a finish. These are born again, 
 not by any natural process, but by the Will 
 of God and the vitalizing power of the Holy 
 Spirit. Now they are ready to begin the 
 quest for the Spiritual Eealm, and, by God's 
 grace, so long as they continue to believe, 
 
72 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 and to trust and to obey, they will have 
 passed from the realm of natural death into 
 the timeless life of the Spiritual Realm. 
 
 The design of this sermon is to bring to your 
 attention certain results of the study of the 
 human mind and its religious consciousness, 
 that I think will be of help to any one that 
 is trying, or will try, to live as Jesus taught 
 men to live. 
 
 To those who are sincerely desirous of living 
 a Christian life, this sermon is offered as a help 
 to a more intelligent effort, and as a ground for 
 more confidence that the effort will be surely 
 successful. If the sermon awakens a deeper 
 interest in the souls of some who have not as 
 yet made the great decision, or, if God grants 
 it, brings some to a present decision to begin 
 the Christian life to-day, it will be a very deep 
 satisfaction to the preacher. 
 
 The old and conventional conception of the 
 Christian life was that if one believed Jesus 
 to be very God, repented of sin, was baptized, 
 and joined the church, through God's grace 
 his past sins would be forgiven, he would be 
 helped to live a better life in the present, and 
 after death would pass into a place called 
 heaven. This is all right if rightly under- 
 stood, but unfortunately it has all too com- 
 monly lost its meaning, and, to-day, to become 
 a Christian, for most people, simply means 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 73 
 
 joining a church and leading a respectable 
 life. 
 
 This is all wrong and unworthy. To live as 
 Jesus taught men to live means something far 
 more active and distinctive. It means turning 
 the back on the old worldly life and setting 
 out with courage and determination on a life- 
 long quest for the spiritual life. It calls for 
 a new control; it calls for a different life 
 process. The natural law of self-assertion and 
 self-preservation is to be set aside and ignored, 
 and the spiritual law of love is to have right 
 of way. 
 
 In the first place one must learn to distin- 
 guish in the world of nature two classes of 
 interactions that are of vital importance. The 
 first class of these interactions tends to division 
 and disintegration, and the second class tends 
 towards unity and synthetic results. It should 
 be the duty of every one that is seeking to 
 live a spiritual life to keep this distinction in 
 mind. One should make it the rule of his life 
 to always ally his will with the anabolic or 
 creative forces, and to shun as he would evil 
 the katabolic or disintegrating forces that are 
 forever tending to break down health, growth 
 and peace of mind. In fact one good defini- 
 tion of sin can be expressed in these terms : 
 Sin is the conscious repudiation by the will of 
 the creative and spiritual forces, and the alii- 
 
74 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 ance of the will with the natural and disin- 
 tegrating forces. Sin is the conscious checking 
 of spiritual growth. 
 
 All animal life and the lower orders of hu- 
 manity are practically creatures of impulse. 
 As humanity rises in the scale of worth they 
 more and more give attention to the suggestions 
 of the mind and seek to control impulse by 
 reason. In fact the secret of virile, strong 
 character lies in its ability to see clearly, think 
 wisely, and act promptly and definitely accord- 
 ing to some self-determined motive. This is 
 also the prerequisite for attaining spiritual 
 growth, the self-determined motive being the 
 determination to conform one's life to the spir- 
 itual law of love. 
 
 After deciding to live a Christian life accord- 
 ing to this dominant motive, the first thing to 
 be done is to so commit one's self to it that 
 there will be no backing out ; ally yourself with 
 some Christian activity ; let the whole world 
 know that you have decided to be a Christian. 
 There is a subtile danger in thinking that one 
 can live the Christian life in secret. The temp- 
 tations to conform to conventional rules and to 
 relax effort are so ever present and so seductive 
 that they are almost irresistible, unless one 
 boldly and decidedly takes a public stand and 
 commits himself unreservedly to the under- 
 taking. 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 75 
 
 Jesus said : " Whosoever therefore shall con- 
 fess me before men, him will I confess before 
 my Father who is in heaven." 
 
 Thenceforth the task will be to ally the will 
 constantly and steadily with the spiritual and 
 creative forces. One must at once and perma- 
 nently forsake companionship and alliance with 
 worldly-minded people, and ever after associate 
 and cooperate with those who are like minded 
 in undertaking the spiritual quest in the spirit 
 of Jesus. We shall need and must get all the 
 advantage we can from the sympathy, encour- 
 agement and help that comes from community 
 of interest. There should be a careful conser- 
 vation of physical health and vigor, remember- 
 ing that the body is to be the temple of the 
 Divine Yitality. We should live temperately 
 and in every way seek to protect the body ex- 
 cept when the supreme law of love calls for its 
 intelligent self-sacrifice. 
 
 Just as the gift of the intellect raised primi- 
 tive man above the lower orders of animal life, 
 so the later gift of spiritual intuition ought to, 
 and will, raise Christians above worldly-minded 
 men. 
 
