^^'^'^^?>^ 
 
 V 
 
 BR 115 .C5 F7 1921 
 Frazer, John William. 
 The untried civilization 
 
THE UNTRIED 
 CIVILIZATION 
 
 By / 
 
 JOHN WILLIAM FRAZER 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
Copyright, 1921, by 
 JOHN WILLIAM FRAZER 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
To MY Father 
 
 The Rev. John Stanley Frazer, D.D. 
 
 this little volume is 
 
 affectionately inscribed 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBB PAGE 
 
 Note 7 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 I. The Meaning of Civilization 13 
 
 II. What Is Modern Civilization? 29 
 
 III . The Temper of the Times 45 
 
 IV. A Definite Type Inevitable 57 
 
 V . Is Christian Civilization Practical ? 73 
 
 VI . Christianity the Way of Progress . 100 
 
 VII. The Divine Right of the Church . . 118 
 
NOTE 
 
 I "WISH to express my gratitude to Dr. 
 Joseph Fort Newton, minister of the Church 
 of The Divine Paternity, New York City, 
 for his kind words of introduction; to Dr. 
 Guy E. Snavley, of Birmingham- Southern 
 College, for his practical helpfulness ; and to 
 The Fleming H. Revell Publishing Com- 
 pany for permission to use quotations from 
 their publications. 
 
 J. W. F. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The thesis of these essays is that Chris- 
 tianity, so far from being merely a private 
 mysticism, is at once a plan and a power for 
 the salvation of humanity aUke from in- 
 dividual sin and social chaos. The com- 
 munal redemption of mankind — nothing 
 else or less — was the vision in the mind of 
 Jesus, and the world to-day, well-nigh 
 bankrupt, will never be solvent until it has 
 the wisdom and courage to make trial of his 
 leadership. 
 
 Either Jesus was a dreamer of impos- 
 sible dreams or he saw straight; and if his 
 vision was vaHd, to reject Christianity as 
 the public poHcy of the world means that the 
 race will drift from one disaster to another. 
 It serves no good purpose to call him "Lord, 
 Lord," if we do not, or cannot, obey his 
 commands. It is admited that Christianity 
 is difficult, but not more difficult than the 
 present pohcy of the world. It is, in fact, 
 an Untried Civihzation, and since no one 
 
 9 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 can say that our present civilization is a suc- 
 cess, it is time to consider whether or not 
 Jesus was right; and if so, whether we can 
 translate his proposal into reahty. 
 
 As such these essays — more suggestive 
 than exhaustive, and as lucid in style as they 
 are thoughtful in treatment — are a token of 
 the times, as showing the increasing em- 
 phasis upon the gospel of the Kingdom, the 
 discovery of which was a trophy of the Great 
 War. They are an example of the reverent 
 and clear-sighted thinking of a large and 
 gallant company of young preachers in all 
 communions, who are beginning to see what 
 Jesus actually meant, and are resolved to 
 preach his larger gospel with gentle but 
 relentless insistence in the days that lie 
 ahead. 
 
 Of old, in the gloaming of the day, the 
 risen Christ "made as though he would have 
 gone further," but his disciples were too sad- 
 hearted to follow. Once again, in our 
 troubled day, two ways are set before us: 
 either we must follow Jesus in his divine 
 adventure or turn away from him. Both 
 ways are difficult, but one is hopeless; and 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the author bids us accept the call of Christ 
 as a challenge to the insight and heroism of 
 Christian faith and enterprise. 
 
 Joseph Fort Newton. 
 New York City. 
 
 11 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 Words gather about themselves various 
 meanings. Civilization is a term of elastic 
 variability. It has at least three distinct 
 historical meanings. When the idea of cul- 
 ture is lengthened to cover a considerable 
 period of time, or broadened to include a 
 large social unit, it is expressed by the word 
 civilization. In this sense the word "civ- 
 ilization" is simply the expansion of the idea 
 of culture. Thus we speak of a community, 
 a nation, or an age as being civilized. Man 
 reacting upon his environment has pro- 
 duced tremendous results — houses, machin- 
 ery, governments, social institutions, sci- 
 ence, hterature, philosophy, religion. This 
 mighty and ever-increasing result we ex- 
 press by the term "civihzation." This is 
 the most comprehensive use of the term. As 
 such it is a vast linguistic storehouse into 
 which have been poured the wealth and the 
 13 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 rubbish, the trash and the treasures of all 
 ages. The sense in which the word shall be 
 used in this discussion is a third, and perhaps 
 its most common use. By civilization, in 
 this use, is meant the dominant ideal or char- 
 acteristic of an age or a people. If this use 
 of the term is more restricted than the others, 
 it is also more definite and workable. By the 
 civilization of an age is here meant its chief 
 quality, that which molds it into a type of 
 hfe. 
 
 History devotes the major part of its at- 
 tention to three distinct and unique types of 
 civilization: those of ancient Greece, Rome, 
 and the Hebrew Commonwealth. These na- 
 tions are the most conspicuous examples 
 of the types which they represent. The 
 Golden Age of Greece was the most aesthetic 
 and intellectual period of human history. 
 Art, poetry, philosophy were its grand 
 achievements. The artistic structure of 
 Hellenistic culture was fashioned on the 
 ideal of intellectual beauty. Quinet, in his 
 Genie des Religions, says that the Homeric 
 poems became "the Book of the Law for the 
 Hellenic peoples, so that Homer became for 
 14 
 
MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 them what Moses was to the Hebrews. 
 Never again shall we see a society regulated 
 on the plan of an epic . . . Greek society, in 
 fact, tended by constant approximation to 
 form itself on the ideal of the IHad and the 
 Odyssey . . . Greece was not untrue to the 
 image that had thus been revealed to her; 
 on the contrary, she made of the poem a 
 truth, of fiction a reality." This age of hi- 
 tellectual power and wondrous beauty gave 
 to the world a hterature which has been 
 the inspiration of all subsequent literary 
 achievements, a philosophy which furnished 
 hypotheses to all later philosophic specula- 
 tion, a language which is still the most per- 
 fect flower of human speech and the most 
 flexible medium of human thought. 
 
 The conspicuous element in Roman civil- 
 ization was political majesty. It was not 
 colossal barbarism hiding its massive figure 
 under the purple robe of luxury. The civ- 
 ihzation of the Roman world was as thor- 
 oughgoing as it was imposing. Its ideal was 
 the domination of the world, not merely by 
 force of arms, but by the superiority of 
 Roman poHtical science. Roman civilization 
 
 15 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 typified its matchless genius for govern- 
 ment. Over the vast domains inhabited by 
 subject peoples, the strong arm of Roman 
 authority maintained peace and order, a 
 peace which though secure was rarely op- 
 pressive, an order which though imperious 
 was usually tolerant. Citizenship under 
 Rome carried with it both protection and 
 dignity. The Roman scourge could not be 
 laid on the back of a Roman citizen. In 
 Jerusalem when the magistrates *'had laid 
 many stripes" upon Paul and Silas, Paul 
 complained to the keeper of the prison that 
 they had been illegally punished: "They 
 have beaten us openly uncondemned, being 
 Romans." Justice for the Roman prisoner 
 was furthered by a provision which allowed 
 him a "final appeal" to Cassar. Roman 
 civilization was preeminently executive, leg- 
 islative, and judicial. The civilization of 
 ancient Rome was the embodiment of the 
 majesty of law. 
 
 The ancient Hebrews present a civiliza- 
 tion as distinct as it was exceptional. The 
 Jewish ideal of civilization was a race gov- 
 erned directly by Jehovah. The attribute 
 16 
 
MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 of Jehovah which chiefly impressed them 
 was his hohness. To maintain uninterrupted 
 communion with Jehovah the people were 
 taught to emulate his holiness. To the de- 
 gree that they succeeded would they receive 
 counsel and protection from Jehovah, and 
 so fulfill their national destiny, a destiny 
 to which Providence had ordained them. 
 They were an "elect people," whose motto 
 was "Holiness unto the Lord." The most 
 direful calamity would be for Jehovah 
 to "hide his face from them." In every ad- 
 versity — defeat in battle, pestilence, drought 
 — was seen the frown of their Deity, a frown 
 in which they saw reflected their own short- 
 comings. Never was there a race to whom 
 religion was so objectively realistic, who were 
 so conscious of the presence of God, and who 
 sought so earnestly to understand and obey 
 the divine will. Hebrew civilization was an- 
 cient man's most serious and morally suc- 
 cessful attempt to interpret his relation to 
 his Creator. With the Jewish people the 
 ideal of greatness was Godlikeness. Their 
 greatest achievements were religious 
 achievements, their greatest men were their 
 17 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 religious leaders, the center of their national 
 life was the temple. It is not a miracle, 
 therefore, that Hebrew civilization was the 
 fountain head from which have flowed the 
 strongest and purest streams of rehgious 
 inspiration which have blessed the world. 
 There is no marvel in the fact that a people 
 bent on learning the reahties of life should 
 be the discoverers of a moral realm into 
 which other people had never penetrated, 
 and should transmit to the future a code of 
 morals which is the basis of the race's highest 
 ethics. Why should it be thought a thing 
 incredible that Jesus Christ was a Jew? 
 What wonder that out of the soil from which 
 sprang the spiritual giants of the world 
 in the fullness of time God should more com- 
 pletely reveal himself in a member of their 
 race ? The characteristic of Hebrew civiliza- 
 tion was a genius for religion. 
 
 In Palestine, Greece, and Rome devel- 
 oped the civilizations which are the distinct 
 and representative achievements of the hu- 
 man race, distinct in that each became a type, 
 representative in that all ideas which other 
 races present are included in one or the other 
 18 
 
MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 of these great historical civihzations. Each 
 antecedent or subsequent historical civiliza- 
 tion has been an approach or a reproduc- 
 tion of the Hebrew, Grecian, or Roman 
 ideal. All that was of real worth in the 
 ancient Sumerian and Babylonian civil- 
 izations was included and purified in 
 Hebrew history. The religious traditions 
 and moral discoveries of those ancient 
 peoples, instead of being lost as their 
 historical epochs came to an end, were ap- 
 propriated and developed by the Jewish 
 people. Stories like the Fall of Man, The 
 Flood, the Tower of Babel — ancient man's 
 explanations of his relation to the universe 
 — became lessons of great spiritual worth 
 when interpreted in the light of Hebrew 
 idealism. Moral achievements like the Code 
 of Hammurabi were transformed into finer 
 standards of conduct after being purified by 
 the white flame of Hebrew ethics and shaped 
 into the Decalogue of the Old Testament. 
 Religious institutions, subsequent to He- 
 brew national life, which grew about pure 
 ethical ideals, like the social hfe of the Es- 
 senes of the first century and the Puritan 
 19 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 movement of the seventeenth century, were 
 the reappearance upon the surface of history 
 of the clear stream of old Hebrew morahty. 
 The splendor of Hebrew civilization was the 
 white gleaming light of pure morality, a 
 morality whose fundamental precept was, 
 "Thou shalt not be defiled." If it was moral 
 isolation, it was at the same time moral 
 sanitation. 
 
 Hellenistic culture is at once the climax 
 and inspiration of the artistic and intellec- 
 tual ideal of civilization. The intellectual 
 activity of the pre-Grecian world was never 
 powerful enough to shape any era into a 
 predominantly intellectual age. Likewise, 
 the intellectual movement which followed the 
 Golden Age of Greece received its impulse 
 from Hellenistic learning. The Renaissance 
 was the effort to grow Grecian culture on 
 the soil of fourteenth-century Europe. It 
 was the lingering sunset of Hellenistic civ- 
 ilization. Florence, under the reign of Lo- 
 renzo the Magnificent, was an imitation of 
 the Athens of Pericles. While, like all imita- 
 tions, its splendor was more glittering than 
 golden, still it was an appreciation of the 
 20 
 
MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 most cultivated people whose achievements 
 have adorned the earth. In Romola, that 
 splendid portrayal of Florentine life of that 
 day, George Ehot describes how the enthusi- 
 asm for Greek Hterature had spread to all 
 classes, the barbers discussing Greek poetry 
 with their patrons while performing their 
 tonsorial duties. With the debatable excep- 
 tion of the Shakesperian dramas, the great 
 poetry of eras later than Greece's Golden 
 Age are the literary offsprings of the Greek 
 poets. Virgil's "^neid," Dante's "Infer- 
 no," Milton's "Paradise Lost" are the chil- 
 dren of the "IHad" and the "Odyssey" unto 
 the fourth generation; while Sophocles's 
 "Antigone," and ^.^schylus's "Prometheus 
 Bound" have progenies too numerous to 
 mention. Goethe, Schiller, Keats, and 
 Shelley drank deep from the springs of Hel- 
 lenistic lore. Kant, Carlyle, Montaigne, 
 Emerson are the philosophic descendants of 
 the broad-browed Athenian. 
 
 Mediaeval Christianity, which developed 
 into its most imposing form under the pon- 
 tificate of Gregory VI, was neither an 
 original nor a Christian type of civilization. 
 21 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 It was the reproduction of Roman civiliza- 
 tion wearing the robes of Christian nomen- 
 clature. The crusades were the reacting of 
 imperial Roman's mihtary campaigns, in- 
 spired by a romantic religious delusion. The 
 mailed knights were unconscious mimics of 
 the Roman legions. A resurrected Roman 
 empire was the ambitious dream which made 
 Napoleon crucify Europe on the calvaries of 
 Wagram, Linden, and Areola. Germany's 
 militaristic frenzy was the flaring up again 
 of Rome's old dream of world dominion, 
 even the head dress of the German soldier 
 being an imitation of the helmets of the men 
 who crossed the Rubicon with Csesar. Nietz- 
 sche's "Superman" is the old Csesar wor- 
 ship, thinly disguised. What is civilization? 
 History has three disinct and independent 
 answers: the Hebrew ideal of morality, the 
 Grecian ideal or culture, the Roman ideal or 
 power. 
 
 Christian civilization is an unrealized 
 dream, an ideal which has never become a 
 historical reality. Such is not to deny that 
 the Christian religion has been expressed in 
 individual hves and historical movements. 
 
MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 P. Carnegie Simpson, in his book The Fact 
 of Christ, portrays his conception of a Chris- 
 tian as one who is responding to whatever 
 meanings of Christ are, through God's 
 Spirit, being brought home to his intellectual 
 or moral conscience. This approaches a very 
 satisfactory definition; it is exhaustive 
 enough to include the essentials of personal 
 Christianity, and workable enough to be 
 used as a measure of the Christianity of the 
 individual. Judged by this definition, there 
 have lived on this earth persons who have 
 measured well up to the standard. Christ 
 has never been without his true representa- 
 tives since he vanished from the eyes of men 
 in the glory of Olivet. These are the lights 
 which for eighteen centuries have saved the 
 race from spiritual darkness. They are the 
 nobility of the kingdom of God, the stars in 
 Heaven's Service Flag, the salt of the earth 
 which has kept it from falling to pieces of its 
 own fetidness. 
 
 "Saints of the early dawn of Christ, 
 Saints of Imperial Rome, 
 Saints of the mart and busy streets, 
 Saints of the modern home, 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 Saints of the soft and sunny East, 
 
 Saints of the frozen seas, 
 Saints of the isles that wave their palms 
 
 In the far Antipodes, 
 Saints who were wafted to the skies 
 
 In martyr's robes of flame. 
 Saints who have graven on men's thoughts 
 
 A monumental name."^ 
 
 But the continuous presence of individual 
 Christians on earth does not argue a Chris- 
 tian civilization. Christianity, whether ex- 
 pressed by the individual or the group, has 
 ever been at variance with the world. The 
 Christian has never been typical of any civil- 
 ization in which he has lived. He is not a 
 product of any historical civilization, but, 
 rather, a transplanted plant whose vitality 
 is such that it will flourish in any soil. Of 
 such the Master's words have ever been true: 
 "They are not of the world, even as I am 
 not of the world." Whenever the Christian 
 has sought to conform to his age, like Demas, 
 he "has departed, having loved this present 
 world." The real moral and spiritual rela- 
 
 ^ "The Facts of Conversion," George W. Jackson. By per- 
 mission of The Fleming H. Re veil Publishing Company. 
 24 
 
MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 tion of any individual Christian to his age is 
 expressed by the petition of Jesus: "I pray 
 not that thou shouldst take them out of the 
 world, but that thou shouldst keep them 
 from evil." Christian people with reference 
 to every age in history since the first century 
 have been "they of Caesar's household," 
 idealists who of necessity maintained com- 
 mercial and poHtical affiliations with society, 
 but whose real interests were apart. A true 
 disciple of Jesus is no more a product of the 
 world of yesterday or to-day than was Saint 
 John an embodiment of decadent Judaism, 
 or Saint Paul of the Roman empire. The 
 follower of the Man of Galilee has ever been 
 a stranger and pilgrim on earth, wistfully 
 looking ''for a city which hath foundations, 
 whose builder and maker is God." So will 
 he continue to be until the dream of a Chris- 
 tian civilization becomes a social reality. 
 
