X: 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
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 Sheli'Al-Ls 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS 
 
 1 
 
 BENNETT LECTURES FOR 1895 
 
 Su&s 
 
 BOSTON: 
 MASSACHUSETTS NEW-CHURCH UNION 
 
 1S95 
 
•AiLs 
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 By Mass. New-Church Union. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following chapters were originally in the form 
 of lectures delivered in Boston early in the year 1895. 
 With the exception of the first — which forms the 
 Introduction and has been greatly abbreviated in 
 order to avoid needless repetitions — they are here 
 printed substantially as they were delivered. Pecu- 
 niary means for procuring and publishing them were 
 afforded by a bequest of the late Mrs. Eleanor Ben- 
 nett, an esteemed member of the Boston Society of 
 the New Jerusalem, who left to the society a perpet- 
 ual fund, the annual interest of which must be " de- 
 voted and expended for such books, publications, and 
 for such other purposes as the trustees to be ap- 
 pointed by said society shall from time to time see 
 fit to direct in the promulgation of the doctrines of 
 the Swedenborgian, or New Church, so called. " 
 
 It was thought by those having charge of this 
 fund that no better use could be made of the income 
 for the time being than to provide for a course of 
 lectures, with the purpose of setting forth the teach- 
 ing of the New Church on a few topics of living in- 
 terest. In pursuance of this plan, certain subjects 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 were selected, and writers invited to prepare papers 
 upon them. No other object was considered, in the 
 choice of topics, than the answering of questions on 
 which light was really needed. In the choice of 
 lecturers also, the only thought was to ensure honest 
 and dispassionate treatment, without personal bias or 
 prejudice. The one request made of each was that 
 he would make a thorough study of his subject, and 
 of the doctrines of the New Church in relation there- 
 to. The lectures, as delivered, gave much satisfac- 
 tion. It remains to be seen how far their influence 
 will be extended by means of the printed volume. 
 
 J. R. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Introduction. James Reed, i 
 
 Theosophy and Religion. Frank Sewall. ... 13 
 
 The Right and Exercise of Ownership. Julian 
 
 K. Smyth 63 
 
 The Divine Law of Use and its Application 
 
 to Industrial Problems. Albert Mason. . 94 
 
 The Relation of the Church to the State 
 
 and to Secular Affairs. Samuel S. Seward. 118 
 
 Pauperism and Crime. Theodore F. Wright. . . 148 
 
 Natural and Spiritual Health. James Reed. . 174 
 
LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 James Reed 
 
 It is a trite remark that we are living in a new age 
 of the world, in which the lives and thoughts of men 
 are undergoing a remarkable change. This statement 
 is one which no man would think of denying. It is 
 universally understood that during the nineteenth 
 century, now n earing its close, a wonderful step for- 
 ward has been taken in the march of human progress. 
 The civilization of today is not that of a hundred 
 years ago. Conditions which were then unknown, are 
 now deemed indispensable to human happiness. To 
 dwell upon the mechanical inventions and improve- 
 ments of this age, would be the rehearsal of a thread- 
 bare subject; and yet it is a matter on which we 
 never cease to congratulate ourselves. Perhaps we 
 are a little proud of our railways and steamships, our 
 telegraphs and telephones, our power-presses, looms, 
 
2 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 sewing-machines, and all the familiar appliances pe- 
 culiar to our latter-day life ; but whether we are proud 
 or not (and a modest spirit would surely become us 
 better than a boastful one), the fact remains indispu- 
 table that the results of the past century, as illus- 
 trated in the practical arts and sciences, are some- 
 thing marvellous. Nor does any one imagine that 
 we have reached the end of them. The only ques- 
 tion which we ask one of another is, " What can be 
 coming next ? " 
 
 But it is not merely in these outward, visible things 
 that the peculiar character of the age in which we 
 live is manifested. The change is as great in men's 
 habits of thought, as it is in the circumstances of 
 their earthly lives. The air is full of new ideas ; 
 ideas which were unknown to preceding generations. 
 When in the closing period of the last century the 
 American Republic was born, and when, a few years 
 later, the terrible ordeal of the French Revolution 
 sounded the death knell of Feudalism in Europe, the 
 world began to breathe a different atmosphere, and 
 to establish new standards of judgment. Thus it was 
 that the political conditions were changed ; but the 
 new movement did not stop there. We have seen a 
 gradual enlargement of human sympathy, a growing 
 sense of the great truth that all men belong to a 
 universal brotherhood. By the improved facilities for 
 communication, the ends of the earth are brought 
 nearer together ; and whatever is of interest to one 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 nation is speedily brought to the attention of all 
 other nations. A hundred years ago, the people of 
 this country would hardly have known the fact if a war 
 had broken out between China and Japan ; but now 
 the whole civilized world watches eagerly for the de- 
 tails of the conflict, and feels that it bears no distant 
 relation to itself, and is likely to affect, in no small 
 degree, the future history of all mankind. Assem- 
 blages like the Parliament of Religions, lately held in 
 Chicago, were not only impossible, but inconceivable, 
 in the years gone by. If that notable gathering had 
 no other significance, it would be full of meaning 
 from the simple fact that men of all nations and 
 creeds came together in love and harmony under the 
 same roof, and gave free expression to the faith which 
 was in them. 
 
 When we consider all these changes, mechanical, 
 political, economical, and moral, is it possible to be- 
 lieve that the spiritual states of men will show no 
 advancement ? In other words, can we suppose that 
 their religious ideas will remain forever unaltered ? 
 Is the Christianity of the past to be the Christianity 
 of the future ? When the Lord Jesus Christ was in 
 the world did He speak the final message which 
 shall serve for the guidance of men on earth, and 
 enlighten their pathway to heaven ? or may we believe 
 that He gave promise of a further unfolding of His 
 truth when He declared, " I have yet many things to 
 say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now " ? It is 
 
4 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 the belief of those who call themselves New-Church- 
 men, that now is the time when that implied promise 
 is fulfilled, and when new truth is revealed by Him 
 out of the Holy Scriptures ; so that the heart and 
 centre of the great movement which all men recog- 
 nize, is to be a new, a purer, and a higher Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 These assertions, also, few thoughtful persons would 
 be disposed to deny. Manifestly, there is a new spirit 
 abroad among the churches. The old dogmas of the 
 last century are, to a considerable extent, practically 
 repudiated. Men cease to dwell on the wrath of 
 God, and prefer to think of His love. They give less 
 emphasis to doctrinal distinctions, and make more 
 account of a good life. They are ceasing to magnify 
 the differences between the various divisions of the 
 Christian Church, and dwell with greater satisfaction 
 on the points of agreement. Each denomination goes 
 on in its accustomed way, cherishing certain things 
 which are precious to itself, but with less rigor and 
 less of the spirit of condemnation for others ; believ- 
 ing, at least in some measure, that the great Christian 
 brotherhood is of far more consequence than any 
 single portion of it. 
 
 This changed state of affairs was substantially pre- 
 dicted in a series of books which was given to the 
 world more than a hundred years ago. Their author 
 was Emanuel Swedenborg, than whom no writer of 
 modern times has been more completely misunder- 
 
INTR OB UC TION, ej 
 
 stood and misinterpreted. He was almost alone in his 
 work, having but few in his own day to sympathize 
 with him. Most of the books referred to were pub- 
 lished anonymously. He neither desired nor claimed 
 credit to himself for the truth that was in them. 
 They were sent out into the world to be judged on 
 their own merits, and not on the ground of any per- 
 sonal authority possessed by the writer. To him it 
 was made clear that the elements of a great change 
 were beginning to work in the minds of men. The 
 former things, he said, would pass away ; a new age 
 was commencing. New spiritual influences were put- 
 ting forth their power. A fresh impulse had been 
 given to human thought, which would thenceforth 
 be guided in new directions. The prophecies of the 
 New Testament were receiving their fulfilment. 
 Slowly indeed, would they be fully verified ; but their 
 final accomplishment would be sure and irresistible. 
 If one were to seek for a description of the present 
 age and of the possibilities which loom up before us, 
 he could nowhere find a more perfect one than is 
 foreshadowed in the writings of this man, who has 
 been so poorly understood and so grossly misrepre- 
 sented. 
 
 It is impossible in any brief statement to convey 
 an adequate idea of the character and extent of Swe- 
 denborg's teachings. Suffice it to say that they have 
 a bearing on every subject of human thought, and 
 shed their influence over every duty and relation of 
 
6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 human life. They contain a philosophy which unites 
 the profoundest wisdom concerning God, with the 
 simplest every-day experiences of man ; which un- 
 folds the order and method of creation ; which makes 
 clear the purposes of the Creator, and His relations 
 with those whom He has created ; which declares the 
 structure and nature of the human mind ; which em- 
 braces heaven as well as earth, and links together the 
 life here and the life hereafter. This philosophy is 
 not hostile to religion, but furnishes the very basis 
 on which it rests. It does not discard the Sacred 
 Scriptures, but presents them as the source from 
 which all wisdom is derived ; showing them to be not 
 merely a revelation which God made once upon a 
 time, but the embodied form of Divine and Infinite 
 Truth, having immeasurable depths of meaning, and 
 intended to serve throughout all ages as the medium 
 of our Heavenly Father's presence — His voice speak- 
 ing to His children. This opening of the Scriptures, 
 with the completer knowledge which it gives of their 
 contents, is the central point in the Christian System 
 propounded by Swedenborg. All the other teachings 
 contained in his writings, are collateral and secondary 
 to this. Nor should it be forgotten that the Author 
 of the Scriptures, the Being whose Divine Spirit and 
 influence are represented as flowing through them, is 
 set before us as the one personal God, made manifest 
 in a Divinely-human nature as our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Many persons have been repelled from an exami- 
 
INTRODUCTION. y 
 
 nation of Swedenborg's writings, by the impression 
 that they are visionary and speculative in their 
 character. With all due respect to those who hold 
 this opinion, let me say that the fact is exactly the 
 reverse. Those who accept the doctrines of the New 
 Church, are led to do so because they find them al- 
 together reasonable and practical. A distinguished 
 Boston lawyer was accustomed to say that he be- 
 lieved them because they are the embodiment of 
 good sound common-sense in religion. They do not 
 make drafts on our credulity ; they do not require us 
 to accept on faith, things that are not clearly under- 
 stood ; but they appeal at every step to our rational 
 faculties, connecting themselves with undoubted facts 
 of science and philosophy. It is true that they lift 
 our thoughts above this world and make the spiritual 
 world real and living to us ; but they do not present 
 it as a subject to feed our love of the marvellous, or 
 to gratify any feverish desire for entering too famil- 
 iarly into its secrets. They rebuke, instead of favor- 
 ing, the practice (supposing it to be possible) of 
 holding direct and open intercourse with spirits. In- 
 stead of these things, they point out the fundamental 
 laws of being, showing that all nature is instinct 
 with spirit, and that the natural world receives its 
 life from the spiritual world, even as the body of 
 man receives life from his soul. They do indeed de- 
 clare to us that the spiritual world is ever present ; 
 that we ourselves are interiorly dwelling within it ; 
 
8 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 and that death is but the cessation of our connection 
 with this outer world, and an awakening to the con- 
 sciousness of spiritual and eternal realities. But these 
 are things, which, if true, must be most desirable to 
 know, and which, in their effect upon man's life, can 
 hardly fail to be intensely practical ; removing, as 
 they do, much of the mystery which has obscured his 
 future, and enlarging his field of vision, so as to give 
 new significance to his present duties. The case is 
 the same with all the teachings of the New Church 
 as viewed by those who receive them. By the higher 
 glimpses which they give of what is heavenly and 
 Divine, they impart to our earthly existence fresh 
 impulses and aspirations, which make life all the 
 more worth living. 
 
 A knowledge of the relation between the spiritual 
 and natural worlds, is an important aid in opening 
 our understanding of the Scriptures. Indeed, it 
 throws light upon every page of the inspired volume. 
 It helps us to see what inspiration is, by revealing to 
 us the source whence it proceeds. It explains the 
 manner in which every supernatural appearance re- 
 corded in the Bible has taken place. Patriarchs, 
 prophets, and apostles were able to see angels and 
 spirits through the opening of their spiritual eyes. 
 The angels who announced to the shepherds on the 
 plains of Bethlehem the glad tidings of the Saviour's 
 birth, and those who declared to the women at the 
 sepulchre, the still more glorious news of His Res- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 urrection, did not come flying down from some dis- 
 tant home in the skies, but were here all the while. 
 The only difference w T as that the eyes of the shep- 
 herds and of the women were opened to behold them. 
 A similar experience might be granted to us at this 
 very moment if there were equal occasion for it. 
 Heaven is just as near to men at the present day as 
 it was in Bible times, We cannot clearly understand 
 the life of our Lord on earth, and the experiences 
 through which He passed, without some knowledge 
 of the spiritual world as being the theatre of much 
 that happened. The devil who tempted Him, the 
 demons whom He cast out, and the angels who min- 
 istered unto Him, were all inhabitants of that world. 
 By its constant presence with ourselves, the precious 
 promises are fulfilled : " He shall give His angels 
 charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." 
 " The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them 
 that fear Him, and delivereth them." These and 
 other sayings with which the Word of God abounds, 
 become intelligible when we recognize the existence 
 of a real inner world which is always present to those 
 who dwell on earth, imparting to them in thousands 
 of unseen ways its varied influences. 
 
 It is not the purpose of these lectures to enlarge 
 upon, or even to define, any particular doctrines of 
 the New Church. They will, however, aim to impress 
 the fact that those doctrines constitute a system of 
 spiritual laws, by which all the conditions and rela- 
 
io LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 tions of human life are illuminated. One fact re- 
 garding them deserves special mention. While, as 
 has been intimated, they present to the thoughts 
 much that is new, while they penetrate more deeply 
 to the heart and origin of things, they are not de- 
 structive in their character ; they do no violence to 
 anything which past ages have rightly cherished and 
 revered. By the opening of the Scriptures, and by 
 the enlargement of the field of spiritual knowledge, 
 new light is indeed thrown upon all subjects, but with 
 full recognition of the fact that the Lord has been 
 present with His people, and has dealt with them 
 according to their need, as lovingly in the generations 
 that are past as He does now, or as He will continue 
 to do in the time to come. The truth is, man is 
 growing. He cannot always remain in the same 
 stage of his development. He cannot always be 
 governed by the same standards. But as he ascends 
 on the successive steps of his progress, he should 
 know and feel that the privileges which he enjoys 
 would have been impossible unless the way for them 
 had been prepared by the experiences of his fathers ; 
 and that all which his fathers have gained, freed from 
 its defects and errors, is his to cherish and to hold, 
 as the foundation of what is new and distinctive in 
 his own special phase of human advancement. 
 
 It would be strange if the intense mental activity 
 of this new age did not give rise to many ideas and 
 theories of a questionable character. Together with 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 II 
 
 grand and true teachings would naturally appear such 
 as are evil and erroneous. What our Lord says about 
 the danger of " false Christs and false prophets" 
 surely has its application here. Amid the claimants 
 to our favor, so numerous, so varied, and so conflict- 
 ing, it is quite impossible that all should be worthy 
 of acceptance. In these latter days theosophy raises 
 its head under new guises ; communism and social- 
 ism demand fresh consideration ; the air is full of 
 speculations regarding the causes of poverty and the 
 modes of relieving or abolishing it ; the relations be- 
 tween church and state, employers and employed, 
 capital and labor, are unceasingly agitated ; tremen- 
 dous claims are made on behalf of subtle and (so- 
 called) spiritual influences as affecting bodily health. 
 Every man is invited, yea, almost compelled, to form 
 an opinion on one or all of these and other matters 
 respecting which so many theories are advanced in 
 the name of the New Age. To the New-Church 
 believer it is of interest to know w T hat light is thrown 
 upon them by the doctrines he professes. He is 
 indeed prepared to find, as was previously intimated, 
 that those doctrines illuminate all subjects, and fur- 
 nish the needful means of distinguishing between the 
 true and the false prophets. If this supposition is 
 to any extent correct, the discussion pursued in the 
 following lectures will have interest, not merely for 
 special students, but for general readers likewise. 
 Let us, then, emphasize the fact that the problems 
 
12 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 of the age in which we live are such as can be dealt 
 with only by a new revelation of truth from on high, 
 a deeper unfolding of the genuine spirit and meaning 
 of Christianity, a fresh bringing-forth of the treas- 
 ures which lie hidden in the Word of God. Surely, 
 if the former things are to pass away, and all things 
 are really to be made new, there cannot fail to be, as 
 the central and vitalizing influence, a better knowl- 
 edge of God, and a nearer and clearer relationship 
 with Him, than previous ages have known. The 
 New Jerusalem, as seen by the apostle John, was not 
 in heaven, but was coming down from God out of 
 heaven. It therefore describes, with its beautiful im- 
 agery, what will exist in the future time upon this 
 earth. Chief among the promises, as showing the 
 source whence all other blessings will flow, is this : 
 " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He 
 will dwell with them and they shall be His people, 
 and God Himself shall be with them, their God." 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION 
 
 Frank Sewall 
 
 Canst thou by searching find out God? — Job xi. 7. 
 
 As universal as religion * is the desire of man to 
 " find out God." The nature of religion itself may- 
 be defined as the desire of man to place himself in 
 relation with a being higher than himself. The 
 knowledge sought for as the basis of such a relation, 
 assumes in the history of man three forms which 
 may be designated as : 
 
 I. Revelation and Doctrine thence derived, or The- 
 ology in the commonly accepted sense. 
 
 II. Philosophy,! or the process of rational think- 
 ing. 
 
 *" If it were possible that a human being could be without religion 
 it would be impossible to give him religion." (Froebel. Education 
 of Man.) 
 
 " The assertion that religion is entirely lacking in any tribe is based 
 on a misconception of the definition of religion. Practices implying 
 a belief in supernatural powers which may be propitiated, are found 
 in every tribe." (History of the Mental Growth of Mankind. John 
 S. Hittell. Henry Holt & Co : 1893.) 
 
 t With the Greeks Philosophy embraced Theology as its highest 
 
 13 
 
I 4 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 III. Theosophy or knowledge by immediate vision.* 
 To learn the comparative value of these methods, 
 and how they enter into the religious life of mankind 
 at the present day, is the object of the present in- 
 quiry. The second or philosophic method enters 
 practically into all methods of discovery, and while 
 it may be held theoretically by some as capable of 
 arriving by itself at a true knowledge of good, yet as 
 a matter of fact the revealed knowledge of God has 
 existed before any known system of philosophy. 
 
 domain. Aristotle defines it as the perception of ends, the knowl- 
 edge of the " First Cause," of " the First Mover," and of " the 
 Good." (Metaph. vi. ; xii.) 
 
 Plato represents Theology as the representation of the Divine 
 qualities to man in order that man may grow up to Divine ideals. 
 (Republic, 379.) 
 
 But these are all quite distinct from the Theology based upon ob- 
 jective revelation or the "knowing " of the Gospel as defined by St. 
 John in the words : " This is life eternal : that they may know Thee, 
 the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." (St. 
 John xvii. 3.) 
 
 * " Theosophy, as its derivation implies, is a term used to denote 
 those forms of philosophic and religious thought which claim a 
 special insight into the Divine nature. . . . The theosophist is most 
 at his ease when moving in the circle of the Divine essence into 
 which he seems to claim absolute insight." 
 
 " Swedenborg is usually reckoned among the theosophists, and some 
 parts of his theory justify this conclusion ; but his system as a whole 
 has little in common with those speculative constructions of the 
 Divine nature which form the essence of theosophy, as strictly un- 
 derstood." (Professor Andrew Seth, Art. Theosophy in Encycl. 
 Brittanica, 1888.) 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 r S 
 
 Our discussion will mainly treat therefore of the 
 relation of Theosophy to Revealed Religion. 
 
 It is customary with those who treat the history 
 of religion according to what is styled the scientific 
 method, as affording an example of purely natural 
 evolution, to begin with what is called the Animistic 
 stage. By Animism is meant a perception of some 
 power in natural objects, in the elements, and also in 
 idols, fetiches, and charms, which is identified with 
 personality, which causes dread and fear, which oper- 
 ates supernaturally, and which is appeased by human 
 worship, especially by sacrifices. This, it is said by 
 the evolutionists, is the first beginning of religion 
 and religious worship.* 
 
 The inference that it is so is drawn from the fact 
 that such is the religion of many existing tribes still 
 in the lowest stages of barbarism, or, according to 
 the theory, nearest the brute stage from which they 
 have emerged. The fear of the dead was, according 
 to these writers, the first sense of the supernatural, 
 and the effort to keep them quiet in their graves was 
 the first motive of worship. 
 
 But in drawing this inference as to the origin of 
 religion the fact is overlooked that the animism or 
 nature worship of these so-called " primitive men" 
 is not essentially different from that of the most ad- 
 vanced and civilized races of mankind at the time 
 
 * See Herbert Spencer's various treatises on the origin of the re- 
 ligious sentiment. 
 
1 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 when written history commences. Indeed it still 
 exists in the Shintoism of Japan — the most advanced 
 of the non-Christian nations. The truly scientific 
 method then, requires that instead of inventing a 
 prehistoric origin to suit our theory, we shall ask 
 what these races, both civilized and barbarous, who 
 are now or who within the historic period have beeii 
 in the practice of animistic worship, have to say as 
 to the orig-in of religion with them. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus (I. 94), the historian of the time 
 of Augustus, writes that : 
 
 "The Egyptians believed that their laws came 
 from Hermos ; Cretans that Minos, their law-giver, 
 obtained his laws from Zeus. The Lacedaemoni- 
 ans believed that Lycurgus obtained his from Apollo ; 
 the Aryans that Zathraustus (Zoroaster) obtained 
 his from the Good Spirit. According to the Getae, 
 Zamolxis claimed that his were from Hestia, and 
 Moses claimed to have derived his from Jao." 
 
 Both Max Miiller and the Duke of Argyle agree in 
 the statement, that " wherever we can trace back a 
 religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from 
 many blemishes that affected it in later stages." 
 
 The ancient region of Akkad — the Mesopotamian 
 Valley — was, with Egypt, the scene of the most de- 
 graded forms of Animism, that is of nature and idol 
 worship.* It was out of this land and this animistic 
 worship that Abram was called two thousand years 
 
 * " The religion of Akkad was largely that of nature worship ; 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 17 
 
 before Christ. And today in the British Museum 
 may be seen a tablet on which is written perhaps the 
 oldest religious inscription in the world, taken from 
 a temple of the patron deity of the city of Ur, upon 
 which Abram himself may have looked. It shows 
 what lofty and pure traditions still survived in the 
 midst of all the degraded nature-worship of his time. 
 The following are some lines from this inscription : 
 
 Lord, Prince of Gods of heaven and earth, whose mandate 
 
 is exalted. 
 Father, God enlightening earth. 
 Lord, Good God, of Gods the Prince. 
 
 Father mine, of life the Giver, cherishing, beholding, all ! 
 Thou thy will in heaven revealest ; Thee celestial spirits 
 
 praise ! * 
 
 Renouf, in his Hibbert Lectures (p. 103), quotes 
 an ancient Egyptian Hymn : 
 
 God is one and alone and there is no other with Him ; 
 
 when the Semites entered the land, nature worship had developed 
 into Polytheism ; the sorcerer had become priest. 
 
 " But in the higher and more gifted minds of ancient Akkad we 
 find a pure monotheism. 
 
 " In Egypt there were few traces of animal worship in the first 
 dynasties : it is rarely, if ever, referred to between the ages of Khufu 
 (the builder of the Great Pyramid) and Rameses. After the days 
 of Rameses the worship grew and developed, and serves to show the 
 degradation of the national religion." (Davis. Introd. to Book of 
 the Dead, p. 35.) 
 
 * Quoted in the introduction to the " Book of the Dead." Trans- 
 lated from Pierret, by Davis, 1894. 
 
1 8 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 God is a Spirit, a hidden Spirit, the Divine Spirit. 
 
 God is eternal. 
 
 God is the Truth : He lives by Truth : He is the king of 
 
 Truth. 
 God is Life and man lives through Him. 
 
 (Cited by Davis.) 
 
 The following is a hymn to Ra in the Egyptian 
 "Book of the Dead:"* 
 
 Hail, thou who art come as Time, who hast been creator 
 
 of all the gods ! 
 Hail, supreme among the gods : 
 Hail, thou hast slain the guilty ; thou hast destroyed Apap 
 
 (the Serpent of Darkness). 
 
 I am Turn, a Being who is One above. 
 I am Ra in His first supremacy, 
 
 I am the great God ; the self-existing ; I was yesterday, I 
 know the tomorrow. 
 
 I am Turn, the only Being in Nu : 
 I am the Sun when he rises : 
 I am the Great God creating Himself : 
 I am the Morning : I know the Gate. 
 
 (Davis's Translation. 
 
 * The " Book of the Dead " was first translated and published in 
 1842, by Lepsius, from a collection of papyri. It contains 165 chap- 
 ters, and " holds the first and principal place " says Tiele, " among 
 the sources of our knowledge of the ancient Egyptian religion. It 
 was believed to be inspired by Thoth himself. Thoth himself speaks 
 in it. It was written by his finger. Its prayers were learned by 
 heart and had been handed down from time immemorial. It depicts 
 a worship that prevailed over five thousand years ago. 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. Z g 
 
 Taking our stand then in this animistic stage of 
 the history of religion,* and reaching backward tow- 
 ard the origin of religion we find that far from trac- 
 ing its rise from a lower stage of religious feeling, it 
 points to its source in a higher ; far from deriving 
 its religious sentiment as a natural growth from ani- 
 mal instincts, it points to a great primitive source in 
 a Divine revelation ; far from building its idea of God 
 out of innumerable ghosts of the dead, it points to 
 One supreme Deity, who is good, the ruler of all, the 
 creator of all. Finally, far from starting with element- 
 ary forces, or with the natural elements, as objects 
 
 * " We find in Egypt the deified attributes of one God, together 
 with the worship of animals and of the heavenly bodies." (Davis. 
 Introd. to Book of the Dead.) 
 
 " In the light of modern research modern investigators do not find 
 it difficult to go behind the wild, gaudy, coarse, and often ridiculous 
 polytheism, which was the religion of the multitude, to the subtle and 
 often sublime monotheism which was the heart and conscience of 
 the educated classes. 
 
 " Over six thousand years ago the Egyptians came from Arabia to 
 Africa and found a race unlike themselves, and imposed a Semitic 
 dialect upon the anterior people of the lower Nile. 
 
 " While we find the lower races grovelling in the most degraded 
 form of fetich worship, we find the higher holding a creed almost 
 identical with the monotheism of Moses and of Job." (Davis. 
 Introd. to Book of the Dead, p. 40.) 
 
 " To the general public their (the Egyptians') religion was a poly- 
 theism of a multitudinous and gross character. To the intelligent, 
 the learned, the initiated, it was a system combining strict mono- 
 theism with a metaphysical speculative philosophy on the two great 
 subjects, the nature of God and the destiny of man." (Lenormant. 
 Les Premieres Civilizations.) 
 