 As worldly men and women we have proba- 
 bly lived more or less carelessly and selfishly, just 
 as the natural impulses and desires swayed us. 
 If we are now planning to live as Jesus taught, 
 we must clearly understand that it involves a 
 
76 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 radical change in the control. From now on 
 we must learn to keep all thought and action in 
 harmony with this one definite and self-deter- 
 mined motive, namely, that whatever we think 
 or do shall conform to the spiritual law of love. 
 From this time on there must be no more easy- 
 going, hit or miss conduct. We must be 
 thoughtful, industrious, and loving. 
 
 Men and women are usually controlled, or at 
 least influenced by certain conventional stand- 
 ards, that are the composite result of the evolu- 
 tionary process, of special environment, and of 
 the accumulation of personal experience. When 
 a choice of action is offered, most men will in- 
 stinctively raise the questions : Will it pay ? 
 Will it save exertion ? Will it give me power ? 
 And they will usually be governed accordingly. 
 
 With most women, the instinctive questions 
 will be : Is it becoming ? What will people 
 say ? Is it a bargain ? 
 
 These are the natural and conventional stand- 
 ards of conduct. But when we come to live a 
 spiritual life, our standards must be changed. 
 We must learn to test conduct just as instinc- 
 tively as of old, but now by spiritual standards. 
 Men and women must both learn to test choice 
 and action by new instinctive questions, such as 
 these : Is it wise ? Is it right ? Is it kind ? 
 If we do this we shall be conscious of an in- 
 creasing spiritual freedom ; we shall be conscious 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 77 
 
 of a richer life and deeper joys. We shall be 
 conscious of what Jesus said we should be 
 conscious of, namely, a more abounding life, 
 because for us, " The law of the spiritual life in 
 Jesus Christ will have made us free from the 
 law of sin and death; for to be spiritually 
 minded is life and peace." 
 
 Now to keep our lives under the control of 
 spiritual motives we shall find to be no easy 
 task. We have for so long a time given in to 
 natural desires and to selfish willfulness, that 
 we shall find it has become almost second na- 
 ture to do so, and to turn sharp around and 
 attempt to control our lives by unselfish and 
 spiritual motives we shall find to be well-nigh 
 impossible. 
 
 We shall find to be true in our own lives what 
 Paul found to be a fact in his own life, when he 
 said : " For I delight in the law of God after 
 the inward man, but I see in my members 
 another liaw warring against the law of the 
 mind and bringing me into captivity to the law 
 of sin which is in my members." 
 
 We shall find that we are more under the 
 control of our physical bodies than we ever 
 imagined to be possible. We shall find that 
 we are practically helpless to live the life we 
 aspire to live without some outside aid. The 
 question will come to our lips very early: 
 " Have I to fight this battle alone ? or is there 
 
78 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 some help that I can depend on ? " Very fortu- 
 nately there is such help in the spiritual law of 
 love. The law of love is not some beautiful 
 ideal that dances away as one seeks it ; the law 
 of love is spiritual vitality ; it is the power of 
 God unto salvation to every one that believes it. 
 
 The spiritual life is not something that we 
 can win for ourselves, it is not something that 
 we can put on as we put on a garment ; neither 
 is it a Pullman car that will carry us to our 
 destination without effort on our part. The 
 spiritual life is a higher life of the soul, and if 
 we are to attain unto it, it can only be by the 
 grace of Him who is above all, and according 
 to his Way. All we can do is to keep ourselves 
 in a favorable attitude, in a receptive condition 
 for the creative work of the Divine Love Vi- 
 tality. We cannot even begin the spiritual life 
 process, but the Divine Love can. 
 
 The spiritual life has its cycle, just as the 
 natural life has. The spiritual cycle is first 
 vision, and then desire and awakening, enlight- 
 ening and discipline, humiliation and self -empty- 
 ing, and then a blessed sense of union with the 
 divine life. 
 
 Nevertheless we must ever remember that 
 the spiritual life process demands our most 
 earnest and sincere cooperation. We must sin- 
 cerely desire to live the spiritual life ; we must 
 be willing to give up everything and face any- 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 79 
 
 thing to reach the goal. We must plan and 
 work as though everything depended on us; 
 and yet believing all the time (and what a satis- 
 faction and a hope there is in the thought) that 
 God's grace is sufficient and that he careth for 
 us. 
 
 While we are aspiring to the spiritual life, 
 and Love Vitality is energizing it within us we 
 must ever remember that we are still subject to 
 natural law and that our old habits of worldly 
 indulgence are strong upon us, and must by 
 God's grace be overcome. As we have already 
 pointed out, our danger will lie in consciously 
 or unconsciously allying our wills with the 
 katabolic forces of nature. The danger will 
 lie along three or four lines ; and there we must 
 ever be on our guard. 
 
 First. We are naturally impulsive, that is, 
 we easily give way to any emotion, to impa- 
 tience, anger, pride, selfishness and intemper- 
 ance in every form. 
 
 Second. We are naturally lascivious, that is, 
 we dally with sensual thoughts and desires. 
 
 Third. We are naturally lazy. We do not 
 exert ourselves except under compulsion. 
 
 Fourth. We are naturally selfish. We think 
 too much of our personal pleasures and com- 
 fort. 
 