 As Christianity has succeeded with the in- 
 dividual, it has also succeeded in projecting 
 itself through numerous groups and fre- 
 quent historical movements. It would be a 
 poor assumption to contend that any well- 
 known religious movement or organization is 
 ^5 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 a complete interpretation and representation 
 of the life and teachings of the Son of man. 
 Commenting on Jesus's words to the woman 
 of Samaria, "The hour cometh, and now is, 
 when the true worshipers shall worship the 
 Father in spirit and in truth," Kenan, in his 
 work The Life of Jesus,^ says: "The day on 
 which he uttered this saying he was truly 
 the Son of God. He pronounced for the first 
 time the sentence upon which will repose the 
 edifice of eternal religion. He founded the 
 pure worship of all ages, of all lands, which 
 all elevated souls will practice till the end of 
 time. Not only was his religion on this day 
 the best religion of humanity; it was the 
 absolute religion; and if other planets have 
 inhabitants gifted with reason and morality, 
 their religion cannot be different from that 
 which Jesus proclaimed near the well of 
 Jacob. This sentence of Jesus has been a 
 brilliant light amidst the gross darkness; it 
 has required eighteen centuries for mankind 
 — nay, an indefinitely small portion of man- 
 kind — to become accustomed to it." Chris- 
 tianity is too profound to be understood 
 
 * By permission of Little, Brown & Co. 
 
 26 
 
MEANING OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 fully by any one group of men, too vast to 
 be compassed by any one movement. 
 
 But if churches, reformations, revival 
 movements have been only "broken lights" 
 of the Central Sun, they at least have often 
 been true and kindly Hghts. Beyond dis- 
 pute there are important phases of Chris- 
 tianity which groups and movements have 
 faithfully portrayed. The Franciscan move- 
 ment was the emphasis on the social ideal of 
 Christianity. Monasticism was the exag- 
 geration of Christ's teachings concerning un- 
 worldhness. The Wesleyan movement was 
 an earnest, and by no means unsuccessful, 
 effort to reproduce Pentecost by making re- 
 Hgion a personal experience. Quakerism 
 was the attempt to express Christ's teachings 
 on the simple and wholesome beauty of 
 friendliness. It does not discredit the church 
 that no one denomination adequately repre- 
 sents the Christian religion. By many men, 
 by various movements, by different denom- 
 inations — each in a measure independent of 
 the others, like the unknown miracle worker 
 of the Gospels — different aspects of the 
 truth were revealed until the essentials of 
 
 n 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 the gospel of Christ have come to the knowl- 
 edge of men. But when all credit is given 
 where credit is due, when all has been said 
 that can be said of the use which the world 
 has made of Christianity, with profound rev- 
 erence for those holy lives which are "Christ 
 in miniature," and deep respect for every 
 organization and social influence of which 
 Jesus Christ has been the inspiration, still it 
 is painfully apparent that Christianity has 
 never molded any age into a Christian civil- 
 ization. Looking backward we fail to find a 
 chapter on Christian civilization written by 
 the achievements of the past. Looking about 
 us in the present, we discover that in the 
 fabric of modern life only here and there 
 by broken threads can we trace the influence 
 of Christian ideals. Looking forward, 
 what do we anticipate? For what may we 
 hope? 
 
 28 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WHAT IS MODERN CIVILIZA- 
 TION? 
 
 Having referred to the conspicuous 
 epochs of history with a view of clarifying 
 the definition of civihzation, we may turn 
 to our own age with the question, "What 
 is modern civilization?" What are the con- 
 spicuous traits of our times? What charac- 
 ter is the present generation giving to the 
 age in which we live ? How will the historian 
 of the future label the civihzation of which 
 the man of to-day is the type? An objec- 
 tive answer is readily found. Modern 
 America! Whatever the character of mod- 
 ern civilization may be, America is its most 
 representative national type. Our country 
 is the most typical and cosmopolitan nation 
 on earth. It is a cross-section of the modern 
 world. The United States of America is 
 the twentieth century nationalized. To 
 know the controUing force in American hf e 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 is to have a key to the meaning of modern 
 civilization. What is the American ideal? 
 
 These are questions which are not readily 
 answered, questions which perhaps are not 
 yet ready to yield an answer. The threads 
 woven into the intricate fabric of modern 
 life are of such variety of shade and color 
 that it is not easy to determine its prevailing 
 color. We hear so many voices, each claim- 
 ing to be official, that we are uncertain as to 
 whose is the authoritative voice. A multi- 
 tude of preachers are proclaiming, but whose 
 voice is the voice of the age? There are so 
 many strong and apparently unrelated 
 forces pouring into the channel of modern 
 civihzation that the most careful observer is 
 uncertain as to the direction of the main cur- 
 rent, or whether there be a main current. 
 There are so many clashing ideals, each as- 
 suming the championship of the truth, that 
 we are at a loss to recognize the representa- 
 tive ideal. 
 
 During the early days of the war prophe- 
 cies were rife proclaiming the beneficent ef- 
 fect of the world conflict upon contemporary 
 society. It was said that the war was a 
 30 
 
MODERN CIVILIZATION 
 
 school wherein humanity would learn at last 
 a hitherto neglected and unforgettable les- 
 son. Morahsts argued that the present gen- 
 eration, having witnessed the collapse of a 
 civihzation built on the foundation of com- 
 mercialism, would rebuild modern life on the 
 basis of ethical fundamentals. The pulpit, 
 assuming the role of the prophet — without 
 the prophet's vision — pointed to a coming 
 revival of religion which was soon to sweep 
 over the race, carrying away the chaff and 
 leaving the sweet, wholesome grain of true 
 and undefiled religion. The widespread fel- 
 lowship of suffering was diagnosed as the 
 birth pangs of a regenerate humanity. 
 Above the flames of battle was seen the 
 vision of a nobler manhood, crowned with a 
 spiritual halo. Scores of volumes were writ- 
 ten on the contribution of the war to Chris- 
 tianity. Phrases were coined and eagerly 
 caught up by visionaries, showing that the 
 men who had been in battle had undergone a 
 fiery baptismal regeneration. Preachers 
 waxed eloquent on "The Religion of the 
 Soldier" and "The Christianity in the 
 Trenches." We saw men throwing their 
 31 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 fortunes and lives into the roaring furnace 
 of war with an abandon that was magnifi- 
 cent. We felt sure that by such costly refin- 
 ing process the di^oss of human nature was 
 being consumed, and that out of the flames 
 would come the pure ore of Christianity. 
 Rudyard KipHng, whose fame does not rest 
 upon a friendly feeling for Americans, de- 
 clared as we entered the war that America 
 had found her soul. Lord Northcliff e, com- 
 menting upon President Wilson's speech 
 before Congress in which he voiced our coun- 
 try's declaration of war, said that never be- 
 fore had a nation entered into war on 
 grounds so purely idealistic. Many believed 
 that the war was a fierce but purifying flame 
 which would renovate the race. It was con- 
 fidently asserted that all superficiality would 
 be burned away, and that the near future 
 would be translated into an age of spiritual 
 reahsm. 
 
 Alas! We have been woefully deceived. 
 If the war has had an ennobling influence 
 on the man of to-day, it is not apparent. If 
 society has been renovated, the results of the 
 cleansing process are not strikingly obvious. 
 
MODERN CIVILIZATION 
 
 If humanity to-day is wearing the sack- 
 cloth of penitence for past sins and foUies, 
 like Jehoram when Benhadad besieged 
 Samaria, its sackcloth is hidden. If a uni- 
 versal revival of spiritual religion is at hand, 
 its approach has not been heralded by 
 tongues of fire or mighty rushing winds of 
 ideahsm. We still await the impressive 
 spectacle of vast throngs taking the kingdom 
 of God by violence. However the war may 
 have improved the maps of Europe and 
 Asia, its beneficent effect on the individual 
 and society as a whole seems to be more 
 imaginary than real. Now that the war is 
 behind us, what has become of the religion 
 of the soldier? What spiritual contribu- 
 tion is being made by the man whom the 
 war metamorphosed into a saint in khaki? 
 Has the fine ideahsm of a nation which 
 "found its soul" been conserved? There is 
 abundant evidence that all of the old has not 
 passed way, and that all things have not yet 
 been made satisfactorily new. Apparently, 
 the only effect of the war on human nature 
 has been to magnify and draw in sharper 
 contrasts different human types. The 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 money-worshiper displayed himself as the 
 "profiteer"; the sensuahst plunged into an 
 orgy of dissipation; the spendthrift revelled 
 in unchecked prodigality; while the idealist 
 proclaimed more insistently than ever that 
 man cannot live by bread alone and has 
 steadfastly refused to sell his birthright for a 
 mess of pottage. The war did not mate- 
 rially change modern society as much as re- 
 veal the kind of ideals which make up our 
 civilization. 
 
 The complexity of modern life lies in its 
 expression of ideals rather than in the variety 
 of its ideals. Every phase of activity in the 
 modern world — social, political, scientific, 
 religious — is consciously or unconsciously a 
 manifestation of one or two masterful ideals 
 of life. The ad infinitum of the plural num- 
 ber would be taxed to catalogue the perform- 
 ances of our age; the dual number is suffi- 
 cient to classify its ideals. One of these may 
 be represented by the greatly overworked 
 and often wrongly used term materialism. 
 The legitimate use of this word is not to 
 make it a synonym of the sneer of the im- 
 practical religionist at commercial success 
 34 
 
MODERN CIVILIZATION 
 
 or mechanical progress. In its broader and 
 proper sense it is that philosophy which seeks 
 the ultimate worth of life within the sphere 
 of the senses, and denies any reality beyond 
 the horizon of the physical universe, an inter- 
 pretation of hfe which is of the earth most 
 earthy. Wherever it has touched, it has be- 
 fouled humanity. Its measure of business 
 success is not the kind of service rendered, 
 but the widest margin of profits. The mate- 
 rialist's ideal of an educational institution 
 is a factory which turns out human parts to 
 fit into our great commercial machinery 
 rather than a school which makes for man- 
 hood and develops personality. The mate- 
 rialist supports reform movements, like the 
 prohibition of the manufacture and sale of 
 alcoholic drinks and injurious drugs, not 
 from altruistic motives and conscientious 
 convictions, but because habits that impair 
 the body and cloud the brain weaken the 
 links in the industrial chain. A decade 
 ago W. L. Watkinson, an eminent English 
 clergyman, complained of the Temperance 
 [VIovement in England that the incon- 
 t^enience and costliness of it were the chief 
 35 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 items of consideration, and that a favorite 
 argument in this crusade was the financial 
 gain of sobriety. Not infrequently the ma- 
 terialist is a stanch church member who, if 
 unconscious of the spiritual significance of 
 the church, is astute enough to perceive that 
 such an institution restrains lawlessness and 
 furnishes additional police protection to his 
 bonds and warehouses, and on the whole 
 helps to make the city a comfortable and se- 
 cure place in which to live. The so-called 
 failure of the church — a failure more to its 
 credit than discredit — is, to a large extent, 
 its refusal to conform to standards of 
 worldly success. 
 
 "Suggestions are being made," writes Dr. 
 J. H. Jowett in an American religious peri- 
 odical, "on every side as to how the decrepit 
 weakling, the church, can be revived and re- 
 cover a vigorous health and strength. And 
 here are some of the suggestions: Permit 
 smoking in the back pews ! Let the services 
 share the character of the free-and-easy serv- 
 ices of the hut life at the front ! Shorten the 
 sermon! Abolish the sermon! Bring the 
 entire service within the compass of an hour, 
 36 
 
MODERN CIVILIZATION 
 
 or better still half an hour! Make use of 
 the cinematograph! Don't be afraid of the 
 drama! Etc., etc." All of which simply 
 means : Convert the altar into a stage and the 
 chapel into an amusement hall! It is sensu- 
 alism inserting itself into institutional Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 In social life this materialistic ideal re- 
 veals itself as a sort of twentieth-century 
 epicureanism, without the refinement of the 
 Epicureans. It is witnessed in the laxity of 
 standards of conduct, the flexibihty of moral 
 convictions, the playing of fast and loose 
 with the marriage bond, the popularity of 
 vulgar amusements, the loss of reverence, the 
 mood of trifling with holy things, reckless in- 
 dulgence stimulated by a mad chase after 
 purely physical sensations. It is the mimicry 
 of the court life of Belshazzar. Ancient 
 Babylon in the most voluptuous period of her 
 existence is the historical illustration of so- 
 ciety resting upon a materialistic founda- 
 tion. Is our civilization a reproduction of 
 Babylon? If so, the sooner the handwriting 
 appears on the wall the better it will be for 
 the good of the world and the future of the 
 37 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 race. Apparently, the materialistic ideal is 
 the dominant force in American Kfe to-day. 
 If the apparent is a symptom of real disease, 
 is this disease an ill to which the civilization 
 on the western hemisphere will succumb? 
 
 If the materialistic ideal represents one 
 side of our modern life, the other side is rep- 
 resented by the Christian ideal. The ad- 
 jective is chosen advisedly, for it is suffi- 
 ciently inclusive to represent the finest 
 idealism of the human race. Christianity 
 epitomizes the best for which mankind has 
 struggled through all the centuries ; and the 
 sincerity of a person's idealism is his rating 
 as a Christian. John Wesley, after reading 
 the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, con- 
 fided these words to his diary: "I doubt not 
 but that this is one of these who shall come 
 from the East and West and sit down with 
 Abraham in his kingdom." And who can 
 doubt that had Socrates, Plato, Buddha, 
 Virgil been among those who heard the 
 Sermon on the Mount they would have felt 
 what Nicodemus acknowledged: "Rabbi, we 
 know that thou art a teacher come from 
 God"? 
 
 38 
 
MODERN CIVILIZATION 
 
 What is this philosophy of life that we 
 call Christianity, this attitude toward the 
 universe which is at once morally exclusive 
 and inclusive? What is Christianity? The 
 question has produced the greatest body of 
 literature, both in quantity and quahty, out- 
 side of the Bible. Saints and sages have rev- 
 erently and wisely given themselves to the 
 task of explaining it. Monumental theo- 
 logical treatises like Saint Augustine's City 
 of God, a Kempis's Imitation of Christ, 
 Bishop Butler's Analogy, Martineau's Seat 
 of Authority in Religion; works of poetic 
 genius like Dante's "Inferno," Milton's 
 "Paradise Lost," Browning's "Paracelsus," 
 Lanier's "Crystal," and in our own day 
 Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven"; 
 masterful sermons, from St. Chrysostom's 
 to Horace Bushnell's; hymns with words 
 majestic enough to be sung to the music of 
 the spheres, as Venantius Fortunatus's 
 "Welcome, Happy Morning"; Bernard of 
 Clairvaux's "Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving 
 Hearts"; Faber's "There's a Wideness in 
 God's Mercy"; Newman's "Lead, Kindly 
 Light"; Charles Wesley's "Jesus, Lover of 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 My Soul" are all efforts made by the most 
 gifted and reverent among the sons of the 
 race to express the depth and height and 
 breadth of the riches of God in Christ. 
 Christianity is a mine of wealth which has 
 never been exhausted by human wisdom. It 
 can neither be defined in words nor confined 
 by creeds and canons. 
 