2o LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS, 
 
 of worship, and gradually coming to the idea of a 
 Divine personality,* we find the feeling of Divine per- 
 sonality to be at the very root and spring of religion 
 always and everywhere ; and that the universal magic 
 by which to turn anything, whether light, or sky, or 
 sun, or man, or image, or stream, or bit of stone, or 
 clay, into an object of worship was to personify it — 
 to make it a person and so to liken it to God. 
 
 Thus Animism in the light not of theory but of 
 actual tradition and experience in places and in times 
 when Animism prevailed, reveals these four secrets 
 regarding the religion that was before : 
 
 I. That at some time God has revealed Himself 
 and communicated a knowledge of the Divine to 
 men. f 
 
 *"How," says Max Miiller, "do these savages when they pick up 
 a stone, pick up at the same time the concept of a supernatural 
 power, of ' spirit,' of ' a God ' ? Fetichism is not a primary form of 
 religion, nor is the fetich the object worshipped." (Miiller. Origin 
 of Religion.) 
 
 Gladstone maintains that the mythical system of the Greeks, and 
 the theology of the Iliad and Odyssey, are the corrupted form of 
 Divine Revelation imparted to man in his infancy. (See Homeric 
 Studies.) 
 
 f In the first chapter of the " Book of the Dead " we read : " It 
 has been enjoined by Ra to Thoth to make Truth the Word of 
 Osiris against his foes." In the sixty-fourth chapter : " It is written 
 by the finger of Thoth — a manifestation of Truth and Goodness. 
 There is no book like it. Man hath not spoken it, neither hath ear 
 heard it." 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 2 1 
 
 II. That God is One.* 
 
 III. That the One God, the revealer of all, and the 
 origin of all is a Person. f 
 
 IV. That the earliest religion was of a pure and 
 elevated type and that in its descent it assumed the 
 forms of a symbolism more and more gross and ex- 
 ternal. 
 
 The historical inquiry into the origin of religion 
 enables us to appreciate more fully Swedenborg's 
 
 *" Had the Egyptians any idea of one God? — in other words is 
 their religion a complex structure raised upon a recognized mono- 
 theistic foundation ? The Egyptian religious writers are held by 
 M. de Rouge to give an affirmative answer to this question. They 
 speak of one supreme being, self-existent, self-producing, the creator 
 of heaven and earth, called the double god or double being, as the 
 parent of a second manifestation. From the idea of a supreme 
 deity, at once father and mother, producing a second form, probably 
 originated a first triad, like the triads of father, mother, and son, 
 frequent in the Egyptian mythology." (Encycl. Brittanica, Art. 
 Egypt. Reginald Stuart Poole.) 
 
 " The gods of the Pantheon were manifestations of the One Being 
 in his various capacities. 
 
 " Even in the grossest period of the Egyptian religion the doctrine 
 of one God was taught. 
 
 " The * Nutar Nutra ' of Egypt exactly corresponds to the Hebrew 
 El Shaddai." (Pierret, in Introd. to Book of the Dead.) 
 
 t " The Aryan, the Semitic, the Turanian race, all had a primitive 
 religion," says Max Miiller. " The highest god, that is the Supreme, 
 received the same name in India, in Greece, in Italy, in Germany. 
 Thousands of years before Homer and the Vedas, the ancestors of 
 our Indo-European race worshipped an unseen Being under the same 
 name — the best, the highest, Light and Sky, Dyous Piter, Heaven, 
 Father, Our Father in Heaven." 
 
22 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 teaching regarding the Ancient Word existing before 
 our Bible, from which, he asserts, were taken the 
 early chapters of Genesis, or those great world-poems 
 of a Golden Age, a Flood, and an Ark — traces of 
 which are found in the sacred books of all the great 
 historic religions.* This Eden stage of mankind was 
 one of childlike innocence in which man enjoyed an 
 immediate knowledge of God and open intercourse 
 
 * " To us it seems that so far as the men of history speak at all, 
 it is in favor of a primitive race of men, not indeed equipped with all 
 the arts and appliances of our modern civilization, but substantially- 
 civilized, possessing language, thought, intelligence; conscious of a 
 Divine Being; quick to form the conception of tools, and to frame 
 them as it needed them ; early developing many of the useful and 
 elegant arts, and only sinking by degrees and under peculiar circum- 
 stances into the savage condition. 
 
 " It will scarcely be denied that the mythical traditions of almost 
 all nations place at the beginning of human history a time of happi- 
 ness and perfection, a ' golden age ' which has no features of sav- 
 agery or barbarism, but many of civilization and refinement. 
 
 " In the Zendevesta Jemshid, Yima-Khahaeta, the first Aryan king, 
 removes, with his subjects, to a secluded spot where both he and 
 they enjoy uninterrupted happiness. In this place * was neither over- 
 bearing nor mean-spiritedness, neither stupidity nor violence, neither 
 poverty nor deceit, neither puniness nor deformity, neither huge 
 teeth, nor bodies beyond the usual measure.' " (Vendidad. Far- 
 gard, II. 29.) 
 
 "The Chinese spoke of a 'first heaven,' an age of innocence 
 when 'the whole creation enjoyed a state of happiness; when every 
 thing was beautiful, every thing was good; all beings were perfect in 
 their kind.' " (Faber. Horae Mosaicae, p. 147.) 
 
 "Mexican tradition tells of the 'Golden age of Tezeuco.' " (Pres- 
 cott. Conquest of Mexico, chapter vi.) 
 
 " Peruvian history commences with two ' Children of the Sun ' 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION, 
 
 23 
 
 with heaven. This was not acquired through reason, 
 but was the result of man's being an uncorrupted 
 creature, existing in the perfect order of creation and 
 in perfect harmony with his environment, and so at- 
 tuned to the harmony of the universe that every 
 experience struck a true note and told him the truth 
 of all. To this uncorrupted Adam all nature was 
 transparent with its meaning, and that meaning was 
 heaven and God.* The Fall of man consisted in the 
 
 who established a civilized community on the borders of Lake Titi- 
 caca." (Prescott. Conquest of Peru, chap. L, p. 8.) 
 
 "The Greek Hesiod in his Works and Days (II. 109), describes 
 how ' The immortal gods that tread the courts of heaven first made 
 a golden race of mortal men,' " etc. 
 
 " Egypt and Babylonia have monuments to show which antedate 
 probably all others upon the earth's surface." 
 
 " In Egypt it is notorious that there is no indication of any early 
 period of savagery or barbarism." 
 
 "In Babylonia there is more indication of early rudeness, . . . but 
 on the other hand there are not wanting signs of an advanced state 
 of certain arts, even in its very earliest times." (Introduction to The 
 Origin of Nations, George Rawlinson, M. A., 1881.) 
 
 * " I will draw a picture of the two states of man : first of his state 
 of integrity, which was most perfect ; and then of that perverted 
 and imperfect state in which as degenerated mortals we live this 
 day. . . . 
 
 "To begin then with man in his state of integrity and complete 
 perfection. In such a man we may conceive to have existed such a 
 complete continuity throughout the parts of the system that every 
 motion proceeding with a free course from his grosser parts or prin- 
 ciples could arrive through an uninterrupted connection at his most 
 subtle substance or active principle, there being nothing in the way 
 which could cause the least obstruction. Such a man may be com- 
 
24 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 entrance of self-love and the consequent pride of 
 intelligence which put man out of this perfect har- 
 mony and wisdom, and closed this immediate vision. 
 Thenceforward man could not read the truth and 
 know God from the instinct of the will, but must 
 learn of Him through the outward way of the in- 
 tellect. 
 
 pared to the world itself, in which all things are contiguous from the 
 sun to the bottom of the atmosphere; thus the solar rays proceed 
 with an uninterrupted course, and almost instantaneously, by means 
 of the contiguity of the more subtle or grosser elements through 
 which they pass, through the ether into the air, till they arrive at 
 the eye and operate upon it, by virtue of such connection, as if they 
 were present ; for contiguity occasions the appearance of pres- 
 ence. . . . 
 
 " The man thus formed in whom all the parts conspired to receive 
 the motions of all the elements and to carry them successively, when 
 received, through a contiguous medium, to the most subtle active 
 principle, must be deemed the most perfect and the first of all men, 
 being one in whom the connection of ends and means is continuous 
 and unbroken. Such a most perfect material and acting being 
 would, in a short time, acquire by the aid of the senses alone, all the 
 philosophy and experimental science natural to him. 
 
 " But when every modification in the world, of whatever nature, 
 had thus arrived at its ultimate or at his soul, it necessarily follows 
 that his knowledge and attainments would then stop, and that he 
 would regard and venerate, with a most profound admiration, those 
 other and infinite things that exceeded the bounds of his intelli- 
 gence; that is, that most vast Infinite — infinitely intelligent, infi- 
 nitely provident — which begins where man and his finite faculties, 
 intelligence, and providence, terminate ; he would see that in this 
 Infinite all things have their being, and that from it all things have 
 their existence." (Swedenborg. Principia, Part I., chap. I.) 
 
THE SO PHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 25 
 
 The age of symbols followed, when the ancient 
 truths were preserved in symbolic forms, and when 
 all symbolic worship was instituted. At first the 
 symbol was transparent, and full of spiritual light ; 
 but gradually it became clouded and opaque, until at 
 last all the inner meaning was lost and only the 
 shadow remained. This was the stage of the ani- 
 mism, or nature worship, above described. Then fol- 
 lowed the "nomistic" stage of religion, when a Di- 
 vine religion and its monotheistic worship could only 
 be preserved by the written "Law and the Prophets,'' 
 to preserve which the Jewish or Semitic race was 
 providentially raised up. 
 
 When at length this law was becoming of " no 
 effect through their traditions," then in Jesus Christ 
 the Word was made flesh. But he came not to de- 
 stroy the written tradition, but to fulfil it ; to show 
 rather that He was Himself the essential Word or 
 Wisdom which lay concealed in the Old Testament ; 
 that what He did was "in order that the Scriptures 
 might be fulfilled," and so " beginning with Moses 
 and all the prophets, He expounded unto His disci- 
 ples, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning 
 Himself." 
 
 The wisdom lost to man since Eden was therefore 
 restored, but restored only in Him in Whom the 
 Word was fulfilled. He also gave to men the New 
 Testament containing the record of His life and 
 teachings, written by those to whom He had promised 
 
2 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 that His spirit should bring to remembrance all the 
 things He had said unto them. 
 
 Such then is the tradition of Divine knowledge 
 which is possessed by Christians in their Sacred 
 Scriptures.* 
 
 No one who studies the history of religions can 
 fail to see, however, that from that earliest revela- 
 tion or knowledge of God to which all the great his- 
 toric religions point back, there have been other 
 channels of tradition more or less imperfect besides 
 that of the Hebraic Scriptures. These other chan- 
 nels, while it is not claimed for them that they were 
 shaped by Divine dictation, as in the case of the 
 Semitic Word, and while they exhibit the freer play 
 of human imagination and genius, were nevertheless 
 instrumental in preserving among other races the 
 early knowledge of God. 
 
 Our own race which is not Semitic but Aryan, 
 was constituted for a different office in connection 
 with Divine revelation than that of the Hebrews, and 
 it was through these other channels that our ancient 
 forefathers in Asia received these earliest traditions 
 of the Golden Age and the worship of the " Heaven 
 Father." 
 
 At the beginning of his translations of the Vedic 
 Hymns, F. Max M tiller places the hymn "To the 
 Unknown God," and in his preface he gives his 
 
 * See Swedenborg. " Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture." 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 27 
 
 reason for doing so in a passage which I have quoted 
 in the note below.* 
 
 *"I have often been asked why I began my translation of the 
 Rig-Veda with the hymns addressed to the Maruts or the Storm- 
 gods. 
 
 " There are few hymns which place the original character of the 
 so-called deities to whom they are addressed in so clear a light as 
 the hymns addressed to the Maruts or Storm-gods. Storms which 
 root up the trees of the forest, lightning, thunder, and showers of 
 rain, are the background from which the Maruts in their personal 
 and dramatic character rise before our eyes. . . . After a time the 
 Storm-gods in India, like the Storm-gods in other countries, obtain 
 a kind of supremacy and are invoked by themselves as if there were 
 no other gods beside them. In most of the later native dictionaries 
 . . . Marut is given as a synonym of deva, or god in general. . . . 
 The hymns addressed to the Maruts enable us to watch the succes- 
 sive stages in the development of so-called deities more clearly than 
 in any other hymns. Whatever Zeus became afterwards, he was 
 originally conceived as Dyaus, the bright sky. . . . With regard to 
 Mar-ut, I have myself no doubt whatever that Mar-ut comes from 
 the root M AR in the sense of grinding, crushing, pounding. . . . 
 Professor Kuhn's idea that the name of the Maruts was derived from 
 the root M AR, to die, and that the Maruts were originally conceived 
 as the souls of the departed, and afterwards as ghosts, spirits, winds, 
 and. lastly as storms, derives no support from the Veda. 
 
 " In order to show, however, that the Vedic hymns, though they 
 begin with a description of the most striking phenomena of nature, 
 are by no means confined to that narrow sphere, but rise in the end 
 to the most sublime conception of a supreme Deity, I have placed one 
 hymn, that addressed to the Unknown God, at the head of my col- 
 lection. This will clear me, I hope, of the very unfair suspicion that 
 by beginning my translation of the Rig-Veda with hymns celebrating 
 the wild forces of nature only, I had wished to represent the Vedic 
 religion as nature-worship and nothing else." (F. Max Midler. In- 
 troduction to the Vedic Hymns, Part I. pp. xxiv.-xxvii. Sacred 
 Books of the East. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.) 
 
2 8 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS, 
 
 The hymn is as follows : 
 
 TO THE UNKNOWN GOD* 
 
 i. In the beginning there arose the Golden Child: as soon 
 as born he alone was lord of all that is. He established the 
 earth and this heaven : — Who is the God to whom we shall offer 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 2. He who gives breath, he who gives strength, whose com- 
 mand all the bright gods revere, whose shadow is immortality, 
 whose shadow is death : — Who is the God to whom we shall 
 offer sacrifice ? 
 
 3. He who through his might became the sole being of the 
 breathing and twinkling world, who governs all this, man and 
 beast : — Who is the God to whom we shall offer sacrifice ? 
 
 4. He through whom the awful heaven and the earth were 
 made fast, he through whom the ether was established, and the 
 firmament ; he who measured the air in the sky : — Who is the 
 God to whom we shall offer sacrifice ? 
 
 5. He to whom heaven and earth, standing forever by his 
 will, look up, trembling in their mind : he over whom the risen 
 sun shines forth : — Who is he to whom we shall offer sacrifice? 
 
 6. When the great waters went everywhere, holding the germ 
 and generating light, then there arose from them the breath of 
 the gods : — Who is the God to whom we shall offer sacrifice ? 
 
 7. He who by his might looked even over the waters which 
 held power, and generated the sacrifice, he who alone is God 
 above all gods : — Who is the God to whom we shall offer sacri- 
 fice? 
 
 8. May he not hurt us, he who is the begotten of the earth, 
 
 * Ka, Who ? 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 2 g 
 
 or he, the righteous, who begat the heaven ; he who also begat 
 the bright and mighty waters : — Who is the God to whom we 
 shall offer sacrifice ? 
 
 9. Pragapati, no other than thou embraces all these created 
 things. May that be ours which we desire when sacrificing to 
 thee : may we become lords of wealth ! * 
 
 Though, it may be, the same Ancient Word of the 
 age of the transparent symbol, the primitive revela- 
 tion was handed down, not in the form of unalterable 
 law and ritual, and by a theocracy and priesthood, 
 institutions compatible with the external, sensuous 
 mind of the Semitic race, but in the form of the great 
 mythical powers of the Hindus, the Vedas f and the 
 
 * F. Max Miiller admits that " the conception of one God which 
 pervades the whole of this hymn " affords a reason for suspecting it 
 as modern to those who think that the conception of one God fol- 
 lowed the conception of many gods as recognized in the various 
 aspects of nature, such as the gods of the sky, the sun, the storms, or 
 the fire. Nevertheless, he contends that the hymn cannot be so 
 modern, but that it existed before 1000 B. C, before the Brahmana 
 and the Mantra period. 
 
 t " It (the Veda) is, by the Indians themselves divided into two 
 grand portions — mantra and brahmana (which words we may ren- 
 der, though not literally, by 'worship' and 'theology'); and this 
 division, as is not always the case with one of native origin, is in 
 fact an essential one, separating two widely different classes of 
 writings, which stand related to one another as canonized art on the 
 one hand and canonized explication, dogmatical, exegetical, histori- 
 cal, prescriptive, on the other ; which in the main are widely removed 
 in time and represent two distinct periods of religious development, 
 and of which one is in verse and the other in prose. The latter, the 
 brahmana, is made up of various single works, which also bear the 
 
30 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 Avesta, and, later, of the Homeric poems of the 
 Greeks. 
 
 The Aryan mind, unlike the Semitic, is distinctly 
 intellectual. It is given to looking behind the sym- 
 bol to the reality within and to breaking away from 
 the bondage of fixed traditions and enjoying the 
 freedom of reason and of action. This free spirit, 
 the real " light of Asia," came down into the plains 
 of Akkad where lay the remains of Animism, as we 
 
 name of brahmana, and other kindred writings such as the Aranya- 
 kas and Upanishads. The first portion, mantra, consists of the four 
 works commonly known as Rig- Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Ath- 
 arva-Veda — the Vedas in contradistinction to the Veda. 
 
 "The general form of the Vedas is tnat of lyrical poetry. They 
 contain the songs in which the first ancestors of the Hindu people, at 
 the very dawn of their existence as a separate nation, while they were 
 still only on the threshold of the great country they were afterwards 
 to fill with their civilization, praised the gods, extolled heroic deeds, 
 and sang of other matters which kindled their poetic fervor. As in 
 point of time they are probably the most ancient existing literary 
 records of our race, so, at any rate, in the progression of literary de- 
 velopment they are, beyond dispute, the earliest we possess, the most 
 complete representation which has been preserved to modern times 
 of that primitive lyrical epoch which theory assumes as the earliest 
 in the literary history of any people. . . . No great people, surely, 
 ever presented the spectacle of a development more predominantly 
 religious ; none ever grounded its whole fabric of social and political 
 life more on a religious basis; none ever meditated more deeply and 
 exclusively on things supernatural ; none ever rose, on the one hand, 
 higher into the airy regions of a purely speculative creed, or sank, on 
 the other, deeper into degrading superstitions — the two extremes to 
 which such a tendency naturally leads." (William D wight Whitney. 
 The Vedas, in " Oriental and Linguistic Studies." New York : 1873.) 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 3 1 
 
 see it in the impressive monuments of Babylon and 
 Assyria.* But here the stream of tradition divided. 
 On the one hand toward the west arose with the 
 mighty Persian nation the beautiful religion of the 
 Parsees, founded on the teachings of Zoroaster, in 
 which we can easily discern that star in the east which 
 led the wise men to worship, when the time should 
 
 * " As the Parsis are the ruins of a people, so are their sacred 
 books the ruins of a religion. There has been no other great belief 
 in the world that has left such poor and meagre monuments of its 
 past splendor. . . . By the help of the Parsi religion and the Avesta 
 we are enabled to go back to the very heart of that most momentous 
 period in the history of religious thought, which saw the blending 
 of the Aryan mind and the Semitic, and thus opened the second 
 stage of Aryan thought." (Darmesteter. Introduction to the Zend- 
 Avesta, p. xi.) 
 
 " The key to the Avesta is not the Pahlavi, but the Veda. The 
 Avesta and the Veda are two echoes of the same voice, the influx 
 of one and the same thought ; the Vedas 5 therefore, are both the 
 best lexicon and the best commentary on the Avesta. 
 
 " The traditional school replied that relationship is not identity 
 . . . that the Vedic language and the Vedas are quite unable to 
 teach us what became in Persia of those elements which are com- 
 mon to the two systems, a thing which tradition alone can teach us. 
 
 " It cannot happen that the tradition and the Veda will really con- 
 tradict one another, if we care to ask from each only what it knows. 
 The first place belongs to tradition as it comes straight from the 
 Avesta. The Veda is not the past of the Avesta, as the Avesta is 
 the past of tradition ; the Avesta and Veda are not derived from 
 one another, but from one and the same original, diversely altered 
 in each." (p. xxviii.) 
 
 " What was the religion of the Magi which we find reflected in the 
 Avesta, and whence did it arise ? . . . 
 
 "We have tried in another book (Ormazd and Ahriman, Paris, 
 
32 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 come, at the manger in Bethlehem. The same re- 
 ceptivity toward a Divine religion revealed from 
 above, but seeking an incarnation in a Divine Hu- 
 manity, is exhibited by the Greek branch of the 
 Aryan family. The Hellenic intellect and love of 
 the beautiful as the ultimation of the Divine in the 
 outward forms, both of literature and of art, made 
 this people peculiarly fitted to be the receptacle of 
 the sacred revelation handed down unmarred but 
 
 1877), to show that the religion of the Magi is derived from the 
 same source as that of the Indian Rishis, that is from the religion 
 followed by the common forefathers of the Iramian and the Indians, 
 the Indo-Iramian religion. . . . There were in the Indo-Iramian re- 
 ligion a latent monotheism and an unconscious dualism, both of 
 which in the further development of Indian thought slowly dis- 
 appeared. . . . The God that has established the laws in nature is 
 the Heaven God. He is the greatest of gods since there is nothing 
 above him nor outside of him; he has made everything since every- 
 thing is produced or takes place in him ; he is the wisest of all gods, 
 since with his eyes, the sun, moon, and stars, he sees everything.' , 
 (See the Supreme God in the Indo-European Mythology, in the Con- 
 temporary Review, October, 1879, P- 2 &3-) 
 
 " This god was named either after his bodily nature, Varana, ' the 
 all-embracing sky,' (Oh'pavos, or Dyaus, 'the shining sky') or after 
 his spiritual attributes, Asura, ' the Lord,' Asura Visvavedas, ' the 
 all-knowing Lord,' Asura Mazaha, ' the Lord of high knowledge,' or 
 perhaps ' the Lord who bestows intelligence.' " (p. lvii.) 
 
 " In the middle of the Vedic period, Indra, the dazzling god of 
 storm, rose to supremacy in the Indian Pantheon, and outshone 
 Varuna, with the roar and splendor of his feats, but soon to give 
 way to a new and mystic king, Prayer or Brahman." Cf. The Su- 
 preme God, p. 287. (Darmesteter. Introduction to the Zend- 
 Avesta, p. lix.) 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. ^ 
 
 unopened in the casket of Jewish Scripture.* The 
 Greeks furnished the intellect, in whose understand- 
 ing of the revealed truth a new will of good might 
 be formed, and a new path opened to a knowledge of 
 the Divine, but always the path of truth revealed in 
 the Word, or in that revelation by which God, as the 
 Truth, has made Himself forever objective to man, 
 and so forever to be studied from without and from 
 above. j 
 
 But while the intellect of the race was being pre- 
 pared in the West by the splendid discipline of the 
 Greek philosophy for the ultimate reception of this 
 Word from heaven Who should come as the One 
 sent of God and born of God, there was another ten- 
 dency growing up in the East, which originating in 
 the same source — the ancient Vedic hymns of India 
 
 * " Greece supplied the intellectual factor under the new dispensa- 
 tion of Christianity, as truly as the Hebrew race supplied us with the 
 spiritual force which was to regenerate the heart and will of man. 
 And this was done for millions who knew but little but the name 
 either of Greeks or Jews." (The Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, in Arti- 
 cle, Greece and Christianity. Nineteenth Century, October, 1891.) 
 
 t " Except ye believe in this Christ ye shall die in your sins." For 
 the sin into which man's selfish nature continually leads him, can 
 never be overcome except in obedience to a truth which is not of the 
 will which sins, but which comes from above, and can command that 
 will with an authority above its own — the authority of God. The 
 corrupted will cannot lift a man up by any vision of its own. " No 
 man hath ascended up to heaven but he that first came down from 
 heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." A saving relig- 
 ion could never be developed from man but must come from above. 
 
34 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 — brought into play other mental traits of the race 
 and have led to such modifications of the sacred tradi- 
 tions as to convert them into the very antipodes of the 
 Christian religion.* This is the religion of Buddha, 
 and forms the substance of what is known popularly 
 as Occultism and Orientalism, and with some adapta- 
 tion to forms of thought and life, appears in the the- 
 osophy of the present time. 
 
 In the " Working Glossary for Theosophic Stu- 
 dents," we find this definition: "Theosophy, Divine 
 wisdom ; the wisdom of the gods obtained through 
 the gods, not however by revelation, but through in- 
 dividual aspiration and experience." 
 
 Theosophy would seem to mean, according to its 
 accepted expounders, Wisdom-religion, or the religion 
 which consists in man's possessing Divine wisdom. 
 But " Divine wisdom " means here not the wisdom 
 of One God imparted to men, but the wisdom of the 
 gods, that is, of each man in becoming a god to him- 
 self. For, according to theosophy, there is no one 
 supreme God of whom wisdom is an attribute, be- 
 
 * One of the most striking characteristics of the Hindu race has 
 been its longing after something vague, shadowy, indistinct, existing 
 not on the plane of matter ; and the mind is therefore trained to 
 look inward for that which shall make us happy. It is this ten- 
 dency that has given rise to the innumerable schools of occultism. 
 . . . You, on the other hand, have developed a stupendous momentum 
 on the plane of matter ; an immense Kinetic energy on the plane of 
 intellect. (Chakravati's Address. Theosophical Congress : Chicago. 
 
 1893-) 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 35 
 
 cause there is no one personal God,* but there is a 
 wisdom called Divine and all who attain to it are 
 gods. Theosophy means, therefore, at once a knowl- 
 edge of God and a knowledge of no God, for the 
 knowledge of God when attained is either the knowl- 
 edge in each man of himself as God and of God as 
 many and not One ; or else it means our being lost 
 in that abyss of no-knowledge which is prior to all 
 personality and all godhood, and which is called the 
 absolute and formless all.f 
 
 In its theology and cosmogony, theosophy may be 
 regarded as of Brahminic origin, while its ethics or 
 practical precepts are Buddhistic. Gautama, Buddha, 
 or the "wise one " obtained his wisdom, the Budhi, 
 from the Brahm of the Vedic hymns and teachers. 
 The Brahm or Supreme Spirit, originally in the 
 Ancient Aryan conception a Personal Deity — the 
 "Heaven Father'' — has become in the course of 
 Vedic tradition the reason or wisdom itself in the 
 abstract, then the Written Scripture containing the 
 hidden wisdom within, and at length personified 
 
 *See " A Key to Theosophy," by H. P. Blavatsky. 
 
 t " The Atma or Spirit, is something which cannot be understood 
 either by words, or by hearing, or by intellect. They alone who re- 
 sort to the spirit have the light of the spirit brought to their own 
 spirit." (A " sloka " from the Upanishads, read by Prof. G. N. 
 Chakravati of Allahabad, India. Theosophic Congress : Chicago. 
 