 Let us look at these dangers dispassionately. 
 First of all we note that back of each is some 
 
8o Jesus and Human Life 
 
 good purpose. Back of laziness is a legitimate 
 care for one's body that health and strength be 
 conserved. Back of gluttony is nature's call 
 to replenish constantly one's strength both 
 physical and mental. Back of lasciviousness 
 is nature's wise provision for the constant 
 renewing of the race through reproduction. 
 Back of selfishness is the power of personality 
 by reason of which the human being is enabled 
 to survive in the struggle for existence and to 
 protect himself from all inferiority. 
 
 Another thing that we notice as we examine 
 these dangers is this, that these natural im- 
 pulses have an intensity and power over us that 
 it is foolish to belittle. The fact of it is that 
 these natural desires are so strong that no one 
 can long resist them by the direct action of the 
 will alone. The mind and the affections will 
 protest, and the will may offer a temporary re- 
 sistance, but sooner or later, unless some outside 
 help comes to one's assistance, the natural de- 
 sires will prevail and lead one into excess and 
 sin and away from the spiritual life. 
 
 These temptations will come without a mo- 
 ment's warning and will not be ordered away ; 
 what are we to do, in what manner are we to 
 discriminate between the good and the bad, in 
 what manner are we to meet these natural de- 
 sires so that we may with confidence expect to 
 dominate them, and how will this outside aid 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 8l 
 
 come to our assistance so that we may live a 
 spiritually victorious life ? 
 
 Well, we mustn't expect supernatural aid 
 until we really need it ; first of all we must 
 learn to stop and think. We have already 
 pointed out that the lower types of character 
 act on impulse ; we who are trying to live a 
 higher and spiritual life must learn to stop and 
 think before we act. This habit of attention 
 enables one to bring to the reinforcement of 
 the will the advantage of calm and considered 
 judgment. In other words, habits of wise self- 
 control can only come by habitually ceasing to 
 act on impulse and by habitually taking suffi- 
 cient time to think before acting. 
 
 To secure this advantage of self-control we 
 must train our minds to habitually think good 
 thoughts, and avoid as we would poison the 
 lazy habit of letting the mind wander and 
 dally with seductive thoughts. And thoughts 
 of pride and envy, of anger and hatred, of 
 gloom and dissatisfaction, are just as bad ; they 
 are katabolic ; they all tempt one to act on 
 impulse and to resist wise control. 
 
 We must habitually crowd out these wicked 
 thoughts by good thinking. As Paul said : 
 " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
 are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatso- 
 ever things are pure, and lovely and of good 
 report, if there be any virtue, and if there be 
 
82 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 any praise, think on these things." If we do 
 this kind of thinking, then Paul's benediction 
 will surely be ours : " And the peace of God 
 which passeth all understanding shall keep 
 your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." 
 
 Cherish visions of spiritual ideals, and let the 
 heart feed on them, as though it was the bread 
 of the new life. 
 
 It is a good thing to repeat to oneself 
 phrases that relate to our new principle of con- 
 duct. 
 
 " I am a child of God." 
 
 "I am not under natural law, but under 
 grace." 
 
 " Love is infinite and supreme." 
 
 " God is Love." 
 
 The point is to keep the mind busy with good 
 thoughts that are creative in themselves, and 
 leave it no time for idle day-dreams, or wicked 
 and sensual thoughts, or morbid and discourag- 
 ing thoughts, all of which tend to unrest and 
 disease and disintegration. 
 
 Use all available time for quiet constructive 
 thinking, seek to formulate reasons for believ- 
 ing that spiritual and loving conduct is wisest 
 and best. Exercise memory by recalling all 
 the good, the true and beautiful happenings of 
 the day. Be on the lookout all the time for 
 examples and ideals of nobility and goodness. 
 Kecall to mind the blessings in your own life, 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 83 
 
 the things that have made you happy and for 
 which you are grateful. Take time every day 
 to plan for the doing of little kindnesses and 
 favors for those that are near, and especially 
 for the poor, the sick and the despondent. 
 
 If one is in the habit of thinking good 
 thoughts and acting promptly on their sugges- 
 tion, then in times of sudden temptation from 
 the natural desires, the will will more probably 
 act in the right direction than it otherwise 
 would. The habit of always doing the wise 
 and the kind thing, as the mind suggests it, is 
 of the utmost importance and should be exercised 
 daily, exactly as we use gymnastics to strengthen 
 the muscles. 
 
 Then there is another advantage to be gained 
 by quiet contemplative thought and that is, that 
 it trains one to detach the thoughts from 
 material things and to ^ them on spiritual 
 levels. To be able to do this is of double ad- 
 vantage. First, it enables one to rise out of the 
 blind alley of scientific naturalism into the 
 freedom of the spirit. And secondly, it enables 
 one to appreciate and to enjoy the finer delights 
 of the spirit. 
 
 We are so much in the habit of attending 
 moving picture shows and counting things, that 
 it is no easy thing to accustom oneself to devout 
 and attentive spiritual contemplation. Saint 
 Augustine had the same difSculty. He said : 
 
84 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 " I strove vehemently against the swarm of 
 visual images, which crowded upon me, and 
 tried to drive them off, but scarcely had I 
 beaten them away when, lo, they gathered 
 again and rushed into my face and blinded my 
 eyes." To accustom oneself in receptive atten- 
 tion to the silent immaterial flow of spiritual 
 currents in their eternal and creative process of 
 becoming, is fitting oneself for a higher univer- 
 sity of life and for sharing in the ecstasies of 
 the saints. 
 