 If the philosophy of the Christian religion 
 is too profound to be sounded by any one 
 mind or one sect, the teachings of Chris- 
 tianity concerning the right attitude of man 
 toward hfe are unmistakable. Christianity 
 teaches that there are two worlds, the one 
 visible and transient, the other invisible and 
 eternal, and that while man is by nature a 
 citizen of both worlds, his relation to the in- 
 visible is primary, and his relation to the vis- 
 ible, though real, is of secondary importance. 
 Christianity does not classify the two worlds 
 as good and evil, but grades them accord- 
 ing to their relative values. One is a goodly 
 pearl, the other is a pearl of great price. The 
 spiritual world is the house whose founda- 
 tions are laid in the unseen and imperishable ; 
 the visible is the scaffolding which at best is 
 
 40 
 
MODERN CIVILIZATION 
 
 of a temporary character. Christianity 
 argues, therefore, that while the scaffolding 
 is important in the building of the house, if 
 a man is wise, he is more concerned with the 
 house than the auxiliary structure. It is an 
 act of wisdom rather than duty to seek first 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness. 
 A person shows prudence rather than virtue 
 who is incidentally interested in laying up 
 treasures "on earth, where moth and rust 
 doth corrupt," but is diligent in laying up 
 treasures in heaven "where neither moth nor 
 rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not 
 break through nor steal." It is self-preser- 
 vation rather than self-sacrifice to "fear not 
 them which kill the body, . . . but rather 
 fear him which is able to destroy both soul 
 and body in hell." To pluck out an offend- 
 ing eye is surgery that saves rather than self- 
 imposed discipline. The rich young ruler 
 who refused to exchange his riches for treas- 
 ures in heaven was stupid rather than sin- 
 ful. The use that man has for the visible 
 world is the use that a soldier has for a train- 
 ing camp, a place where he prepares for a 
 realm of activity. A Christian's interest in 
 41 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 the physical is that it should be a means to a 
 greater end. The constructing of a perfect 
 social order on earth is the mission of Chris- 
 tianity in so far as such a consummation as- 
 sists man in his spiritual development. The 
 kingdom of God on earth for which the Mas- 
 ter taught men to pray is the necessary result 
 of people living together in the right way 
 because they have first established their citi- 
 zenship in heaven. Christianity is not a doc- 
 trine of misty otherworldliness but a sane 
 and practical connecting of man with both 
 spheres of his existence. The non-Christian 
 is one who inverts these relations. Jesus was 
 the sanest Man who has ever lived on earth. 
 Christianity is the counter-ideal of mate- 
 rialism in modern civilization; and its influ- 
 ence in our age, while less objectively con- 
 spicuous, is as evident as the influence of the 
 materialistic ideal. Despite the prolonged 
 siege of hostile criticism, the superior scorn 
 of the morally neutral, and the treachery 
 from within its ranks, the church, above all 
 other institutions, philanthropic and hu- 
 mane, is identified with the Christian reli- 
 gion. It is not contended that that church is 
 
 42 
 
MODERN CIVILIZATION 
 
 a perfect expression of Christianity; its prac- 
 tice is too often far below its professions. 
 But it is significant that it has a place in our 
 social order, a place apparently as secure as 
 the home or the state. Its place is secure 
 because, theoretically at least, it represents 
 the true Christian ideal. An ideal repre- 
 sented by a historical institution which the 
 better element of society insists is indispen- 
 sable argues a society powerfully influenced 
 by the Christian ideal of hfe. Beyond de- 
 nial, Christianity is a vigorous and far-reach- 
 ing force in our age. 
 
 Whether the dominant ideal of the age be 
 materialistic or Christian is an open ques- 
 tion. Both of these forces exhibit marked 
 strength. But though we may classify the 
 quality of each ideal, their divergent influ- 
 ences cannot be tabulated with sufficient ac- 
 curacy to form a conclusion as to their rela- 
 tive strength. Suffice it to say that neither 
 concedes the victory to the other. Each is 
 strongly fortified, each aggressive, each con- 
 fident of final triumph. 
 
 The modern man hears two voices, one 
 saying: "Let us tear down our barns and 
 43 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 build greater ones," the other asking, "What 
 doth it profit a man if he gain the whole 
 world and lose his own soul?" The world 
 to-day is the battlefield of Armageddon, 
 where two hostile and irreconcilable forces, 
 after centuries of mobilization, have met in 
 desperate conflict. In this world war there 
 are no neutrals, the lines are clearly drawn, 
 the fight is on. How goes the battle? 
 Watchman, what of the night? 
 
 44 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES 
 
 A PROPHECY of the permanent effects on 
 modern life of either the materialistic or 
 Christian ideal would be highly conjectural 
 without previous consideration of the temper 
 of our age. The race, like the individual, 
 has its moods. History is as whimsical as 
 biography. Eventful decades show as great 
 a temperamental variety as the different per- 
 sons we know. Our age has its mood no less 
 than the days of the French Revolution. 
 Whatever this mood may be, that ideal to 
 which it is most congenial has a strategic ad- 
 vantage over its opponents. If the mood of 
 the age is impartial, then neither materialism 
 nor Christianity occupies an advantageous 
 position, the success of either over the other 
 being dependent upon the relative virility of 
 the contending forces. 
 
 As the temper of a person is indicated by 
 the method rather than the nature of his ac- 
 45 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 tions, so the spirit of an age is reflected by 
 the manner rather than the character of its 
 performances. The pulse beat of our times 
 registers a temper of pronounced restless- 
 ness. The earth tremor of human unrest is 
 felt by all. The most sanguine of statesmen 
 refuse to see in the newly made map of 
 Europe more than temporary equilibrium. 
 The wheels of industry revolve spasmodi- 
 cally. The ship of state is tossed on the tur- 
 bulent waters of social unrest. In education 
 the multiformity of ideals is symptomatic of 
 an unfixed standard of mental training, one 
 American university having substituted as 
 a qualification for admission to its courses 
 the quality of untrained intelligence of an 
 applicant in place of prescribed preliminary 
 studies. Even the church, which ought to be 
 a stabilizer of people's moods in uncertain 
 times, has been infected by the general rest- 
 lessness, and is spending much of its energy 
 in a nervous pursuit after many non-essen- 
 tials, neglecting "the one thing needful." 
 The world of to-day is uncertain of itself. 
 The temper of the modern man is an epi- 
 tome of the universal mood. He is a stranger 
 46 
 
THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES 
 
 to the tranquil philosophy of Saint Paul: 
 "I know how to be abased, and I know how 
 to abound." "I have learned, in whatever 
 state I am, to be content." Whether abased 
 or "abounding" the individual of contem- 
 porary times is discontented with himself. 
 He is busy pulling down his old barns and 
 buildings larger ones, but his soul is ill at 
 ease, nervously asking, "What lack I yet?" 
 He builds for himself a dwelling place of 
 magnificent proportions, furnishes it with 
 luxurious appointments, and is disillusioned 
 because it does not call out to him: "Come 
 unto me, and I will give you rest." Me- 
 chanical ingenuity has been taxed in the 
 invention of labor-saving devices, but they 
 have failed to ease our yokes of worry or 
 lighten our burdens of care. To-day man 
 moves from place to place with miraculous 
 speed, sailing through the air, rolling over 
 the ground, moving under the sea, and in- 
 deed gauging his every activity to the great- 
 est possible rapidity. We work, play, and 
 pray under the whiplash of hurry. But in 
 our reflective moments we face the satirical 
 question of the hero of Bojer's novel The 
 47 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 Great Hunger, "Where are we going that 
 we are in such a hurry ?" The modern young 
 man and young woman are over sophisti- 
 cated, and wonder why life has lost its zest 
 and romance. They hunt for thrills in 
 travel, fantastic amusements, overdone col- 
 ors, and glaring lights. We loudly boast of 
 our progress and fill the future with ever- 
 enlarging plans, but are uncertain whether 
 our progress means real achievement or a 
 tower of Babel with its confusion of tongues 
 and noisy contenticms. The man of to-day 
 is strenuously energetic, thoroughly efficient, 
 eagerly progressive, and very unhappy. He 
 has gained the whole world and is dissatis- 
 fied with his possessions. 
 
 The cause of this general unrest is not 
 difficult to trace. For one thing, the modern 
 man has broken with the authority of the 
 past, and has accepted no new master. Never 
 were men so contemptuous of authority. 
 Political constitutions, scientific dictums, 
 ethical decalogues, ecclesiastical canons are 
 no longer formidable. The pilots of state 
 refuse to steer by the old harbor lights of 
 historical precedents. Political science has 
 
 48 
 
THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES 
 
 thrown into the discard many of its funda- 
 mental tenets. The air is rent with the 
 strident shouts of factional tongues, each 
 crying, "I am the state." The doctrines of 
 the rights and authority of government, in- 
 herited from our forefathers, are being rele- 
 gated to poHtical museums. Science, wid- 
 ening the horizon of the universe, subdivid- 
 ing matter, discovering new and unsuspected 
 forces, has set the human mind speculating 
 as to the immutability of nature's laws. The 
 Einstein theory of "relativity" is casting sus- 
 picion on the supposed changeless element in 
 certain physical laws, hitherto considered 
 fixed or even axiomatic. Physical science, 
 which was wont to sneer at the fallibility of 
 theology, is growing suspicious of its own 
 infallibility. 
 
 In the sphere of moral government exter- 
 nal authority is decidedly unpopular. The 
 Ten Commandments are subordinated to 
 the individual conscience. Old-fashioned 
 distinctions of right and wrong are consid- 
 ered presumptuous and arbitrary. A con- 
 tributor to the Fortnightly Review, discuss- 
 ing what he terms "Scientific Sin," argued 
 49 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 that the error of overprizing the truth is 
 quite common, that there are many who seem 
 positively to worship the truth, as if truth 
 were the essence of all goodness, and that the 
 duty of lying is a painful and uncommon 
 duty, yet a duty which had to be seriously 
 considered. A similar attitude toward ethi- 
 cal precepts is expressed by another writer, 
 who contends that morahty is a matter of 
 social discipline, and not an inherent princi- 
 ple in nature like the law of gravitation, 
 but a sort of agreement arrived at by nations 
 and communities for the better regulation of 
 their affairs. A code of ethics for coiXQuer- 
 cial convenience is a wide departure from the 
 emphatic, "Thou shalt!" and "Thou shalt 
 not!" of biblical authority. In the moral 
 world the old order has been reversed, the 
 individual conscience being exalted at the 
 expense of inherited moral traditions. 
 
 Our age is likewise resentful of authority 
 in religion. Extreme individualism snatches 
 the crown of authority from organized Chris- 
 tianity. Canons, dogmas, doctrines for 
 which emperors once convened councils and 
 kings went to war are received or rejected 
 
 50 
 
THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES 
 
 with equal facility. Religious beliefs which 
 were once held as fixed and unalterable are 
 regarded as old-fashioned religious clothes, 
 interesting but long since out of date. "The 
 faith once delivered to the saints" was well 
 enough for the saints, but, really, the saints 
 were rather credulous people. In place of 
 the great creeds of the church which tell 
 what God taught men at Bethlehem under 
 the Christmas stars, amid the unspeakable 
 radiance of the transfiguration, under the 
 Olive leaves of Gethsemane, in the heart- 
 breaking hour of Calvary, and in the glory 
 of Easter morning, we have substituted our 
 penny-page philosophies and pink-tea the- 
 ologies. There was no more pitiable com- 
 mentary imaginable on the spiritual poverty 
 of modern times than the spectacle of grief- 
 burdened men and women crowding about 
 ouija boards and reverently listening to 
 table-rappings. Having turned his back on 
 the pillar of cloud and fire, the man of to-day 
 is wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. We 
 have mistaken rebellion for independence, 
 and fancy that we are free because we 
 have lost our way. Having broken with the 
 51 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 authority of the past, we are restless, not 
 knowing whither to go. This very uneasi- 
 ness is the unadmitted confession of a search 
 for a Lord and Master. 
 
 The spirit of restlessness is furthered by 
 the obvious superficiality of our age. We 
 have built our houses on the sand and live on 
 the surface of life, hence we are uneasy 
 because the waters are troubled. We move 
 quickly enough, but it is the mobility of 
 light craft in the shallows. Many of our 
 achievements are of colossal proportions, 
 but a colossus with feet of clay. We 
 are more emotional than thoughtful. We 
 have invested so heavily in the material 
 that we are in danger of spiritual bank- 
 ruptcy. We are ready to indorse any move- 
 ment wearing the badges of philanthropy 
 and religion, but we lack serious conviction. 
 The late Maud PoweU, the brilliant violin 
 virtuoso, referring to successful American 
 workers in the field of art, said: "There are 
 more liveliness and high spirits than of spir- 
 ituality. We do not live deeply enough. 
 We depend too much on the big outer stimu- 
 lus to rouse us. We must be turned away 
 
THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES 
 
 from the things that we possess to a deeper 
 inner life." The inner lights burn dimly, 
 and "If the light within be darkness, how 
 great is that darkness!" Living on the sur- 
 face of life, we are subject to disturbing sur- 
 face conditions. 
 
 An additional reason for modern uneasi- 
 ness Hes in the fact that ours is a period of 
 rapid and radical transition. In a very real 
 sense every age is an age of transition. 
 History is ever ringing out the old and 
 ringing in the new. Times of peace and 
 tranquilHty are changing times no less than 
 years of storm and stress. It is more than 
 a poetic fancy, it is the statement of an 
 inevitable process, that the world moves for- 
 ever "down the ringing grooves of change." 
 The periods which are designated as normal 
 times are those changes which, Hke the sea- 
 sons, take place gradually, imperceptibly, 
 and which give men time for unconscious 
 adjustment. In normal times there is 
 apparently greater pohtical stability, more 
 clearly defined ethical standards, and reli- 
 gion speaks in stronger tones of authority. 
 But the process of change which our age is 
 53 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 undergoing is abrupt and far reaching. We 
 have found ourselves thrust violently into a 
 new and unfamiliar world, a world of strange 
 social forces, new political alignments, un- 
 tried rules of conduct, unfamiliar religious 
 impulses. The twentieth century is a shock- 
 ing innovator. It has struck estabhshed 
 customs with such an impact that many of 
 the traditional landmarks have been shaken 
 down. There are not wanting prophets who 
 are saying that there is a spirit abroad in the 
 earth, strong, desperate, maddened, which, 
 like Samson, will not stop until it has pulled 
 down the pillars of every time-honored social 
 institution. 
 
 Times of transition are times that come to 
 destroy as well as to fulfill. When such 
 times are characterized by changes of kalei- 
 doscopic rapidity the destructive forces are 
 more apparent than the constructive, and for 
 a time more powerful and numerous. When 
 the air is filled with the dust and noise of 
 wrecking machinery, we are inclined to ask, 
 dubiously, "Of this great temple of civiliza- 
 tion, shall one stone be left standing upon 
 another?" Ours is a distracted age. The 
 
 54 
 
THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES 
 
 world mood is one of restlessness and 
 anxiety. Though the causes of this distrac- 
 tion are not too remote to be ascertained, yet 
 the possibilities of such a mood are uncertain. 
 Analysis is surer than prophecy. Even 
 when the symptoms are unmistakable the 
 outcome is problematical. Nature has her 
 surprises which upset all human calculations. 
 Tennyson "dipped into the future far as 
 human eye could see," and the world has wit- 
 nessed his rhetoric scientifically fulfilled: 
 
 "The heavens filled with shouting, 
 And there rained a ghastly dew, 
 From the nations airy navies. 
 Grappling in the central blue." 
 
 But chemistry, steel, electricity furnish 
 surer materials for exact prophecy than does 
 human nature. Long ago the wise and sor- 
 rowful Jeremiah confessed himself mystified 
 by the subject, and reached the conclusion 
 that "the heart is deceitful above all things 
 . . . Who can know it?" As there lurks in 
 every person a madman or a philosopher, a 
 saint or a demon, so society is a possible mob 
 or a chivalrous order, a wrecker or a builder, 
 55 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 anarchy or a state, a renegade humanity or 
 a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwell- 
 eth righteousness. When human nature is 
 most uncertain of itself it is most easily in- 
 fluenced. Where conviction is wanting, per- 
 suasion has its opportunity. A restless age 
 is a plastic age. The mood of our times has 
 surrendered to neither good nor evil; it 
 presents each with an opportunity for con- 
 quest. While it is yet pliable, neither the 
 good nor the evil has the advantage over the 
 other. One may hope, the other may beware. 
 
 56 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 A DEFINITE TYPE INEVITABLE 
 
 The present is a time of indefinite social 
 ideals, flexible moral standards, vague re- 
 ligious faith, and therefore an age of easy 
 tolerance. Any philosophy of life can find 
 a footing, any creed can gain some believers, 
 any puppet prophet can have a hearing, 
 every temple has its worshipers. Like the 
 men of Athens, whom Paul addressed from 
 Mars' Hill, we have set up altars to all the 
 gods, known and unknown. We respond to 
 the winds of all the doctrines which are 
 blowing. We would profit by heeding Car- 
 lyle's advice concerning the attempt to ap- 
 propriate the universe: "Attempt not to 
 swallow it, for thy logical digestion; be 
 thankful, if skillfully planting down this and 
 the other fixed pillar in the chaos, thou pre- 
 vent it swallowing thee." 
 