 1893-) 
 
36 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 again as the all-ruling Deity.* Against the system 
 of caste and exclusion which the teaching of this 
 occult wisdom of the Brahm and the performance of 
 its symbolic rites had developed, Buddha came as the 
 great protestant claiming the right to " private inter- 
 pretation " of the Aryan Bible, and declaring for the 
 abolishment of external priesthood and worship. The 
 path to the hidden wisdom was to be found in self- 
 knowledge and in self-conquest alone. External tra- 
 dition and authority were of avail no more. In this 
 extreme and fatal reaction we find that impulse which 
 led to the rejection of all historic and objective stand- 
 ards of Divine truth — the substitution of immediate 
 intuitive knowledge for supernatural revelation. f 
 
 It is not unlike that movement of the Sophists in 
 Greece, nearly contemporary with the rise of Bud- 
 dhism, which, carried away with the idea of the supe- 
 
 * See " Outlines of the History of the Ancient Religions." G. P. 
 Tiele. p. 125. 
 
 f " True theosophy is the eternal undying truth which cannot be 
 brought down to the plane of speech or intellect. It can be taught 
 on the plane of intellect, but once on the plane of intellect it ceases 
 to be spirit. In its highest essence theosophy is ineffable. 
 
 " The attempt of modern theosophy is to bring home to the minds 
 of men once more, that behind the more or less translucent roots of 
 every religion shines the glorious sun of Truth, and that spiritual 
 knowledge as spiritual inspiration is not the birthright of any partic- 
 ular part of the earth. It says to every man, In your own religion 
 if you dig deep enough you will find the truth." (Chakravati. 
 Chicago Address. 1893.) 
 
TH'EOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 37 
 
 riority of mind and of " man as the measure of all 
 things," finally proclaimed every man to be the sole 
 source of truth to himself. And very much as So- 
 crates was ranked among the Sophists, while really he 
 was the first to overthrow their error by his principle 
 of the one absolute Truth and Good over against all 
 these individual conceptions, so is Swedenborg today 
 classed by many among the theosophists, while in 
 reality he teaches that which is fundamentally op- 
 posed to theosophy, in his assertion of the authority 
 of Divine revelation and the absolute and sole Divin- 
 ity of the historic Christ. 
 
 Says Madame Blavatsky (Secret Doctrine, i., p. 28) : 
 " The period beginning with Buddha and Pythagoras 
 at one end, and finishing with the Neo-Platonists and 
 the Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in 
 history wherein converge for the last time the bright 
 rays of light streaming from the aeons of time gone 
 by, unobscured by the taint of bigotry and fanati- 
 cism." But the same striving after immediate access 
 to the Divine which led Philo Judaeus and the Alex- 
 andrian school of Bible interpreters * to seek an inner 
 Divine meaning beneath the letter, and later led the 
 Alchemists to explore nature for the hidden sources 
 of life and the astrologers to read a human lesson in 
 the stars, led also to the abuses of these motives, in 
 
 *See " Stanley's History of the Jewish Church," Chapter on Alex- 
 andria. Also Chapter on Jewish- Alexandrian Philosophy in Ueber- 
 weg's " History of Philosophy." i., p. 222. 
 
38 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 the sorcery and the black arts. In the Cabala of the 
 Jews, consisting of the two works, the Jezirah (crea- 
 tion), and the Zohar (brightness), written probably 
 between 800 and 1300 A. D., although ascribed by 
 tradition to a very ancient origin,* ancient Jewish 
 doctrines were modified by the influence of Greek 
 conceptions, especially by the Alexandrians and the 
 Neo-Platonists. The chief doctrine of the Cabala 
 was that of Jehovah creating the world by Divine 
 emanations and the employment of semi-Divine or 
 theurgic agencies intermediate between Himself and 
 the world. In like manner Paracelsus and Jacob 
 Boehme made a mystic study of man as interpreted 
 by the Christian revelation, and the French Saint 
 Simon and the English William Law taught a refined 
 and spiritual doctrine of the inner life and its wisdom 
 which may preeminently claim the title of Christian 
 theosophy. In all these movements, whether of 
 Greek Neo-Platonism, medieval Mysticism, or mod- 
 ern Quietism, we see an effort in relation to the 
 Christian Revelation very analogous to that of Bud- 
 dha of old in relation to Brahm. Literal tradition 
 and formal priesthood had produced but a sensual 
 blindness and stagnation. The sources must be 
 struck again if a new formation of life was to be 
 opened. The outward was to be cast aside, and ac- 
 cess to the inner wisdom attained by man directly. 
 
 * See Ueberweg. i., 417. 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 39 
 
 This was to be had either by direct vision in a state 
 of ecstasy, or by recovering the lost knowledges of 
 the hidden powers of nature handed down in secret 
 traditions of the past, and with these knowledges 
 the very mystic powers themselves of transforming, 
 of healing, if not, indeed, of creating. 
 
 It was not, however, until in the present century, 
 through the English occupation of India, whereby 
 the secret recesses of the ancient religion of the east 
 have been thrown open to the curious eyes of western 
 investigation, that the effort was made not only to 
 recover these lost knowledges and powers, but to find 
 an underlying principle of unity between Christianity 
 and the Vedic and Buddhistic systems and to sup- 
 plant the personal Monotheism of Christianity and 
 Judaism, and we might say of Zoroaster and Brahm, 
 with the impersonal, formless All of Buddha, and to 
 abandon the Christian ethics or ideal of human life 
 for that of Buddhism. This is the distinctive claim 
 of the modern theosophists as represented by Madame 
 Blavatsky and her disciples of the English and Amer- 
 ican Theosophical Societies.* 
 
 *" The 'Secret Doctrine ' is the essence of Hindu, Zoroastrian, 
 Chaldean, Egyptian religion, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Chris- 
 tianity. . . . 
 
 " It aims to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are 
 the basis of all religion, to uncover the unity from which they all 
 sprung ; to show that the occult side of nature has never been ap- 
 proached by the science of modern civilization." 
 
 From " The Secret Doctrine : The Synthesis of Science, Religion, 
 
4o 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 There is on the surface so striking a resemblance 
 between many of the teachings of theosophy and 
 those of Swedenborg, when judged of by name only, 
 that we cannot wonder that theosophists themselves 
 who have not studied Swedenborg, on merely hearing 
 the titles of his treatises are ready to assign him a 
 prominent place in their ranks. But this is no more 
 surprising than that, by the same illusive employ- 
 ment of terms, they adduce Christ and the Gospel as 
 a witness to the truth of Buddha, claiming that 
 Christ was only another Buddha, teaching again the 
 old doctrine. There are those who have written 
 books to prove that Swedenborg also was only a 
 Buddhist risen again. The terms " inner and outer," 
 " spiritual and natural," "divine and human," " literal 
 and spiritual sense of Scripture," " apparent or delu- 
 sive truths " of the letter and of the senses, as over 
 against the true knowledge of the spiritual man ; 
 heaven and hell as states formed by character ; the 
 " Ancient Word," or the wisdom of the Ancients, 
 Divinely preserved in the solitudes of Asia ; the crea- 
 tion of all things by emanations and through the 
 Divine logos or wisdom ; the spiritual nature of man 
 as distinguished from the brute ; the conquering of 
 desire ; the struggle of the spiritual with the natural, 
 and the despair in temptation, which precede all true 
 
 and Philosophy," by H. P. Blavatsky, author of " Isis Unveiled," 
 1888. "There is no religion higher than Truth," Path Office, 144 
 Madison Avenue, New York. 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 4I 
 
 elevation and illumination ; * the promise of victory 
 and peace and light to him that can endure — all 
 these are terms so common to all Theosophists and 
 all New-Churchmen that one could hardly believe 
 that they belong to systems so fundamentally and 
 thoroughly antipodal as these are, If the New 
 Church may be regarded as the latest to appear of 
 all the historic religions, even as theosophy claims 
 to be in essence the oldest, then truly the difference 
 between the two is as wide as the vast stretch of the 
 ages between them.f 
 
 That this may be seen we must, therefore, go be- 
 
 *See especially " Light on the Path," by M. C. 
 
 t The following utterances of one of the foreign participants in 
 the Congress of Theosophists, at Chicago, 1893, published in the 
 official journal of the proceedings, will perhaps enable the reader, 
 as well as any brief statement we could select, to judge at once of 
 the resemblances and the differences which exist between the views 
 held by theosophists and the doctrines taught by Swedenborg, espe- 
 cially on the subject of the Sacred Scriptures. At the same time it 
 must be borne in mind that it is one of the fundamental maxims of 
 theosophists that the utterance of no one mind can have any au- 
 thority for any other, H. P. Blavatsky declaring in her ' Secret Doc- 
 trine,' that no theosophic book acquires the least value from pre- 
 tended authority. 
 
 " Scripture addresses itself to the soul and not to the senses. 
 The key to the inner meaning of the Scriptures must be sought 
 through and beyond the outer, in which Revelation clothes itself, 
 every interpretation being sifted and modified, rejected or accepted 
 on its own merits, by the mental faculty. . . . Religion is soul-cul- 
 ture. Revelation is the knowledge requisite thereto. Revelation is 
 an intuition of the Kosmos, which reveals itself in and through the 
 
42 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 hind words to the ideas they stand for. Theosophy 
 is indeed a Protean system ; it may take on any and 
 all forms, still claiming to be itself ; but when it takes 
 on the nomenclature of the theology of Swedenborg, 
 it means something wholly different from Sweden- 
 borg's meaning, and this it is important that all 
 should know who desire to know truly either system. 
 It is customary for theosophy to call itself in the 
 abstract simply "the truth." "It is not religion," 
 
 primeval consciousness of mankind. This Kosmic intuition reaches 
 down to and is the voice of Deity." 
 
 " The Seven Principles of Theosophy: 
 
 " I. It is not in the Literal Meaning that Divine Truth is to be 
 sought. 
 
 " II. Oneness of Deity underlying all manifestations. 
 
 " III. Duality of Deity in the noumenal and phenomenal. 
 
 " IV. Absoluteness of Deity, unchanged by manifestation. 
 
 " V. Divinity of man and Humanity of God. 
 
 "VI. Law of Analogy or Correspondence, acknowledging unity 
 and duality; enjoining us to seek below that which is above, and to 
 seek above that which is below ; to know the macrocosm by and 
 through the microcosm; to attain universal wisdom through self- 
 knowledge. 
 
 "VII. All Scriptures are therefore esoterically true, and falsified 
 only exoterically by the imperfect natures of the personality through 
 whom they are revealed. All saviours of men are ' Christ,' although 
 they may not know His name. 
 
 " The first chapters of Genesis are : I. An account of the creation 
 of earth. II. An account of the creation of the first four races, our 
 ancestors as described by Mrs. Blavatsky. III. The generation and 
 emanation of the soul from and by the Seven Potencies and Hier- 
 archies of God. They it is who say ' Let us make man in our image.' 
 The Hebrew books are, besides the history of the Hebrew nation, a 
 symbol of the history of the soul. Egypt is materiality ; Canaan is 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 43 
 
 says Madame Blavatsky, in her " Key to Theosophy," 
 " but the truth underlying all religions." It would 
 seem as if so broad a system as this ought, if it be 
 genuine, to truly occupy some sublime height to 
 which all could look up, and from whose point of 
 vision those of separate and more limited faiths could 
 properly range themselves in their respective subor- 
 dination and dependence. But do we find this so in 
 the theosophy whether of Buddha or of Madame 
 Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine ? 
 
 passional and sensuous nature to be subdued by Israel, a soul-seek- 
 ing regeneration. This Promised Land is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 " In the Gospel the events in the life of Christ represent the in- 
 wardness of the soul, its Divinity, its evolution, regeneration, and 
 reincarnation." (Miss Muller of London. Address on Theosophy 
 as found in the Scriptures Hebrew and Christian. Congress of The- 
 osophists. Chicago. 1893.) 
 
 See also the following description of the state of those who are 
 "no longer concerned with history," and who, perhaps, on this ac- 
 count assume the assumption of the Virgin Mary and her immaculate 
 conception as historical phenomena like all others in the " process of 
 evolution," serving only to symbolize the progress of the souls of 
 the illumined. 
 
 " For those thus initiated the mind is no longer concerned with 
 history; the phenomenal becomes recognized as illusory — a shadow 
 projected by the Real. One thing is and abides — the soul in man — 
 mother of God, immaculate ; descending, as Eve, into matter and 
 generation ; assumed, as Mary, beyond matter into life eternal. One 
 state, supreme and perfect, epitomizes and resolves all others — the 
 state of Christ, promised in the dawn of evolution; displayed in its 
 process; glorified at its consummation. To realize the assumption 
 of Mary, to attain to the stature of her Son, these ends and aspira- 
 tions constitute the desire of the illuminate." (The Perfect Way. 
 Preface to the Revised Edition, p. 9.) 
 
44 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 Do we find in theosophy a true synthesis ? If so 
 what is it in. its synthetic form ? If it only contains 
 the several truths which in more or less fragmentary 
 forms are found in all religions, then its inventory of 
 these may be useful and convenient for reference, 
 although it adds nothing to our information ; but ac- 
 cording to theosophy the synthesis of truth is the 
 very abyss of the formless and the ineffable, where 
 the knowledge disappears, and at the sight of which 
 we lose our own identity and cease to be ourselves ; 
 of what use then can the synthesis be ? 
 
 The moment we arrive at the synthesis in distinc- 
 tion from the several definite forms of faith embraced 
 in it, we find ourselves in a nowhere, where all dis- 
 tinctions disappear and where neither synthesis nor 
 thesis of any kind can avail for ought any more. 
 The cycle of its evolution is from nothing back to 
 nothing. 
 
 The very opposite of Christianity, which derives 
 the personality of man from the personality of God 
 into whose image he was created, this synthesis of 
 all religions would make God or the All dependent 
 on man for His personality, and this only in transient 
 phases and while under the delusion of distinct ex- 
 istences. The only perfection is in the relapse into 
 the unconscious impersonal All. Nor can this " syn- 
 thesis " be regarded as a form of truth, for the truth 
 comes as a light into the world, but this is something 
 that secretes itself ; that cannot be known except to 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 45 
 
 be found to be unknown ; that is understood by only 
 the few and the wise, and they do not understand it ; 
 that can assume no definite form while remaining 
 itself ; that cannot be taught, because to be taught 
 is to become what it is not ; that cannot be seen, be- 
 cause to be seen is to be what it is not. It is eter- 
 nity ; it is silence ; it is night ; it is not life, for to 
 live consciously would be to die to its eternal and 
 absolute infinity ; it cannot make itself known but by 
 illusions, and so when man thinks he knows it he is 
 most deceived of all, and he is only sure of knowing 
 the All when he knows nothing at all. This " All" 
 in becoming a personal God in man only enters into 
 the realm of illusion, so that even God Himself is 
 illusion. I might go on with pages and pages of these 
 subtle antinomies — the cunning jugglery of meta- 
 physical thought as old as philosophy itself. They 
 form simply a phase of the play of the ratiocinating 
 faculty in man, and are in no sense entitled to the 
 claim of being the Divine knowledge or the synthesis 
 of truth. 
 
 Somewhere in his writings Swedenborg speaks of 
 the desire he had in his early years to know what 
 God was doing before the creation of the world, or 
 before time began ; and he tells us that this kind of 
 questioning would lead only to delirium. I know of 
 no more fitting name than this to give to an effort 
 to found a system of truth and of religion on that 
 conception of Being which regards it as true only 
 
46 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 when inconceivable and indescribable, and as being 
 untrue and an illusion just in the degree that we 
 know of or say anything about it. 
 
 If any one will read the substance of both ancient 
 and modern philosophy, including the deepest thought 
 of Plato and of the Vedas, as well as that of Spinoza, 
 Kant, and Hegel, regarding the relation of the abso- 
 lute to the determined, of the " Be-ness " of the the- 
 osophists, the formless Being to the Being formed — 
 he will find it in Swedenborg's doctrine of the esse 
 and existere in the chapter on God the Creator, in 
 the " True Christian Religion. " There* he will find 
 the discussion presented in the enduring form of 
 reason itself, not in the strange pictures of a delirium. 
 The law that governs the relations of the Divine 
 Esse, Existere, and Procedere, is not merely the ab- 
 stract fact of action or reaction with nothing to cause 
 either the action or the reaction, but it is the univer- 
 sal and fundamental law of all being and all creation, 
 the law of the Discrete Degrees, End, Cause, and 
 Effect : end producing cause, and end and cause 
 realizing themselves in the effect. And this End is 
 not an abstraction — not an "eternal silence breath- 
 ing " — it is so real and Divine and living a thing, 
 nay, so Divinely human a thing as love ; and this 
 Cause is so Divinely powerful and fair a thing as 
 
 *Also, more particularly, in the work on the " Divine Love and 
 Wisdom," Parts III. and IV. 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 47 
 
 wisdom ; and this Effect is a finited world of uses, in 
 which the very delight of life is experienced. 
 
 How different from the world created by the form- 
 less All of the theosophist. This formless, eternal 
 Be-ness y unmoved, or without will, breathes itself awake 
 and becomes, according to Jamblicus, a Being but not 
 a being somewhat ; next it stirs itself into the Being 
 of the Good, the Supreme God of Plato ; then into 
 the Being of Wisdom, the logos or reason thinking 
 a world ; then into a second logos, or logos creating 
 a world ; then into the logoi, or many agencies such 
 as archangels and other powers of the air. We fol- 
 low this descent of the formless all down into the 
 world of matter, which is the world of separateness, 
 of distinctions, of individuality, and personality. Here 
 all is strife and misery and unhappiness because of 
 the sense of want, of incompleteness, of desire, that 
 comes from things being apart that belong together. 
 The only way to overcome this misery of life, of being 
 awakened from the eternal slumber and night, is to 
 go back to that slumber, to go back to this unity — 
 this sense of all as one. The spirit as man on earth 
 must cultivate the spirit of brotherhood and must 
 overcome all sense and love of self or of one as dif- 
 ferent from another. The whole object of life is to 
 find that their separateness is an illusion ; that we 
 are all nothing as individuals, and in learning this to 
 learn that all pain and sorrow, coming from this illu- 
 sion of life, is really nothing. And why not then also 
 
4 8 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 to learn that all that we hold as true, whether as 
 pupils or as masters, is equally illusion and nothing ? 
 and so theosophy with the rest. All life is essen- 
 tially an evil because thus made up of the sense of 
 individual personality ; brotherhood consists in learn- 
 ing to know that this individual personality is an illu- 
 sion and that all are one and the same ; the escape 
 from the evil of life is in coming into this sense of 
 the wholeness — the being and knowing one's self as 
 the all.* Those that have lived many lives on this 
 earth through successive incarnations, have learned 
 more of the universal life by overcoming more of the 
 illusions ; these are the wise ones, the great souls, 
 and adepts — the masters. When they, through suc- 
 cessive incarnations, can overcome no more illusions 
 on earth, they die finally and go to heaven or enter 
 into a state above the separateness of the material 
 world. Here they enter again into the sphere of the 
 logos, even the first logos. They are gods ; they are 
 in the bliss of universal knowledge and universal 
 power. They have attained to the pure vision of 
 themselves as God. Some of them, however, are not 
 content to remain in this heaven, but after a resi- 
 
 *The ethics of theosophy is brotherhood; and brotherhood with 
 man and with beast. And this is based on the doctrine : 
 
 " Man thou art not alone. Thou art one of millions of existing 
 beings ; because thou art God and they are God. God pervades the 
 whole universe and the universe itself is God." (Chakravati. Chi- 
 cago Address. 1893.) 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 49 
 
 dence there of some fifteen hundred years these wise 
 ones return to earth and live in retired places to 
 teach in secret this Divine knowledge to the few who 
 are prepared to receive it, and so to afford the advan- 
 tage of their manifold experience of living to others 
 who are laboring under the illusions of life and its 
 evils. These are the great souls or the Mahatmas.* 
 They are practically omniscient and they work their 
 will as demiurges among men. They are the masters 
 
 *" There exists a perfect knowledge of spiritual things. This body 
 or system of truth has been discovered by perfected men, not only 
 discovered but verified over and over again, building a great system ; 
 nothing has been allowed to stand except what has been experi- 
 mented upon, redemonstrated by generations of seers ; so that the 
 very truth itself should lack no means of demonstration, more com- 
 plete than any known to Western science." (Mrs. Annie Besant. 
 Address before Theosophic Congress. Chicago. 1893.) 
 
 The above emphatic acceptance of the authority of tradition and 
 the demonstrability of the truth stands in strange contrast with the 
 general position of theosophists that each man is the only standard 
 and only revealer of truth to himself. But this is again modified by 
 the claim made by the writer further on of the ability of every one 
 to attain to the immediate vision and knowledge of the absolute 
 Spirit. 
 
 " Only those whose will is strong, who for life after life have 
 learned to conquer the material and the intellectual and so developed 
 the spiritual faculty, only these have power to discover, to prove, to 
 verify. But in that every man is Divine ; in that Divine love is your 
 heart and mine ; therefore we can also feel the pulses of the spiritual 
 life urging us to the realm of the Spirit, and just in proportion as we 
 feel them, the vision begins to open until we know of a certainty that 
 spiritual truth is real and not a fable." [Applause.] (Mrs. Annie 
 Besant. Chicago Address. 1893.) 
 
5° 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 from whom the theosophic societies of America and 
 England derive their knowledge — not directly, but 
 mainly through Madame Blavatsky, who was taught 
 by them directly and who has handed down the 
 teaching of these immortal prophets in her " Secret 
 Doctrine."* 
 
 But the possible destiny and career of man does 
 not end with being a God in the other world, nor a 
 Mahatma, or god incarnate, in this ; after that sense 
 of being one with all humanity, that absolute brother- 
 hood which is reached in feeling one's self to be them 
 all and them all to be one's self, which is the feeling 
 that one is God, then this last illusion must be over- 
 come ; for this feeling of being something, even a god, 
 is in so far a feeling of separateness or of distinction ; 
 even this must be lost ere the ideal perfection — the 
 absolute unity — is reached. So even the sense of 
 godhood is lost and with this last illusion dispelled 
 the spirit falls back into the eternal night, silence, and 
 slumber — the formless all.f 
 
 Such is the circle of life as depicted in the writings 
 of the reorganized teachers of modern theosophy. A 
 
 *" Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, to whom many of us owe our very 
 knowledge of the life of the soul, whose memory we revere more 
 than the memory of a mother, for the mother gives life to the body ; 
 the spiritual teacher awakens the soul ; yet no authority is claimed 
 for her, only gratitude. We know no division ; we have learned to 
 transcend it." (Mrs. Annie Besant. Chicago Address. 1893.) 
 
 t See " Light on the Path," by M. C. 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 Si 
 
 religion of the elements, it might be called, rather 
 than of man.* 
 
 The only really ethical feature in theosophy would 
 seem to be in the bearing of this doctrine on the 
 conduct of life. It is true the study of comparative 
 religion is emphasized as one of the chief objects of 
 the Theosophic Society, and this with a view to ob- 
 serving that all religions are but phases of one, all 
 faiths are but the varied phases of one truth ; but 
 when this underlying truth is found to be the truth 
 that all so-called truths entertained by men are alike 
 illusions, that life formed by these truths however ex- 
 cellent is an illusion and an evil, and that the end of 
 all learning is to know the bliss of not knowing, we 
 can hardly see that this object of the Society has 
 much practical value beyond the doubtful one of 
 making one feel indifferent toward all professed and 
 defined forms of faith. As the motto of the society 
 is " The highest religion is truth," we can understand 
 how the idea of brotherhood and brotherly love is 
 attained — not in any personal affection, or even 
 personal service or devotion, but in the simple knowl- 
 edge that we are all one and the same spirit, strug- 
 
 * " From Para-Brahm, the highest spirit, came forth the two — 
 Parusha= spirit, Prakreti= matter — two different facets of the Om 
 which exists behind all illusions. The electricity of the positive 
 and negative is hence derived. Parusha is the positive, Prakreti the 
 negative ; when these come together there is the spark of the uni- 
 verse — the spark of the individual mind." (Chakravati. Chicago 
 Address. 1893.) 
 
5 2 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 gling back from the evils of the waking life of sepa- 
 rateness into the bliss of slumberous unity. Love, as 
 ministering to another's delight, or even to his relief 
 from misery, can at most only reveal the death that 
 lies in the cup of every normal pleasure of earth, and 
 that shows to the sufferer that he is reaping only 
 what he has sown. But as life is an evil, because of 
 the separateness of the personalities here, therefore 
 brotherhood itself is an evil, since it could not exist 
 without separate personalities. The object of life 
 being thus reduced to getting rid of the evil of being 
 a person apart from others, the only ultimate object, 
 or object beyond life, would be to be lost in the sense 
 of an absolute self. And if this is bliss as opposed 
 to the misery of the individual personal life, then it 
 must be the bliss of infinite self-love. The "holy 
 mission" of the Mahatmas in teaching this doctrine 
 of the evil of personality, cannot be regarded as holy 
 by any to whom the doctrine of Divine Love appeals 
 as it is set forth by Swedenborg and declared by him 
 the fundamental doctrine of Christianity and all real 
 religion. This doctrine declares God the Eternal to 
 be a Being of essential Love, Wisdom, and Use, for- 
 ever the Divine Man and the one Divine Person. 
 As Infinite Divine Person He loves, and from love 
 by His wisdom He creates objects of His love, and 
 He creates an ultimate plane of being where, in their 
 utmost remoteness from Him and separateness from 
 Him, they may most intensely realize not only His 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 53 
 
 love to them as not Himself, but also most freely re- 
 ciprocate their love to Him as not themselves. Love, 
 says Swedenborg, desires its good and its delight in 
 another, and creates another in order that it may be 
 the receptacle of its good and experience its delight. 
 Earth and the life of earth is made to be the field of 
 the delights of God, and God is, speaking humanly 
 but reverently, never so happy as when He sees in- 
 numerable creatures not merged into Himself nor 
 into one another, but in their most intense sense of 
 individual personality serving one another and desir- 
 ing that the good of each may be the good of the 
 other. Not only is earth the scene of this multiplic- 
 ity of individual lives — earth is the material out of 
 which the sense of distinct individuality is built up 
 by the soul born into an earthly body. But that 
 individual form, so acquired through the sensuous life 
 of this material plane, remains with it forever ; it is 
 its eternal equipment for manful service of the Lord in 
 the hosts of the blessed. The soul cannot leave this 
 its spiritual body once formed on earth, which has be- 
 come its very form and personality, to return to earth 
 .and take on another form and personality here. Only 
 an impersonal soul, if we can use such a term, would 
 do that, and for a soul to become impersonal would 
 be to die, to lose its identical being once and for all. 
 Our individual personality is the growth on earth of 
 a spiritual body, from the simplest germ up to the 
 full stature of man, according to the growth and de- 
 
54 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 velopment of the physical body ; the potency of the 
 full man is in the germ because it is in the life from 
 God there ; but for the fully developed man, that is, 
 the spiritual body, to enter actually again into the 
 germ to be born, would be like the oak-tree entering 
 into the acorn to grow again in the earth. Of all the 
 strange misconceptions and assumptions regarding 
 Swedenborg's teachings as resembling those of the- 
 osophy, nothing is so unwarranted and so inexcusable 
 a violation of the truth, as the assertion repeated 
 from author to author that Swedenborg teaches the 
 doctrine of Reincarnation, and even that "this doc- 
 trine lies at the basis of his entire system." It is 
 equally strange and to be regretted that authors 
 who have been challenged to produce a single sen- 
 tence from Swedenborg warranting this assertion, 
 have admitted their inability to do so and yet allow 
 their statements to stand uncorrected. It is only 
 because, we may suppose, of the wide misconception 
 that Swedenborg's doctrine is, in general, in harmony 
 with theosophy, whereas not only here but in other 
 essential points, they are, as I have said, entirely un- 
 like. For, to take another instance, heaven, or the 
 end of creation, far from being a mere relapse into 
 slumber, is, according to Swedenborg, a perfected 
 human civilization — a vast society of regenerated 
 men and women living in the enjoyment of perpetual 
 youth, serving God as the vehicles or instruments by 
 which the Infinite Divine Love and all its delights 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 55 
 
 are communicated in service one to another, and as 
 ministering spirits to those in spheres below, even to 
 man on earth. Life on earth, far from being an evil, 
 is a casket filled with rare jewels to be opened and 
 enjoyed every day anew, and death is the gate into 
 a life of the varied activity of human usefulness be- 
 longing to a spiritual world, and affording more and 
 more happiness to all eternity. 
 