 But the habit of keeping the mind clear and 
 active cannot save us entirely from sin. As a 
 power to resist temptation it is relatively weak, 
 but if we harbor good thoughts they will at 
 least crowd out that much evil thinking, and 
 will often carry us over the moments of especial 
 danger, and give us time, as it were, to call up 
 our reserves. 
 
 The reason that mental control is relatively 
 weak is that actions are directly controlled by 
 the will, which in turn is controlled by the pre- 
 dominant desire. The mind can offer sugges- 
 tions only, but these suggestions are of the 
 highest value, because they are based on 
 thought and are therefore more to be relied 
 upon than impulse. 
 
 But the mind after all is relatively weak 
 when used in direct ways to resist temptation. 
 Fortunately, however, there are other indirect 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 85 
 
 ways in which the mind works, that give far 
 more promise of assistance. While the mind 
 has small control over the will when natural 
 desire is present, it has comparatively large 
 control over muscular motion where desire 
 does not so largely enter in. Whenever dan- 
 ger threatens safety may lie in muscular mo- 
 tion. Get busy ! Move away from the dan- 
 gerous location or situation. Engage in some 
 activity that requires attention. This finds 
 the vulnerable point in natural desire, for in 
 spite of their power and intensity, most nat- 
 ural desires are spasmodic and transient ; their 
 intensity is not lasting but is intermittent. If 
 we can keep busy we can tire out the most 
 insistent temptation. The old saying is very 
 deeply true, " Satan always finds some evil for 
 idle hands to do." 
 
 Labor, then, is man's good friend. It not 
 only helps to avoid temptation, but it keeps 
 the physical body free and active and the 
 spirit joyous ; the red blood flows more freely 
 in labor ; we are alert and cheerful. In honest 
 labor we banish time and worry; we realize 
 objectively our mental visions ; we dominate 
 nature ; we transform, we produce, we create, 
 we are very gods if we labor. 
 
 In fact we may almost say that the only sin 
 is laziness. For through wise habits of in- 
 dustry all other besetting sins may be over- 
 
86 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 come. On the other hand, laziness, if it be- 
 comes chronic, inevitably results in moral 
 decay, spiritual barrenness, and physical dis- 
 integration. It is not the working man that 
 is tempted to be a glutton, to be intemperate, 
 to be lascivious, but it is the idle, the pam- 
 pered and the rich. Intemperance, gambling, 
 love of excitement, dissipation come with idle- 
 ness and not from action. This is especially 
 true of lasciviousness. Idle day-dreams, lying 
 abed after sleep is ended, dallying with sexual 
 suggestions, inviting opportunities, are the 
 beginning of sin, and work, good, honest, 
 productive work is salvation. That other 
 besetting sin, selfish impulsiveness, will also 
 disappear in labor. Who can be angry, or 
 proud, or revengeful, or censorious, very long 
 when busy at some creative labor ? 
 
 Through happy, cheerful work we transform 
 spiritual energy into physical results. Serenity, 
 cheerfulness, hope, enthusiasm, faith and love 
 are spiritual forces that in labor undergo a 
 transformation of energy that restores mus- 
 cular and nervous expenditure. We never 
 tire from cheerful, happy labor ; it is dis- 
 content, worry, resentment that make of labor 
 a burden. It is only when we have our own 
 strength of body and mind to draw on that 
 our strength fails. But when we are laboring 
 in harmony with the loving purposes of God, 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 87 
 
 then we have the right and the ability to draw 
 on the infinite store of energy in universal Love, 
 to supply our lack of strength and failing cour- 
 age. 
 
 If disagreeable kitchen work seven days in 
 the week seems unbearable, if the day's work 
 in factory or on the farm is uncongenial and 
 wearisome, be sure of this, that it is entered 
 into for love of dear ones, for honest purposes, 
 and then ask for and expect to receive strength 
 for the day's need. Love transforms and re- 
 news our strength ; in fact a labor of love is 
 worship. The heart is open then, as in prayer, 
 to receive the current of God's Love, and as 
 its infinite flow passes through us, it becomes 
 a beneficence to the ones we love and a bene- 
 diction to ourselves. 
 
 If we only had eyes to see, we could detect 
 a constant flow of current passing through us 
 at all times. Sometimes it would be setting 
 inward towards us and from the world with- 
 out, in ambitious plans, selfish greed and re- 
 sentful purpose ; at other times it would be 
 welling up from within and overflowing 
 towards others in a beneficent tide of unselfish 
 humility and loving service. Labor is natural 
 if it is done for selfish gain and advantage ; it 
 is heavenly and spiritual if the current of its 
 purpose sets outward. 
 