 Nothing shocks us very much because we 
 are so morally and rehgiously elastic. Or- 
 
 57 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 thodoxy and heresy are distinctions which 
 are more imaginary than real. The "de- 
 fender of the faith" no longer persecutes his 
 heretical brother; he is merely passively 
 interested in what his brother thinks. In 
 human society the radical and the reaction- 
 ary receive equal consideration; indeed, we 
 are not sure which is which. Innovations 
 interest us; they do not annoy us. The 
 modern man is rarely shocked by moral va- 
 riations. When he is confronted by an 
 innovation, instead of striking the inflexible 
 body of his convictions and producing a 
 ringing protest, it sinks quietly and without 
 friction into the yielding clay of an easy 
 tolerance. The man of to-day is too ethi- 
 cally phable to feel the vibration of a jarring 
 impact. 
 
 The desirabihty of tolerance is always 
 conditional. The needful truth for an age 
 is often the truth which that age has forgot- 
 ten, neglected, or suppressed. When reli- 
 gious ardor is expressed by persecutions, 
 inquisitions, sectarian bigotry, and acrimo- 
 nious doctrinal battles, the gospel of toler- 
 ance is the gospel for the hour. When men 
 
 58 
 
A DEFINITE TYPE 
 
 insist that the ascetic hfe is the only way of 
 salvation and that the soul is in peril when- 
 ever the doors of desires are unlocked, then 
 blessed be that truth which leads man forth 
 from dark monastic walls into God's bright 
 world of trees, flowers, love, and sunshine. 
 When religious teachers are most certain 
 that man's knowledge of God is limited to 
 one age and race, or that Christ speaks to 
 the world only over the private wire of a 
 historic incarnation, it is well to think of 
 Paul's words: "I perceive that God is no 
 respecter of persons," and to believe that 
 
 "The heathen hands, and helpless. 
 Groping blindly in the darkness. 
 Touch God's right hand in the darkness. 
 And are lifted up and strengthened." 
 
 But when bigotry melts into flaccidity, when 
 the sensual supplants the ascetic, when men 
 would tear down all the moral walls of the 
 kingdom of God, and obliterate all ethical 
 and rehgious distinctions, a gospel of toler- 
 ance is not only untimely but positively 
 injurious. 
 
 The conditions which make for tolerance 
 59 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 to-day are neither surprising nor unnatural. 
 The present is a dramatically transitional 
 period in modern history, and in the process 
 of swift change from an old to a new order 
 a plastic condition of society is inevitable. 
 The old vessel has been melted, and the 
 molten material has not yet shaped itself into 
 the form of a new vessel. For a while it is 
 soft and pliable, and is responsive to the 
 touch of any force or influence. Our age 
 has not taken a definite shape; it is neither 
 the form of Beelzebub nor the image of an 
 angel; it is shapeless. Out of the plastic 
 stuff the potter's hand of destiny has not yet 
 molded a new and distinct type of civiliza- 
 tion. The present has not stiffened into a 
 fixed historical form. This indeterminate 
 state is a cause for anxiety. It gives ground 
 for both hope and fear ; hope, because being 
 yet plastic, it may be shaped into the image 
 of the divine ; fear, because being still shape- 
 less, it may take the form of evil. 
 
 "The rudiments of empire here 
 
 Are plastic yet, and warm; 
 
 The chaos of a mighty world. 
 
 Is rounding into form." 
 
 60 
 
A DEFINITE TYPE 
 
 "The chaos of a mighty world" is an oppor- 
 tune phrase. It is very expressive of our 
 great unshaped world to-day. But chaos, 
 however far-reaching and thorough-going, 
 is only momentary. Revolutions play their 
 part and cease to be. After awhile heresies 
 are no longer disturbing ; they are either ac- 
 cepted or pass on and are forgotten. The 
 significance of a human upheaval is not in its 
 immediate action but in its ultimate result, 
 not in its cyclonic movements but its per- 
 manent influence upon the world hfe. The 
 surgical operation is incidental in itself, the 
 momentous question is whether the patient 
 succumbs or survives. The discordant notes 
 flung into the air are important only as they 
 are the prelude to the composition which fol- 
 lows. It is the composition that matters ; the 
 inharmonious introduction is incidental. 
 Into what kind of harmony will the twen- 
 tieth-century discords be gathered? A 
 Hymn of Hate, or a Hymn of Praise, a 
 Halleluj ah Chorus or a De Prof undis ? The 
 importance of the present mood of the world 
 is its connection with the future hfe of the 
 world. Our age of phable clay must settle 
 61 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 into a distinct and permanent mold. We 
 must soon have a fixed and unalterable place 
 in history. The twentieth century is to be 
 an everlasting monument to something, for 
 better or for worse. 
 
 With society, as with the individual, the 
 oft-quoted saying is true, that actions form 
 habits, habits determine character, and 
 character crystallizes into destiny. As 
 the character of a society is the aggregate 
 of the kind of individuals composing it, it 
 behooves the individual to study his own acts 
 and examine his own habits. The effect of 
 the individual life upon social life is of more 
 than passing moment or transient influence. 
 Scientists teach that every noise, that of a 
 falling stone or rippling water, starts wave 
 sounds which reverberate forever. What the 
 modern man is thinking and doing is of in- 
 calculable future social consequence. What 
 are we doing? What are we thinking? 
 Whatever it is, we may be assured that it 
 will have its permanent effect in shaping the 
 kind of civilization into which the present 
 age will inevitably settle. Goethe was wont 
 to say: "Be careful, young man, what you 
 
 62 
 
A DEFINITE TYPE 
 
 pray for in youth, for you may receive it in 
 old age." In this youth time of a new era 
 it is well that we know what we seek in our 
 task of reconstructing the world. Things 
 are in the making, and if when civiHzation 
 has assumed permanent form it is less grace- 
 ful than we hoped, our regrets will be un- 
 availing, like Esau, "who for one morsel of 
 meat sold his birthright. For ye know that 
 afterward, when he would have inherited the 
 blessing, he was rejected: for he found no 
 place of repentance, though he sought it 
 carefully with tears." We need not be de- 
 ceived into feeling that our acts and thoughts 
 are of momentary importance, or that our 
 lives are unrelated to human life as a whole. 
 No man liveth or dieth unto himself. Each 
 hand has some part in shaping the world. 
 Writing of the degi^adation of French na- 
 tional life which followed the reign of Louis 
 XV, Carlyle argues that its causes were not 
 primarily that of Philosophism which de- 
 stroyed religion, not Turgot, not Necker, 
 not the Queen's "want of etiquette," but 
 "every scoundrel that had lived, and quack- 
 like pretends to be doing, and been only 
 
 63 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 eating and misdoing, in all provinces of life, 
 Shoeblack or as Sovereign Lord, each in his 
 degree, from the time of Charlemagne and 
 earlier. All this (for be smx no falsehood 
 perishes, but is as seed sown out to grow) has 
 been storing itself for thousands of years; 
 and now the account day has come. . . . O 
 my brother, be not thou a Quack. Die 
 rather, if thou wilt take counsel; 'tis dying 
 once, and thou art quit of it forever." 
 
 Into what form will the future crystallize 
 the plasticity of the present? Will it return 
 to some former type of civilization, or will it 
 be something hitherto untried and unknown? 
 Among the rife prophecies are the follow- 
 ing: An international pohtical order will 
 be created, a sort of superstate with its 
 armies and navies pohcing the world, and 
 maintaining law and order. People will 
 develop along national lines as before — 
 although patriotism is at a low ebb just now. 
 Our existing pohtical institutions will be 
 overthrown, and the world ruled by the pro- 
 letariat. Moral traditions and restrictions 
 will be thrown to the winds, and humanity 
 will suffer the calamity of social atavism. 
 
 64 
 
A DEFINITE TYPE 
 
 There are other prophets, who either see- 
 ing clearer or hoping better, feel that there 
 might be a return to something Hke Puritan- 
 ism. Dr. Parkes Cadman has tentatively- 
 expressed such an opinion. "If democracy," 
 he says, "simply dissolves the multitudes into 
 individuals to collect them again into mobs, 
 I predict that Cromwellian Puritanism will 
 once more become fashionable.'" But mob 
 violence is not sufficiently prevalent or dis- 
 turbing to produce such political reaction. 
 It is to be hoped, however, that our profligate 
 conduct may react in the direction of the 
 Puritan code of ethics. Sickened of sated 
 appetites and overfed senses, people may 
 turn in disgust from their tropical abandon- 
 ment of feelings, and seek the purer if 
 sterner uplands of austere living. The Puri- 
 tan ideal is not the Christian ideal; it is 
 nearer John the Baptist than Jesus, but our 
 age is as foreign to Jesus as to John. The 
 Puritan ideal, with its inflexible Sabbath, 
 its hostility to laughter and song, its stern 
 suppression of desires, bleak and frigid as it 
 was, is preferable to the orgies of prodigality 
 
 ^ From a report in The Brooklyn Eagle, by permission. 
 
 65 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 witnessed to-day on every hand. The Puri- 
 tan is to be desired above the twentieth-cen- 
 tury man-of-the world. The camel hair and 
 wild honey of the wilderness is a finer moral 
 environment than the court of Solomon. 
 
 There are churchmen who think that they 
 can see signs of an approaching civilization 
 with religion as its predominant force. The 
 belief may be born of hope, for the religious 
 situation is too complex to hazard a safe 
 prophecy. There is much religious activity 
 and little religious thinking in the church 
 to-day. There are mergers, movements, and 
 organization enough, but religious serious- 
 ness and depth of feeling are not so evident. 
 Among the more thoughtful there is a pro- 
 nounced interest and a certain wistful yearn- 
 ing for spiritual realities. Such are seeking 
 after God "if haply they may find him." 
 Can it be that we are on the threshold of a 
 distinctively religious age? Such a con- 
 summation is devoutly to be wished. A 
 religious age, however imperfect the expres- 
 sion of religion may be, is more desirable 
 than a nonreligious age. A religious age is 
 always an age of serious living. Men are 
 66 
 
A DEFINITE TYPE 
 
 never so much in earnest as when most 
 religious. 
 
 Unless the pliant world life of modern 
 times resolves itself into a civihzation pro- 
 foundly influenced by a divine purpose, it 
 will be clay grotesquely marred by bhnd 
 and purposeless forces. If after all the cen- 
 turies of man's tenure of earth, after all the 
 stern experiences of the race, after all the 
 lessons which the past has tried to teach, 
 we are not nearer a superior social order, 
 humanity might with good reason despair 
 of itself. Surely, man has lived long enough 
 in this world to begin to learn to Hve well. 
 We have been so busy demanding our rights 
 from our fellow men that we have forgotten 
 that ours is a spiritual Hneage. Less in- 
 sistence upon our rights as human beings, 
 and a clearer realization of the dignity of 
 divine sonship is a need of our age. True 
 progressive social evolution is toward a 
 theocracy rather than toward a democracy. 
 The people need to hear the voice of God 
 more than the world needs to hear the voice 
 of the people. 
 
 Whether or not a distinctively Christian 
 67 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 era is an early prospect depends largely 
 upon two factors, the degree of the modern 
 man's interest in religion and the ability of 
 Christianity to capitalize that interest. If 
 there is a point of contact between Christian- 
 ity and the man of to-day, it is in whatever 
 interest in religion that man might have. If 
 man is "incorrigibly religious," it is equally 
 true that he is spasmodically religious. Cir- 
 cumstances condition a person's susceptibil- 
 ity to religious influences. When bereft of 
 earthly happiness the human heart turns to 
 religion for compensation. 
 
 Since its beginning Christianity has found 
 disciples among the poor, the sorrowful, the 
 outcasts, the world-broken. The message 
 which Jesus sent to John the Baptist in the 
 fortress of Machserus explains the cause of 
 the popularity of Christianity among the 
 victims of hfe's battles: "Go your way, and 
 tell John what things ye have seen and 
 heard ; how the blind see, the lame walk, the 
 lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the 
 dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is 
 preached." The religious message which 
 can say with authority, "Come unto me, all 
 68 
 
A DEFINITE TYPE 
 
 ye who labor and are heavily laden, and I 
 will give you rest," will always find follow- 
 ers. Nevertheless, the class of people to 
 whom religion is primarily a refuge from the 
 storms of mortal existence is not the most 
 influential class of society. Where the re- 
 ligious interest of man is aroused only by 
 hardships and sorrow the human area for the 
 operation of Christianity is too restricted 
 and uncertain to permeate the whole of so- 
 ciety. There is a deal of truth in the state- 
 ment that the history of a people is the 
 history of her great men. Humanity walks 
 in the footsteps of its leaders, and the leaders 
 are not creatures easily broken by adversity. 
 Those whom others instinctively follow are 
 by nature too self-assertive and resourceful 
 for their religious instincts to be stimulated 
 by misfortune. Such natures usually grap- 
 ple with and overcome their troubles or ac- 
 cept them philosophically rather than seek 
 relief in religious faith. 
 
 The religious interests of vigorous per- 
 sonahties capable of molding human senti- 
 ment arise from other and deeper causes 
 than personal affliction. Ian Maclaren said 
 69 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 that if you would have a cause succeed, do 
 not defend it in books, but hnk it up with a 
 great personality and it will be successful. 
 Every sweeping revolution, every epochal 
 movement is associated with the names of 
 commanding figures. The Reformation 
 must needs have its Luther and its Melanch- 
 thon; Puritanism its Cromwell and its Mil- 
 ton; Methodism begins with its Wesleys. 
 "An institution," writes Emerson, "is the 
 lengthened shadow of a great man." The 
 weak and unresisting never hold an influen- 
 tial place in human society. The champions 
 of early Christianity were men of tre- 
 mendous virility and exceptional gifts. 
 Among the twelve apostles there were lead- 
 ers of unusual natural endowments and 
 native strength of character. In the chosen 
 three, Peter, James, and John, was em- 
 bodied djTiamic power which under the nec- 
 essary stimulus would have made itself felt 
 in any age and among all classes. Peter's 
 masterful presence, impassioned fervor, and 
 generalship in dealing with men would have 
 made him a conspicuous figure in any arena 
 of public life. James's practical sagacity, 
 
 70 
 
A DEFINITE TYPE 
 
 his organizing ability, and fine tact rate him 
 as a potential commercial genius. The phil- 
 osophical intellect of Saint John places him 
 in the front rank of the great thinkers of the 
 race. Gentile Christianity received a tre- 
 mendous impetus in being championed by 
 that many-sided genius the man of Tarsus. 
 That early Christianity advanced with such 
 conquering power was to no small degree 
 due to the fact that many of the greatest 
 men of the first and second centuries con- 
 secrated their genius to the propagation of 
 the new faith. Great causes demand great 
 leaders. Great leaders demand great causes 
 to champion. 
 
 For the past half century the pulpit has 
 been preaching the gospel of service and the 
 mission of Christianity to the poor. Lazarus 
 begging crumbs from the rich man's table 
 has occupied the frontispiece of modern 
 theology. We have almost come to think of 
 the Christian religion exclusively as an up- 
 lift movement. Despite the unquestionable 
 claim which unfortunate humanity has upon 
 the ministry of a "cup of cold water," there 
 is no historic or ethical reason in limiting 
 71 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 Christianity to a class religion. Christianity- 
 has been retarded as a powerful force in so- 
 ciety because the church in these later days 
 has neglected to make disciples of those who 
 are in need neither of material assistance nor 
 hygienic enlightenment. The time is at hand 
 when the church must face the question, 
 "What is the message of the Christian re- 
 ligion to the strong?" The fittest are the 
 sculptors or the iconoclasts of civilization. 
 Puny hands neither destroy nor build. If 
 the near future is to witness the overthrow 
 of ancient institutions, the destruction will 
 be the work of cyclonic forces. If a new age 
 shall behold a Christian civilization shaped 
 out of the mass of present conditions, it will 
 largely be the work of consecrated power 
 and dedicated genius. 
 
 7^ 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IS CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 PRACTICAL? 
 
 Is human society capable of being Chris- 
 tianized? Can the leopard change his spots? 
 Is there an angel of Christian civilization 
 hidden beneath the unpromising exterior of 
 the social life of man, or is the material too 
 gross to be refined by the lofty idealism of 
 the Man of Gahlee? Does the Christian j-e- 
 ligion offer salvation to the individual only? 
 Is the relation of man to man essentially too 
 complicated to be solved by the simphcity 
 and beauty of the gospel precepts? 
 