 I have spoken above of that ethical nature among 
 theosophists which may be regarded as constituting 
 their religion, but the question arises whether there 
 can truly be any religion without a belief in a per- 
 sonal God. The religion of idolatry, of Animism in 
 all its forms, of practical or popular Buddhism, wor- 
 ships and prays to something outside of self as hav- 
 ing a power to bless or to protect from harm. The 
 Christian prays to his God within, but not to him- 
 self. But Madame Blavatsky, in answer to the ques- 
 tion, " Is there a personal God," says " There is not ; " 
 and to the question, " Shall a man pray," she answers 
 " No ; why should he ; " * and the explanation that 
 the only personal God to whom a man could pray is 
 the man's higher self, and that in this sense Christ 
 prayed to the Father in Himself, only shows that, 
 to the theosophist, man's only God is his higher self, 
 and every man is a Christ. 
 
 *"A Key to Theosophy." H. P. Blavatsky. The Path Office. 
 New York. 
 
5 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS, 
 
 It is in this doctrine of the higher self that we 
 reach the test of the practical worth of theosophy as 
 a religion. Since the expulsion from Eden the will 
 of man with its larger and larger accumulation of 
 hereditary evil, dictates to man what shall be its good, 
 and points out the way of attaining it, To overcome 
 this false good there must be an authoritative doc- 
 trine of truth which can say with the voice of God," 
 " Thou ought : thou ought not." This voice comes 
 in* Divine revelation ; in the Law and in the Prophets 
 and in the Historic Christ as the Incarnate Word and 
 the Redeemer. But if the only God is our heredity, 
 our reincarnated spirit bearing its burdens and op- 
 pressed with its karma or unalterable law of retribu- 
 tion, what authoritative voice can speak to us ? " No 
 spirit," say the theosophists, " can teach another the 
 truth." It can point out the path in which one may 
 find the truth in himself. But what truth is there 
 but the sound of the voice of his deluded and delu- 
 sive will ? If, on the other hand, one obeys the 
 voice of a Master and looks to him for light and 
 strength, then one surely is adoring a personal God 
 and is praying to him. So is Buddha and so are in- 
 numerable Buddhas worshipped ; even the little idols, 
 the millions of gods which crowd the temples of these 
 races whose teachers tell us that there is no personal 
 God for man to worship. It is better ; it is of the 
 Divine Providence that it is so ; for the lowest and 
 deadliest of all forms of idolatrous worship is the 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 5 7 
 
 worship of one's self as God. As the perverted will 
 of man, subject as it is to all the delusions of evil, 
 and burdened with hereditary love of evil, cannot be 
 trusted to teach the truth, therefore after the expul- 
 sion from Eden there were placed at the east of the 
 Garden cherubim and a flaming sword which turned 
 every way to keep the way to the Tree of Life. 
 
 The cherubim are the Divine Providence guarding 
 the holy knowledges from profanation by the intrusion 
 of the lusts and phantasies of a perverted will. No 
 more was man to enjoy the immediate vision which 
 belonged to the "man of integrity/' The truth that 
 gives life and can save could henceforth only come 
 by the outer way, through the intellect in the voice 
 of the uncorrupted Word. The way to the Tree of 
 Life which is in the midst of the Paradise, is hence- 
 forth only opened through the Word as Divine, not 
 through the ecstatic vision of man's corrupted will. 
 "I am the Door," is the word of the Incarnate, the 
 Historic Christ — the revealed, not the inwardly 
 evolved Word. " By me if ye enter in ye shall be 
 saved ; he that climbeth up some other way, the same 
 is a thief and a robber." 
 
 The vital error of theosophy as a system of religion 
 is, therefore, in this substitution of the individual 
 authority — the Christ that, it is claimed, every man 
 is to himself — for the One, the Only, the Historic 
 Christ, Jesus the Incarnate Word and the Saviour of 
 the world. 
 
5 8 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 If the pure Word could speak as once in man's 
 uncorrupted will, then the voice of God could still be 
 heard in the Garden. But the will once corrupted, it 
 can be born anew only of a nature — a personality — 
 not itself, that of the Incarnate Word. This is why 
 such stress is laid in the Gospel on man's believing 
 that Christ is the Son of God and that the Word is 
 to be obeyed. Here is an objective law by which 
 man may control himself ; here is a truth which a 
 man may truly call " his Master," and to which he 
 may bid his whole nature to bow in obedience ; and 
 more than all, here is One, a mighty deliverer, who, 
 in a nature like unto ours, has conquered hell, not 
 only for His own deliverance, but in doing so, for 
 the deliverance of the whole human race as well, and 
 who, therefore, can say to man in every state of 
 temptation : " Be of good cheer : I have overcome the 
 world." "All power is given unto me in heaven and 
 in earth." "Look unto me and be ye saved all the 
 ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none 
 else." "Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden and I will give you rest." To say to 
 every man that he himself is the Christ that teaches 
 himself the truth and that saves himself, is the worst 
 form of delusion, if one is in earnest about overcom- 
 ing the evils of himself and of the world. Is not this 
 the fulfilment of the warning : " In that day many 
 shall say I am Christ ! Go ye not after them " ? For 
 which of the many men and women who thus in 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION, 59 
 
 these days call themselves Christ, have overcome the 
 hells and put Satan under their feet forever ? To 
 say that others have done so, and that we may look 
 to them as to the Wise Ones, the Masters, or Mahat- 
 mas for either aid or authority, is to admit that these 
 are as gods to us and that we may pray to them ; but 
 this is directly contrary to the theosophic principle 
 that the spirit can only be the Christ to a man as it 
 is seeking its incarnation in himself. And if the 
 spirit has overcome all temptation and become the 
 Almighty in heaven and on earth, and therefore can 
 be prayed to, how is it that it is suffering and in want 
 in our personality again ; how can the spirit in one's 
 self teach the truth which shall guide, and overcome, 
 and save, when the very self — the very personality 
 — is all an illusion, and so all its thoughts and all its 
 efforts and all its aims to be this or that, are only 
 illusions and vanity ? The Christ, the Redeemer, the 
 world needs and cries out for from the depth of its 
 earth, is that Christ that has overcome the hells and 
 in so doing has been lifted up from the earth, that 
 He may draw all men unto Him. He it is who has 
 led captivity captive and has received gifts of eternal 
 liberty for men. 
 
 To deny the Historic Christ, to supersede the 
 written Word in which the Divine Truth, handed 
 down from the beginning, still speaks to man in Law 
 and Prophet and Gospel is, like Buddha of old, to 
 deny the Divine inspiration and authority of revela- 
 
60 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 tion, and to seek to find a law unto one's self. Or 
 else it may be that we turn to the prophets, to man 
 himself, for wisdom, rather than to Him who alone at 
 all times " spake by the mouth of his holy prophets. " 
 In the very fact that we are entering upon an age 
 of newly-revealed secrets of mind and of body and of 
 the elemental world, the old temptation comes back 
 which the pedant Wagner, in " Faust," reveals when 
 he says, "I know much. I would know all."* The 
 barriers are broken down which seemed once impreg- 
 nable between matter and spirit ; what shall hinder 
 our entering in ; our seizing upon the forbidden fruit 
 while listening to the seducing words : " Ye shall be 
 as gods knowing good and evil"? Why hangs the 
 veil before the Holy of holies ? why swings the flam- 
 ing sword before the gates of Paradise ? why sing 
 the cherubim forever day and night : " Holy, holy, 
 holy, Lord God Almighty ! " why ? except that it is 
 of the Divine Mercy and Providence that man may 
 not fall into the slavery of his own evil, but may be 
 guided and governed by a holy law, not himself, a 
 law that may point out the evils he is in and may 
 bring the power of the Divine Humanity of his 
 Saviour down into the struggle of his life in over- 
 coming them. To those who believe in and look to 
 Him in His Word, the power to overcome is prom- 
 ised. He overcame the hells by the power of the 
 
 *"Zwar weiss ich viel, doch mocht' ich alles wissen." (Faust. 
 Goethe. Sc. I.) 
 
THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 6 1 
 
 Word, when he repelled the temptation, saying, " It is 
 written.'' To him that overcometh He offers to give 
 to eat again of the Tree of Life which is in the midst 
 of the paradise of God. He alone for all mankind 
 has entered again the Holy of holies when, at the 
 uttering of the words, " It is finished,'' the veil of the 
 temple was rent in twain. He it is whose voice goes 
 out to all mankind : " Blessed are they that do His 
 commandments, that they may have right to the tree 
 of life, and may enter in through the gates into the 
 city." 
 
 WORKS CONSULTED IN THE FOREGOING PAPER. 
 Sacred Books of the East. Edited by F. Max Muller. 
 
 Vedic Hymns. Vol. XXXII., Part I. F. Max Muller. Oxford: 
 
 1891. 
 The Same. Vol. IV. 
 The Zend-Avesta. Part I. James Darmesteter. Oxford: 1880. 
 
 The True Christian Religion. Containing the Universal The- 
 ology of the New Church. Emanuel Svvedenborg. New-Church 
 Board of Publication, 20 Cooper Union, New York. 
 
 The Divine Love and Wisdom. Swedenborg. The Same. 
 
 Outlines of the History of the Ancient Religions. C. P. 
 
 Tiele. 
 The Book of the Dead. Translated from Pierret's Livre des 
 
 Morts. 1894. 
 Oriental and Linguistic Studies. W. D. Whitney. New 
 
 York: Scribner. 1873. 
 History of Religion. F. Max Muller. 
 
 Ancient Faiths and Modern. T. Inman, M. D. 
 
62 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 The Secret Doctrine. The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and 
 Philosophy. By H. P. Blavatsky. Office of The Path. New York. 
 
 Theosophy Simply Put. By a New York Newspaper Reporter. 
 Office of The Path. New York. 
 
 Light on the Path. By M. C. 
 
 The Building of the Cosmos: and Other Lectures. By 
 Annie Besant. Madras: 1894. 
 
 A Key to Theosophy. By H. P. Blavatsky. 
 
 Report of Proceedings of the Theosophical Congress. 
 World's Fair of 1893. 
 
 Theosophic Correspondence. Saint-Martin and Kirchberger. 
 Exeter. England: 1863. 
 
 Man : His True Nature and Ministry. Louis Claude de Saint- 
 Martin. London: 1864. 
 
 Articles in Encycl. Brittanica : Theosophy. Jacob Boehme. Para- 
 celsus. Cabala. 
 
 A History of Philosophy. Ueberweg. New York : Scribner. 
 1872. 
 
 The Perfect Way: or, The Finding of Christ. By Edward 
 Maitland and Anna (Bonus) Kingsford. From the Third London 
 Edition. Lovell & Co. New York : 1889. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF 
 OWNERSHIP 
 
 Julian K. Smyth 
 
 "Well," wrote Robertson the great English 
 preacher, " I care very little for the progress of so- 
 ciety, if that only means that some centuries hence, 
 individuals will eat, drink, and sleep more abundantly 
 and more cleanly than the masses now, those indivi- 
 duals being mortal, perishable, and dying out forever. 
 They take away all that makes humanity grand, and 
 then ask you to care for it and its progress. I care 
 for religion — for the hope of a Church ; that is, a 
 society more united in each other, because more 
 united in God. But separate from that, and the pos- 
 sibilities of nobleness which that involves, the des- 
 tinies of the race appear to me little more interesting 
 than the contemplation of a tray of silk-worms, ob- 
 scure and crawling reptiles, which may hereafter 
 become moths, and die when the eggs are only laid." 
 
 This view of man and of society, and the way in 
 which they should be studied, seems to me just, not 
 from any sentimental reasons, but because a true 
 
64 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 classification of any organism is one of the first req- 
 uisites to obtaining a true knowledge of it. In 
 comparing two objects, the man of science, we are 
 assured, cares nothing about their relative beauty. 
 " For no fundamental distinction in science depends 
 upon beauty/' * Are they organic or inorganic, are 
 they living or not living ? — this is what he must first 
 ascertain, and by so doing gain his true standpoint. 
 
 A little box of earth, examined under a lens, shows 
 it to be full of small, glass-like objects fashioned into 
 beautiful six-sided prisms capped at either end by 
 little pyramids modelled with more than Egyptian 
 skill. 
 
 Another little box reveals a quantity of small glassy 
 objects, of the same material chemically ; but the 
 angles of the six-sided prisms have disappeared, and 
 all these tiny objects follow curved lines, and appear 
 like a vast collection of microscopic urns, goblets, 
 and vases, richly ornamented and fashioned into the 
 most faultless proportion. 
 
 What makes the difference ? Not their beauty ; 
 for both are beautiful. Not simply their shapes ; 
 the distinction runs deeper than that. They belong 
 to different worlds. For the first are crystals, the 
 others are shells. The first belong to the inorganic, 
 or not-living world ; the others belong to the organic 
 or living world. The crystals can easily be repro- 
 
 * Drummond's " Natural Law in the Spiritual World," p. 372. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. 65 
 
 duced by chemistry ; but no chemistry on earth can 
 make one of those tiny shells.* 
 
 If it is important to classify bits of glass in the 
 earth in order that we may know their nature and 
 their history, how much more essential must it be 
 that we shall study man, whether individually or 
 socially, under a true classification ? If we study his 
 movements as if he were mortal and terrestrial, then 
 in case he is essentially immortal, we are doing no 
 better than if we were to study and account for those 
 tiny shells under the supposition that they belonged 
 to the inorganic world of crystals. 
 
 Man is largely studied in this way. His social 
 conditions and needs are studied as if he belonged 
 wholly to this earth. Revelation may be said to be 
 that system of knowledge which makes known the 
 kingdom to which man essentially belongs, and studies 
 him under that classification. Its study or knowledge 
 of God, leads to the study of man, the secret of w T hose 
 nature has been declared to consist in the fact that 
 he, man, was created in the image of God.f It in- 
 sists that if this be true, it involves a new classifica- 
 tion. It points out that there is nothing which so 
 entirely distinguishes man from the highest animals, 
 as certain powers of thought and feeling which are 
 supernatural or spiritual. And these spiritual pow- 
 ers culminate in one thought and one affection, which 
 
 * Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," p. 372. 
 t Gen. i. 27. 
 
66 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 are as different from anything which an animal feels 
 as the shells of the organic world are different from 
 the crystals of the inorganic world — and that is, the 
 thought and the love of God. That is not a matter 
 of sentiment ; it is not altogether a question of good- 
 ness. First of all it is a question of fact. Let men 
 account for it as they will, let them try to trace its 
 development from mere animism, let them criticize 
 or ridicule the ways in which man has thought of 
 and loved his God, here is the exercise of a spiritual 
 power which indicates the existence of spiritual fac- 
 ulties, which man alone has. You cannot think or 
 love that for which you have no corresponding fac- 
 ulty. An animal cannot think of or love God, for 
 the simple reason that it has no faculty for doing so. 
 It is not a question of right or wrong. An animal 
 simply has not the necessary spiritual equipment or 
 apparatus. It can love its food, it can love the place 
 where it dwells, it can love its kind, it can love its 
 master, the mother can love her young. But there 
 it stops. And it stops for the want of higher degrees 
 of intelligence and love. It cannot love a book, it 
 cannot love abstract qualities such as justice, purity, 
 disinterestedness, not from lack of education but of 
 equipment. Man, however, has the equipment which 
 the animal lacks. He certainly can, if he will, do 
 that which no highest animal can do ; he can think 
 of and love God. And this, I say, requires that 
 apart from any question of sentiment, a new classifi- 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. 
 
 67 
 
 cation be made for man. He certainly belongs to 
 another kingdom. This power to think of and love 
 God differentiates him from every other created be- 
 ing. It is so different, it is so unique, that we must 
 in all fairness regard and acknowledge it as his chief 
 or distinguishing mark. So that it is no merely 
 fanciful idea when revelation declares of perfected 
 men in that higher kingdom to which they essentially 
 belong, that they have the name of God written in 
 their foreheads.* That is what marks them as com- 
 pleted or perfected men. That is the purpose to 
 which, judged by their highest achievement, they 
 evidently are fitted. And if, as Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 declares, we are to " call that good which is fitted to 
 the purpose for which it was intended," we are in 
 reason bound to say, that scientifically, manhood, 
 whether individually or collectively, is good whenever 
 and wherever the name of God is written on its broad 
 forehead. 
 
 How perfectly this higher nature of man has been 
 exemplified to the human race, no one will fail to 
 consider who carries in his memory the recollection 
 of the Son of Man. For in Him this truth reaches 
 its highest objective manifestation. And although 
 the perfection of His nature is infinite, while man's 
 is finite, yet all the more perfectly does He reveal 
 the relationship which should exist between Divinity 
 
 * Rev. xiv. i. ; xxii. 4. 
 
68 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 and humanity, and all the more certainly and authori- 
 tatively does He claim for man his true classification 
 as the child of God. 
 
 It is with this thought of man as a being who is 
 essentially spiritual, and whose life in this world is 
 intended as a means for the beginning of a spiritual 
 development which is to go on forever, that I ask 
 you to consider some of his responsibilities. 
 
 Among those responsibilities is one with which his 
 brief earth-life is much concerned, namely, that of 
 ownership or possession. It is a serious subject ; for 
 rightly considered it involves the fundamental laws 
 of being. It is a pressing subject ; for the exercise 
 of ownership is much abused. I know that most 
 persons are chiefly interested in particular phases or 
 applications of this subject, such as the ownership of 
 land, of machinery, of the accumulation of wealth in 
 the hands of comparatively few. Socialism, with its 
 demand that land and capital, which are claimed to 
 be requisites of labor and the sources of wealth and 
 culture, should be placed under social ownership and 
 control ; cooperative production, involving coopera- 
 tive distribution and the establishment of productive 
 cooperative enterprises ; " land-nationalization," or 
 making over the ownership of land to the State, and 
 either raising the land tax so as to absorb rent,* or 
 paying over to the State the whole increase of rent 
 
 * Henry George. 
 
THE RIGHT AXD EXERCISE OF OWXERSHIP. 69 
 
 due to the collective progress of Society, rather than 
 to the individual efforts of the proprietor* — these 
 are some of the special projects growing out of this 
 general subject of ownership, in which many are tak- 
 ing such a strong interest. Their consideration, how- 
 ever, as purely economic questions, is not the purpose 
 of this address. However useful such considerations 
 may be, and however important it may be to know 
 the facts which become established through such con- 
 siderations, it is equally important that we should 
 study the Divine law and intention with reference to 
 this and similar problems. To attempt such a study, 
 to understand if possible the ethical and spiritual na- 
 ture of ownership is, then, the purpose of this paper. 
 It is time that we took the position firmly and con- 
 fidently, that in looking for the highest law of con- 
 duct, we should not simply look into what is past and 
 below us, nor even into what is present. Neither 
 should we accept the laws of evolutionary science as 
 our only or chief masters. Without ignoring the 
 past or the present, without overlooking the condi- 
 tions through which atoms, and the various kingdoms 
 of nature, together with man himself, have passed, 
 we are to look to what is above and before us. Cer- 
 tainly an evolutionary process has been going on. 
 There has been movement, development. The rev- 
 erent student of nature and of history rises from his 
 
 *J. S. Mill. 
 
7o 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 studies with the cry of wonder and thanksgiving on 
 his lips, "God has surely been in the past." But 
 Christianity bids us believe in a God " who was, and 
 who is, and who is to come." It points to Him who 
 is not simply in the first things, but in the last things 
 as well. He was not simply successful in their be- 
 ginnings ; He will be as successful in their ends. 
 And there is ground for confidence in remembering 
 that the Son of Man proved His omniscience by not 
 staking the truth and the success of His Gospel upon 
 its immediate acceptance and realization, but with 
 His eyes fixed upon future generations, seeing the 
 changes which must come, said with a calmness and 
 certainty, that belong to truth : " Heaven and earth 
 shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." 
 It is in this spirit of confidence that I desire to 
 bring to your minds what I understand to be the 
 truth of the Gospel concerning Ownership. 
 
 I. The basis of Ownership. 
 
 II. The right of Ownership. 
 
 III. The exercise of Ownership. 
 
 I. WHAT IS THE BASIS OF OWNERSHIP? 
 
 The basis of ownership is in the fact that God has 
 made it possible for each man to have a conscious 
 being of his own. He has not simply made each 
 man separate from every other man ; He has made 
 each man conscious of his separateness from every 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. ?I 
 
 other man. He has made it possible for every man 
 to say " I " and "Thou," with a consciousness of the 
 difference that is indicated by these two terms. The 
 plants are separate ; no two blades of grass, it is de- 
 clared, are in every respect alike. But they are not 
 conscious of their distinctiveness. The members of 
 the animal kingdom are each separate from the other ; 
 yet we can hardly suppose that even the highest 
 mammalia reflect upon the distinction between " I " 
 and " Thou," or are in any way concerned to under- 
 stand the cause or the meaning of the individuality 
 which specializes their life. And yet, unconscious as 
 are the members of these lower kingdoms of this dis- 
 tinctiveness, it is a fact which is essential to them all, 
 and which is most jealously guarded. 
 
 Nothing is more wonderful than the way in which, 
 whether consciously or unconsciously, every living or- 
 ganism guards and maintains its being, its selfhood, 
 its ownhood, whatever the stress and strife amid 
 which its life is carried on. The characteristic marks 
 and traits of an organism may be greatly modified ; 
 but only very gradually, and after many generations. 
 It is beyond the power of any known force in nature 
 suddenly to overcome, or take away, or transform 
 that "I " by virtue of which it has its existence. You 
 may cut off its nourishment, you may screen off the 
 light, you may deny it heat, you may, in short, make 
 existence impossible ; but while life lasts you cannot 
 make a rose yield its rose nature and become, for ex- 
 
72 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 ample, a violet. It will live and die a rose. Men 
 cannot gather grapes of thorns, nor figs from thistles. 
 That is a standing miracle in creation. And if we 
 ask for the origin of this fact, consider whether it is 
 not disclosed in that first announcement or self-de- 
 scription which God made to Moses in answer to the 
 desire to know the Divine name : " I AM THAT I 
 AM." "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of 
 Israel, I AM hath sent me." At the centre of the 
 universe, at the beginnings of its life, is this Divine 
 Individuality, this Divine Ownhood, this Life, this 
 Existence, this Force which does not simply create, 
 and vivify, and preserve in orderly arrangement, but 
 as a first requisite says, "I." Because of this Divine 
 Individuality, this " I " in whom is " no variableness 
 nor shadow of turning," creation proceeds. Creation 
 proceeds, and preservation follows. 
 
 I hold it, then, to be essential to right thinking to 
 observe that Revelation makes God known not sim- 
 ply as self -existent life from whom all things proceed, 
 but that it makes Him known as a Divine Individu- 
 ality ; a Divine Individuality who speaks of Himself 
 as "I" — always "I," always individualized, always 
 distinct from the objects of His creation. 
 
 Without this Divine Individuality, creation would 
 be impossible ; or if possible, it would be without any 
 conceivable purpose. If things simply are, because 
 they are, that is, because they happened, God is no 
 more to be reverenced or praised than if He were 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. j 3 
 
 some powerful dynamo somewhere at the centre of 
 things, and merely charging them with a purposeless 
 energy which set and kept them going. Even this 
 does not explain what these " things " which the dy- 
 namo quickens, are, nor how they came to be, nor 
 what they are intended to do, nor how they gained 
 their distinctiveness from the dynamo itself. One rea- 
 sons hopelessly from such a beginning. But it is not 
 necessary. There is this other way. At the very 
 centre of things is a Divine Individuality, which, in 
 the consciousness of its uncreated Ownhood, can, and 
 does say, "I AM THAT I AM." Love, wisdom, 
 power (for we see manifestations of these things), in- 
 dividualized in One w r ho says " I AM." God, then, 
 as a Divine Individuality, creates. For Love de- 
 mands an object w 7 hich it can love. It is the nature 
 of Love to give of itself to others. "I," if love fills 
 its heart, demands something which it can address as 
 "Thou." It must be separate from itself, else the 
 love for it will be essentially a love for self. Here is 
 the pitfall of pantheistic thought, of which there is 
 so much today. It makes Love simply love itself, 
 and makes God infinitely self-loving. How could this 
 satisfy Love? Love, the life, which cries "I," longs 
 for something other than itself, capable of love, need- 
 ing love, and, more wonderful than all, capable of 
 loving in return. For Love is not satisfied until in 
 the heart of that which it loves, it awakens a response, 
 and creates a relationship so free and friendly, that it 
 
74 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 can lavish its blessings upon its willing recipient. 
 But for this, it is 'conceivable that a world of flowers 
 would have answered the demands of Divine Love, 
 provided God loved flowers. Or a world of singing 
 birds, provided He loved singing birds. Or a uni- 
 verse filled with comets, provided He loved comets. 
 But the flowers know not who toils and spins for 
 them ; the birds know not by whose bounty they are 
 fed ; the comets know not who gives them their mo- 
 tion. Love can make none of them rejoice. Had 
 they consciousness and speech, they might each cry 
 " I " ; but they have not that spiritual consciousness 
 which would enable each to say, " I love the Love 
 that blesses me," nor the freedom which would prompt 
 each to say, " I desire to act in harmony with that 
 Love, and so become a means of blessing to others. " 
 
 Love must have an object. 
 
 Love must have an object other than itself. 
 
 Love must have an object other than itself, which 
 can reciprocate that love, act in harmony with it, and 
 become filled with a similar desire to be of use to 
 others. 
 
 Behold, then, the wonderful drama of creation as it 
 now begins to unfold itself to our view ! 
 
 In the beginning, Love, Wisdom, Power, or Use in 
 potency, individualized in One who declared " I AM 
 THAT I AM." Love goes forth robed in Wisdom, 
 strong in the capacity for service. Why does Love 
 go forth ? To bring into existence something other 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OE OWNERSHIP. 
 