 If it is true that self-forgetting labor for 
 
88 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 those we love is in harmony with the currents 
 of the spiritual life, how much more will be a 
 sober purpose to labor unselfishly for the good 
 of others in a wider sense ! There is a tiny 
 element of selfishness in the kindest labor for 
 one's own family and personal friends ; a safer 
 and a truer measure of unselfishness is a pur- 
 pose and a willingness to spend and to be spent 
 for the good of those that are outside the im- 
 mediate circle of our interests. The Heavenly 
 Father's love broods over all the world, over 
 the just and the unjust, the penitent and the 
 impenitent ; and if we are now trying to live a 
 love-controlled life it will mean not only being 
 kind and helpful to the " heathen " in foreign 
 lands, but being kind and helpful to the police- 
 man on our own block, to the wayward daugh- 
 ter of our own wash-woman, to the grocer 
 that frequently gives us short weight by mis- 
 take. 
 
 A truly love-controlled life will feel a re- 
 sponsibility for the betterment of social con- 
 ditions near home as well as to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth. I am not sure but working 
 for better schools, for better sanitary conditions, 
 for better public administration, for less outlay 
 and dependence on coast artillery and battle- 
 ships, is harder and less appreciated labor, and 
 yet more worth while, than is the labor of the 
 chairman of the trustees of the federated 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 89 
 
 boards of charity organizations. I am quite 
 sure, at any rate, that living a love-controlled 
 life in one's own business, or profession, in the 
 midst of selfish and dishonest, although con- 
 ventional, ethics, is the hardest kind of labor, 
 and is the kind that the Heavenly Father will 
 highly reward. 
 
 God is not so much concerned by the impor- 
 tance of the Grand Opera House in which an 
 act is staged as he is by the spirit with which 
 the act is played. Telling a newsboy on a cold 
 winter's day to " keep the change " is easy, 
 compared with standing firmly against decep- 
 tion on the part of one's own business partner 
 in a deal that promises " millions." But it is to 
 the latter that Jesus will say, " Inasmuch as 
 you have done it unto the least of these my 
 brethren, you have done it unto me." 
 
 But there is still a better way even than work 
 to meet and to overcome the temptations that 
 lurk in natural desires. We said a little while 
 ago that the will acted according to pre- 
 dominant desire. Then the thing for us to do 
 is to control our desires. We must learn to 
 crowd out evil desires by good desires. But 
 above all things we must avoid all hypocrisy, 
 speaking with our lips and saying that we hate 
 evil, while in our heart of hearts we are 
 secretly cherishing it. We must refuse to 
 cherish evil desires even secretly ; we must 
 
90 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 sincerely and persistently disown them and 
 hate every evil thing ; and on the other hand 
 we must encourage and respond to every little 
 desire to be good and true and unselfish. 
 
 Natural desires are seductive. They often 
 come to us in beautiful and attractive dress, 
 but we must ever be on the alert, lest they de- 
 ceive us, and if we are to get rid of them we 
 must root them out from their hiding-place 
 which is in the subconscious mind. To control 
 the subconscious desires and thus to secure con- 
 trol of the will and to bring the life into harmony 
 with spiritual ideals, we must take advantage 
 of the only power that is strong enough to do 
 it, and that is the power of love. There is 
 nothing comparable to the expulsive power of a 
 new affection. The thought of home and 
 mother, of love for one's beloved, affection for 
 one's children, devotion to one's country, these 
 are the influences that reach the depths of one's 
 nature. 
 
 By making love the supreme motive of life, 
 by always cherishing the Love Thought, by 
 always striving to do the kind deed, we may 
 surely control our subconscious desires. 
 
 It is easy to do kind and loving acts for those 
 we love, even when it costs one dearly ; it is 
 hard sometimes to love our enemies and to be 
 willing to do good to them that despitefully use 
 us and persecute us ; but even this becomes pos- 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 91 
 
 sible, and almost easy, when we do it to please 
 some one we love, or whose good opinion we 
 covet. To make these hard things easy we 
 must keep in mind father and mother, or one's 
 best beloved, or one's hero and ideal. If we 
 keep these dear ones in mind, the emotion of 
 love will be present and its beneficent power 
 will help us to wise self-control and therefore 
 will keep us from evil. 
 
 It is just here that the outside help that the 
 Christian religion offers comes to our assist- 
 ance. If we are trying to live as Jesus taught 
 men to live, we must make him our nearest and 
 dearest friend, for he can be to us what the liv- 
 ing olive trees were to the candlestick in 
 Zachariah's vision, a never failing supply and 
 refreshm^ent. 
 
 The Heavenly Father sent Jesus into the 
 world as an expression of His own Love 
 Thought, that whosoever believed and trusted in 
 Him should not perish, but should enter into the 
 higher spiritual life. " For in that he himself 
 has suffered being tempted, he is able to succor 
 them that are tempted." There is but one way 
 to successfully live a spiritual life and that is 
 by a loving faith in Jesus as one's personal 
 Saviour, for he alone can profoundly influence 
 and control the subconscious desires. 
 
 If we love him with all our heart and mind 
 and understanding ; if we make it our supreme 
 
gi Jesus and Human Life 
 
 desire to please him in everything that we 
 think, or do, or say, then we cannot help but 
 be successful in the quest for the spiritual life, 
 because the infinite power of the Divine Love 
 Vitality will be abiding within us. "If you 
 love me," said Jesus, " you will keep my com- 
 mandments, and he that loveth me shall be 
 loved of my Father and we will come and make 
 our abode in him." 
 