 That there have been true Christians in 
 the world since the days that Jesus walked 
 the earth is beyond question, people who 
 have reproduced within their limitations the 
 life of the Master. Among those who have 
 written their names in Christlike characters 
 on the honor roll of the centuries are apostles 
 like Paul, monks Hke John of Damascus, 
 
 73 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 kings like Alfred the Great, statesmen like 
 Gladstone, soldiers like Robert E. Lee and 
 General O. O. Howard, preachers like Phil- 
 lips Brooks, and a countless host of men and 
 women unknown to fame whose hearts 
 burned within them as they walked with 
 Christ life's pilgrim way. Such are our real 
 superiors, for whom earth owes heaven its 
 boundless gratitude. 
 
 "We thank Thee for each mighty one 
 Through whom the living hght hath shone; 
 And for each humble soul and sweet 
 That lights to heaven our wandering feet."^ 
 
 Christ has succeeded marvelously with 
 the individual. "Jesus never failed but once 
 with the individual," said the author of 
 Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush; "that was 
 with Pilate. He never succeeded in pubhc 
 but once; that was when he was crucified." 
 The individual with whom Jesus has suc- 
 ceeded has not been primarily a product of 
 his social environment. Some have hved at 
 war with their age hke Savonarola and 
 
 ^ Richard Watson Gilder in The Methodist Hymnal. By 
 permission of The Methodist Book Concern. 
 
 74 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 Wesley; others have detached themselves 
 from society and lived in monasteries, like 
 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux; all have been 
 conspicuous, their very goodness shining in 
 gleaming contrast to the dingy social ideals 
 amid which they passed their days. 
 
 The twentieth century is an ethical im- 
 provement on that in which the first disciples 
 were as sheep among wolves. But the man 
 who went down to Jericho was not the last 
 person to fall among thieves. The brigands 
 who beat and robbed him were more primi- 
 tive in their methods, but not different in 
 their principles from the modern profiteer. 
 The prodigal son was not the last social 
 parasite. The manner of his life in the "far 
 country" is reproduced in thousands of use- 
 less lives to-day; and uselessness is among 
 the worst of social crimes. Class hatred and 
 special privilege are as unchristian to-day as 
 when the Great Teacher flung his terrific 
 denunciations into the faces of the astonished 
 scribes and Pharisees. If present-day society 
 were to be transformed overnight into a 
 Christian civihzation, it would be so unlike 
 anything we have experienced that it would 
 75 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 be like living in a new world in company 
 with a new order of humanity. 
 
 The following elementary tests may rea- 
 sonably be applied as conditions governing a 
 possible Christian civilization. Human so- 
 ciety is Christian: 
 
 (a) Where the interrelation of social 
 units, as states or nations, is of reciprocal 
 helpfulness. 
 
 (b) Where the attitude of the social unit 
 — the controlling powers of the state — to the 
 individual is that of impartial justice and 
 opportunity. 
 
 (c) Where the majority of individuals 
 composing the social unit maintain brotherly 
 relations one with another. Society func- 
 tioning under these conditions would be the 
 widest possible departure from any known 
 social standard. Such society would pre- 
 suppose, for one thing, international Chris- 
 tianity, a real brotherhood of nations. From 
 the viewpoint of known social standards 
 nothing could be more revolutionary. The 
 relation of man to man would be radically 
 altered. But Christianity as the law of so- 
 ciety has never been enacted in the Parlia- 
 
 76 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 merit of Man, never seriously considered in 
 the Federation of the world. A city wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness is an experiment 
 which has never yet succeeded on earth. The 
 geography of the New Jerusalem is of a 
 paradise which is yet to materialize. 
 
 The Christian rehgion is a simphfying 
 process. It reorganizes individual character 
 around two simple, uncompromising mo- 
 tives: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart . . . , and thy neighbor as 
 thyself." But the practical application of 
 the simphcity of Christ's teachings to a 
 problem as intricate as is modern society is 
 fraught with perplexing difficulties. We 
 live in a network of human relationships. 
 Each man is many kinds of men; he is a 
 father, a son, a citizen, a buyer, a seller, a 
 competitor, a producer, a consumer. Is it 
 possible to Christianize all of these relation- 
 ships? Can government be at once efficient 
 and Christian? Can business be both Chris- 
 tian and practical? Is the gospel of the 
 Nazarene antagonistic to the law of self- 
 preservation? What are the statistics of the 
 strange paradox, "He that loseth his life 
 •T7 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 shall find it"? The task of Christianizing 
 society lies not so much in its human diffi- 
 culty as in its practicability. The question 
 is not, "Is it hard to do?" but "Can it be 
 done?" If its difficulty were the sole ob- 
 stacle, the task of Christianizing society 
 would be relatively simple. The challenge 
 of the difficult is one which appeals to daunt- 
 less human nature. If it is a mountain 
 range, human skill will tunnel under it. If 
 it is an ocean of wind and wave, man's in- 
 genuity and daring plow through or sail 
 over it. If it is the undiscovered poles of the 
 earth, the very dangers lure adventurous 
 spirits to the white stillness of those far 
 frozen zones. If it is a cause dear to his 
 heart, man marches unflinching through fire 
 and blood to attain it. If the Christianizing 
 of society is solely a difficulty, be it ever so 
 great, the day will dawn on earth when so- 
 ciety will acknowledge the right of the Hero 
 of the Gospels to say: "Ye call me Lord and 
 Master, and ye say well, for so I am." 
 
 It is on the sole assumption that the Chris- 
 tian regeneration of society is a difficulty 
 rather than an impossibihty that the subject 
 
 78 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 merits any discussion whatever. If it is an 
 impossibility, the question had best be closed, 
 and the champions of the Christian religion 
 be content to see individual Christian char- 
 acters growing in the world but not of the 
 world, hke lovely flowers blooming in drear 
 places. If the transforming power of the 
 Christian religion is limited to the conversion 
 of the individual here and there, monasticism 
 is the most logical means to the end. But if 
 a Christian civihzation is a possibility, such 
 hypothesis is a standing challenge to every 
 Christian, be its consummation ever so 
 remote and its achievement ever so difii- 
 cult. 
 
 A possible Christian civilization must rest 
 upon certain indispensable principles, the 
 omission of any one of which precludes the 
 possibility of insuring its achievement. 
 The amenability of humanity as society to 
 the social principles of Jesus is a primary 
 condition to its social rebirth. The achieve- 
 ment is unthinkable unless the interrelation- 
 ship of man with his fellow man can be 
 controlled by the spirit of Jesus Christ. In 
 his De Civitate Dei, Saint Augustine says: 
 79 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 "Two loves have built two cities : love of self, 
 or the egotism that issues in blindness and 
 contempt of God, built the earthly city ; the 
 love of God and the ideal urged to the point 
 of self-sacrifice raised the celestial city . . . 
 The two societies are respectively that of the 
 idealist and altruist and that of the egotists." 
 These two fundamentally different ideals of 
 society, under varying forms, have competed 
 throughout history for the possession of the 
 world, and though the competition still goes 
 forward, the later city has apparently ever 
 been the stronger. Plato speaks as the voice 
 of human experience in all ages when he 
 declares that "the ideal city is nowhere on 
 earth." 
 
 "The egotism that issues in blindness," 
 which has built "the earthly city," is the same 
 spirit which has raised barriers of hatred and 
 jealousy between nations. The more en- 
 lightened nations may indignantly disavow 
 the unscrupulous statecraft of Machiavelh, 
 but the international policy of each state is 
 in principle Machiavellian. "Our father- 
 land must be defended by glory or by 
 shame," he asserted. "When her safety is 
 80 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 at stake there must be no consideration of 
 injustice, of pity or of mercy, of shame or of 
 honor ; we must put aside all else and follow 
 whatever course may conduce to her life and 
 freedom." This is a genuine expression of 
 conventional patriotism. But by no dexter- 
 ity of New Testament exegesis can Machia- 
 vellian statesmanship be squared with the 
 teaching of Jesus. Such is not rendering to 
 Csesar the things that are Caesar's, but the 
 selling of soul and body to Csesar. Can it be 
 questioned that the foreign pohcies of the 
 nations of the world to-day are more Machia- 
 vellian than Christian? M. D. Petrie, in the 
 Hibbert Journal (April, 1920) , discusses the 
 question in unequivocal language: "Can 
 any one seriously maintain that the counsels 
 of Christian perfection could be adopted as 
 state maxims? Greece and Rome had their 
 War Gods as well as their War Lords; 
 Christianity knows none such. The great 
 law of disinterestedness, of self-abandon- 
 ment, of life for others — can it find a place 
 in sound politics? Oould the gospel be used 
 as a manual of statecraft? Could any 
 statesman allow himself the luxury of loving 
 81 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 a rival state as his own?'" These are consid- 
 erations which cannot be evaded on the plea 
 of national self preservation. Until the 
 gospel is used as a manual of statecraft, 
 until Christianity is allowed to assume the 
 political and social responsibility as well as 
 the spiritual responsibility of man, a Chris- 
 tian civilization is a misnomer. 
 
 The eyes of optimism see the silver lining 
 to the political storm clouds hovering over 
 the world. Aristotle said that man was a 
 "political animal." Some observers note in- 
 creasing signs that this "political animal" is 
 becoming dissatisfied with the political sit- 
 uation which he has created. It is apparent 
 that, despite the political and social bedlam 
 of the modern world, despite its jealousies 
 and rivalries, the peoples of the earth are 
 tiring of the old social order. What they are 
 anticipating may be nothing more tangible 
 than some vague theory of economic better- 
 ment or political equity. But signs are not 
 wanting that the heart of humanity is for- 
 saking its old idols of pohtical rivalries and 
 social tyrannies. There is an unmistakable 
 
 * By permission of The Hibbert Journal. 
 82 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 world-weariness which is indicative of a 
 prevalent desire for a more idealistic form 
 of social life. If — and there seems to be rea- 
 son for such hope — "the city of self or ego- 
 tism" is losing its hold on mankind, the time 
 may not be remote when the "political ani- 
 mal" will welcome international Christianity, 
 not as a new and wider political alliance, but 
 as a super-state ideal, a kingdom of God on 
 earth, a mandate of humanity. 
 
 The realization of a Christian civilization 
 is conditioned upon divine authority in addi- 
 tion to human susceptibility. If Jesus did 
 not intend that society should be Christian- 
 ized, there is small likelihood of Christianity 
 ever becoming the realized ideal of a civihza- 
 tion. Human achievements do not transcend 
 divine purposes. The unbiased student of 
 Christian ethics cannot but see that Jesus 
 longed for a perfect social order to be estab- 
 lished on earth. What other meaning can 
 possibly be attached to the petition: "Thy 
 kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as 
 it is in heaven"? Jesus did not formulate 
 methods to accomplish this end — methods 
 change with changing conditions — but his 
 83 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATIOlSr 
 
 purpose is unmistakable. The world was 
 loathsome with corruption; he wanted it 
 purified, so he told his disciples that they 
 were to be "the salt of the earth." The 
 world was in darkness; he yearned for its 
 illumination, so he taught his followers to be 
 "the light of the world." Society was with- 
 out moral guidance; so he impressed upon 
 his converts their moral opportunity, saying 
 "A city set on the hill cannot be hid." He 
 regarded all mankind as the potential sub- 
 jects of his kingdom, so he sent his disciples 
 as his ambassadors to the Gentile world, with 
 the command: "Go ye into all the world, 
 and make disciples of all nations." Any 
 scheme of Christianity which does not con- 
 template the Christianizing of society is a 
 partial understanding and an abortive carry- 
 ing out of the program of Jesus. The con- 
 version of society into a Christian civilization 
 has the unmistakable authority of the teach- 
 ings and purpose of Jesus. At the begin- 
 ning of his ministry Jesus announced that he 
 came not to bring peace into the world but 
 a sword. Whenever that sword flashed it 
 struck some social sin of his times — extor- 
 
 84 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 tionate taxation, "burdens grievous to be 
 borne," the tyranny of caste in religion. 
 When we feel his indignation kindling to the 
 white heat of wrath, it is in his denunciation 
 of the "whited sepulchers" whose sins were 
 the crimes of social injustice, the Pharisees 
 who tithed "mint and rue and ail manner of 
 herbs, and omitted judgment," the lawyers 
 who took away "the key of knowledge," the 
 fools who made clean the "outside of the 
 cup," but withheld alms from the deserving 
 poor. It is not to be supposed that Jesus's 
 arraignment of the scribes and Pharisees is 
 limited to the men to whom he spoke, or that 
 the system of which they were the products 
 is one of isolated and exceptional wicked- 
 ness. Christ's denunciation of the sins of his 
 contemporaries is his condemnation of wrong 
 human relationships in every age. It is his 
 official order for a general offensive for all 
 times against all fronts where social sins are 
 entrenched. The Son of man was the relent- 
 less enemy of all institutions built on "man's 
 inhumanity to man." Christianity, if it be 
 loyal to its Founder, can never sheathe the 
 sword until all social wrongs are slain. 
 85 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 The destructive mission of Jesus was pre- 
 liminary to his constructive work. He 
 destroyed in order that he might fulfill. His 
 constructive program was to build humanity 
 into a social order which he could approve 
 and call his own. His ideal of society he set 
 forth in the phrase, "The kingdom of God." 
 This ideal was not a remote, unearthly city 
 gleaming in some "fair dawn beyond the gate 
 of death." It was an institution to be set up 
 on the earth. Though conceived in heaven, 
 it was to be established on earth. Its inspira- 
 tion was spiritual but its structure was to be 
 necessarily political. It was to be eternal in 
 quality but of a temporal benefit to man. 
 The best qualified interpreters of Jesus's 
 teachings so understood the meaning of 
 the "kingdom of God." The redemption 
 of the world into a better social order is 
 expressed by Peter's phrase "a kingdom 
 of priests," by Saint John's majestic 
 figure of "a new heaven and a new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness," by the 
 stately language of Athanasius, "a holy 
 season lasting the whole year round, a 
 temple confined only to the hmits of the 
 86 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 habitable world, a priesthood coextensive 
 with the human race." 
 
 A further condition in the Christianizing 
 of society is the hypothetical virility of the 
 Christian religion. Is the Christian religion 
 powerful enough to shape human society 
 into a civilization distinctively Christian? Its 
 progress is equitable enough, its laws just 
 enough, its precepts idealistic enough, its 
 divine authority is sufficiently emphatic if 
 carried out to build an ideal social organiza- 
 tion out of human material. But is the ideal 
 which was born amid the hills of Galilee 
 strong enough to master human nature? 
 Can the Pierced Hand rule this world? Can 
 the Voice that blessed, also command and be 
 obeyed? Is Christianity as virile as it is 
 holy? The Herald of Asia, a secular Tokyo 
 paper, which is regarded as the semiofficial 
 organ of the Mikado's government, has ex- 
 pressed its disappointment at Japanese 
 Christianity. "For the first twenty or thirty 
 years," this journal says, "Christianity was 
 highly respected though not formally wel- 
 comed. . . . The new faith is losing its grip 
 on the national mind. It is too spineless to 
 87 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 command the attention of a virile people like 
 the Japanese." This editorial merits consid- 
 eration in that it reflects the official attitude 
 of the most aggressive nation of the Orient 
 toward our faith. If it is true that our re- 
 ligion is "too spineless" to challenge the 
 interest of the people in the land of Nippon, 
 there is scant hope of its commanding the 
 allegiance of any people. From the view- 
 point of Christ the religious situation in 
 America is but little more encouraging than 
 the alleged status of Japanese Christianity. 
 Approximately, one-half of the people of 
 the United States are either members of or 
 are affiliated with the church. If these fifty 
 million Americans were in truth Christians, 
 the kingdom of God would be established 
 on the western hemisphere within twelve 
 months. But the preponderance of these 
 church people are not Christians; numbers 
 of them bear not the slightest resemblance to 
 the Man of Galilee. Light passing through 
 an opaque medium glows dimly, and the 
 hght of the cross shining through our hu- 
 manity is all but dissipated. The truth can- 
 not be evaded that Christianity as the major- 
 88 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 ity of church members live it is too ineffec- 
 tual to shape society into any real semblance 
 of a Christian civihzation. No influence is 
 more impotent than half-hearted rehgious 
 faith. The Christian rehgion is powerful 
 only when it is the supreme motive in the hf e 
 of its adherents. When it occupies a subor- 
 dinate place it is a weak and futile thing. 
 Unless its disciples seek first "the kingdom 
 of God and his righteousness," the faith 
 which they profess makes little impression 
 on the non-professing. The Nazarene im- 
 poses a stern disciphne upon all who would 
 follow him. The conventional Christianity 
 of the church which requires of the commu- 
 nicants only donations and attendance upon 
 worship is a pale pretense of obeying the 
 words of Jesus : "If any man will come after 
 me, let him deny himself, and take up his 
 cross, and follow me." A disciple of Jesus 
 cannot wield the power of the cross until 
 he has first felt the weight of the cross. Not 
 until the first converts left their boats and 
 nets were they commissioned as fishers of 
 men. Not until Simon Peter bowed before 
 the supremacy of the person of Christ was he 
 89 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 intrusted with the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven. Not until the disciples had sur- 
 rendered their dreams of a place in an earthly 
 kingdom and asked for the last time the 
 question: "Lord, wilt thou at this time 
 restore the kingdom of Israel?" did they 
 hear Christ saying to them, "All power is 
 given unto you in heaven and on earth." 
 Not until the fiery pupil of Gamahel had 
 surrendered to the Vision of the Damascus 
 road, asking "What wilt thou have me do?" 
 was he sent for as a chosen vessel to the 
 Gentile world. 
 