 75 
 
 than itself, that it may give of itself to something, 
 some one. How the Divine Love, by means of the 
 Divine Wisdom, creates from its own infinite sub- 
 stance that which shall be other than itself, cannot 
 be fully considered at this time. Yet the thought 
 may be presented that Love radiates from itself as a 
 source ; it actually projects itself by its own centri- 
 fugal force, towards that which is beyond, forming, so 
 to say, an emanation or sphere, which, radiating on 
 and on, may be conceived of as proceeding, and yet 
 becoming separate, from its original love-source. And 
 then by a law of gradations, now for the first time 
 fully set forth in the New-Church doctrine of " Dis- 
 crete Degrees," these first emanations or spheres of 
 love become the causes and centres of succeeding 
 spheres, each more distinctly separated from its orig- 
 inal source than the other, each becoming the cause 
 of others still further removed, until by this self-im- 
 parted motion of Love going forth as living or prim- 
 itive substance, planes of substance less living are 
 formed ; and succeeding these, planes less and less 
 living : first the spiritual, with its successive degrees 
 of life, until finally a plane is formed where this sub- 
 stance is no longer living, no longer radiates, but is 
 inert and at rest, and instead of having the power of 
 action has to be acted upon. And this substance at 
 rest, this outmost or terminal sphere of that which, 
 in its beginning, was creative Love, motionless, crass, 
 pressed together, is the substance out of which the 
 
7 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 natural world is formed ; a world, which from its sun, 
 through its heat and light, its atmospheres, waters, 
 terminates at last in the dense matters of the min- 
 eral kingdom as a base, which shall serve as a re- 
 active plane from which life may now begin to tend 
 upward. And this it does, and according to those 
 gradual, orderly steps and processes, which it is the 
 beautiful mission of Science to make known. First 
 the mineral, then the vegetable, then the animal. 
 And as we go from one kingdom to another, we keep 
 seeing more and more the triumphs of creative Love. 
 For what was the original end or purpose of Love ? 
 It was to create that which would be other than it- 
 self. And here they are in innumerable forms of 
 variety and beauty ; not strewn in hopeless confusion, 
 but in the most wonderful, orderly arrangement, and 
 moving in accordance with the great law of Use, by 
 which each organism is fitted for its place, and girded 
 for its special service. And everywhere this indi- 
 viduality, this ownhood, which first we saw in God, 
 is, so to say, bequeathed and defended. 
 
 And yet, as we go from one form of life to another, 
 as we ascend from one kingdom to another, nothing 
 seems conscious of its individuality. All have it ; 
 none know it. Is, then, the purpose of creative Love 
 attained ? Not until there finally appears upon the 
 scene a class of beings fitted to receive two gifts — 
 Liberty and Rationality, by means of which a con- 
 sciousness of individuality can be given, together with 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. 
 
 77 
 
 a knowledge of the relationship which they are in- 
 tended to bear to Him who gave them being, and a 
 capacity to know that they are Divinely loved, and of 
 being stirred by that Love, and turning towards it, and 
 reaching out to it, and by means of the very love 
 which found a place in their hearts, loving in return. 
 
 At the end of how long and strange a journey is 
 this attained ? When man can take up the words 
 which God puts into his mouth, and say in intelli- 
 gence and faith, "I AM hath sent me," he aw r akens to 
 a knowledge of one of the most stupendous facts in 
 creation. But w r hen, touched by this knowledge, he 
 can say from the heart, " I love the Lord" the circle 
 of creation is completed, the labors of Divine Love 
 are crowned with success. 
 
 To what, then, have these considerations led us ? 
 "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof" — 
 does not that settle the question of ownership in 
 land? "The world and they that dwell therein " — 
 does not that remove all claims to possessing any- 
 thing in this world ; our bodies, our very selves even ? 
 
 Is there, then, no ownership but Divine ownership ? 
 Is it the Divine intention that we shall say of nothing 
 — our homes, our raiment, our occupations, " It is 
 mine ? " Since life is His, has any one a right to say, 
 " I," even ? Is not that the prerogative of God alone ? 
 " I AM THAT I AM." And was not that reaffirmed 
 when, as the Word made flesh, He said, "Before 
 Abraham was I am." But do you not remember an- 
 
? 8 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 other word of His — and it will clear up the whole 
 difficulty — " As the Father hath life in Himself, so 
 hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." * 
 The Father is the Divinity Itself from Whom all 
 things are ; the Son is the Humanity which was as- 
 sumed and by means of which our Lord appeared in 
 the world and took the position as of a man among 
 men. And this saying of the Son of Man, although 
 it has its special or Divine application, also teaches 
 the wonderful truth that it is not only possible, but 
 Divinely intended, that every man shall have an in- 
 dividuality, derived, yet separate from God. 
 
 Here, now, is a mighty principle. Here is a most 
 important fact to know. I go further and say, that 
 to refuse that fact, to close our eyes to the fact that 
 God has created us with an ownhood or individuality 
 forever separate from His, and to entertain the thought 
 that inmostly we are a part of God, is one of the 
 subtlest and most dangerous delusions that can take 
 possession of the human mind. God can indeed say 
 " I AM THAT I AM." But Paul was right when 
 he said, " By the grace of God, I am what I am." f 
 " By the grace of God," by the Divine permission 
 and intention. It is not necessarily humility to say, 
 " I am nothing." It is not righteousness to try to 
 efface self, and wish for final absorption into Deity. 
 That is simply going in the face of all that God has 
 
 * John v. 26. t 1 Cor. xv. 10. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OE OWNERSHIP. 
 
 79 
 
 done. On the other hand, it is foolishness and mock- 
 ery to say, " I am sufficient unto myself. I, I alone 
 do this, and I do that." We were created. We were 
 created with an ownhood which might in freedom 
 and from reason act in harmony with the life of God, 
 acknowledge that everything good and true which we 
 receive is from Him and not of ourselves, and so be 
 able to say with the apostle, " By the grace of God, 
 I am what I am." 
 
 Have I made the truth at all clear ? Since God 
 has created man with an ownhood, the exercise of 
 that ownhood in ownership is right. It is true that 
 in this, as with his own nature, man is dealing with 
 what God has provided. The materials out of which 
 he builds his houses, or weaves his garments, or with 
 which he carries on his trade, are not his. They 
 were created. He has simply acquired them, col- 
 lected them together, or put them to some use. But 
 as with his ownhood, so with his ownership, he is 
 allowed this exercise and expression of his individual- 
 ity, not that he may act contrary to God, but with 
 Him ; and include in his nature that which he may 
 see so perfectly expressed in the Divine Nature, 
 namely, the love and capacity for use. 
 
 II. THE RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP. 
 
 I realize, however, that on this subject of the right 
 of ownership more needs to be said. There is no 
 
80 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 denying that under our present social conditions, 
 many find it exceedingly difficult to earn a livelihood. 
 The world is as wide as ever ; Nature is as bounti- 
 ful ; but the struggle for place, nay the very struggle 
 for life, grows more intense. Thousands of willing 
 workers can find nothing for their hands to do. The 
 relations between the rich and the poor are strained 
 almost to the breaking point. Never was there so 
 much philanthropy. Never, it would seem, were the 
 rich so desirous of helping the poor. The " college 
 settlements " go into the poor districts. Undoubtedly, 
 they help, they serve. Everything that benevolence 
 can think of to brighten the poor man's lot, to care 
 for his children, to bring a ray of comfort or of sim- 
 ple pleasure into his home, is done — willingly done, 
 done at the cost of personal ease. But out of the 
 heart of the world of poverty comes the cry, "We do 
 not ask for your charity ; we ask for justice ! " For 
 the idea is firmly fixed in the minds of thousands of 
 wage earners that there is injustice. They have been 
 brought to believe that the present social order is 
 wrong. It is difficult for the man in the mines who 
 heaves coal to the earth's surface at what might be 
 called a starvation wage, to believe' that his lot should 
 be so different from that of the so-called " coal bar- 
 on " according to any law of equity. Poverty, too, 
 sees the disclosures of corruption. It sees the 
 shameful use which is sometimes made of wealth. 
 It sees how money is used to influence legislation. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP, 8 1 
 
 And all this deepens mistrust ; it intensifies the dis- 
 content. Many lend their ear to the agitator. They 
 become persuaded that they are wrongfully oppressed. 
 They look upon the rich as in some way their op- 
 pressors. 
 
 With the more thoughtful, however, this mistrust 
 and discontent are not directed against individuals, 
 but against our present social system. For the fact 
 is recognized that our present views and usages have 
 descended to us. They are not the rich man's in- 
 vention. He, like every other man, receives them as 
 something which has come down to him. And for 
 their descent, be they just or unjust, wise or unwise, 
 he is not to blame. The real question is, Are our 
 present ideas and usages as to proprietorship right ? 
 Certainly in the patriarchal system, as has been 
 pointed out, wealth and rule went together. The 
 father of the family and the head of the tribe was 
 the one in whom proprietorship centred. But the 
 patriarchal age has passed away. The principle of 
 the freedom and equality of the individual has come 
 in. And it is because men believe that that freedom 
 is hindered by our social order, that there is such a 
 wide feeling of discontent. The special hindrance 
 of which many complain today, is the ownership of 
 land. The ownership of land which is not used for 
 some purpose, but is simply held for a rise in value, 
 is believed, by an apparently increasing number of 
 people, to be the chief cause of the inequalities and 
 
82 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 distress which we see ; and the remedy offered is to 
 levy a tax on all land that shall equal the annual 
 value of the land itself, irrespective of the use made 
 of it, or the improvements on it, removing at the 
 same time all taxes now levied on the products and 
 processes of industry.* 
 
 I state this in almost the exact language of its 
 chief advocate. Thus far it is simply a problem in 
 economics, which men competent to deal with such 
 matters must consider. As a question in economics, 
 the Church has no business with it. The proposed 
 method of taxation may be wise, or it may be unwise 
 and utterly impracticable. The Church's opinion on 
 a point of this kind is of no value. Its office is not 
 to find out how to tax land, but how to live on the 
 earth as immortal men and women. And there would 
 be no excuse for my bringing in this question at all, 
 but for the fact that it is urged as a religious ques- 
 tion. The Bible is drawn on for its support. It is 
 based, so it is claimed, on spiritual principles. This 
 world is the creation of God. The men brought into 
 it for the brief period of their earthly lives are the 
 equal creatures of His bounty. Being the equal 
 creatures of the Creator, equally entitled under His 
 Providence to live their lives and satisfy their needs, 
 men are equally entitled to the use of land, and any 
 
 * Henry George, " The Condition of Labor," p. 9. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OE OWNERSHIP. g$ 
 
 adjustment that denies this equal use of land is 
 morally wrong.* 
 
 That is the argument. With such propositions the 
 Church has much to do. For between the declara- 
 tion that the world is the creation of God intended 
 for man's use, and that all land should be taxed at its 
 " site value," there is a wide break. The two things 
 may or may not belong together. The earth is the 
 Lord's and He made it. That truth we believe. But 
 He has given us no revelation as to how it shall be 
 held, or divided, or taxed. Land, it is declared, " is 
 a prime necessity of life." Is it any more so than 
 food ? Man in order to properly exist on even the 
 physical plane of his nature, needs land, food, cloth- 
 ing, shelter. Should all these things be provided 
 him ? He needs them ; he cannot do without them. 
 Are they, then, his by virtue of his need ? Is it 
 wrong to lay upon man this necessity of effort for 
 obtaining for himself what he requires ? It is con- 
 founding things to say that this world is the creation 
 of God, intended for man's occupancy, and that there- 
 fore men are equally entitled to the equal use of land. 
 To say that because all men need the use of land, the 
 right of proprietorship must belong to all men, that 
 is, to society, and not to individuals, is not, according 
 to any revelation that we have, a Divine requirement. 
 It is not required ; it is not prohibited. In this, as 
 
 * Henry George, " The Condition of Labor," p. 9. 
 
84 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 in many other things, mankind is left in freedom. I 
 do not forget the oft quoted words : " The earth hath 
 He given to the children of men." That is a general 
 declaration. God has created the world for man's 
 use. He has set man upon it. He says He has 
 given everything into his hands — the beasts of the 
 field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea.* 
 That this forbids individual proprietorship of what 
 is acquired through honest effort, is nowhere stated. 
 One of the commandments warns us against coveting 
 our neighbor's house or his field. f This certainly 
 implies individual possession of land. The fact is, 
 the adjustment of all these questions of division or 
 of ownership is left to men. They can determine 
 to hold land in common ; they can agree to hold it 
 as individuals. And I suppose that under either 
 system men can be saved. I suppose, too, that un- 
 der either system men can be selfish and avaricious. 
 The Church's function is not to devise economic 
 measures. Neither is it called upon to act as judge 
 or divider about temporal possessions. On the con- 
 trary it has a right to protest against any effort to 
 draw her into the political arena under the pretence 
 that the question involved is a religious question. 
 The Church should not be deceived. Neither the 
 taxation nor the division of land is a problem that 
 falls within her domain. With every desire to be 
 
 * Ps. viii. 6, 7. t Deut. v. 21. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. 85 
 
 just, she is not qualified, and was not intended to be, 
 to pass upon matters of this kind. An enlightened 
 political economy slowly learns the laws of social 
 well-being by experience, while true religion, by rev- 
 elation, learns the living principles of those laws. 
 And so is fulfilled that saying : " Truth shall spring 
 out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down 
 from the heavens."* 
 
 There are, however, two important factors of own- 
 ership which religion does insist upon : — 
 
 1. Everything which, as we say, " belongs to us," 
 is essentially a gift. Primarily, essentially, everything 
 is God's — not lands alone, but our very selves even. 
 " It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves ; we 
 are His people." f Our spiritual faculties, our moral 
 faculties, our physical powers — these are not of our 
 invention or creation. We gain possession of them 
 through use. " A man can receive nothing, except it 
 be given him from above. "J The declaration that 
 that only is one's own for which or upon which he 
 has expended some labor, is a misstatement. Man's 
 first possession, himself, is something in the creation 
 of which he did nothing. Our Lord plainly said : " I 
 sent you to reap that on which ye bestowed no la- 
 bor ; other men labored and ye are entered into their 
 labors. "§ 
 
 2. It is, however, manifestly according to the Di- 
 
 * Ps. lxxxv. 11. t Ps. c. 3. % John iii. 27. § John iv. 38. 
 
S6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 vine Will that what we have should be for the sake 
 of Use, and not for the sake of selfish possession. 
 The two things, Gifts and Uses, belong together. 
 They reveal and fulfil each other. And all that comes 
 to man rightfully, whether by gift, or through honest 
 individual effort, or through both, God allows him to 
 distinguish by that word MINE. 
 
 III. THE EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. 
 
 The exercise of Ownership — to speak now of our 
 last point — is, then, essentially stewardship. It is 
 not hoarding. It is acquiring things for the sake of 
 use and not for the mere sake of having them. The 
 things themselves, be they houses, lands, talents, 
 knowledges, righteousness, are not of our creating. 
 God has been before us and made their acquisition a 
 possibility. And He has granted this possibility, and 
 even allowed the sense and the right of possession, in 
 order that our natures might act in unison with His, 
 and thus develop into His image and likeness through 
 a life of use. God owns the world. The old thought 
 that He created it for His own glory, makes Him a 
 glory-loving God. He created it for the sake of use. 
 If man, in the exercise of his ownhood, uses his own- 
 ership for self alone, he is acting contrary to God and 
 contrary to the laws which God has made operative 
 in Nature. 
 
 For Nature shows us on every hand that use is the 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. 87 
 
 true law of life. It is true that Nature has been 
 chiefly read in terms which tell of an individual strug- 
 gle for life. It is true that one function of every liv- 
 ing organism is Nutrition, and that in the exercise 
 of that function it must struggle for food. " Root, 
 trunk, branch, twig, leaf, are to the tree so many or- 
 gans — mouth, lungs, circulatory system, alimentary 
 canal — for carrying on to the utmost perfection the 
 struggle for life. But this is not all. There is 
 another piece of apparatus within this apparatus of 
 a wholly different order. It has nothing to do with 
 nutrition. It has nothing to do with the struggle for 
 life. It is the flower. The more its parts are stud- 
 ied, it becomes more clear that this is a construction 
 of a unique and wonderful character. . . . Watch this 
 flower at work for a little while and behold a miracle. 
 Instead of struggling for life, it lays down its life. 
 After clothing itself with a beauty which is itself the 
 minister of unselfishness, it droops, it wastes, it lays 
 down its life. The tree still lives ; the other leaves 
 are fresh and green ; but this life within a life is dead. 
 And why ? Because within this death is life. Search 
 among the withered petals, and there, in a cradle of 
 cunning workmanship, are a hidden progeny of clus- 
 tering seeds — the gift to the future which this dying 
 mother has brought into the world at the cost of 
 leaving it. The food she might have lived upon is 
 given to her children, stored around each tiny em- 
 bryo with lavish care, so that when they awaken into 
 
88 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 the world the first helplessness of their hunger is 
 met. All the arrangements of plant-life which con- 
 cern the flower, the fruit, and the seed, are the crea- 
 tions of the struggle for the life of others. . . . Every 
 plant in the world lives for others. It sets aside 
 something, something costly, cared for, the highest 
 expression of its nature. The seed is the tithe of 
 love, the tithe which Nature renders to man. When 
 man lives upon seeds he lives upon love. Literally, 
 scientifically, love is life. If the struggle for life has 
 made man, braced and disciplined him, it is the strug- 
 gle of love that sustains him." * 
 
 Here, then, in the words of a reverent student of 
 Nature, is the law of Use, according to which the 
 ownhood of man should enter into the duties of own- 
 ership. How wonderful it is ! How high ! how sa- 
 cred ! How telling do those words of the Son of 
 Man become : " By their fruits ye shall know them." 
 And that, in the light of the best science of today, 
 comes to mean, if an organism lives its existence only 
 in this intense struggle for life, if it has not included 
 this other and higher struggle for the life of others 
 in the formation of seeds and fruits, it has failed. It 
 has failed to do and to be what it was intended to do 
 and to be. The fruit is the test. The fruit is the 
 sign of a complete life. If there is no fruit, even 
 the leaves will presently wither away. 
 
 * Drummond, " The Ascent of Man," p. 227, et seq. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE GF OWNERSHIP. 89 
 
 Christian revelation proclaims the same law. How 
 clear and how impressive is the law of ownership as 
 set forth in the parable of the talents. The house- 
 holder brings his talents of gold, and he places them 
 in the hands of his servants. Not to all alike does 
 he give, but to each according to his several ability. 
 He places the shining gold in their opened hands ; 
 he makes them the stewards of his wealth ; and 
 then he goes away. He goes away, and they are 
 left with their master's riches. They are to make 
 use of this wealth as if it were their own, and yet in 
 the knowledge and acknowledgment that it is his. 
 
 God comes, and He gives us talents of various 
 kinds, " to every man according to his several abil- 
 ity." He makes us His stewards. And then to all 
 appearance we are left alone with our talents. He 
 will not take away pur ownhood ; to all intents and 
 purposes He grants us ownership and freedom in 
 deciding how we shall exercise it. Shall we hoard it, 
 or shall we make it productive ? Shall we make it a 
 selfish possession, which we keep guarding, and dread- 
 ing lest we should lose it ; or shall we use it, and by 
 doing so increase both the riches and our capacity as 
 stewards ? And it seems from the parable that life 
 itself was judged by the way in which each one in 
 the parable fulfilled the responsibilities of . that own- 
 ership with which the master invested them. It 
 tested their character. It determined the quality of 
 their life. It was the intended opportunity for a very 
 important development. 
 
9 o LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 The Lord is the Divine Householder. The earth 
 is His and the fulness thereof, the world and they 
 that dwell therein. He has created us, and not we 
 ourselves. But He has created us with an Ownhood, 
 in order that we might seem to live as of ourselves, 
 yet in the acknowledgment that we live from Him. 
 And because of this Ownhood, He has granted us 
 the exercise of Ownership, and has entrusted us with 
 possessions which really are from Him, but which He 
 allows us to hold as if they were our own. And this 
 He does, in order that as of ourselves we may de- 
 velop a capacity and a love of use. But if we for- 
 get that essentially our ownership is stewardship, and 
 that what we have is not for the mere sake of having 
 but for the accomplishment of good, we shall fail. 
 We shall fail to do and to be what He made it pos- 
 sible for us to do and to be. For our Ownership is 
 ever at the hazard of two extremes : 
 
 i. It may be carried to excess. Excessive owner- 
 ship is avarice ; and that is divinely condemned. 
 " Woe unto them," it is written, "that join house to 
 house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, 
 that they may be placed alone in the earth ! " * That 
 desire for exclusive ownership and control, whether 
 in houses, in lands, or in anything else, is utterly 
 wrong, and bad for the soul. It is spiritually dead- 
 ening. It makes man an enemy to his fellows, it 
 
 * ISA. v. 8. 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OE OWNERSHIP. 9I 
 
 makes him heedless of his God, it makes him think 
 more of his barns and of his goods than of his soul, 
 it involves him in anxieties, and heats him through 
 and through with that lust for riches which renders 
 the Divine truth unfruitful. His ownership, instead 
 of being a blessing to him, becomes a curse. 
 
 2. On the other hand there is the danger of a de- 
 ficient sense of ownership. This appears in the 
 squanderer, the prodigal, the man who takes the por- 
 tion of goods that falls to him and then flings his 
 patrimony to the winds. He does not remember, he 
 does not care to remember, whose these things really 
 are that he is wasting. He does not restrain himself 
 with the thought that he is using good gifts from 
 God for selfish and base purposes. What is intem- 
 perance in drink, or of any bodily appetite, but waste ? 
 waste of mental gifts, waste of manhood, waste of 
 life ! And it comes in large part from a deficient 
 sense of ownership. It grows out of a failure to re- 
 alize that we hold gifts from God, that we hold them 
 in order that we may use them wisely, and that we 
 shall certainly be judged according to our steward- 
 ship. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 To sum up, then, we maintain that inasmuch as 
 God has created man with an individuality, or own- 
 hood, the exercise of ownership is not only divinely 
 permitted, but intended in order that thus man may 
 
9 2 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 develop a capacity and love of use ; and that what- 
 ever falls to man rightfully, whether as a gift or as 
 the result of honest effort, he is allowed to think of 
 and use as his, acknowledging that it is given of God, 
 and entrusted to him as His steward. And I believe 
 that nothing short of this will ever cause men to ful- 
 fil their responsibilities justly, faithfully, and for the 
 common good. To attempt to do away with this in- 
 dividuality and substitute communism, is not, as we 
 apprehend it, in the line of Divine order. The fact 
 is often mentioned that the early Christians held all 
 things in common ; which is true. But it should also 
 be remembered that they failed. And they failed, as 
 I believe, because in the innocency of their hearts, 
 and in their love for one another, they overlooked the 
 necessity in the Divine economy of every man filling 
 and fulfilling his individual responsibilities, in private 
 ownership. This does not mean the absence of 
 neighborly love, or of any cooperation of one man 
 with another. For in the degree that any man comes 
 into a recognition of the true — and by that I mean 
 the spiritual — significance of his ownhood and of his 
 ownership, so much the more certainly will he recog- 
 nize and deal justly with the equally sacred rights of 
 the ownhood and ownership of others. This cannot 
 be forced. The most perfect economic system would 
 not of itself prevent men from over-reaching or from 
 selfish waste. That must come from that sense of 
 entrustment which religion tries to inspire. It is 
 
THE RIGHT AND EXERCISE OF OWNERSHIP. 93 
 
 possible for men individually or collectively to use 
 this earth and all things in it for selfish purposes ; it 
 is possible to use it for the fulfilling of God's pur- 
 poses. That is the way in which God has given the 
 earth to the children of men. 
 
 Our Lord stood in the midst of the world's tumult. 
 Around Him were avarice, riches, poverty, oppres- 
 sion, waste. He stood there in the midst of it all, 
 and He said what will ever express the deepest wish 
 of every man who sincerely desires to serve God and 
 his fellow men : " After this manner pray ye, Our 
 Father who art in the heavens, hallowed be Thy 
 name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done ; as 
 in heaven, so also itpon the earth!' 
 
THE DIVINE LAW OF USE AND ITS AP- 
 PLICATION TO INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 V 
 
 Albert Mason 
 
 In the present lecture the term law is used to de- 
 note the mode or order in which life operates. Law 
 in this sense has origin primarily in the nature of 
 the Divine Being, and secondarily in the order of 
 creation from Him. Because of this origin, truth 
 concerning the operation of human life when re- 
 vealed, manifests itself by inherent light. Those who 
 find in the writings of Swedenborg help to a deeper 
 knowledge of the Holy Word, help to so apply its 
 sacred teachings to the particulars of the present life 
 on earth that such life may become effective prepar- 
 ation for a permanent life of usefulness hereafter, can 
 have such help only so far as the truth taught in 
 those writings is clearly seen in its own light. When 
 the truth is thus seen, it no longer rests upon the 
 authority of any teacher. The fact of Swedenborg's 
 mission is best discerned in the truth of his message, 
 and if it is not thus discerned, it were to little pur- 
 pose to know of his high character, his exceptional 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE. 
 
 95 
 
 learning, or his providential intromission to the spir- 
 itual world in preparation for his work. 
 
 Varied as may be finite conceptions of the unity 
 of the essential Divine Being and the form of His 
 manifestation to man, there is no school of Christian 
 thought which may not readily accept the teaching 
 that infinite love, the very essence of the Divine 
 Being, uniting with and embodied in infinite wisdom, 
 goes forth and finds expression through infinite benef- 
 icent activity — that such is the mode or order in the 
 operation of Divine life, the very law of infinite 
 being. If this central law of life is presented in the 
 teachings of the New Church with greater philosophic 
 distinctness than elsewhere, there is and can be no 
 exclusive property in truth. The one inexhaustible 
 Divine source of truth is accessible to all who sin- 
 cerely desire to know and do the law, and truth is 
 manifest to each in full measure of willingness and 
 capacity to receive it. 
 
 Is this law of Divine life which is written on every 
 page of the Holy Word and shines forth by inherent 
 light to all who will open heart and mind to its re- 
 ception, merely a grand conception of infinite benefi- 
 cence which the devout may contemplate and adore 
 in God, but which has no direct practical application 
 to human life ? The incessant all-pervading effort of 
 the infinite life to communicate to others the blessed- 
 ness of its own being, is indeed worthy of the pro- 
 foundest contemplation, is indeed cause for the most 
 
9 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 reverent worship and adoration, but such contempla- 
 tion and adoration serve their highest end by indu- 
 cing a living recognition that because the law of use 
 is the law of Divine life it is also the law of human 
 life. There can be no true human life save in con- 
 formity to this law. The full delight of human living 
 can be attained no otherwise. 
 
 No finite conception can adequately measure how 
 far Being which is life itself transcends created being 
 which can be but recipient of life continually given 
 from its infinite source, but the revelation that God 
 created man in his own image is absolute verity. 
 The life given to man is life in the finite degree, after 
 the order and image of the infinite life of the Creator. 
 It does not originate in man, and is not his own in 
 the sense of inherent, independent vitality, but it is 
 given him to be lived as his own and he is endowed 
 with freedom to obey its true order or to pervert it. 
 The law of human living is not affected by the choice 
 of men to obey or disobey. The standard is and 
 must remain the order of human life as given. The 
 law is not a code of regulations to be obeyed under 
 penalty of punishment from a superior for disobedi- 
 ence, but the innate principles of being which deter- 
 mine the felicity of living. Is it not self-evident that 
 the Divine purpose of beneficence in creating human 
 beings to receive the blessedness of living a life after 
 the image and likeness of the Divine, can be accom- 
 plished only in the degree in which the likeness to 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE. 
 