 The presence of Jesus in the heart of faith 
 will be a never-failing source of spiritual vitality 
 that will forever well up to the nourishment of 
 a higher spiritual life. There will be an in- 
 creasing control of the subconscious desires, and 
 an increasing joy and confidence in the reality 
 of the spiritual life. 
 
 " To as many as receive him, to them will he 
 give power to become sons of God, even to 
 them that believe on his name." " Therefore 
 if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ; 
 old things are passed away, behold all things 
 are become new." 
 
 At the very beginning of this sermon we 
 called attention to the necessity of a disci- 
 plined will, if we were to develop a higher 
 t3rpe of character; then we emphasized the 
 value of quiet thoughtfulness and industry if 
 we were to be guided into right ways of liv- 
 ing ; and then we tried to make clear the 
 necessity of making love the controlling pur- 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 93 
 
 pose of the life if we were to make it Christian 
 and successful in the highest sense. 
 
 Students of modern psychology have de- 
 tected two fundamental desires in human 
 personality that seem to point to a higher 
 life. The first is the universal desire for a 
 higher knowledge of truth, and the second is 
 an equally universal desire for a deeper expe- 
 rience of love. One seems to be in the domain 
 of the intellect and the other in the domain of 
 the emotions, but like all things that relate to 
 the human mind they blend together in a deep 
 yearning to know in order to love. The dis- 
 ciplined will can awake and utilize latent and 
 dormant faculties of the soul which will be of 
 assistance in gratifying these desires. It is 
 possible ^o bend the will in an absorbing 
 search for knowledge as an end in itself, but 
 such a quest will almost certainly end in dis- 
 appointment. The better way is to hold the 
 disciplined will in a thoughtful and earnest 
 purpose to seek the highest truth in order to 
 love and to be loved. If we can see this high- 
 est truth in Jesus and enthrone him in our 
 heart of hearts he can lead us to this higher 
 love for which the soul hungers. 
 
 Jesus said, " 1 am the Way, the Truth, and 
 the Life. No man cometh unto the Father 
 (and that means to the spiritual life) but by 
 me." 
 
94 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 Jesus is the Truth in the sense that he pro- 
 vides the intellect with a satisfying solution 
 of the problem of human life, and an adequate 
 and consistent and reasonable rule for the con- 
 duct of life. He told us about the Heavenly 
 Father and the reality of the Spiritual Kealm ; 
 he told us about the ideal relations of that 
 Kingdom of Love, and how through faith we 
 might hope to enter it. 
 
 He summed up all the essentials for cor- 
 rect conduct into two commandments: Love 
 towards God and love for one's fellow men. 
 That is, he made love the supreme and only 
 motive and rule of life. Nothing was to come 
 in the way of it, neither friends, nor property, 
 nor the right hand, nor even physical life it- 
 self. But in a deeper sense, Jesus did more 
 than to teach us about Truth. He was him- 
 self the Truth. He himself revealed the char- 
 acter and mind of God ; all we know of God 
 we have seen in Jesus. We must think about 
 truth as he taught it, but through love for 
 him and trust in him we shall come to appro- 
 priate Truth in a deeper sense than the in- 
 tellect can even grasp or follow. " We shall 
 know the Truth and the Truth shall make us 
 free." 
 
 Jesus is the Way in the sense that through 
 him we pass from the natural into the spiri- 
 tual ; through him we have access to the Father 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 95 
 
 and the timeless Life of the higher spiritual 
 order. Jesus not only told us about it, he 
 lived it, and his life and death and resurrec- 
 tion become the way of life to us. In some 
 mysterious but real sense Jesus takes us into 
 union with himself and by so doing makes 
 atonement for our sin, links us to his holi- 
 ness, and lifts us up into a higher life of the 
 spirit. " I live, and yet not I, but Christ 
 liveth in me." " It is Christ in us, that is the 
 hope of glory." 
 
 Jesus is the Life in the sense that he is the 
 vitality by which the natural man is enabled 
 to advance into the spiritual life process. 
 " Yerily, verily, I say unto you, he that hear- 
 eth my word and believeth on Him who sent 
 me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into 
 judgment, but hath passed out of death into 
 life. . . . For as the Father hath life in 
 himself, even so gave He to the Son also to 
 have life in himself." That is, the essence of 
 the spiritual life is the spirit of Jesus, which 
 is the vitality of Love. 
 
 It is by the grace of God, through Jesus 
 our Saviour that we are enabled to resist and 
 to overcome the otherwise resistless impor- 
 tunities of the natural desires and to become 
 children of the Spiritual Kealm. It is the 
 power that can change a selfish, impulsive 
 man into a loving child of God, and it is 
 
96 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 the power that ultimately will make of all 
 people and of all nations one Kingdom of our 
 Lord, for God is Love. 
 
 About a century ago with the study of 
 modern science, there developed a school of 
 thought that tried to reduce the place of 
 Jesus in religious history to that of a su- 
 perior teacher and of a perfect manhood ; he 
 was to be considered as the highest product of 
 spiritual evolution on the natural plane ; he 
 was even to be considered as divine in the 
 sense that he more than any other man re- 
 vealed the mind of God to men. 
 