 There is not one "spineless" element in 
 the teachings, the discipline, or the nature of 
 the Founder of our faith. Men who have 
 been most thoroughly captivated by Jesus 
 have impressed the world by the reckless 
 heroism of their lives. Others "took knowl- 
 edge of them that they had been with Jesus." 
 Christianity was not supine in the days when 
 a few Jewish peasants defied the hostility of 
 their countrymen who sat in the seats of the 
 mighty. Christianity was something more 
 than a harmless superstition when the sands 
 of the Roman arenas drank the blood of 
 90 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 martyrs, and the funeral flames of burning 
 Christians were the weird torches which 
 hghted Nero's festival gardens. Christian- 
 ity was not an inert sentiment when official 
 Rome capitulated before the heralds of the 
 cross. Christianity was most formidable in 
 the days when it suffered the severest per- 
 secutions. When rehgion is most positive it 
 creates passionate devotion or meets with 
 fierce opposition. When it is negative it is 
 tolerated or ignored. The phenomenal 
 growth of early Christianity was mainly due 
 to three causes: (a) The zeal of the early 
 disciples, {h) their singleness of purpose, 
 (c) the conscious need of the world for spir- 
 itual reality. This zeal was born of devotion 
 to the person of Christ ; the program was to 
 win converts from the pagan religions; the 
 readiness of the people to receive the gospel 
 arose from their lack of any other satisfac- 
 tory scheme for the present hfe or any 
 promise of life in the world to come. 
 
 If Christianity succeeds in accomphshing 
 the hitherto unaccomplished task of perme- 
 ating society, its champions will be zealots as 
 well as interpreters. The Christianity that 
 91 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 wins the modern world must of necessity be 
 an impassioned religious crusade. Not as 
 an eclectic philosophy, or as a tolerated in- 
 stitution of respectable society can "the faith 
 once delivered to the saints" fulfill its mis- 
 sion in changing the life of mankind. A pas- 
 sionless faith is an impotent faith. If 
 Christianity in modern times permeates the 
 life of the people, it must first be revitalized. 
 Modern Christianity needs to feel the glow 
 of an inner flame to make itself felt. Only 
 one motive is capable of supplying the 
 needed inspiration — a renewal of devotion to 
 the Christ who is the same to-day, yesterday, 
 and forever. This is the sole authoritative 
 motive of Christian inspiration. In this 
 sense the Christianity of to-day needs to imi- 
 tate the Christianity of the first century. 
 Christianity as our age knows it will inevit- 
 ably fail, be it ever so well organized, unless 
 its ardor is constantly fed by the presence of 
 Him who says to men in all ages who are 
 wiUing to listen to him: "Lo, I am with you 
 always." The gospel has no power to in- 
 spire save in the realism of the eternal Christ. 
 Early Christianity was a proselyting 
 92 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 faith. Its activity was chiefly expressed in 
 winning recruits from the pagan world. The 
 program of the early church was almost ex- 
 clusively individuahstic, that is, to persuade 
 a person to forsake the altars of pagan 
 deities, acknowledge the divinity. Saviour- 
 hood and Lordship of Jesus, and accept the 
 rite of baptism. Groups of these converts 
 became Christian churches. The churches, 
 when first organized, had no thought of at- 
 tempting to reconstruct the Roman empire 
 into a Christian civilization. An ideal social 
 order was contrary both to their expectation 
 and their desire. Their aim was not to make 
 the world a better place in which to live, but 
 to make men better by detaching them from 
 the world. Primitive Christianity was not 
 primarily a social gospel. First-century 
 Christianity lived in an age when a slave 
 was the chattel of his owner, but the litera- 
 ture of the early church contains no aboKtion 
 sentiments. On the contrary, we hear Paul 
 urging slaves to be in subjection to their 
 masters. This indifference to or acceptance 
 of social evils was largely due to the feeling 
 among the early Christians that the end of 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 the world was near, and that there was httle 
 need of trying to mend a machine which 
 would soon fall to pieces. 
 
 The task of Christianity in our times, 
 though not essentially different from the 
 task of first-century Christianity, is vastly 
 more difficult and comprehensive. The 
 dominant nations of the world to-day are 
 nominally Christian nations. In the most 
 enlightened sections of the modern world 
 theoretical Christianity is the religion of the 
 most influential people. The church experi- 
 ences little difficulty in adding to its mem- 
 bership ; but the great mission of Christian- 
 ity to-day is not primarily that of increasing 
 the membership of the church. Social regen- 
 eration is the essential need of the times. It 
 is certain that human life will continue on 
 this planet for innumerable years to come. 
 The end of man's tenure of earth is too re- 
 mote to be imagined. Few seriously believe 
 that it is the divine plan to consume the 
 earth and its inhabitants in a sudden spectac- 
 ular conflagration. "The individual withers, 
 but the race is more and more." As Chris- 
 tianity is meant to include the entire area of 
 
 94j 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 human life, it is obviously within its program 
 to improve all human relations, to recon- 
 struct humanity into a better society than 
 we know. An interpretation of the rehgion 
 of Christ which has no social applications is 
 an incomplete interpretation. Christianity 
 will not have finished its work on earth until 
 human society has been rebuilt on the prin- 
 ciples of Jesus, until the Golden Rule is sub- 
 stituted for the rule of gold, and the Golden 
 Age succeeds the age of gold. The task 
 which challenges Christianity to-day is that 
 of making society distinctively Christian 
 as it has made multitudes of individuals 
 Christlike. 
 
 The widespread and ceaseless social tur- 
 moil of our times is a confession in confused 
 tongues by our humanity that society as the 
 world has always known it has been weighed 
 in the balance and found wanting. True, 
 many old demons have been exorcised from 
 society, but their expulsion has too often 
 left the house empty. Christian social ideals 
 must replace these exorcised evils, lest the 
 demons, returning with their strength re- 
 cruited, take full possession of the house and 
 
 95 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 thus make the social hfe of modern times 
 seven fold more demoniacal than before. 
 The modern world presents Christianity 
 with mighty difficulties, and therefore with 
 great opportunities. 
 
 Human life is suffering from a deep- 
 seated and malignant disease, and there is no 
 other Name under heaven whereby it can be 
 saved. Jesus Christ is the only hope for our 
 distracted world. Personal piety is not 
 rooted in social iniquity. It is Christianity 
 which demands the kingdom of God in this 
 world. It is Christianity which must make 
 men feel that there is no difference in the 
 highwayman outside the pale of the law and 
 the robber within the law. It is Christianity 
 which can make men realize that their rela- 
 tion to their fellow men is an obhgation, 
 rather than an opportunity for exploitation. 
 It is Christianity which can make men see 
 that idleness is parasitism, and that para- 
 sitism is shameless dishonesty. It is Chris- 
 tianity which can make men know that no 
 work is of worth which does not contribute 
 to the sum-total of human good. Christian- 
 ity, and Christianity only, can build out 
 
 96 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 of the jungle of hate, greed, and coarse 
 indulgence a city of refined taste, a city 
 of brotherly love, a city of ethical beauty, 
 the City of God. At the beginning of 
 the World War there were cynical stylists 
 who informed the race that Christianity had 
 collapsed and the church would hereafter 
 have merely a museum interest to the man 
 of to-day. Subsequent events have empha- 
 sized the truth of Oscar Wilde's definition of 
 the cynic: "A man who knows the price of 
 everything and the worth of nothing." Since 
 the day of Pentecost the church, by its 
 abounding energy and ever-widening scope 
 of activity, has been defeating hostile criti- 
 cism, silencing prophets of pessimism, and 
 vindicating the wisdom of the just Gamaliel: 
 "Refrain from these men, and let them 
 alone: for if this counsel or this work be of 
 men, it will come to nought : But if it be of 
 God, ye cannot overthrow it." The death- 
 less vitality of the Christian religion demon- 
 strates that "the mystery of godliness" is the 
 survival of the fittest in all ages. Twentieth- 
 century civilization, though displaying much 
 confused thinking, distorted morality, nause- 
 97 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 ous cant, and vulgar greed, is feeling the 
 effect of powerful forces working for right- 
 eousness. The joint missionary campaign 
 recently inaugurated by the two branches 
 of Episcopal Methodism in America was 
 one of the most far-reaching and significant 
 movements in Christian history. The Cente- 
 nary Movement, with its splendid audacity, 
 demanding of church members the consecra- 
 tion of wealth and life, was a declaration by 
 militant Methodism that the security of the 
 homeland lies not in socialized Christianity 
 but in Christianized society, that the camp 
 fires of foreign missions which have been 
 bravely burning against the night skies of 
 paganism for more than one hundred years 
 shall be replenished and multiplied until 
 every tongue has confessed and every knee 
 bowed to the absolute supremacy of Jesus 
 Christ. Inspired by the same lofty motives, 
 other churches are waging vigorous warfare 
 against social evils and building up the 
 waste places at home and abroad. The New 
 Era movement in the Presbyterian Church, 
 the educational and missionary movements 
 in the Baptist denomination, the fine zeal for 
 
 98 
 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 service shown by organizations like the 
 Brotherhood of Saint Andrew in the Epis- 
 copal Communion mean that the Church of 
 God is seeing with clearer eyes the vision of 
 its opportunities and is seriously feehng the 
 weight of its world-wide obligation. While 
 such enterprises have necessarily moved 
 along the lines of denominational activity, 
 the spirit of good fellowship and helpfulness 
 has waxed stronger among Protestant 
 churches. Whatever criticism, merited or 
 unmerited, of the machinery of the lapsed 
 Interchurch Movement, the motive of this 
 effort was a sincere desire for Christian 
 unity, a worthy motive which will express it- 
 self again and again until denominational 
 jealousies shall be as remotely unthinkable 
 as the burning of witches and the thumb- 
 screws of the Spanish Inquisition. The hope 
 of the race is in the triumph of righteousness, 
 the triumph of righteousness is in the 
 strength of the church, the strength of the 
 church is the abiding presence of Him in 
 whose companionship we feel our hearts 
 strangely warmed. 
 
 99 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHRISTIANITY THE WAY OF 
 PROGRESS 
 
 Progress is a condition of life. As such, 
 it is as essential as it is desirable. Ours is 
 a progressive age. "Forward !" is the watch- 
 word. We live in advanced times; all who 
 would not be stragglers must keep step with 
 the onward movements. The world demands 
 that men keep abreast of the times. Let the 
 devil take the hindermost! Useless hinder- 
 most ! The way our fathers lived is too slow 
 to suit their children. To-day has scant 
 respect for yesterday. We are an enter- 
 prising, inventive, efficient people. Behold 
 the works of our hands and brains ! We have 
 made of electricity a servant as Prospero did 
 of Ariel. It hghts us, warms us, rides us, 
 cooks for us, prints for us, executes criminals 
 for us. A thousand mechanical devices per- 
 form the work rapidly and accurately which 
 brawn and muscle once did slowly and 
 crudely. When our forefathers settled on 
 100 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 this continent, the process of demand and 
 supply was the simple one of getting what 
 they needed from the soil and the forest. 
 With the vast increase of population the 
 problem became exceedingly complicated; 
 but it has been solved by the system of mod- 
 ern commerce. The size, intricacy, com- 
 plexity, and efficiency of the modern com- 
 mercial machine is a marvel. A person may 
 dine on the products of the sea which he has 
 never seen, eat the bread from fields which 
 he has never tilled, and sell goods which he 
 has never possessed. 
 
 We have systematized and applied the 
 knowledge with which science has furnished 
 us. Biology, chemistry, physics, geology, 
 medicine have made our world more intel- 
 ligible, human Hfe safer and more comfort- 
 able, enabled men to walk the earth less by 
 faith and more by sight, banished many ills 
 to which the human flesh is heir, and robbed 
 the grave of many a premature and unfair 
 victory. In short, the road from the 
 cradle to the grave has been graded, lighted, 
 smoothed, and made easier than the rough 
 way our fathers trod. Ours is a progressive 
 101 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 age. Who can question it? Sociology too 
 has won its laurels in helping humanity. So- 
 cial science has healed many gaping wounds 
 in the body of society. Hospitals, asylums 
 reformatories no longer permit the unfor- 
 tunate to die by the roadside or the maniac 
 to scream among the tombs. Despite a 
 World War through which we have recently 
 passed, we flatter ourselves that the conduct 
 of the twentieth-century individual is on a 
 higher ethical plane than that of the man of 
 a generation or two ago. Reforms have 
 moved forward on a wide front. A number 
 of iniquitous customs have been outlawed. 
 The saloon is a memory. Social respectabil- 
 ity has driven vice into the byways and dark 
 alleys. An aroused public conscience is lift- 
 ing the misplaced burdens from the shoulders 
 of little children. Enlightened public opin- 
 ion demands compulsory education, and 
 rightfully takes from irresponsible parents 
 the power to keep their offspring in ignor- 
 ance. Judged by statistics and financial re- 
 ports, the race is making wonderful ethical 
 strides. We are an enlightened, competent, 
 forward-looking people, and we are vastly 
 log 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 pleased with our achievements. We have 
 diligently sought success in the fields of com- 
 merce and physical science, and we have 
 found it. We have moved forward with 
 amazing celerity along these lines. Our 
 achievements are all but commensurate with 
 our aspirations. Verily, we have our re- 
 ward! 
 
 Who would maintain that the material 
 equipment of our age is less desirable than 
 the rude furniture of the past? We would 
 not exchange the conveniences and comforts 
 of to-day for the inconveniences and hard- 
 ships of yesterday. We prefer the electric 
 light to the tallow dip, railway trains to the 
 stagecoach, the motor car to saddlebags, the 
 newspaper to the town-crier, paved roads to 
 the mountain trail. To utilize the resources 
 of the earth is the right and privilege of man. 
 "God giveth us all things richly to enjoy." 
 Each discovery, each invention is nature 
 yielding her secrets to those who knock at 
 her doors, and it doth not yet appear what 
 new marvel the future will reveal. Along 
 the way of things desirable our civilization 
 has traveled fast and far. 
 103 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 In certain phases of human conduct the 
 present has profited by the mistakes of the 
 past, though our ethical progress is far be- 
 hind our material advancement. The appli- 
 cation of social science to economic malad- 
 justments and vicious institutions is our 
 usual way of measuring our moral progress. 
 There is an obvious though a doubtless un- 
 conscious tendency to estimate the value of 
 ethics in terms of commercial results. The 
 measure of moral progress is no less the 
 ethical quality of the motive by which it is 
 inspired than the desirable physical results 
 achieved. Men do not gather figs of thistles. 
 The argument that prohibition is a good 
 business investment has no higher moral 
 standing than the argument that the saloon 
 is a good business investment. If a hospital 
 is built solely for the purpose of protecting 
 the healthy against disease of which the sick 
 are the foci, it is as ethical to kill the sick 
 in some painless manner as to segregate 
 them in isolated wards. If churches and 
 schools and beneficent laws have only a prac- 
 tical value, they indicate material rather than 
 ethical progress. Nevertheless, a sane op- 
 104 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 timism is justified in believing that the 
 morally imperative mood of our age is at 
 least partially responsible for good laws and 
 humane institutions. Surely, a feeling that 
 intemperance is a wrong use of life is a 
 deeper cause for a saloonless nation than 
 other considerations. Surely, wise and mer- 
 ciful legal statutes are the expression of a 
 real desire for justice and kindliness rather 
 than a demand for expediency. Surely, 
 asylums and rescue homes are born of pity 
 in the hearts of the people rather than a de- 
 mand for self -protection. If it be true that 
 genuine altruism rather than disguised self- 
 ishness is bringing to pass those things that 
 make human life cleaner, more orderly, bet- 
 ter controlled, more carefully conserved, our 
 age, though its most notable achievements 
 are material, still has much ethical accom- 
 plishment to its credit. 
 