 97 
 
 the infinite perfection of the Divine life is attained? 
 Infinite love and wisdom are the essence and sub- 
 stance of the Divine life. Finite love and wisdom 
 received from the Lord are the essence and substance 
 of spiritual life in man. These are not given as re- 
 ward for applying them to use, nor withheld as pun- 
 ishment for failing to so apply them, but the innate 
 principles of being are such that love and wisdom 
 are nothing save as applied to use. 
 
 In " True Christian Religion," 387, it is said : 
 
 Love and wisdom are nothing without the good of use. They 
 are but ideal entities ; nor do they become real till they exist in 
 use. For love, wisdom, and use, are three things that cannot 
 be separated ; if they are separated neither is anything. 
 
 Again in no. 375 : 
 
 Charity and faith are only mental and perishable things, un- 
 less, when it can be done, they are determined to works, and co- 
 exist in them. 
 
 « 
 
 Also in " Divine Love," no. 15 : 
 
 No man is of sound mind unless use be his affection or occu- 
 pation. 
 
 And in " Divine Love and Wisdom," no. 329 : 
 
 From the end of the creation of the universe it may appear 
 what use is : the end of the creation of the universe is, that the 
 angelic heaven may exist ; and as the angelic heaven is the end, 
 so also is man, or the human race, because heaven consists of 
 the human race. Hence all things which are created are medi- 
 ate ends and uses in the order, degree, and respect in which 
 they have relation to man and by man to the Lord. 
 
98 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 Throughout the writings of the New Church the 
 great law, that faith and love can be preserved and 
 made part of man's spiritual life only through their 
 embodiment in use, is presented in manifold form. 
 Use is the ultimate of the two essential principles of 
 spiritual life, and unless these principles are ulti- 
 mated they cannot abide in the life. Such is the 
 law of being. Infinite love and wisdom go forth in 
 infinite beneficent doing, and thus use is the law of 
 the Divine Being, and thence of the creation both in 
 general and in minutest particular, and of human life 
 the grand end of creation. 
 
 Works outwardly undistinguishable from genuine 
 beneficent living may be utterly without life — may be 
 the embodiment of neither Christian faith nor Chris- 
 tian love. The performance of use for any selfish 
 personal end cannot be of spiritual avail. Use is 
 part and parcel of the Christian life only when it has 
 the two essentials of that life within it. Worthless 
 as it is without these, with them it is that wherein 
 they are manifested in all their power. So far as 
 man individually or collectively lives primarily for 
 himself, he antagonizes and perverts a vital principle 
 of being, and is thereby less a man, less an image 
 and likeness of the Divine Man. Living to himself 
 he loses the genuine human quality of life and the 
 resulting blessedness therefrom which God in loving 
 fatherhood sought to bestow. " For whosoever will 
 save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever will lose his 
 life for my sake, the same shall save it." 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE. gg 
 
 The teaching that the present life on earth is pre- 
 paratory to a permanent life beyond, is as old as the 
 Christian Church, but most perverse conceptions of 
 how such preparation is effected have from time to 
 time prevailed. The leading thought of former teach- 
 ing is gradually passing, and the fleeting shadows of 
 it which remain would be formulated with difficulty 
 from any published creed of the past. Under the 
 new teaching, each individual is determining in per- 
 fect freedom the end or purpose of every act, and 
 thereby whether his or her life shall interiorly be in 
 the image and likeness of the perfect life or a per- 
 version of it. Each is determining for himself or 
 herself the degree of conformity or perversion. Un- 
 der laws of being which cannot be suspended, the 
 measure of conformity interiorly attained in the pres- 
 ent earthly living, determines the quality of the per- 
 manent living. How vital is the inquiry, Where and 
 what are the opportunities to acquire an abiding 
 habit of useful living ? How can we come interiorly 
 and thus permanently into genuine love of use, into 
 the spirit of living primarily for others and only 
 secondarily for self ? New-Church teaching is explicit 
 and clear, that the first part of charity is looking to 
 the Lord and shunning evils because they are sins. 
 This is not merely a general truth but a particular 
 truth as well. Not only is looking to the Lord and 
 shunning evils because they are sins, at the very cen- 
 tre of an altruistic life, but it is at the centre of each 
 
ioo LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 separate act of true charity. If in the present study 
 our attention is directed especially to the second part 
 of charity, let us not forget that without this first 
 there can be no genuine second. How simple and 
 yet how profound is the following language of Swe- 
 denborg : 
 
 He who loves any one fears to do evil to him, for there is a 
 conjunction of souls between them ; and hence, in doing evil to 
 one to whom he is conjoined by love, he has a perception in his 
 soul as if he had done evil to himself. Who can bear to do 
 evil to his children, his wife, or his friends? To do evil to 
 them is contrary to the good of love. 
 
 To the degree that man is unwilling to do evil to 
 others, and only to that degree, can he will to do 
 them good, to render them service. Only to the 
 extent that, looking to the Lord, he abstains from 
 evil toward the neighbor, can he come interiorly into 
 effort to lead a life of use. 
 
 The second part of charity consists in doing good 
 things because they are uses. So-called charity which 
 is of the will only and not at the same time of the 
 understanding is spurious and without strength. If 
 brought into act it is as likely to work evil as good 
 to the neighbor. One who is sincerely obedient to 
 this principle may often seem to a superficial observer 
 cold and unsympathetic toward others, while the truth 
 is, that interior love of use is strengthened by re- 
 straining the expression of charitable impulse which 
 the understanding disapproves. 
 
THE DIVINE LAW OF USE. IO i 
 
 The individual man or woman whom there is occa- 
 sion to serve is the neighbor, but, in a larger and 
 fuller sense, a society comprising many individuals is 
 such, and the nation comprising many societies is the 
 neighbor in a still larger sense, and the human race 
 comprising many nations yet more fully so. The 
 Church and, in the supreme sense, the Lord, is the 
 neighbor. The good of the individual is properly 
 subordinate to the good of a society, the good of a 
 society to that of the nation, and the good of the 
 nation to the good of the human race, and the good 
 of all is from the supreme good. 
 
 The sacrifice of apparent individual good to the 
 real good of a society, a nation, or the race, is in 
 truth the promotion of the highest individual good. 
 A clear conception of the organic character of each 
 collective man aids us to see that the good of parts 
 or members cannot be antagonistic to the good of 
 the larger unit, but the real good of each and all is 
 promoted and conserved by the same unselfish living. 
 If the society, the nation, and the race were mere 
 aggregations of individual lives without organic re- 
 lation to each other, there could be only monotony of 
 function. It is from the organic character of com- 
 munity life, that the wonderful variety of function or 
 use arises, and thereby a far more perfect life is at- 
 tainable, not alone a more perfect community life, but 
 a more complete and perfect felicity of individual liv- 
 ing. There is an infinite variety of human beings, 
 
102 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 with as varied capacity for service to others. Each 
 one was created for a specific part in the activities of 
 a heaven of uses, to find in the service for which he 
 was designed his greatest delight of life. In his 
 progress thither, each has some place in this prepar- 
 atory life which no other can fill as well, and happy 
 is he who finds that place. No two persons being 
 created for precisely the same service, there never 
 has been, and never will be, an exact repetition. No 
 one can find the full measure of delight in any other 
 function than his own. 
 
 The ideal life on earth is that which best prepares 
 for heaven — that which brings most of heaven into the 
 soul by bringing the interior life into harmony with 
 that of heaven. It is true that the heavenly quality 
 of life is from the Lord alone, and is never produced 
 by good deeds of men, but the Lord is ever seeking 
 to bestow it, so far as men by looking to Him and 
 shunning evils as sins will permit its reception. Life 
 of heavenly quality, life of use, can become inwrought 
 as individual character, so that it will abide, only as 
 there is effort to bring it forth in the daily acts of 
 this present earthly plane of being. Division of la- 
 bor is a mark of the descent of heaven to earth, a 
 mark of the progress of civilization in the best sense, 
 not because it has any power to produce a love of 
 use, but because it furnishes the most efficient means 
 of bringing that love into outward life, and thus fix- 
 ing it as part and parcel of the interior life. Where 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE. 
 
 103 
 
 there is sincere desire to lead a life of use, and clear 
 conception of the means of doing this, labor is loved 
 as a form of use, and the particular phase of it in 
 which the lot is cast is cherished as the form into 
 which the individual love of use can most fully flow, 
 and in which it can find most perfect expression. 
 
 It is a grave charge against the present form of 
 social organization, that its normal operation deprives 
 many willing workers of opportunity to serve. There 
 could not well be graver. 
 
 This charge is made in all sincerity by numbers 
 who from some cause other than their own choice 
 are deprived of opportunity to have part in the world's 
 active uses, and it demands attention from econo- 
 mists, sociologists, statesmen, and all who directly or 
 indirectly have such relation to the organization of 
 industry as to give promise of effective aid in its 
 reform. 
 
 Inadequate return for labor is of itself of minor 
 moment to the laborer, but in its relation to ability 
 to continue and maintain the service it is of the ut- 
 most importance. Perhaps to most of those who see 
 in existing social conditions denial of opportunity to 
 many who would gladly serve, insufficient return ap- 
 pears the primary evil involved. As workers we are 
 all prone to give the return or compensation for ser- 
 vice undue place. It is not properly the primary end 
 or purpose of service, and there is some recognition 
 that it is not, with reference to more important func- 
 
104 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 tions, but it is a most important means to the end, 
 and care should be taken that it be full and adequate 
 to maintenance of the service at its highest efficiency. 
 In the long run, the return or compensation for ser- 
 vice will not be less generous and ample, if it be 
 remanded to its proper place as means, and deposed 
 from its usurped place as end. 
 
 Inversion of order in the end or purpose of ser- 
 vice, is the radical cause of industrial disorder, and 
 no measures of relief are truly curative which do not 
 reach this root of the evil. It cannot be said that 
 the inversion of order involved in serving others pri- 
 marily for the sake of the return, that is, primarily 
 for the sake of self, is less prevalent with the out- 
 wardly prosperous than with those upon whom tem- 
 poral misfortune presses heavily, nor can the reverse 
 be affirmed. It is not the sin of the employed from 
 which employers are exempt, nor of the latter to the 
 exclusion of the former. The poison infects rich and 
 poor, employer and employed alike, and through all 
 obstructs and hinders the mutual service by which 
 alone the heavenly life of use can be ultimated on 
 earth. Those who can accept Swedenborg's teaching 
 concerning the nature and origin of evil, its over- 
 whelming prevalence at the time of the Lord's com- 
 ing on earth, the progress of the redemption then 
 commenced, the deep significance of the Lord's sec- 
 ond coming in His Holy Word, and what follows 
 thereon, may know by reasonable reflection and ra- 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE, 10 $ 
 
 tional deduction therefrom, that the industrial and 
 commercial activities of the world are permeated from 
 top to bottom, from centre to circumference, with this 
 destructive principle that self is first and the neigh- 
 bor second as the end or purpose in life. Those to 
 whom inductive reasoning from observed phenomena 
 is alone convincing, find political economy from its 
 earliest recognition as a science, proceeding upon the 
 assumption that self-interest more or less enlight- 
 ened, is the actual controlling force in determining 
 the action of men with reference to the acquisition 
 and distribution of this world's goods. 
 
 The fact that the Divine law of use has been and 
 is sadly perverted by man, is abundantly established 
 by both methods of reasoning, by the testimony of 
 two witnesses. 
 
 Measures for the relief of industrial disorder which 
 are based upon the inverted law of selfish living, are 
 not necessarily aggravation of the evil, but at best 
 can be palliative only. They cannot be curative, be- 
 cause they do not reach the radical cause of the dis- 
 order to be removed. 
 
 Evils which cannot be removed because of man's 
 unwillingness to put away his own perversity, may be 
 restrained in outward expression by counteracting 
 force in itself evil, and some measure of protection 
 be thereby afforded to others. War is not from 
 heaven, but in origin and quality is from the opposite 
 of heaven. The wars of men never remove the ma- 
 
106 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 lignant evil from which they spring, but in most wars 
 its destructive manifestation is somewhat restrained 
 by contending force, and nations thereby protected. 
 Strikes, lock-outs, and all forms of hostile action on 
 the part of employers or employed, are of similar 
 origin and quality, and may have similar restraining 
 effect upon aggressive manifestation of selfishness, 
 and thus palliative operation. 
 
 It may help us to be patient at the slow progress 
 of outward reform for the correction of industrial dis- 
 order, to note that if such reform could outrun the 
 progress on interior planes, it might not aid, but hin- 
 der, the permanent interior gain. If secular life has 
 been long and widely permeated with a selfish end or 
 purpose, more or less of what is abnormal and de- 
 formed must characterize the social organism. It is 
 of a merciful providence that the laws of being inev- 
 itably require that it should be so. Something of 
 protection and of freedom is secured by external con- 
 ditions which would not be needed and could not 
 exist if the pure heavenly love of use alone found 
 expression in outward order. 
 
 If the competitive system of industrial organiza- 
 tion is indeed the outbirth of inverted interior life, 
 which may be itself open to question, there is no 
 reason to fear that it would become more mischievous 
 from a change in its animating spirit to genuine love 
 of serving for the sake of the neighbor, while it is 
 obvious that if the animating spirit continued with 
 
THE DIVINE LAW OF USE. 1Q j 
 
 large numbers to be selfish, the few who had escaped 
 to unselfish living might be defenceless under condi- 
 tions which were ideal if all were animated by the 
 same heavenly love of use. 
 
 No one has cause to bewail his environment who 
 has not advanced beyond it, and he who has some 
 knowledge of his own perversity is slow to assume 
 that he has outrun his fellows in progress toward un- 
 selfish living, or that he is aggrieved by their tardy 
 movement. The thoughtful student who observes 
 closely, may well fear that in the present stage of the 
 world's regeneration there is little need or occasion 
 for ideal external industrial conditions. If such need 
 arise, it will betoken an irresistible cause within, cer- 
 tain to produce the desired ultimate. 
 
 Those who accept the teaching concerning the re- 
 demption which the Lord has wrought in the new 
 age, cannot doubt that the regeneration and reforma- 
 tion of man, individual and collective, will go forward 
 on interior and exterior planes of being, until all 
 shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest. 
 New-Church teaching is plain that the work of re- 
 generation must be a gradual process. It is so from 
 Divine mercy. Interwoven evils, which have become 
 part of the very life, could not be suddenly and si- 
 multaneously removed without fatal result. What is 
 true of the progress of regeneration on interior 
 planes, is true to some extent of the progress of re- 
 form on exterior planes. The merciful purpose in 
 
108 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 staying a too rapid or radical overturn was declared 
 on both planes of being. 
 
 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year ; lest 
 the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply 
 against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from be- 
 fore thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land. 
 
 Advance in the collective life must proceed upon 
 similar lines to those which it follows with the indi- 
 vidual. Sudden radical revolution of industrial organ- 
 ization is neither to be expected nor desired, but 
 steady earnest progress by successive steps, as put- 
 ting away one evil may aid in the discernment of 
 another. 
 
 The largest possible aid which the individual can 
 give to the regeneration of collective life, that it may 
 become interiorly genuine love of use, and the largest 
 contribution which he may make to reform in out- 
 ward industrial organization, that the Lord's will may 
 be done in earth as it is in heaven, is an earnest per- 
 sonal consecration to unselfish living, not alone a 
 consecration in will and thought, but in effort or act 
 of use, that the heavenly quality may be inwrought 
 to permanently abide in the life. 
 
 What are the acts of use by which the individual 
 man or woman can come most interiorly and effec- 
 tually into the very life of charity, and whereby the 
 largest contribution can be made to the common 
 good ? In newly awakened zeal for unselfish living, 
 
THE DIVINE LAW OF USE. IO g 
 
 it is natural to turn for greater opportunity to one or 
 more of the associations with avowed charitable or 
 reformatory purpose. The life of the new age quick- 
 ens every agency to help those in temporary need, 
 and still more bids Godspeed to all that can confer 
 lasting benefit upon those whom existing social con- 
 ditions seem to put at a disadvantage. 
 
 Those w r ho with efficient organized charity, would 
 visit tenderly and with wise discrimination the liter- 
 ally sick and in prison, have valid claim for coopera- 
 tion and support in their mission of angelic mercy. 
 An Industrial Christian Alliance seeks to reach men 
 outcast by their own sin and folly, and also to reach 
 other men homeless or unemployed from no fault of 
 theirs, and proves its genuine charity by marked suc- 
 cess in imparting to those whom it aids its own spirit 
 of helping others. 
 
 College settlements multiply, and through them 
 trained minds andliearts come into close sympathetic 
 relations with those less favored, and study deeply 
 the problems and difficulties which confront toiling 
 thousands. These efforts are prompted by intense 
 longing to serve, and surely something of heaven 
 comes into them. 
 
 From Pisgah summits of economic study, leaders 
 are permitted to view the promised land wherein they 
 cannot enter, and with fervor they seek to encourage 
 and strengthen those of their followers who, after 
 long years of journeyings, may lead others to find 
 
no LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 therein freer access to the natural gifts of God, and 
 peaceful inheritance thereto. The delight of obedi- 
 ent service is not denied to those who in this spirit 
 strive for economic reforms. 
 
 All these forms of charity, and many others of kin- 
 dred spirit, of which these are but typical, are well, 
 and into each and all something of the love of use 
 may and does flow. All who have true love of use 
 can enter sympathetically into the delight of those 
 permitted to have active part in either of them. To 
 some, participation and leadership in these charitable 
 or reformatory activities may happily come as the 
 function or calling in life, and some measure of direct 
 or indirect service for them may be possible to all. 
 The organized activities under the name of charity 
 or reform, are, however, but a small fraction of the 
 service which the world needs and obtains. Increase 
 and perfect every one of them to its fullest measure 
 of efficient use, and neither nor all can become the 
 characteristic life of the community. The more suc- 
 cessful any or all, the smaller their part in the con- 
 tinuous common life, until complete success should 
 eliminate them altogether. The great volume of hu- 
 man service to meet human needs, is rendered in the 
 several callings in which individuals are engaged. 
 These varied and interwoven functions are together 
 the life of the community. The excellence or defect 
 of this service is the excellence or defect of the or- 
 ganic collective life. The quality of its animating 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE. 1TI 
 
 spirit is the quality of the interior community life. 
 In these functions and by them the community lives 
 such life as it has, and in and by them it must make 
 such advance as it will permit to be made. Reforms 
 in the outward methods of industry, and in the dis- 
 tribution of industrial products, gain in material re- 
 sults, and what is yet more vital, change in the end 
 or purpose of all this busy life which is our environ- 
 ment, must be effected in these several callings and 
 cannot be effected elsewhere. 
 
 The common advance is of greater moment than 
 the advance of any individual, but the two are never 
 permanently or really antagonistic. That which gives 
 vigor and efficiency to any part or individual function, 
 contributes to the collective strength of the whole, 
 and the perfection and power of the collective life 
 gives freer scope to each separate function. 
 
 If we can see clearly that the common or collec- 
 tive life can come fully into order in outward form and 
 inward quality — can become in each true heavenly 
 life wherein the neighbor is ever first and self second 
 ■ — only as individual workers in the several functions 
 or callings which go to make up that common life 
 shall have come interiorly into love of use and in 
 those functions wrought that love into individual lives 
 of use, then may we see deeper import in Sweden- 
 borg's statement that " charity itself is to act justly 
 and faithfully in the office, business, and work in 
 which any one is, and with whomsoever he has any 
 
H2 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 intercourse. " The familiar classification of the things 
 of charity comes to us with new force — duties of 
 charity, benefactions of charity, debts of charity, re- 
 creations of charity. Is it not clear that there is 
 far more in this order than we are wont to observe ? 
 Slight indeed is the attainment which enables us 
 to enter and enjoy recreations of charity, and rela- 
 tively slight is the impress upon character there- 
 from. Debts of charity paid from necessity, cannot 
 strengthen the love of the neighbor as acts done 
 from liberty may do. Benefactions of charity are 
 from liberty and are rudiments of charity, serving 
 for initiation or introduction to charity itself, and are 
 its externals. Perhaps in some states of the Church 
 and of an individual man, these mark the limitation 
 of the development of charity, and are as near the 
 central life of charity as the Church or man is willing 
 to go. Duties of charity are the exercises of charity 
 which proceed immediately from charity itself, and in 
 these lies the struggle for life. As these duties of 
 charity, primarily of the employment in which one is 
 and things incident thereto, are faithfully performed 
 in the love of serving, or the reverse, is there success 
 or failure in unselfish living. Our lives are not saved 
 from perversion to selfish ends by occasional or fre- 
 quent deeds in the name of charity or reform, but if 
 saved at all, are saved in the homely tasks of the 
 every-day life, wherein we may do good to the neigh- 
 bor daily and continually, and even in the intervals 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE. j I3 
 
 of rest may have the intent and purpose fixed in 
 mind and thereby have the law of use written in the 
 heart. 
 
 No study of industrial or economic problems from 
 a New-Church point of view is complete, which does 
 not note the distinct or discrete planes of life. The 
 spiritual life which is within the natural and is its 
 immediate cause, is the permanent life of man and is 
 the life of real value. The natural life is created 
 and exists that it may contain and ultimate the spir- 
 itual life during its formative period, and thereby 
 enable the latter to acquire definite and stable quality, 
 but the natural life has not itself value, save as it 
 may thus serve the spiritual. This conception does 
 not minimize the natural life, but gives its maximum 
 worth. The value of the fleeting natural in its rela- 
 tion to the abiding spiritual far transcends any which 
 it could have limited to its own duration. The rela- 
 tion of the spiritual and natural planes is not that 
 of continuous degree, as greater or less in extent, 
 but is distinct difference in kind, as cause and effect. 
 There is continual influx into the natural as effect 
 from the spiritual which is within as cause, but there 
 is not reverse influx of natural effect into spiritual 
 cause. The natural plane affects the spiritual by re- 
 action, to aid and serve, if in obedience and subordi- 
 nation, but otherwise to hinder and impair. No 
 increase or refinement in natural life can make that 
 life spiritual, nor does any development or perfection 
 
ii4 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 of spiritual life convert it into natural life. Flowing 
 down or outward upon the natural plane, spiritual 
 life clothes itself with natural life and ultimates itself 
 through it. Close and perfect as is the union of the 
 two by correspondence, they are never merged, never 
 cease to be distinct from each other. Natural truths 
 are distinct or discrete from spiritual truths. We 
 rightly turn to the Church for aid in the apprehen- 
 sion of spiritual truth and the solution of spiritual 
 problems. There have been times and conditions 
 when the Church assumed to speak with authority 
 upon truths of natural science and the solution of 
 secular problems, but the emancipated thought of 
 the New Age does not accept dogmatic teaching in 
 natural science or secular knowledge from wisdom 
 in spiritual things, nor like instruction in spiritual 
 truth from learning in natural science or high attain- 
 ment in worldly wisdom. 
 
 The Church teaches us the law of use and its vital 
 relation to the spiritual life of man, teaches us how 
 the mutual services of the natural life on earth may 
 serve to write the law of use in the heart, but the 
 natural uses of the present life cannot be organized 
 and perfected directly from intelligence in spiritual 
 truths. Natural truths and natural intelligence in 
 them are essential to the efficient organization and 
 prosecution of natural industries. Clear conception 
 of spiritual truths is indeed of great assistance to full 
 apprehension of natural truths in which they must 
 
THE DIVINE IAW OF USE. IlS 
 
 be embodied for application to service of others in 
 the earthly life, but no attainment in spiritual knowl- 
 edge is or can be a substitute for attainment in 
 knowledge pertaining to things of the natural plane. 
 However clear the individual conception of the Divine 
 law of use, or of the specific spiritual or natural use 
 of the individual calling, however earnest and sincere 
 may be the desire to serve the neighbor therein, 
 there is no escape from the necessity to study the 
 natural truths which pertain to that calling and to 
 acquire natural wisdom in relation thereto. The 
 command, "Thou shalt not kill," is an explicit spir- 
 itual law, but it cannot be obeyed on the natural 
 plane, without knowledge of such natural truths as 
 teach what acts would destroy or endanger human 
 life. For its full observance there must be added to 
 never so clear apprehension of the spiritual law, some 
 measure of knowledge in physics and in medical and 
 sanitary science. Every precept of the decalogue 
 must be supplemented by and clothed with truths of 
 the natural plane, in its practical application to daily 
 living on earth. 
 
 All service of man to man on earth, is or should be 
 but the specific application of the precepts of the 
 decalogue to the practical affairs of life. In advanced 
 or civilized life the effort to make service of others 
 effective, has given rise to several learned professions 
 and many diversified industries. In each of these is 
 gathered and applied truth exclusively of the natural 
 
n6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 plane, essential to the full ultimation of the spiritual 
 truth which it is sought to bring into the life through 
 its instrumentality, and each is continually gathering 
 new stores of natural truths, as the interior animating 
 life demands new implements of service. 
 
 Statesmen, economists, and sociologists are not 
 less alert than those in other departments of study 
 and activity on the busy natural plane, nor necessarily 
 less responsive to the demands of the inflowing life 
 of the New Age. New needs, arising out of the new 
 awakening of the world's life, are recognized all along 
 the line of its restless activity, and such new needs 
 are met with wonderful rapidity. The trend of in- 
 dustrial organization to more efficient service, is irre- 
 sistible. The changes already made, numerous and 
 far-reaching as they are, but lead the way for others 
 of yet greater significance. Those who fondly dream 
 that change in industrial organization can be stayed 
 at its present status, have little apprehension of the 
 forces within, which have produced this upheaval. 
 The pain and suffering of the transition period shall 
 pass, but the causes of advance are profound and 
 lasting. 
 
 The primary effort toward the solution of industrial 
 problems, is not to discern the mote which mars a 
 brother's vision. Such discernment is not given with 
 sufficient clearness, until there is mastery of the 
 harder task which confronts us at the outset in cast- 
 ing out the beam which obstructs our own. 
 
THE DIVINE LA W OF USE. 
 
 117 
 
 Not despising or omitting the feasts and recreations 
 of charity, neither avoiding nor withholding the debts 
 or compulsory things of charity, entering gladly and 
 warmly into such benefactions of charity as we may 
 be permitted to have part in, it still remains that the 
 heavenly love of use can be wrought into the collec- 
 tive secular life, can be made an abiding part of the 
 collective spiritual life, only through individual conse- 
 cration to unselfish living in the homely duties of the 
 every-day work which is devolved upon each. 
 
 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faith- 
 fulness the girdle of his reins. 
 
THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE 
 STATE AND TO SECULAR AFFAIRS 
 
 Samuel S. Seward 
 
 One of the first aims of the sincere Christian, when 
 he awakes to the responsibilities which his new and 
 conscious relations to the Lord impose upon him, 
 must be to apply the Divine truths he has taken as 
 the guide and inspiration of his inner life, to all his 
 outer duties, and especially to the affairs of the state. 
 