 But this limited conception of Jesus never 
 satisfied the great heart of the Church and 
 has not stood the test of time ; its acceptance 
 is far less general to-day than it was a genera- 
 tion ago. There may be more hesitancy to- 
 day in describing in words just what we mean 
 by the divinity of Jesus, but there is no doubt 
 that such a faith constitutes as never before the 
 very basis of our Christian religion. 
 
 Christian faith in the incarnation sees in the 
 historical event that happened two thousand 
 years ago the breaking through of a cosmic 
 process that is being repeated continually in the 
 personal life of all those who truly believe in 
 Jesus as their Divine Saviour. The incarnation 
 is an everlasting bringing forth and becoming 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 97 
 
 of the divine and spiritual life, the pure life of 
 the Father of Love, of which Jesus was the per- 
 fect revelation. The infinitude and perfectness 
 of Absolute Love is too high a Keality to be 
 directly communicated to mortal minds. There 
 must needs come through the veil and illusions 
 of time and sense One who can not only live 
 and teach the spiritual life, but One who in 
 himself is Life ; one who can reveal love and 
 self-sacrifice in human terms, as well as One 
 who in himself can reveal for our accommoda- 
 tion the infinitely loving heart of a living, throb- 
 bing universe and its Sovereign Personality. 
 
 Such an historical event is, humanly speak- 
 ing, necessary, if human life is to be lifted up 
 to a higher plane of spiritual life and be shown 
 that it belongs there. " In the fullness of time 
 this Love Thought (Jesus) was expressed in a 
 human life that lived among us, and we beheld 
 his glory, — the glory that belonged to him as 
 the only begotten of the Father, full of grace 
 and truth ; and of his fullness we are ever re- 
 ceiving grace upon grace." * It is this quicken- 
 ing communication of grace from God to man, 
 in a form that is assimilable by man, that is the 
 basic warrant for the Christian faith. 
 
 The atonement is not an idea simply that has 
 value to the intellect as an example or ideal of 
 love, for Jesus is " life in himself." The atone- 
 
 1 "The Good News of a Spiritual Realm," p. 17. 
 
p8 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 ment is an essential principle of the higher spir- 
 itual vitality; it is the living way that the 
 world's wisest and best have longed to find that 
 they might see God. It is because of and 
 through the humanity of Jesus that the soul 
 gets a first true consciousness of God by reason 
 of which he is enabled to move towards the as- 
 cent to the spiritual life. How else could man 
 link up with the Infinite except through some 
 such life process as faith in Jesus inaugurates ? 
 Without the historic Jesus the tendency of faith 
 in God would be to magnify the immanence of 
 an unconditioned Absolute, until his loving 
 Personality was lost ; with Jesus there is endless 
 and loving communion with a Heavenly Father 
 who is seen to be both immanent and tran- 
 scendent. 
 
 We believe Jesus to be divine because we see 
 in him the wisdom and the power of the eternal 
 life process of the Spirit. There is first the 
 devout and loving desire of the Galilean 
 maiden ; then the welling forth of Life that is 
 more than life, with the rays of glory and of 
 music piercing the clouds of earthly night and 
 promising celestial peace and good will ; then 
 there comes the valley of humiliation, the ob- 
 scure and humble birth, poverty, labor and temp- 
 tation ; then comes the illumination of service 
 and contemplation ; followed by " the dark 
 night of the soul," when even God seems far 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 99 
 
 away ; and then through the death of the body 
 and the glorious resurrection comes the awak- 
 ening into realization and the glad return to 
 his source in the Father of Love. But even 
 this does not complete the cycle of the eternal 
 life process of the Spirit, for with the glad re- 
 turn to union with the Divine there comes the 
 joyous days of harvest. ''Except a grain of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth 
 alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth much 
 fruit." Jesus said, " I will come again." 
 
 The first fruit of true wedlock is the awak- 
 ened vision and enthusiasm for service. " As a 
 bridegroom cometh out of his chamber and re- 
 joiceth as a strong man to run a race ; " and 
 the corresponding self-abnegation of mother- 
 hood, rejoicing to suffer all, to give all for 
 mother-love. The end of the quest for the 
 spiritual life is not barren ecstasy in communion 
 with the Source of love, but implicit within is 
 the spirit of self-sacrificing service. The soul 
 that has passed all the stages of the quest to the 
 Unitive Life, who has satisfied " the divine un- 
 rest of his human incompleteness," who has 
 been so signally honored, and who has expe- 
 rienced such unspeakable delights, accepts with- 
 out question as an integral part of them the 
 pains and the burdensome duties of parent- 
 hood by gladly becoming a source of fresh spir- 
 itual desire and life in others. The true lover 
 
100 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 completes his personality in giving it up in self- 
 sacrificing devotion. The divine " elan vital," 
 that is back of all high desire, is not impersonal, 
 blind force, but is love-wise and makes those 
 who yield to it love-wise in a life of kindly 
 service. 
 