 Progress, in modern times, though it has 
 been conspicuous in many important fields, 
 is barely perceptible in others. The advance 
 has been on an uneven front, and at some 
 points there has been no advance at all. 
 Judging by results, our age pays scant 
 105 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 homage to the culture of the soul, and re- 
 fuses to believe that religion is "the chief 
 concern of mortals here below." Many there 
 are who consider the religious life highly de- 
 sirable or even important, but not primarily 
 essential. Therein they confess their gross 
 stupidity and reveal a nature that is of the 
 earth earthy. True religion has no legitimate 
 place in the life of man unless it be the first 
 place. There is a Something in human na- 
 ture which we call "The Soul." It is this 
 Something which has driven man from the 
 jungles to civilization, and at rare intervals 
 has brought him to what Carlyle called "The 
 edge of the Infinite." When the soul's wings 
 are weakest man drops back into the muck 
 and mire of animalism. The light of re- 
 ligious faith has never been completely ex- 
 tinguished since the human race began its 
 long climb upward. Occasionally it has 
 burned fitfully, the storms have threatened 
 it, and at times it has come perilously near to 
 fading out. But in the vast temple of hu- 
 manity, built of meanness and magnificence, 
 there have always been vestal spirits who 
 kept the fire glowing on the altar. The tem- 
 106 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 pie of humanity shines in splendor, or is 
 shadowed in gloom as the light on the altar 
 of religion is bright or dim. Man is most 
 subhme when he is on a spiritual quest. The 
 paths that have been made by men who have 
 followed the gleam are the world's truest 
 highways. The essential contributions to 
 human welfare are religious contributions. 
 Isaiah, Saint John, Thomas Aquinas, Saint 
 Francis, Luther, Wesley, represent the in- 
 dispensable men of the race. 
 
 Religious progress is the essential line of 
 progress. Ibsen beheved that man's chief 
 work is his soul. The indispensable struc- 
 ture which man builds is his spiritual edifice. 
 All else is scaffolding which must fall away 
 when its usefulness is ended, a temporary 
 building which has no place in the universe 
 save as a means to an end. To reverse the 
 position of the primary and the secondary 
 is to disregard the logic of life and incur the 
 penalty of hopeless confusion. The wisest 
 of all teachers declared that it was inex- 
 cusable folly to seek material progress at the 
 expense of spiritual loss. *'What doth At 
 profit a man, if he gain the whole world 
 107 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 and lose his own soul?" It is man in an 
 irrational relation to the universe. 
 
 The failure of the sum-total of modern 
 man's achievements is his phenomenal suc- 
 cess in acquiring the world and his desultory 
 interest in his soul. Our chief work has not 
 been the soul. "At present we all instinc- 
 tively consider the work of man's hands more 
 lasting than the man himself," said William 
 Butler Yeats in a recent interview, to a rep- 
 resentative of The New York Times: "Our 
 education, our political institutions, our 
 economics, are naturally occupied with mak- 
 ing the handiwork more efficient. We want 
 to make the man a good laborer or a good 
 clerk or a good professor . . . But establish 
 that the personality itself will outhve all its 
 handiwork, even though the handiwork 
 might have been the pyramids, the main ob- 
 ject of all politics and all our economics will 
 be the perfection of the personality itself."^ 
 
 The progress of the modern world lacks 
 uniformity. It shows elements of strength 
 and elements of weakness. It has gone for- 
 ward here and retreated or marked time 
 
 ^By permission of New York Times. 
 108 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 there. Its area is irregular, its boundary 
 uneven like the map of a country. True 
 progress is uniform expansion like the 
 widening of a circle which retains its circular 
 identity. On the map of modern civilization 
 spiritual geography occupies a real but very 
 limited area. Our Gahlees and Ohvets are 
 discernible but obscure. Institutions of ma- 
 terialism have monopolized human interest. 
 Commercial acumen is a quality which finds 
 a readier market than the vision of the 
 prophet. The promise of loaves and fishes 
 receives greater consideration than the warn- 
 ing that man cannot hve by bread alone. 
 The luxury which wealth gives seems more 
 desirable than the peace which the world can- 
 not give. Had our spiritual life kept pace 
 with our material advancement, the attend- 
 ant sorrows of the war would not have 
 caused bewildered men and distracted 
 women to commit the pitiful folly of seeking 
 solace for gi*ief in the shallows of necro- 
 mancy. 
 
 The popularity of the ouija board was a 
 shameless confession of our spiritual pov- 
 erty. The recent epidemic of spiritualism in 
 109 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 England and America was the distressing 
 spectacle of human nature in desperate need 
 of the support of spiritual religion, yet un- 
 equipped with religious experience — a con- 
 dition which either drives man into the 
 swamps of animal excesses or sends him into 
 a mental wilderness in quest of some will-o'- 
 the wisp of superstition. For the modern man, 
 the World War was Gethsemane without 
 the strengthening presence of the angel of 
 God. 
 
 The world of to-day is filled with commer- 
 cial giants and spiritual pigmies. "The fore- 
 going generations," wrote Emerson in words 
 that are as applicable to our times as to his, 
 "beheld God and nature face to face; we 
 through their eyes. Why should not we also 
 enjoy an original relation to the universe? 
 Why should we not have a poetry and a 
 philosophy of insight instead of traditions, 
 and religion by revelation to us and not the 
 history of theirs? Why should we grope 
 among the dry bones of its faded wardrobe?" 
 Why not, indeed ? Why not for man to-day 
 an "original relation to the universe" as well 
 as for the author of the fourth Gospel? Why 
 110 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 not for twentieth-century America a religion 
 of revelation as well as for first-century Gal- 
 ilee ? Why not for the seeker of truth to-day 
 an experience as vivid and compelHng as 
 that which befell the man of Tarsus? God 
 does not confine himself to one group, nor 
 limit his activities to one historical epoch. 
 The elect of God are those who elect to seek 
 God if haply they may find him. The chosen 
 people have always been those people whose 
 first choice was God. Pentecosts are for 
 those who anywhere and at any time are will- 
 ing to wait until power is given them from 
 on high. What a luminous era our age 
 might have been, if, as the heirs of all the 
 ages, our chief pursuit had been after spir- 
 itual riches. Had we been true to our 
 spiritual heritage we would know more to- 
 day of the meaning of God in Christ than 
 the disciples who followed him in the days of 
 his flesh. It was our privilege to have known 
 the meaning of his words, "Greater works 
 than these shall you do, because I go to my 
 Father." What signals might have been 
 flashing from the Jerusalem which is above ! 
 What profound openings into the mystery 
 111 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 of life and death might have been vouch- 
 safed us! What transfigurations we might 
 have beheld! Our human pilgrimage in- 
 stead of being so much of the j ourney a Via 
 Dolorosa might have been an Emmaus way, 
 where our hearts burned within us through 
 the consciousness of the mystic presence 
 which hallows the universe. If we had given 
 the consideration to the kingdom within 
 which we have bestowed upon the kingdom 
 without, even in these far-off days the heart 
 of man could say: 
 
 "But warm, sweet, tender, even jet 
 A present help is He, 
 And faith hath yet its Olivet, 
 And love its Galilee. 
 
 *'The healing of the seamless dress 
 Is by our beds of pain; 
 We touch Him in life's throng and press, 
 And we are whole again." 
 
 Christianity, social or individual, demands 
 symmetrical development. The gospel of the 
 Galilaean issues orders to advance simulta- 
 neously on all fronts. By this test, our 
 boasted modern civilization, though not anti- 
 Christian, is at best sub-Christian, a civiliza- 
 112 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 tion whose material achievements are out of 
 all proportion to its spiritual development. 
 While medical science has traveled far be- 
 yond Hippocrates and Galen; while astron- 
 omy has widened the skies of Gahleo; while 
 the statutory laws have banished many social 
 evils ; while chemistry and physics have made 
 the lore of Middle Ages appear as crude 
 guesses, the twentieth-century preacher is 
 still the pupil of the first-century apostle. 
 ISTo subsequent treatise on Christian theology 
 is in any degree comparable in spiritual ap- 
 preciation to the Pauline Epistles. Saint 
 Paul has no successor of equal magnitude. A 
 handful of Jews are the spiritual teachers of 
 twenty centuries. After the passing of two 
 thousand years the best that Christian the- 
 ology has done is to try to explain what the 
 first disciples thought of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 Historically this was to be expected but not 
 experientially. A fact may be located in 
 time but the experiences, implications, and 
 applications of the fact are timeless. A 
 historic revelation of God does not postulate 
 a Deity whose principal interest and activity 
 are in the past. The Holy Spirit is dynamic, 
 113 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 not static. A continuous and progressive 
 revelation is for those who have eyes to see 
 and wills to know. 
 
 Dr. Tyrrell, in his very suggestive book 
 Christianity at the Cross-Roads/ argues that 
 "we forget that every new comfort is a new 
 necessity, a new source of discontent and un- 
 happiness, and leaves the relative proportion 
 of happiness and misery unaffected." Ex- 
 pelled at one place, the tide of sorrow breaks 
 through in another; eoopellas furca tamen 
 usque recurret. Shall progress ever wipe 
 away the tears from all eyes? Can it ever 
 extinguish love, heal pride, tame ambition, 
 and all their attendant woes? It is not 
 enough to give a man bread for his body and 
 knowledge for his mind. Prolong life as we 
 may, can progress conquer death? And 
 even given the attainment of its facile 
 dreams, can progress postpone the day when 
 mankind shall be blotted off the face of the 
 universe that will go its way as if he had 
 never been? 
 
 What justification is there for progress 
 which is merely utilitarian? If progress 
 
 1 Longmans, Green & Co., Publishers. 
 114 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 means the increase of humanitarianism and 
 the growth of science, at best it serves but as 
 the palhative of a human sorrow which it 
 cannot diminish. When hmited to the sphere 
 of the practical, progress is the great illusion 
 of human life. The soul of man cries out for 
 the bread of life, and a practical progress 
 feeds him the stones of physical achieve- 
 ments. Christianity is the only complete 
 definition of progress. True progress is 
 Christian growth. Our civilization is in the 
 testing. It has but to continue in the way in 
 which it is going to become diminishingly 
 Christian. To become increasingly Chris- 
 tian a radical change of course is obligatory. 
 We must be born again! It is imperative 
 that we transfer our energies from the ma- 
 terial to the spiritual side of life and em- 
 phasize those things which we have too long 
 neglected and leave to a subordinate place 
 those interests which have monopolized our 
 attention. The world has been too much 
 with us. If during the next decade man 
 could be persuaded to spend less time in 
 physical laboratories and more time in the 
 contemplation of the hidden beauties of na- 
 115 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 ture, less time with the crowds and more with 
 himself, less time with machinery and more 
 time under the stars, less time in physical 
 equipment and more in the culture of the 
 soul, less time with the world and more time 
 with God, less time in the courts of Mammon 
 and more at the feet of the Great Teacher, 
 less time in manual dexterity and more in 
 prayer, then indeed would we have a record 
 of progress of which the modern world 
 might justly boast. We have experimented 
 with everything except Christianity. We 
 have exhibited every ideal save the Christian 
 ideal. We have obeyed every master save 
 the Master of right living. The time is at 
 hand when we must heed him, or forfeit our 
 spiritual birthright. Then: 
 
 "Hushed be the noise and strife of the schools. 
 Volume and pamphlet, sermon and speech. 
 The lips of the wise and the prattle of fools — 
 Let the Son of Man teach ! 
 
 "Who has the key to the future but He ? 
 Who can unravel the knots in the skein? 
 We have groaned and have travailed and sought 
 to be free. 
 We have travailed in vain. 
 
 116 
 
THE WAY OF PROGRESS 
 
 "Bewildered, dejected and prone to despair, 
 To Him as at first we turn and beseech : 
 Our ears are all open ! Give heed to our prayer ! 
 Oh, Son of Man, teach !"i 
 
 1 "The School of Christ," by William F. McDowell. By 
 permission of the Fleming H. Revell Publishing Company. 
 
 in 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DIVIlSrE RIGHT OF 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 The term "Christian civilization" has 
 not been employed in this discussion as a 
 synonym of a perfect state of society, but an 
 expression of a condition of society which as 
 a whole is more largely controlled by Chris- 
 tian ideals than by other influences. As 
 such, a Christian civilization would be the su- 
 preme achievement of humanity. Should 
 the twentieth century become Christian to 
 the same degree that the Jews under the 
 judges sought to obey Jehovah's will, or that 
 the age of Pericles was artistic, or the era of 
 the Csesars imperialistic, the accomplish- 
 ment would be man's utmost triumph. It 
 would eclipse the most glorious periods in all 
 the annals of the peoples of the earth. The 
 twentieth century as a Christian civilization 
 would be the Golden Age of history. 
 
 Under the scepter of the Christian civili- 
 118 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 zation people's habits would be altered and 
 their attitude towards life reversed. Indus- 
 trial warfare would be impossible, pubHc 
 officials would regard their oath of office as 
 sacramental, profiteering would be un- 
 known, pubHc amusement would be free of 
 vulgarity, the ethics of the business world 
 would not permit of exploitation by unrea- 
 sonable profits, people would seek to learn 
 the will of heaven more than the decalogue 
 of mode, the non-churchman and the nominal 
 churchman would be regarded as suspicious 
 characters. What a strange, new world this 
 would be ! Most of us would fit awkwardly 
 into it, as the man in the parable who went to 
 the wedding supper without a wedding gar- 
 ment. The Christianity of our, age is little 
 more than a thin veneer, crude human nature 
 covered with the varnish of Christian tradi- 
 tions. 
 
 And yet a Christian civilization is by no 
 means inconceivable. Why should it be un- 
 workable? Jesus dreamed of such a racial 
 achievement when He spoke of drawing all 
 men unto himself. Why should it be thought 
 a thing impossible that one age might be- 
 119 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 come as peculiarly Christian as others have 
 been literary, or scientific, or commercial. 
 Why may not the spiritual in man predomi- 
 nate as the intellectual, political, or decora- 
 tive has done? In individuals the spiritual 
 has frequently been uppermost, why not in 
 groups? There is as much potential divinity 
 in humanity as there are other elements. 
 
 By what means can a possible Christian 
 civilization be brought to pass? It will not' 
 arrive suddenly, nor be ushered in by some 
 unusual or spectacular display of supernat- 
 ural power. Jesus taught that the growth of 
 his kingdom would be gradual, almost im- 
 perceptible, hke that of vegetation: "First 
 the seed, then the ear, then the full corn in 
 the ear." When the people demanded of 
 him a sign from heaven. He refused the re- 
 quest and answered with a rebuke. "A 
 wicked and adulterous generation seeketh 
 after a sign. . . . No sign shall be given 
 you." Men are not made better by being 
 spectators of the marvelous. Many who 
 witnessed the miracles of Jesus were not re- 
 deemed. Thousands ate the bread which he 
 miraculously supplied, and then went back 
 120 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 and walked no more with him. Nicodemus 
 was impressed, but not converted. Others 
 who could not deny what they saw said that 
 Jesus was in league with Beelzebub. When 
 a sorcerer saw Peter performing miracles of 
 healing, the necromancer was not redeemed, 
 but evinced a keen interest in the apostle's 
 gifts from a commercial motive. In the 
 parable of Dives and Lazarus, the Master 
 declared that the miraculous was of little 
 value as a convincing argument, that even a 
 phenomenon as startling as a man risen from 
 the dead would not alter the stubborn will of 
 man. Men are not redeemed by witness- 
 ing inexphcable phenomena. Regeneration 
 means other than the gratifying of stimulated 
 curiosity. Herbert Spencer said that ideas 
 do not govern or overthrow the world, but 
 that "The world is governed or overthrown 
 by feelings to which ideas serve only as 
 guides." This is a literal contradiction of 
 his own logic; the guide is obviously more 
 responsible for the consequences than the 
 impulse which demands guidance. With a 
 deeper insight Emerson wrote, "The key to 
 every man is his thought." Quinet stated 
 121 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 that his chief object in writing his Genie des 
 Religions was to show "how entirely each of 
 the civilizations was the offspring of a re- 
 ligious dogma." "If you wish to alter the 
 destiny of a people," declared Pere Felix, a 
 great French preacher, "y^^ have only to 
 alter its ideas." As a man thinketh in his 
 heart so is he ! If our age is to see the birth 
 of a Christian civilization, it will be the reign 
 of certain ideas. Christian education is the 
 sine qua non of a Christian civilization. But 
 ideas which rule master while they educate. 
 A compelling force inspires as well as in- 
 structs. 
 