 Such a man is, as the Apostle says, " a new crea- 
 ture/' or " creation." He is " born again/' or "from 
 above." He has put off "the old man which is cor- 
 rupt according to the deceitful lusts," and "put on 
 the new man, which after God is created in righteous- 
 ness and true holiness " (Eph. iv. 22-24). New spir- 
 itual motives from the Lord have taken possession of 
 his heart, and begun to exercise a predominating in- 
 fluence over his actions. Whereas before he did what 
 is right for the sake of the good opinion of others, or 
 of greater success in the world, he is now actuated 
 by a pure and simple love of what is right for its own 
 sake. His will is in harmony with the Divine will. 
 
 118 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 1T g 
 
 Loving what the Lord loves he receives the Lord's 
 love in his heart, and desires to act from it in all that 
 he does. He is full of the spirit of service. He 
 loves to do good to his fellow men — even to those 
 with whom he is most remotely connected. He feels 
 a love not his own — higher and deeper than can 
 spring from any human source — rising in his heart, 
 and longs to give it expression not only in his per- 
 sonal but in his public relations. 
 
 It is to such men that I address myself on this oc- 
 casion — to men who believe in an immanent God, 
 and who desire to bring their belief into practice in 
 all their dealings with their fellow men. I am not 
 speaking to men who deny God and Revelation, men 
 who set their mouths against the heavens, and whose 
 tongue walketh through the earth ; but to those who 
 are at least willing to believe in a God, and to be 
 guided by Him if His will can be made clear to them. 
 This course of lectures is not delivered in behalf of 
 socialists or political economists, or any of the phi- 
 losophies of the day ; but of a Church which claims 
 to derive its authority from the Word of the Lord, 
 and to believe that that Word, when properly under- 
 stood, contains a solution of all the problems that 
 affect the welfare of men. The subject is, not the 
 relation of one class of men to another, but of the 
 Church to the State and to secular affairs. It is ad- 
 dressed, therefore, to the members of the Church ; or 
 to those who would be members if they could feel 
 
120 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 satisfied that the Church possesses the truth neces- 
 sary to meet the wants of the race. 
 
 The problem is two-fold : first, Whether the prin- 
 ciples of faith and practice that are sufficient to purge 
 the inner life of man, are adequate to correct the 
 evils of the body politic ; and second, If they are 
 sufficient, how they are to be applied, whether directly 
 by legislative and collective action, or indirectly through 
 the regeneration of the individual man ? Will the re- 
 ligion that saves the citizen save the State ; and, if 
 so, how shall it be brought to bear upon the larger 
 body ? Must we look outside of the Church for the 
 regeneration of the State ; or will the regeneration 
 of the individuals who compose the State answer the 
 purpose ? It is not pretended that there is not an 
 important and fundamental function for the State to 
 perform in human concerns, nor that there is no need 
 for reform in the State itself. It is admitted that the 
 State must give effect to spiritual principles before 
 they can serve their full purpose in the emancipation 
 of the race. But the question is, Where shall the 
 process begin, and in what direction shall it operate ? 
 Shall it begin at the circumference and work toward 
 the centre, or at the centre and work toward the cir- 
 cumference ? Shall the way for the coming down of 
 the kingdom of heaven be prepared by external re- 
 forms, or will the coming of the kingdom carry re- 
 forms with it ? Must all injustice, inequality, and 
 suffering be abolished, and a " diffused happiness " be 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 121 
 
 spread abroad among men, before they will believe in 
 a God, or will a belief in God slowly but surely 
 banish all evil from the earth, and institute a reign of 
 peace and good-will in the world ? Is the religion of 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ adequate to " the 
 healing of the nations," or must it be preceded and 
 supplemented by social reforms, economic measures, 
 and repressive legislation ? Is the Word of the Lord 
 strong enough to accomplish the purpose for which it 
 is "sent," or must it return unto Him who sent it 
 "void " ? If it is strong enough, by what means shall 
 we bring its interior precepts down into our lowest 
 and most secular affairs ? 
 
 With regard to the first point, the adequacy of 
 the Word, and of the faith and practice taught in the 
 Word, to meet all the requirements of the human 
 race, we cannot admit a question. This course of 
 lectures is addressed, as has been said, to those who 
 believe in the Word, or who are, at least, willing to 
 believe in it if .they can be rationally convinced of its 
 application to all the problems of life. For the pur- 
 poses of this lecture, therefore, we take the authority 
 of the Word for granted ; trusting that what we shall 
 be able to show will strengthen its authority by prov- 
 ing its practical application to all the affairs of our 
 daily life, both private and public. 
 
 But the Word is not like any other book. It is 
 divine, not human. Its language is not chosen to 
 express simple human ideas, but to contain the infi- 
 
122 LIGHT OAT CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 nite riches of infinite wisdom. It cannot be under- 
 stood like any other book, and must not be inter- 
 preted in the same manner. With regard to the sec- 
 ond point, therefore, how the precepts of the Word 
 can be brought down and applied to the manifold re- 
 lations of secular life, we must appeal to the doc- 
 trine of the Church. 
 
 Turning, then, to the doctrine of the Church for 
 instruction, we find, in the first place, that the Church 
 does not ignore the existence of secular affairs, or 
 overlook the necessity of taking an active part in 
 them. On the contrary she teaches that man must 
 take such a part ; that, if he does not, his religious 
 life will be like a house without a foundation, or a 
 soul without a body ; and that it is only in the faith- 
 ful discharge of our social and secular duties that 
 our religion can find full and adequate expression. 
 In other words, a spiritual life consists, not in shut- 
 ting ourselves off from the world, nor in spending our 
 time in meditation and prayer apart from active em- 
 ployment, but in bringing spiritual principles to bear 
 in all our outward concerns. The Lord's prayer for 
 the disciples was, not that they should be taken " out 
 of the world," but " kept from the evil." (John xvii. 
 
 is-) 
 
 This truth is taught particularly in what is said 
 about the relation of spiritual life to moral and civil 
 life. A civil life is a life of conformity to the laws 
 of the State. A moral life is a life according to the 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 123 
 
 moral or ethical principles that a man may entertain. 
 A spiritual life is a life of obedience to the com- 
 mandments of the Lord. The doctrine of the New 
 Church teaches that, though a man may live a civil 
 and moral life without living a spiritual life, he can- 
 not live a spiritual life without living at the same 
 time a civil and moral life. This is because while a 
 spiritual or religious life has to do primarily with the 
 springs of man's actions — the motives by which he 
 is impelled — it must find expression in a civil and 
 moral life, or it will be dissipated and lost. A spir- 
 itual life not resting upon the words and deeds of 
 civil and moral life, will lose consistency and support, 
 and must sooner or later perish. So far then from 
 countenancing the idea that it is the duty of the 
 Church to preach what is called religion, and to let 
 secular affairs severely alone, the doctrines of the 
 New Church teach that it is the duty of the Church 
 to make herself felt on every plane of life, and that 
 without this, our religion is religion only in name, 
 without substance or power. . 
 
 This is the general statement. But the doctrines 
 of the Church go farther than this. Not only does 
 the Church teach that our spiritual life must find 
 expression in civil and moral affairs, but that this 
 rule applies to all secular duties, not only to our rela- 
 tions with other men as individuals, but as members 
 of the community, the State, and the Church. This 
 is involved in a true understanding of what is meant 
 
124 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 by the neighbor that is to be loved as ourselves. 
 According to the doctrine of the New Church, the 
 neighbor is not only the individual man or woman 
 with whom we may come in contact, but every larger 
 or smaller society, or combination of men, that may 
 be formed for legitimate purposes. More than this, 
 the doctrine of the Church teaches that a society is 
 the neighbor in a larger and more important sense 
 than any individual. It is composed, not of one, but 
 of many, and the uses it subserves are greater and 
 more far-reaching. The State is a neighbor in a still 
 larger form, not merely because it is composed of a 
 greater number of individuals, but because it extends 
 over them the protection of its laws, affords them 
 facilities for carrying on their employments in safety 
 and with ease, and is as a father to the people. The 
 Church is the neighbor in the largest sense, not only 
 because she includes more people than the State, but 
 because the purpose she subserves is spiritual and 
 eternal, and vital to our spiritual and eternal welfare. 
 Such being the case it follows that we are to be more 
 careful in applying the principles of true religion to 
 the State and to the Church — all organized bodies of 
 men — than in our dealings with individuals. Patriot- 
 ism is a higher virtue than friendship, and love of 
 the Church greater than love of country ; while a sin 
 against the State is of a deeper dye than against any 
 individual belonging to the State. 
 
 This truth ought not to need insistence. But it 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 "5 
 
 does. On no other subject is there so much culpa- 
 ble ignorance and moral obliquity as this. Witness 
 the unblushing frauds practised upon banks and other 
 large business organizations, the defalcations among 
 the holders of corporate funds, and the cheating and 
 robbery practised by the officials of the State. Men 
 who would blush to take advantage of an individual, 
 will defraud a great corporation, apparently without 
 the slightest perception of the sin they are commit- 
 ting. They seem to think there is nothing reprehen- 
 sible in such conduct, except being found out. This 
 is the origin of the common saying that " corporations 
 have no souls ; " by which is meant that they have no 
 individual feelings or personal rights that can be in- 
 jured. Measuring their conduct, not by its inherent 
 character, but by its effect upon others, and not being 
 able to trace its good or ill results upon corporations 
 as upon individuals, men come to the conclusion that 
 the ordinary laws of justice and morality do not apply 
 to corporations. They forget that if corporations 
 have no souls, they themselves have; and that the 
 sin, if any is committed, is committed not against 
 others, but against their own souls. They need to 
 be reminded that any injury done to their fellow men 
 in their corporate capacity, is a greater sin than even 
 a greater injury done to an individual, and will leave 
 a deeper stain upon their character. True religion 
 demands, not only that we should carry out our spir- 
 itual principles in all secular affairs, but that we 
 
i 2 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 should be more faithful and conscientious in our 
 dealings with larger and smaller combinations of men, 
 than with individuals. 
 
 This brings us to the third aspect of the subject — 
 the practical application of the principles of true 
 religion to secular affairs, including our duty to the 
 neighbor, both in an individual and in a corporate 
 capacity. And on this point the teaching of the 
 New Church is clear and unequivocal. We are to 
 bring our highest spiritual aspirations down into act 
 in all our dealings with our fellow men, whether as 
 individuals or as aggregations of individuals, by the 
 same means — by the application of the precepts of 
 the Word, and especially of the Ten Commandments, 
 to practice in the discharge of the duties of our 
 calling ; or, in other words, by shunning the evils 
 forbidden in the Decalogue in all our dealings with 
 our fellow men. 
 
 I am aware that this may seem to some a lame and 
 impotent conclusion. There is nothing in this doc- 
 trine of obedience to the commandments that appeals 
 to the heroic side of human nature. What men are 
 looking for at this age is some " great thing " to do 
 — some great difficulty to overcome or great sacrifice 
 to make — that shall call forth the plaudits of the 
 race. So commonplace and humdrum a remedy for 
 the ills of the times is distasteful, and is seldom or 
 never referred to. Even the pulpit loses sight of the 
 fact that the Ten Commandments were spoken by the 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 127 
 
 Lord Himself " with a great voice " (Exod. xx. i, 19 : 
 Deut. v. 22), that "the people might hear and be- 
 lieve forever " (Exod. xix. 9) ; and that, as the Lord's 
 own divinely chosen method of revealing His will to 
 men, they must be adequate for all the needs of the 
 human race. They necessarily include and compre- 
 hend the whole duty of man. They constitute the 
 "missing link" between his inner and outer life. 
 They are the Lord's own accommodation of the laws 
 of life to men. They are the means, and the only 
 means, by which the distance between the inmost 
 divine truth, as it exists in the mind of the Lord, 
 and as it is adapted to the minds of men, can be 
 bridged over. When understood in the light of 
 sound doctrine they will be found applicable to all 
 the circumstances of human life, and will correct all 
 the evils to which the race may be exposed. 
 
 Of course it is impossible to enter into an exhaust- 
 ive illustration of this truth in a single discourse. 
 It will be sufficient to say that it is everywhere in- 
 sisted on in the doctrines of the Church ; and that 
 the Ten Commandments themselves are opened and 
 explained in such a manner as to show their applica- 
 bility to every emergency of life. I cannot refrain, 
 however, from calling attention to one place where 
 the practical nature of the doctrines of the New 
 Church is fully brought out, and the adaptability of 
 the Ten Commandments to all the walks of life fully 
 illustrated. In the little work on "Charity" they 
 
l 2 8 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 are specifically applied to all classes and conditions 
 of men — to priests, or ministers ; to magistrates, or 
 the highest officers of the government, whether na- 
 tional, state, or municipal ; to the officials under them 
 of every shade and degree ; to judges ; to commanders 
 of armies, and the officers under them ; to common 
 soldiers ; to men of business ; to workmen ; to hus- 
 bandmen ; to commanders of vessels and sailors ; and 
 to servants. And with regard to each one the stand- 
 ard is the same. Though the instructions vary with 
 each class according to the nature and importance of 
 the work he performs, one condition is laid down for 
 all men, namely, that they " look to the Lord, shun 
 evils as sins, and sincerely, justly, and faithfully per- 
 form the work of their office or calling " (Doctrine of 
 Charity, 101, et seq). To " look to the Lord " is to 
 act from regard to Him in all that we do ; to " shun 
 evils as sins " is to refuse to do the evils forbidden in 
 the commandments ; and to do this, is to fulfil " sin- 
 cerely, faithfully, and justly " the duties of our calling. 
 This is all that the Lord requires of us, and all that 
 the welfare and happiness of our fellow men demand. 
 It is to make the civil and moral life which we all 
 ought to live, and which most of us do live, also a 
 spiritual life, by bringing spiritual principles to bear 
 in all our moral and civil conduct. It is to fulfil the 
 law of charity, or love to the neighbor, whether in his 
 individual or corporate capacity. 
 
 Here, then, we find the solution of the problem 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 12 g 
 
 before us. So far from countenancing that divorce 
 between religion and life sometimes supposed to ex- 
 ist, and so often charged against the Church, it 
 teaches that religion finds its only solid basis and 
 support in the duties of our daily life, and that it 
 must enter into and regulate all our outward conduct 
 both as individuals and as citizens. It teaches that 
 this is to be accomplished, not merely by the estab- 
 lishment of just laws that shall make sins against 
 other men and the State impossible, but by each man 
 in his individual capacity, looking to the Lord, shun- 
 ning evils as sins, and performing faithfully the duties 
 of his calling. It teaches, in other words, that the 
 Word of the Lord, or the Ten Commandments as an 
 epitome of the Word, are the means, and the only 
 means, by which the distance between the inner and 
 outer life of man can be spanned, and his highest 
 spiritual affections made fruitful in his lowest and 
 most common-place duties. But, inasmuch as obedi- 
 ence to the commandments as such can only be ren- 
 dered by individual men as the result of repentance 
 toward God and the beginning of a new life from 
 Him, it follows that these principles must be applied 
 by such men acting in their personal capacity, and not 
 by united or legislative action without such a living 
 principle within. The conclusion is that all reforms 
 to be genuine must begin from a religious principle 
 within, and work toward the circumference ; must be 
 spiritual and not natural, from the Lord and not 
 
130 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 from man ; and that any reform not acknowledging 
 the Lord in His revealed Word as the Fountain of 
 life and power, though it may possibly serve a tem- 
 porary purpose in alleviating the wrongs of society 
 in the " transition time" through which we are now 
 passing, must sooner or later fail of its purpose. Let 
 us endeavor briefly to apply this solution of the sub- 
 ject to the problems of the day. 
 
 For this purpose let us apply it, in the first place, 
 to the family, as the unit of the State. Let us im- 
 agine a family in which every member, so far as his 
 age and understanding will permit, is in the earnest 
 endeavor to look to the Lord, to shun the evils for- 
 bidden in the Decalogue as sins against Him, and to 
 fulfil faithfully his part in the common duties. Sup- 
 pose that each one is in the effort to put away all 
 hatred and anger, all envy and jealousy, all impurity 
 and lust, all desire to take advantage of others or to 
 deprive them of their privileges, and all disposition to 
 misrepresent or even to misunderstand their designs. 
 Suppose that, as is always the case with those who 
 endeavor to shun evils, they find the opposite good 
 affections springing up in their hearts — love of 
 others, a spirit of mutual helpfulness and affection, a 
 tendency to rejoice in each other's welfare, to cover 
 up their faults, to soothe and comfort rather than to 
 annoy and neglect, in short to oil the machinery of 
 the household instead of letting it wear itself out with 
 fret and jar — what would be the result ? Would not 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 !3I 
 
 such a family be a remote image of a heavenly soci- 
 ety ? Would it not be a model republic ? Would it 
 not show forth even in this world the life of the angels 
 in the other ? Would it not illustrate the power of 
 the divine truth, w r hen accepted and obeyed in the 
 name of the Lord, to overcome the sinfulness of the 
 human heart, and to inaugurate a reign of " peace on 
 earth, and good will toward men " ? 
 
 But what is true of the family is true, or may be 
 true, of the community, the state, or the nation. To 
 be sure it requires a loftier flight of the imagination 
 than many of us are capable of, to picture such a 
 condition of things at the present day ; but it is not 
 beyond the limits of possibility. Imagine a munici- 
 pality for instance in which every man, woman, and 
 child, from the highest officer to the humblest citizen, 
 each in his own degree and place, is in the sincere 
 endeavor to shun the evils forbidden in the Com- 
 mandments in his dealings with the rest. The mayor 
 or chief magistrate of such a government would be 
 a model official. He would be among the people as 
 "one that serveth." Personal ambition, the lust of 
 power and pelf, would be eliminated from his motives. 
 He would seek the greatest benefit of the greatest 
 number in all his actions. He would be continually 
 influenced by " the good of use to the community, 
 and to the individuals in the community. ,, He would 
 be moved, " in common with men that are wise and 
 fear God, to establish useful laws, to see that they are 
 
I3 2 LIGHT ON CURRENT \ TOPICS. 
 
 observed, and especially to live under them ; and also 
 to appoint intelligent, and at the same time benevo- 
 lent, officers under him over the people " (Doctrine of 
 Charity, 102). Imagine also that all the officers and 
 citizens were actuated by similar motives ; imagine 
 that they were all as faithful and conscientious in 
 their lesser duties as the mayor in his higher office ; 
 imagine that they responded to all the efforts of the 
 government in their behalf ; imagine that instead of 
 avoiding their just share of the public expenses, they 
 paid their taxes without evasion and with fidelity ; 
 imagine that they were as honest in their transac- 
 tions with the city, as men usually are with individ- 
 uals, even the street-sweeper being as anxious to do 
 a full day's work as to secure a full day's wages ; im- 
 agine that they were sincere and upright in all their 
 private dealings with each other, and with the stranger 
 that came within their gates ; and what a model city 
 that would be ! How would other cities emulate her 
 example ! What an influence would she exert upon 
 the business world around her ! How would her ports 
 be crowded with shipping, her warehouses with mer- 
 chandise, and her streets with the cheerful sounds of 
 industry! She would be "the crowning city, whose 
 merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the hon- 
 orable of the earth " (Isa. xxiii. 8). Such a city 
 would be a paradise to live in, and her citizens among 
 the most prosperous and enviable men of the earth. 
 And all this would be brought about, not by the su- 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 1 33 
 
 perior advantages of her situation, not by the greater 
 natural intelligence and industry of her people, nor 
 by the superior acuteness of her lawmakers, but by 
 the application of the Ten Commandments to all pri- 
 vate and public affairs. 
 
 Let us look at the subject from another point of 
 view. Let us ask ourselves what human intelligence 
 can do, without such a recognition of the Divine Law 
 as I have pictured, to solve the problems of the day. 
 
 In the Forum for August last, there is a sympo- 
 sium of four articles on " Sentimental Dealing with 
 Crime, and its World-Wide Increase." The first 
 treats of the great strike that had then just closed at 
 Chicago ; the second, of anarchism ; the third, of the 
 criminal degradation in New York city ; and the 
 fourth, of the increase of crime. In not one of them 
 is there recognition of any higher authority than that 
 of society, or the State, nor of any other principles 
 than purely legal or ethical ones. They are all of 
 them a mere balancing of probabilities and possibili- 
 ties regarding the effect of legislation, education, pun- 
 ishment, and repression of various kinds ; nor does 
 any one of them suggest any certain way out of the 
 difficulties in which we are involved. The next num- 
 ber, for September, contains the address of Judge 
 Cooley, as President of the National Bar Association, 
 on "The Lessons of Recent Disorders." The dis- 
 orders to which he refers are the lynchings of the 
 South, the anarchism of France, and the strikes and 
 
*34 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 boycotts of the North. Here also we notice a total 
 absence of all principles except legal and ethical ones, 
 while the chief object of the paper seems to be to 
 discover whether or not arbitration can be applied 
 with justice and success to controversies between 
 labor and capital. 
 
 These articles are not alluded to by way of criti- 
 cism, but to illustrate the absence of all recognition 
 of Divine authority, in dealing with the burning ques- 
 tions of the day. We see this exhibited in almost all 
 the reform movements of the time. It would seem 
 as if men had lost faith in religion as the conservator 
 of society. Socialists purpose to accomplish the ob- 
 ject proposed, not by overcoming the greed and self- 
 ishness of the human heart, but by "the abolition of 
 private property in the great material instruments of 
 production." Nationalists, who may be classed as a 
 branch of Socialists, place their chief reliance upon 
 cooperative industries. Single Taxers believe the 
 universal panacea for all the injustice of the time is 
 to be found in placing all taxes on land values. Be- 
 sides these we have bimetallists and sound-money 
 men, protectionists and free-traders, and every shade 
 and degree of political economists, each of whom 
 firmly believes that the solution of all problems is to 
 be found in his own particular scheme. 
 
 This tendency to rely upon human instead of Di- 
 vine means, is illustrated in the disposition to resort 
 to legislation and organization for every imaginable 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 135 
 
 purpose. No great crime forces itself upon the atten- 
 tion of men, nor does any new method of defrauding 
 society come to light, unless somebody proposes to 
 make it a statutory offence ; as if the mere fact of 
 forbidding men to commit certain acts could correct 
 the evil. Witness the lamentable efforts to cure the 
 evils of intemperance by a resort to prohibitory leg- 
 islation, instead of the moral suasion that was brought 
 to bear with such powerful effect thirty or forty years 
 ago. Witness the proposed plans for the so-called 
 emancipation of women by making her wages the 
 same as man's, in spite of the fundamental laws of 
 value, and giving her a ballot she cannot defend. 
 Witness the innumerable schemes for the establish- 
 ment of values other than those that grow out of the 
 laws of production and demand ; for the regulation 
 of trade by other means than those Divine Provi- 
 dence has instituted in the differences of climate and 
 soil ; and for increasing wages and stimulating manu- 
 factures by the inflation of the currency. 
 
 Where legislation is found too slow and cumber- 
 some, organization is called into play. Societies are 
 formed for all possible and impossible purposes — to 
 suppress vice, to prevent cruelty to animals and to 
 children, to reform dress, to regulate the use of orna- 
 ments involving injury to birds and animals, to pro- 
 mote patriotism, to establish good government, to 
 banish the cigarette, and to do almost every other 
 conceivable thing. Nor is this all. Even the sacred 
 
136 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 work of the Church is invaded and negatived by this 
 spirit. To make up for her lack of vitality and power, 
 the " Institutional Church " is brought into requisi- 
 tion. The gymnasium, the debating society, the lit- 
 erary coterie, and the social meeting, are resorted to 
 to supplement the prayer meeting and the distinct- 
 ively religious services. All kinds of outward in- 
 ducements are made use of in order to restrain the 
 evil propensities of men, and to keep their efforts in 
 the right channel. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as condemning 
 these expedients wholesale. I recognize that legis- 
 lation has an essential part to play in the economy of 
 the human race, and that there are many govern- 
 mental reforms now agitated to which no effective 
 character can be given except by collective action. I 
 admit with pleasure the necessity and use of organi- 
 zation in order to accomplish general results, and ac- 
 knowledge with gratitude the great work that has 
 been accomplished by the societies for the prevention 
 of vice, cruelty, etc., and by other movements of a 
 similar nature. I grant freely that much of this kind 
 of work must have been left undone if it had not 
 been for such organizations as I have mentioned, and 
 that in the peculiar period of the world's history in 
 which we are now living they have an important and 
 vital use to perform. 
 
 What I protest against is, not the use of such 
 means for the bettering of the race so far as they 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS, j^y 
 
 are proper and beneficial, but the growing tendency 
 to depend upon them instead of the " Thus saith the 
 Lord " ; the disposition, which seems to be increasing 
 even in the Church and among the clergy, to put our 
 faith for "the healing of the nations" in humanly- 
 devised prescriptions, instead of the "leaves" of the 
 "Tree of Life" ; to trust to our own efforts, instead 
 of the Divine "Arm " that can alone bring salvation 
 to the people. It would seem as if we had arrived at 
 that time of which it is written, "When the Son of 
 Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth ? " and 
 as if for this reason religion had lost all its power 
 over human conduct. 
 
 A brief examination will show how utterly futile 
 such remedies are to right the wrongs of the age. 
 At best they can only reach the symptoms of the 
 trouble, while the causes from which they spring re- 
 main untouched and still active. A recent writer in 
 an English Review,* has said upon this subject: — 
 
 The State can remove hindrances, the State can minimize 
 temptations of an external kind, the State can improve condi- 
 tions of life, the State can punish flagrant violations of order, 
 the State can compel mutual interests to be respected by means 
 of taxation, the State can, if inspired by the Church, infuse jus- 
 tice and righteousness into her laws, and into the administration 
 of them. But she cannot touch the hidden springs of action. 
 She cannot influence the higher motives of life. She cannot 
 play upon the affections. She cannot enter upon the regions of 
 
 *Rev. Frederick Relton, in the Economist, for October, 1894. 
 
138 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS, 
 
 the inner chamber where the soul holds communion with God. 
 Inasmuch as her behests must be carried out by individual men 
 and women, these in the discharge of their duties will be Chris- 
 tian or non-Christian according to their individual relation to 
 God, and not according to their position as members or officials 
 of the State. 
 
 All legislation that has for its object the regulation 
 of the outward actions of men (and this is the high- 
 est object that legislation can reach), must necessarily 
 be limited to the suppression of crime, and fail to 
 touch the motives from which all crime has its origin. 
 If successful, which it seldom is, it can only punish 
 wrong doing, not eradicate wrong desires. The func- 
 tion of the State is external ; that of the Church in- 
 ternal. The State has to do with the outward con- 
 duct of men ; the Church with their secret motives. 
 The object of the State is, by the enactment of wise 
 laws, to enable the citizen, if he is well disposed, to 
 carry on all just enterprises with safety and dispatch; 
 and, if he is ill disposed, to punish any infraction he 
 may commit upon the rights or property of another. 
 But the State cannot of itself provide either for the 
 cultivation of right motives or the repression of wrong 
 ones. This is the province of the Church, acting 
 under the leadership of the Lord, the great Head of 
 the Church, and in obedience to the Word as His 
 own revelation of His will to men. All reforms not 
 based squarely upon the truths of Revelation, and not 
 growing out of a renewed and regenerated heart on 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 139 
 
 the part of those engaging in them, are superficial ; a 
 salve to heal over " slightly " the hurt of the people, 
 and not a sovereign remedy for the fever that is con- 
 suming the heart. 
 