 In the quest for the spiritual life men tran- 
 scend the natural life, only to return to it in 
 beneficent lives of service, as creators of spiri- 
 tual families, as fellow laborers with Jesus in 
 the work wherein God has set him, even the 
 redemption of the world. 
 
 Eckhart, one of the sanest of the saintly mys- 
 tics, finishes one of his ecstatic speculations con- 
 cerning communion with the Unseen by saying 
 abruptly: "But if it takes not place in me, 
 what avails it ? Everything lies in this, that it 
 should take place in me." Are we who have 
 caught a ray of " the light that was never on sea 
 or land," are we ready to follow the gleam ? Are 
 we willing to let this spiritual life process take 
 place in us ? Are we ready to face the stress 
 of desire and humiliation that we may secure 
 illumination ? Can we face unflinchingly " the 
 dark night of the soul " that we, too, may ex- 
 perience the conscious unification with the 
 Father of Love ? Knowing that the end of it 
 all will be to return to our own place and our 
 own work, to spend and to be spent in a simple 
 life of loving service ? 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught loi 
 
 Yes — yes. One and another are willing and 
 ready to begin the Quest. At first the only 
 thing you will be conscious of will be a deep 
 and constraining desire to be better, to be more 
 worthy, and then there will mingle with it a 
 desire for sympathy and help. This is the time 
 for prayer, for communion with the Heavenly 
 Father. Just as the secret of physical life 
 seems to be hidden in the arterial circulation of 
 the blood, so the secret of spiritual life is in the 
 sincere prayer currents of communion with the 
 Infinite Father of Love. " Prayer is the soul's 
 sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed " Just 
 as soon as we enthrone Love as chief of our 
 subconscious desires, just so soon do we in- 
 stinctively begin to pray. If the soul's sincere 
 desire is to be loving and spiritually minded, 
 we cannot keep from praying. 
 
 The very attitude of prayer is one of de- 
 sire, of receptivity; at that time the soul is 
 nearest attuned to spiritual influences, the 
 channels are most open for the inflowing of 
 spiritual vitality. In the state of devout prayer, 
 one has put aside for the moment the natural 
 faculty of the intellect and is employing un- 
 hampered the spiritual faculty of the intuition ; 
 one is feeling out after God, if perchance one 
 might find Him, although He is not far from 
 any one. 
 
 The quest for the spiritual life from the man- 
 
102 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 ward side is an adventure in faith for a higher 
 life, and in the experiences of that adventure 
 one comes to know the inadequacy of human 
 mind and strength for the task ; at such a time 
 the heart turns through Jesus to God for divine 
 guidance and strength, and God is more ready 
 to give than we are to ask. His answer is the 
 indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Divine Love 
 Vitality. 
 
 The Godward side of faith is the work of the 
 Holy Spirit energizing a spiritual life process, 
 that is to be nourished and guided and protected 
 by the Divine Love Vitality that enters the 
 soul most freely during the moments of prayer. 
 If the moments of prayer become less frequent 
 and insincere and finally are omitted altogether, 
 then the new spiritual life withers and dies. 
 " But thanks be to God who giveth us the vic- 
 tory through our Lord Jesus Christ," this need 
 never happen. God has willed from the be- 
 ginning of the world the redemption of his 
 children, and so long as they pray in faith and 
 humble trust, He will perfect his work. The 
 Holy Spirit, indwelling, will teach one to pray 
 more perfectly, will give one an ever-clearing 
 instinct for love and reality, and then by in- 
 fused grace will lead one along the way of 
 humility, through true, unselfish service, to 
 union with Himself. The success with which 
 one will follow this Way will depend upon the 
 
How to Live as Jesus Taught 103 
 
 intensity of his love and faith, his capacity 
 for self -discipline, his courage and his patience. 
 But if he move at all, he will move along 
 these well-marked stages of desire and awaken- 
 ing, discipline and enlightenment, humility and 
 self-abasement, into the fullness of the spiritual 
 unity and tranquillity and service. 
 
 The germ of spiritual life is inherent in every 
 human being, and it is only by the Divine Love 
 Vitality that it is quickened into life ; but it is 
 true also that it is only by the deliberate foster- 
 ing of the deeper and higher self that this 
 transformation of the elements of character 
 can be brought to fruition. And when the 
 human soul emerges from the long quest for 
 the spiritual life, " he finds himself back, almost 
 where he, began, a little child on his father's 
 breast, and in that most dear relation finds 
 all feeling, will, and thought have attained 
 their end." 
 
 When the saintly George Matheson as a young 
 man learned that he was to become incurably 
 blind, he went to his betrothed and offered to 
 release her from the engagement, which release 
 she accepted. George Matheson returned to 
 his room and in the loneliness and bitterness of 
 the thought of his condng blindness, he strug- 
 gled with the added sorrow of the loss of the 
 one he loved. In the agony of these earthly 
 losses, his deeper and higher love for Jesus held 
 
104 Jesus and Human Life 
 
 firm and he wrote out the beautiful hymn that 
 must close these sermons : 
 
 " Oh Love that will not let me go, 
 I rest my weary soul in thee ; 
 I give thee back the life I owe 
 That in thine ocean depths its flow 
 May richer, fuller be. " 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 

 Date Due 
 
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