 Is there an existing institution capable of 
 both instruction and inspiration? Truth re- 
 quires an objective agent. What will be the 
 agent of a possible Christian civihzation? 
 In the past great men have been the agents 
 of truth. God is cautious; he shares his 
 secrets with those who value them. God 
 introduces himself to the race through the 
 medium of great personalities. When truth 
 takes possession of a group an institution is 
 born. The institution carries out the ideas 
 transmitted to it through the individual. 
 122 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 The record of an institution is, as Lamartine 
 said of history, "Neither more nor less than 
 biography on a large scale." It may right- 
 fully be said that God delegates institutions 
 to work out the plans which he has given to 
 the race through exceptional persons. If a 
 Christian civihzation is to be, its agent will 
 be an institution. 
 
 What institution is quahfied for the task 
 of Christianizing the modern world? Is 
 there in the world to-day a single institution 
 carrying with it sufficient force, authority, 
 and historical significance to be the builder 
 of a civilization ruled by the ideas of Jesus 
 Christ? In his introduction to the French 
 Revolution Carlyle pauses to pay his tribute 
 of respect and reverence to the church: "Ob- 
 serve that of man's whole terrestrial posses- 
 sions and attainments, unspeakably the 
 noblest are his symbols, divine or divine- 
 seeming, under which he marches and fights 
 with victorious assurance in the life battle; 
 what we call his Reahzed Ideals. Of which 
 reahzed Ideals, omitting the rest, consider 
 only these two: his church or spiritual Guid- 
 ance; his kingship, or temporal one. The 
 123 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 church ! What a word was there ; richer than 
 Golconda and the treasures of the world! 
 In the heart of the remotest mountains rises 
 the little kirk; the Dead all slumbering 
 round it, under their white memorial stones, 
 in hope of a happy resurrection : — dull wert 
 thou, O Reader, if never in any hour — say 
 of moaning midnight, when such a kirk hung 
 spectral in the sky, and Being was as if swal- 
 lowed up of Darkness — it spake to the 
 things unspeakable, that went to thy soul's 
 soul. Strong was he that had a church, what 
 we call a church : he stood thereby though in 
 the center of Immensities, in the conflux of 
 eternities, yet noble toward God and man; 
 the vague, shoreless universe had become for 
 him a firm city, and dwelling which he knew. 
 Well might men prize their Credo, and raise 
 stateliest temples for it, and reverenced 
 Hierarchies, and give the tithe of their sub- 
 stance; it is worth living for and dying for." 
 The church is the officially appointed and 
 divinely ordained commissioner of the Chris- 
 tian religion. In the sixteenth chapter of 
 Saint Matthew is the record not of pontifi- 
 cal spiritual authority bestowed upon a per- 
 ish 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 son, but of the church's divine commission: 
 "He saith unto them, But whom say ye that 
 I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, 
 Thou art the Christ the Son of the hving 
 God. And Jesus answered and said unto 
 him. Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona; for 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, 
 but my Father which is in heaven. And I 
 say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon 
 this rock I will build my church; and the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 The historical significance of the Christian 
 Church is tremendously impressive. Its 
 historical origin is as definite as it is majes- 
 tic; it begins with God manifesting himself 
 in a historical character, Jesus of Nazereth. 
 "For unto you is born this day in the city of 
 David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord." 
 The church was born of a union of heaven 
 with earth at a given date, and in a geo- 
 graphical place. By contact with earth and 
 time, its origin is rescued from the mists of 
 the indefinite. It is not the fruit of great 
 men's thought and dreams like Buddhism. 
 Its conception is divine; its founder said, "I 
 and the Father are one." The church is his- 
 125 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 torically qualified as the maker of Christian 
 civilization. 
 
 The broad inclusiveness of the church 
 makes its possible membership coextensive 
 with humanity. Its Founder was a Jew, but 
 the church knows no racial limits. Its birth- 
 place was amid the Palestinian hills, but the 
 church transcends all national and geo- 
 graphical boundaries. Its temples lift their 
 spires under all skies ; its faith is confessed in 
 every tongue. Its birthday is in the first 
 century, but its anniversaries are without 
 end. The scope of its discipleship is un- 
 limited. What other institution has a pro- 
 gram as broad and as inspiring as the com- 
 mission: "Go ye into all the world and make 
 disciples of all nations . . . "? Jesus Christ 
 is the one universal Man, and his church the 
 one universal institution. The world is the 
 parish of the church. 
 
 The Church of Christ is as democratic as 
 it is comprehensive. The doors are open to 
 all, but each must enter through some one 
 door. There is no private entrance into the 
 church. "He that entereth not in at the 
 door, the same is a thief and a robber." "I 
 126 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 am the door." Over each door leading into 
 the church is the invisible inscription: "There 
 is no other name under heaven whereby we 
 must be saved." 
 
 The vitahty of the church springs from a 
 source of perpetual life. The church is not 
 a memorial to Jesus Christ. A memorial 
 perpetuates the memory of the dead. The 
 church is not a monument sacred to the 
 memory of a dead Christ. Membership in 
 the church is not an expression for a grave 
 "in a lone Syrian town," but allegiance to a 
 living person, "One Jesus, whom Paul af- 
 firmed to be ahve." The church is not a 
 society existing merely for the purpose of 
 learning what a great Teacher once said, but 
 a school for learning what that Teacher is 
 saying to-day. It is not an organization 
 formed around an abstract idea, but an or- 
 ganism fed from living ideas. The motive 
 for its achievements is not conquest for the 
 pride of conquest, but devotion to a Person. 
 All results are the fruits of its personal in- 
 spiration: "Lovest thou me? . . . Feed my 
 sheep." 
 
 The church has a unique place in history 
 127 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 as the peculiar creation of Jesus. It is the 
 sole institution for which he is directly re- 
 sponsible. He rendered to Cgesar the things 
 that were Caesar's, but he is not the creator 
 of the state. He talked with and listened to 
 the doctors, but schools existed long before 
 his day. He sanctified marriage and blessed 
 the home, but he is not the founder of the 
 home. The church is uniquely and exclu- 
 sively Christian in its origin. In the beauti- 
 ful metaphor "The Bride of Christ," Paul 
 expresses Christ's exclusive proprietorship 
 of the church. It is the only institution to 
 which Christ applied the possessive pronoun. 
 He declared, "I will build my church." The 
 church is nonexistent unless it is exclusively 
 Christian. The most convincing evidence of 
 Jesus Christ to the world is the church. 
 When Jesus departed from the world 
 he left orders to build a Christian civilization 
 on this earth, and the sole agency which he 
 left to accomplish this end was the church. 
 "I will build my church, and the gates of 
 hell shall not prevail against it." If the 
 sublime temple of a Christian civilization 
 ever adorns the earth, the church will be its 
 128 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 architect and builder. Doubtless there are 
 genuine Christians outside the pale of the 
 mihtant church, persons who through en- 
 vironment, training, temperament, or acci- 
 dent are not communicants of Christian 
 bodies but who are earnestly following out 
 the words of Jesus, "Ye shall know the truth, 
 and the truth shall make you free." But un- 
 less there are more churchmen who are 
 Christians than there are Christians who are 
 nonchurchmen, the church is in an embar- 
 rassing defensive position. Nor is the 
 churchless Christian more justified in hold- 
 ing aloof from the church than is the Chris- 
 tian churchman in assuming sole proprietor- 
 ship of all Christian truth and goodness. 
 Logically, the terms "Christian" and 
 "churchman" should not have essentially dif- 
 ferent meanings. To believe in Christianity 
 and not believe in the church is similar to 
 believing in good citizenship without a gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 If the church fulfills its mission in Chris- 
 tianizing human society, it must needs em- 
 phasize the essentials of its commission, and 
 throw away the incumbrances with which the 
 129 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 errors and blindness of men have loaded it. 
 It must gird on the whole armor of faith and 
 lay aside every weight that impedes it. A 
 catalogue of the positive and negative needs 
 of the church would be an immeasurable list. 
 But there are some changes in the church 
 which are compelling and immediate. For 
 once and all the church must cast aside the 
 worldly measurements of success. Jesus con- 
 stantly taught that the standards of success 
 in his kingdom were not those of the world. 
 Whenever the church has forgotten these 
 things it has invariably suffered as a spiritual 
 power. 
 
 The restoration of the church to its ancient 
 dignity is of utmost necessity. The church 
 is not a mendicant supported by almsgiving. 
 Communicants should be made to feel that 
 their financial support of the church is the 
 sanest investment that they can possibly 
 make. The rightful dignity of the church is 
 likewise lowered when it becomes a syco- 
 phant, begging for members. The church 
 should open its doors to all who willingly ac- 
 cept the conditions of membership, but it 
 should cease to be a beggar for recruits. 
 130 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 Sycophancy is never so repugnant as when 
 wearing the robes of rehgion. Jesus invited 
 men to follow him, but he never bowed to 
 any man in order to make a disciple. There 
 was one who voluntarily offered to follow 
 him whithersoever he would go, but Jesus 
 deliberately scared him away with a gloomy 
 picture. Jesus knocks at the doors of human 
 hearts, but he never forces himself within. 
 Men should not be permitted to think that 
 they are bestowing an honor on the church 
 when they take its vows. Church member- 
 ship is a privilege conferred, not a favor 
 granted. "We have exchanged," said Bishop 
 Henry C. Potter, "the Washingtonian dig- 
 nity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which 
 was in truth only another name for the Jeffer- 
 sonian vulgarity.'" A similar criticism may 
 justly be made of some churches. We have 
 exchanged cathedral dignity for clubhouse 
 informality, which is only another name for 
 irreverence. Men are not impressed by a 
 religion whose institutions are unimpressive. 
 
 ^From an address at Washington Centennial Service in 
 Saint Paul's Chapel, New York, April 30, 1889. By permis- 
 sion of Little, Brown & Company. 
 
 131 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 A revival of religion in the world would be 
 promoted by a revival of reverence in the 
 church. Reverence is the rightful attitude 
 of the human towards the divine. 
 
 Between the church and the world a dis- 
 tinct line needs to be drawn. Until society 
 is Christian the position of the church in the 
 world is, "The church of God in Corinth," 
 and not the Corinthian church. This line 
 must not be obliterated by the church taking 
 on the color of the world as the salamander 
 assumes the color of the object on which it 
 rests, but only as society tends to grow more 
 Christlike. Jesus told his disciples that they 
 were different. "They are not of the world, 
 as I am not of the world." This is not an 
 unpractical attitude. James wrote his epistle 
 to serve as a practical guide to conduct, but 
 he is careful to define religion as a duty to 
 the fatherless and widows, and a strict obli- 
 gation of keeping oneself "unspotted from 
 the world." The church has lost more influ- 
 ence from its laxity than from its blue laws. 
 Men respect and reverence an ideal which 
 demands self-abnegation. "What do ye 
 more than others?" is a question which the 
 1S2 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 membership of the church cannot hghtly ig- 
 nore. "What Christianity," wrote the great 
 German preacher Christheb, "in her antag- 
 onism with every form of unbehef most 
 needs is holy living." Holy living within 
 the church will go further toward purifying 
 the social life of the world than all legislative 
 reforms enacted in the parliaments of men. 
 The regeneration of the church will be the 
 cleansing of the foundation which will purify 
 all the streams of human society. 
 
 "O, for a living faith in a living Re- 
 deemer!" cried Richard Fuller. The church 
 in our day is not a house "left desolate," it is 
 an unhappy house in which can be heard the 
 suppressed cries : "O, for the recovery of a 
 lost Hope ! O, for a bright gleam of a fading 
 Faith! O, for a renewed acquaintance with 
 the forgotten Christ !" The most compelHng 
 need of the modern church is a return to the 
 apostolic faith in Christ and the recovery of 
 a lost vision for the realities of the unseen 
 world. Who can question the truth of Dr. 
 Lyman Abbott's statement that "The hope 
 of the church is a return to the mystical faith 
 of Paul in the invisible world of the spirit, 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 and the passionate devotion of Paul for the 
 unseen Christ." Historical research has ac- 
 knowledged the unique place of Jesus of 
 Nazareth in the annals of the race, art has 
 portrayed the Son of Mary as the "fairest 
 among ten thousand and the One altogether 
 lovely" ; ethics has bowed to the Man of Gal- 
 ilee as the wisest teacher of morals ; the wis- 
 dom of the world has theoretically recog- 
 nized his supremacy and said, "Never man 
 spake as this Man"; the science of human 
 relationships admits the beneficent influence 
 of the Nazarene upon political and economic 
 institutions; idealism concedes to the Man 
 of Sorrows the first place on the roll of he- 
 roes and martyrs; but the Christ of to-day 
 is One who is seen against the background 
 of the past or known impersonally by the 
 proxy of his influence upon our civilization. 
 Scientific research and philosophical spec- 
 ulation have been unable to dethrone Jesus. 
 Intellectual pride has admitted his unique 
 relation to God and confessed: "Surely this 
 man was the Son of God." Doctrinal falh- 
 bility is not the sin of the church. On the 
 whole, Christian theology is in intellectual 
 134 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 accord v/ith Peter's confession at Caesarea 
 Philippi: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the living God!" Altars to strange gods 
 have rarely been set up by ecclesiastical 
 Christianity. Intellectual loyalty to the Son 
 of God has been the sheet-anchor of the 
 church in the days when science was deifying 
 physical laws. The faith of our fathers has 
 been little affected by cults which have 
 grown up about imaginary divinities. 
 Count Zinzendorf, when a lad of ten years, 
 listening to a learned discussion at his grand- 
 father's table on first causes, cried: "Even if 
 they do discover other gods, I am for Herr 
 Jesus." The church has tenaciously held to 
 this attitude when science has sneered and 
 philosophy questioned. But the intellectual 
 assent to Christian doctrine cannot meet the 
 necessity of mystic communion with a Divine 
 Companion. The immediate and compelhng 
 obligation of the church to our age is ex- 
 pressed by Dr. Joseph Fort Newton in a 
 luminous sentence in his volume. The Eter- 
 nal Christ: "Here is the message of the 
 church — to make the Eternal Christ real 
 and eloquent to men — and by the sign it will 
 135 
 
THE UNTRIED CIVILIZATION 
 
 conquer.'" More than all besides the church 
 in the twentieth century needs an experience 
 which will enable it to say, "And Christ 
 stood in the midst." 
 
 Lord Jesus, if in these far-oif days, 
 Thou art standing in our midst and our 
 eyes are holden that we see thee not, lift 
 the darkness from about us, that we may 
 behold thee in the beauty of thy holiness 
 and in the holiness of thy beauty 1 Ours 
 is the Emmaus way of twilight faith in 
 which we walk sorrowfully alone; join 
 thyself to us, that our hearts may bum 
 within us in the way ! We are very poor 
 because the many things which fill our 
 days leave so little room for the one 
 thing needful; help us to clear our lives 
 of rubbish and fill them with riches which 
 wax not old ! Teach us that the Pearl of 
 Great Price is obtained by the surrender 
 of many goodly pearls ! We have learned 
 much about the world in which we live, 
 but our souls are ill at ease ; and now we 
 would learn of thee! Far and long we 
 have gone in search of the knowledge 
 which enriches the mind and leaves the 
 heart hungry; teach us more of Thee! 
 
 *By permission of The Fleming H. Revell Publishing 
 Company. 
 
 136 
 
DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH 
 
 Thou art the Way ; show us the way lest 
 we stumble and fall! Thou art the 
 Truth; reveal thyself to us, lest in our 
 blindness we follow after error! Thou 
 art the life; restore to us the Easter 
 gladness of thy Living Presence ! Thy 
 kingdom come, thy will be done on earth 
 as it is in heaven ! Amen ! 
 
 187 
 
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