 But they are not only superficial ; they are decep- 
 tive. All the crimes that are committed have their 
 source in some form of selfishness or self-love. Noth- 
 ing can reach and remedy crime, except that which 
 will reach and remedy the selfishness from which it 
 springs. It follows, therefore, that all reforms that 
 are intended to restrain the sins of men, without 
 reaching and changing the motives by which they 
 are actuated, must fall short of their purpose ; and 
 that if we could by such means suppress every mani- 
 festation of evil, men would be no better at heart 
 than they are now. Nothing but repentance toward 
 God and a new life from Him will make men better ; 
 and the more apparently successful the attempt to 
 make them so by any less radical means, the more 
 they will be deceived by it. Even the individual 
 cannot reform himself by such means. He cannot 
 remove evil by his own efforts. The most he can do 
 is to shun evil in the name of the Lord and through 
 strength derived from Him, but only the Lord can 
 remove the evil desires from his heart. " Unto God 
 the Lord belong the issues from death." He alone 
 has " the words of eternal life." Any reform not 
 having its origin in Him, and testified to by acts of 
 repentance on the part of the people, is a delusion. 
 
140 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS- 
 
 But again, such reforms are not only superficial 
 and deceptive, they are dangerous. If they could be 
 successful they would only serve to defeat the high- 
 est purpose of our life in this world, and render 
 all true preparation for the other world impossible. 
 While it is right that evil should be restrained within 
 bounds for the sake of the well disposed, and that 
 for this reason repressive laws should be passed and 
 enforced ; it is wrong on the other hand to inter- 
 fere more than necessary with human freedom. A 
 strong, though perhaps unconscious, tendency of mod- 
 ern reform, is to set things right without individual 
 action ; to let cooperation and State interference do 
 the work which it was intended that every man should 
 do for himself ; to make the collective man responsi- 
 ble for the individual, instead of the individual for 
 the collective man. The consequence is that we have 
 among us an increasing body of men who believe that 
 society owes them a living, and who act upon the be- 
 lief ; while there are hundreds and thousands who are 
 looking forward to the good time coming when per- 
 sonal responsibility shall be done away with, and the 
 community shall provide for the wants of all alike. 
 This does not seem to be the order of nature. It 
 certainly is not the order of Divine Providence. The 
 Divine law is that every man shall work out his own 
 salvation with fear and trembling, and that for this 
 purpose he shall not be compelled by external laws, 
 but shall compel himself. It is only when he does 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 141 
 
 this that the good he does can be ascribed to him as 
 his own, or the Lord can come in and take away the 
 disposition to do evil. The modern tendency to hedge 
 men about with outward restraints, to protect them 
 against the natural disabilities under which they have 
 been placed, and to provide for their wants by a pa- 
 ternal government, has the unnoticed but deadly ef- 
 fect of weakening their moral stamina and destroying 
 their manhood. It encourages them to hope for some 
 "great expectations " in the future^ instead of exert- 
 ing themselves like men to provide for themselves ; 
 to wait in indolence and idleness for society to right 
 their wrongs, instead of setting them right by the use 
 of their own rationality and freedom. We learn from 
 the parable of the talents that men are placed in this 
 world in order that they make the potential powers 
 with which they are endowed their own by using 
 them ; that for this purpose the Lord withdraws Him- 
 self so far within as never to interfere with human 
 freedom ; that He even permits Himself to be re- 
 garded as "an hard man" by the indolent and idle, 
 rather than lessen the responsibility of the well dis- 
 posed ; and that no man can refuse to take his full 
 share of responsibility or to hide his talents " in the 
 earth " without doing damage to his own soul. 
 
 Finally, we have the example of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ in confirmation of this view. 
 Though at the time of His Advent the world was in 
 a far lower moral condition than it is today ; though 
 
1 42 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 the rich were richer and the poor poorer than in our 
 time ; though the vilest slavery then existed that ever 
 stained the annals of history ; and though His people 
 were ground down by a despotism more severe than 
 anything we have seen or are likely to see in this 
 age ; the Lord Jesus did not attempt to reform out- 
 ward abuses except by means of the regeneration of 
 individual men. The same writer already quoted 
 says : — 
 
 To save the world He would begin by saving the individual 
 men and women who compose it. He dealt with individuals, 
 not with communities. He influenced men directly, not indi- 
 rectly. He left environment severely and ruthlessly alone. So- 
 cial questions He did not meddle with, and, when they were 
 brought before Him, He refused to have any thing to do with 
 them. . . . There was no wholesale treatment of human suffer- 
 ing, no dispensing of a universal drug warranted to cure all 
 kinds of diseases. But there was a patient, personal, treatment 
 of individual cases, by methods varying with the character and 
 needs of the patients. 
 
 He knew that it was of no use to reform man's environment, 
 without first reforming the man himself ; and that if the man 
 were reformed the new life would quickly modify its environ- 
 ment. He knew that if the soul of man did not obtain the 
 heavenly outlook which a belief in immortality alone can give, 
 it would inevitably lay up for itself treasure upon earth. He 
 knew, and He taught, that there are varying degrees of value 
 to the different parts of man's complex nature (none being with- 
 out its value), and that if a man learned to value rightly his 
 spiritual nature, he would soon assess the comparative worth of 
 all else in him and about him. There were things whose quest 
 was the object of the nations. He did not say that they were 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. I43 
 
 evil or unimportant, but that they were not primary. It is not 
 necessary that a man should live. It is necessary that he should 
 be a true man even at the cost of earthly existence. 
 
 The Lord Jehovah did not come into the world to 
 save His people from their discomforts, nor even from 
 their crimes, but from their " sins " ; not to remodel 
 the outward conditions of society, but to purge and 
 purify its inner life. He did not call upon the na- 
 tions to put away their "doings," but "the evil of 
 their doings " from before His eyes (Isa. i. 16) ; and 
 He taught that for this purpose He had redeemed 
 them from the power of their secret or spiritual ene- 
 mies. He came, the Apostle says, to " destroy the 
 works of the devil " (i John iii. 8), not to punish the 
 poor, weak, and helpless victims of the devil's power. 
 He delegated to the Church, acting in His name and 
 strength, the power over the spiritual enemies of the 
 human race that He had won by combats with them 
 and victories over them ; and if men would reform 
 the world and make it the heaven it was intended to 
 be, they must avail themselves of this power, by look- 
 ing to Him and shunning evils as sins against Him. 
 
 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; 
 for I am God, and there is none else. (Isa. xlv. 22.) 
 
 Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; 
 for I am meek and lowly of heart ; and ye shall find rest unto 
 your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 
 (Matt. xii. 28-30.) 
 
I4 4 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 Does any one ask me, then, how he can best show 
 forth the religion he professes in his relation to the 
 State and to all secular affairs ? I answer, by being 
 a true Christian — by looking to the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Redeemer and Saviour of the race, and 
 shunning the evils forbidden in the Decalogue in all 
 his dealings with his fellow men. As a member of 
 the Church, he must be earnest and consistent, always 
 endeavoring to bring spiritual principles to bear even 
 in secular affairs. As a citizen, he must be watchful 
 and faithful, seeking to discharge all his obligations 
 to the State, as to the neighbor in a larger form, and 
 bringing the same fidelity to bear that he makes use 
 of in his relations to individuals. As an official, he 
 must "look to the Lord, shun evils as sins, and dis- 
 charge faithfully the duties of his position." As a 
 man of affairs, he must be " faithful in business, fer- 
 vent in spirit, serving the Lord." As an employer, 
 he must endeavor to do full justice to his employees, 
 and to promote their welfare by every means in his 
 power. As an employee, he must strive to render a 
 full equivalent for all that he receives. His first aim 
 must be to fulfil the law of charity, and only second- 
 arily to supply his own wants. He must not be un- 
 mindful of the sufferings of his fellow men. He must 
 do all that lies in his power to discourage evil and to 
 encourage virtue. He must not neglect such outward 
 reforms as seem to him wise and effective, but must 
 bring the highest spiritual truth to bear in so doing. 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 *45 
 
 He must be, in short, a zealous and high-minded mem- 
 ber of the Church, a conscientious and upright citizen 
 of the State, a kind neighbor and faithful friend, an 
 affectionate husband and father — a broad-minded, lib- 
 eral-hearted, noble man. His Christianity must not 
 be confined to his own salvation, but must reach out 
 toward his fellow men of every degree. In this way 
 he will find an adequate outlet for his spiritual affec- 
 tions. The new life that has taken possession of his 
 soul will flow down and animate all his words and 
 deeds. His love toward the Lord within will express 
 itself in love to the neighbor without — not in mere 
 sentiment and kind wishes, but in the faithful dis- 
 charge of every duty. He w r ill be a " four-square " 
 man. Every side of his character will be fully de- 
 veloped. He will be animated by the purest affec- 
 tions, guided by the highest truth, and live the most 
 disinterested life. His will be the "full measure of a 
 man, that is, of an angel/' 
 
 The conclusion is, that what the world needs today 
 is the full and complete marriage of religion and life. 
 All the disadvantages under which w r e are laboring 
 can be traced to the decay of vital and practical re- 
 ligion, and nothing less than the reestablishment of 
 such religion can remove them. Capital punishment, 
 though it may have been right and proper in the past, 
 has never been able to do away with murder, and 
 never will. Nothing but repentance of that hatred 
 which is the essence of murder, and which, as well as 
 
146 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 the outward act, is forbidden in the Ten Command- 
 ments, can do that. The most severe laws against 
 theft and embezzlement have never succeeded in 
 making men honest ; only that integrity of heart 
 that is inculcated in the highest sense of the Com- 
 mandment, "Thou shalt not steal/' can have that 
 effect. The penalties against perjury cannot make 
 men truthful ; only that perfect sincerity that renders 
 men as open as the day, can bring about such a re- 
 sult. The legislation w T hich is now being resorted to 
 more than ever before to make men pure, can at best 
 only find out and punish a chance victim of the dread- 
 ful evil, while the lust from which it springs will be 
 as strong as ever. On the other hand, what a revolu- 
 tion would be wrought in society if a pure and unde- 
 fined religion could be carried out among men ! Sup- 
 pose, for instance, that the officials of one of our 
 large and corrupt municipalities could be brought in 
 a single night to genuine and intelligent repentance ; 
 suppose they could even be made sincerely and trans- 
 parently truthful ; what a radical and beneficent change 
 it would work in the administration of the govern- 
 ment, without the repeal of a single ordinance or the 
 dismissal of a single officer, and how thoroughly would 
 all rascality and double-dealing disappear from the 
 political horizon ! There is more power in a single 
 one of the Ten Commandments, when intelligently 
 understood and thoroughly applied, than in all the 
 ethics or philosophies that were ever invented by 
 
THE CHURCH AND SECULAR AFFAIRS. 
 
 M7 
 
 men. What the world needs, therefore, is not so 
 much wiser laws, as a disposition to interpret cor- 
 rectly and apply faithfully the laws that already exist ; 
 not so much reform, as religion ; not so much repres- 
 sion and regulation, as repentance and regeneration ; 
 not so much what is blindly called "the mind of 
 Christ," as simple obedience to the Ten Command- 
 ments in which His mind is clearly revealed ; and 
 until men begin to realize this truth, all the hue and 
 cry so popular at the present day after a new econo- 
 my and social progress, will be found a snare and 
 delusion. Not until men hear the bugle call of the 
 Church, accept the "Thus saith the Lord" as the 
 only safe rule of life, and do the work of repentance 
 daily, can they expect any full or final relief from the 
 evils they have brought upon themselves by their 
 neglect of these things. 
 
 To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not accord- 
 ing to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Is A. 
 viii. 20.) 
 
PAUPERISM AND CRIME 
 
 / 
 
 Theodore F. Wright 
 
 THE POOR. 
 
 When our Lord said to those who at the supper 
 in Bethany objected to the use of the ointment by 
 Mary, that they had the poor always with them, He 
 used a term, ptochoi, which was of old the word for 
 beggars. Derived from a root meaning crouching or 
 cringing, it was found appropriate to designate the 
 class of people who crouched by the waysides in 
 Greece and Palestine beseeching alms by rattling 
 their cups or stretching out deformed hands. The 
 money might have been given to the poor, they said, 
 scattered among the beggars on the morrow. This is 
 declared to have been the suggestion of Judas, not 
 that he cared for the poor, but that he cared for the 
 money. 
 
 If there were not ample evidence that the Holy 
 Land abounded in beggars, the use of this word and 
 the saying that the poor were always with them would 
 testify that abject poverty was to be seen everywhere. 
 
 148 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. j 49 
 
 The widow's mite tells a tale of misery meagrely re- 
 lieved by dole, which needs no comment. 
 
 From that day to this the poor have been always 
 with us. Much has been done for them. Great 
 crimes have sought for expiation in hospitals and 
 refuges erected for them by the rich and powerful. 
 But the cringing and crouching are still with us. It 
 is however the spirit of the present day to deal with 
 fundamental problems rather than with surface indi- 
 cations ; to seek to remove the causes of such misery 
 rather than merely to relieve existing distress ; and 
 those who would be neighbors to the suffering must 
 do more than pour oil and wine into the wounds and 
 bear to a place of healing, they must even seek that 
 no more may fall by that way of past peril. 
 
 The problem of the poor as it presents itself to- 
 day is not, What shall be done to carry them through 
 this winter or the next ? It is not, What is the best 
 way of diminishing the public expense on account of 
 the pauper element ? It is rather, What is the cause 
 of this state of things ? and what is its remedy ? A 
 deplorable condition extending from the remote past 
 to the present, demands of us no mere palliative, al- 
 though that part of the treatment is imperatively 
 necessary to be applied now and for a long time to 
 come ; but it demands a cure, a gospel of deliver- 
 ance. 
 
 Thoughtful people divide at this point on all such 
 questions. There are those who have little hope of 
 
1 5° 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 the future, and who regard as dreams all theories of 
 ultimate cure of evil, who are content with slight im- 
 provements upon the manifestly unsuccessful treat- 
 ment of public evils in the past, and who deprecate 
 as Quixotic all talk of effective remedies. 
 
 But there is another party consisting of those who 
 feel the spirit of a new and final age, to which the 
 glorious promises of the Scriptures shall ultimately 
 be applicable, and these cannot work for the day 
 alone but must reach backward into history and down- 
 ward into existing conditions and onward into a hope- 
 ful future. To such the faith of the New Church 
 comes as an interpreter of their visions and an in- 
 structor of their efforts, tempering enthusiasm with 
 patience, and at the same time giving vast encourage- 
 ment to zealous labors. " Behold, I make all things 
 new," is the watchword of today's battle with old 
 evils. 
 
 THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE UNIVERSAL. 
 
 Before entering with some hope upon this broad 
 subject I must postulate the Divine Love and Wis- 
 dom of the Creator. If obliged to take the ground 
 that the Divine Providence is a limited and irregular 
 care of the world, one might be forced to conclude 
 the really atheistic doctrine that men have been cre- 
 ated to strangle each other until the mightiest prosper 
 and obtain the lion's share of this world's goods, even 
 as a pack of wolves contest for their prey. It would 
 
PAUPERISM AND CRIME. ISI 
 
 then follow that the present condition is an orderly- 
 stage in human development ; that Malthus was right 
 in predicting overpopulation as the inevitable result, 
 and destructions by war and pestilence and famine as 
 the only remedy ; and that the future will be like the 
 past, only more and more full of frantic struggle, 
 until the Napoleonic few shall possess the world, 
 clothed in purple and fine linen and faring sumptu- 
 ously every day, while the beggar at the gate has 
 disappeared, having been trampled to death by the 
 feet of the rich neighbors who came to the repasts 
 of which the rule was that only they were to be bid- 
 den who could return the invitation. 
 
 This state of things, though easily conceivable, will 
 never be. If the struggle for life were, as some sup- 
 pose, the only mode of progress, such an end might 
 be expected; but "the earth is the Lord's and the 
 fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. " 
 An infinite love has given birth to it, an infinite wis- 
 dom has formed it, and an infinite design is in every- 
 thing that is made. There was some perception of 
 this grand unity among the ancients, but only in the 
 unfolding of the truth of Scripture through the in- 
 strumentality of Swedenborg has the doctrine been 
 fully and clearly enunciated that every human soul 
 has its place in the Universal Man, and that, when 
 souls become obedient to the Divine leading, a plan, 
 formed before the foundation of the world, is carried 
 out, and a countless multitude of the redeemed dwell 
 with their Creator as the bride of the Lamb. 
 
152 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 In this aspect of the case we see that there is 
 room enough and air enough and bread enough for 
 all, and that it could be only by some interference 
 with the Divine plan that pauperism could arise. In 
 the exercise of mental aptitudes for industry, as pro- 
 vided by the Father of all, and in the interchange of 
 the products of their labor, all would be provided 
 for. None would be idle and none would seriously 
 suffer, but a universal interdependence would sup- 
 port all, as the members of the physical body are 
 supported. 
 
 The Bible gives us some glimpses of this when it 
 shows us how, by the natural increase of his flocks, 
 Abraham became rich without depriving any other 
 of what was rightfully his, and without in any way 
 preventing all others from receiving the same bene- 
 fits. The little country of Palestine was never com- 
 parable with many others in respect to its productive- 
 ness, but it would be easy to show that there need 
 never have been abject poverty in it. When the 
 Israelites entered upon it, each family was provided 
 with land and with an opportunity to secure the com- 
 forts of life, and we see in a general way the work- 
 ing of this Divine plan of national thrift. 
 
 Allowing somewhat for poetic fervor, we see the 
 same condition described as follows by Hesiod when 
 speaking of the Golden Age : — 
 
 All blessings were theirs ; of its own will, the fruitful field 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. x 5 3 
 
 bare them fruit, much and ample ; they gladly reaped the labors 
 of their hands in quietness, being rich in flocks. Nor was 
 wretched old age impending, but they died as if overcome by 
 sleep. 
 
 HOW POVERTY AROSE. 
 
 What brought this happy and prosperous condi- 
 tion to an end ? Again the Scripture makes ready- 
 answer. Samuel, the last of the Judges, was asked 
 by the people to make them a king. He was grieved, 
 for he saw what would follow, and he took their wish 
 to the Lord and brought back the answer : — 
 
 This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over 
 you : He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for 
 his chariots and his horsemen. And he will set them to plough 
 his ground and reap his harvest and make his instruments of 
 war. And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your 
 oliveyards, the best of them, and give to his officers. And he 
 will take your menservants and your maidservants and your 
 goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his work. 
 And ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day 
 because of your king which ye have chosen. 
 
 Nevertheless the people said, Nay, but we will have a king 
 over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our 
 king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. 
 (1 Sam. viii. 10-20.) 
 
 It will be seen that Israel craved a king in order 
 to be on an equality with other nations as regards 
 war. Egypt and other countries were in the hands 
 of mighty rulers who kept standing armies, and 
 Israel felt that it must appeal to the same resource. 
 
*54 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS, 
 
 The result was manifest elsewhere and justified the 
 ominous words of Samuel. The king impoverished 
 his people by taking whatever his campaigns required. 
 In successful warfare the booty was chiefly his. In 
 order to feed his forces he must not only levy taxes, 
 but must also have large domains of his own. His 
 domain, chosen from the best of the land, would of 
 course bear no taxation. The longer this state of 
 things lasted, the larger would be the possessions 
 of the king, and by inevitable consequence the 
 smaller would be the possessions of the people. 
 Theoretically perhaps the king should have no pri- 
 vate fortune ; practically he always had an enormous 
 and constantly increasing private fortune. 
 
 One cause of this perversion of the Divine plan 
 with all its attendant evils seems to have been war. 
 There was war before this, to be sure, for the Israel- 
 ites were to drive out their enemies as they advanced ; 
 but their struggles hitherto had not been severe, nor 
 costly, nor long continued. No standing army had 
 been necessary to do the will of God when the robber 
 tribes invaded their fields. It was because they were 
 losing their faith in God and substituting for it a re- 
 liance upon earthly resources, that they felt com- 
 pelled to have a king. They did not rebuke Samuel 
 as an untruthful prophet. They admitted the truth 
 of his prediction, while they declared that still they 
 would have a king. It was a degenerate day com- 
 pared with that of Joshua, and Israel was blindly 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. 
 
 !55 
 
 copying the ways of sinful peoples. Only evil could 
 follow. Only evil did follow. The moderate but 
 general prosperity of the people gave way to luxury 
 and the beggar. 
 
 War will never be painted blacker than it is. As 
 it became the trade of the Middle Ages, agriculture, 
 the only source of general comfort, was despised in 
 comparison with the military life which consumed 
 everything and produced nothing, until the barons 
 became the only landowners. There is in our day a 
 certain activity of industry produced by war because 
 armies must be fed and clothed and paid, but the 
 ultimate increase of burden is inevitable, while the 
 soil loses those that should till it. " Bread and 
 games " was the remedy in Rome for popular unrest, 
 but these were no remedy ; pensions and public 
 kitchens are talked of now, but again we have no 
 remedy. 
 
 EXISTING PAUPERISM. 
 
 It may be well to stop for a brief survey of the 
 existing pauperism, the utter hopelessness of many, 
 which has gradually been developed. In England, 
 according to the statistics collected by Mulhall, there 
 are three paupers in every one hundred of the popu- 
 lation, in Scotland and Ireland nearly as many. The 
 number of paupers in the city of London is set down 
 at the enormous number of one hundred and two 
 thousand, and their cost is something like one million 
 
156 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 pounds sterling per annum. In the United King- 
 dom the cost of providing for the poor who are at 
 public charge, has increased from eight million pounds 
 per annum in 1850 to eleven million pounds in 1889. 
 Bramwell Booth's report of Salvation Army work for 
 1894 says that there are one hundred thousand pau- 
 pers in London, thirty thousand abandoned women, 
 thirty-three thousand homeless adults, thirty-five thou- 
 sand slum children ; ten thousand new criminals 
 added yearly. " The most utterly hopeless specimen 
 of man yet discovered or evolved is the constant 
 hearer of goody-goody addresses and the habitual re- 
 cipient of hot victuals for which he does nothing but 
 lie/' 
 
 But figures seem less instructive than individual 
 cases. Let me therefore bring to view a few such, 
 taken from a calm book, " Pauperism and the Endow- 
 ment of Old Age," by Charles Booth, an English- 
 man, but not of the Salvation Army family. Here 
 is the case of a man named Martin whose wife is 
 named Eliza. The man has been a dock laborer. 
 He was admitted to Bromley workhouse because of 
 failing sight. His wife was already in the hospital, 
 having broken a leg while intoxicated. When she 
 came out of the hospital she was admitted to the 
 workhouse. Both are drunkards. She sometimes 
 goes out, but soon returns, always in bad condition. 
 They had three children, Patrick, James, and Bridget. 
 Patrick has been twice in prison for theft. He has 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. 
 
 *57 
 
 been fifteen years in the marines, but was discharged 
 for the good of the service. He has been in and out 
 of the workhouse several times, and is now likely to 
 finish his days there, though but forty years old. 
 James is a laborer, who has married and then deserted 
 his wife and is living with another woman. Bridget 
 married and bore four children. Her husband de- 
 serted her, was sent to prison for it, and then re- 
 turned to her, but she deserted him and is living 
 with another man. Then her husband went to the 
 workhouse with the children. All the connections 
 of this family are paupers or thieves or otherwise 
 immoral. And the children follow the parents. 
 
 Another case : The man was sent to prison for 
 two years for assault. Then his wife was admitted 
 to the workhouse. He came there later. After 
 spending the winter he went out in August to pick 
 hops. After the season he returned, and has done 
 this for several years. His wife has died. Again : 
 a man who had spent all his money at public houses 
 was brought in sick. His father had been admitted 
 after doing no work for five years. His aunt and 
 uncle were in the workhouse. So was his sister. 
 Another case described is that of a widow who could 
 get no work, who came into the workhouse for most 
 of the year eight times and at last to remain. 
 
 Details are given by Mr. Booth of more than sixty 
 cases, and in every case it appears that no sudden 
 misfortune brought the subject to public charge, but 
 
158 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 that it was a combination of circumstances from 
 which no successful effort was made to escape. On 
 this point I again cite this author, for he has care- 
 fully analyzed the cases in three large workhouses. 
 In St. Pancras the percentage of those who are there 
 because of drink is twenty-two, old age twenty-three, 
 sickness twenty-one, while laziness is credited with 
 ten per cent. It is noticeable that all these people 
 have an occupation, women as well as men, and that 
 nine out of ten seem willing to work when they can 
 get work. 
 
 As to the causes of pauperism, Mr. Booth says : — 
 
 It is easy to exaggerate any one of them at the expense of 
 the rest. Incapacity and mental disease might be stretched to 
 cover almost all. Vice, drink, and laziness, themselves closely 
 bound together, fill also a great place in connection with sick- 
 ness and lack of work — or we may reverse this, and show how 
 sickness and lack of work, and the consequent loss of proper 
 food, end in demoralization of all kinds, and especially in drink. 
 It is said also that the chief cause of pauperism is to be found 
 in our attempts to relieve it. 
 
 CRIME. 
 
 With this closing remark I do not deal because at 
 this point it seems necessary to point out that this 
 pauperism is very closely connected with crime. 
 Crime appears in almost all the specific cases de- 
 scribed. It is perhaps unnecessary to go into de- 
 tails. Thieving, assaults, and crimes against chastity 
 seem to be the accompaniments of this pauper life in 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. j^g 
 
 most cases. Behind the poverty is some wickedness 
 which has defeated all attempts at reform. With the 
 basest heredity these people seem to have only the 
 animal nature developed, and self-control under temp- 
 tation is unknown. 
 
 There are of course many crimes — murder, adul- 
 tery, forgery, and embezzlement — which either do 
 not belong to one grade in society more than to an- 
 other, or are possible only to positions of trust ; but 
 apparently these poor creatures whom we are now 
 considering are born, live, and die in an atmosphere 
 of crime, commit more or less crime during their 
 active years, and bring up at last in the workhouse 
 because of damaged bodies worn out by excesses. 
 
 WAGE-EARNERS' DISCONTENT. 
 
 Beginning at this lowest level of humanity in our 
 communities, we may rise somewhat without getting 
 out of the range of actual need and grinding poverty. 
 The laborer who finds work for only a part of the 
 year, yet has his rent to pay for twelve months ; the 
 mill-hand, whose wages are barely sufficient in good 
 times, but who suffers reduction of wages or total 
 cessation of them when the market is depressed ; 
 the mechanic, whose habits in early life make no 
 provision for the future ; and the women working on 
 clothes and the like for the merest subsistence — all 
 these and others are in danger of becoming public 
 
j;6o LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 charges. He who lays nothing by in his active man- 
 hood, whether the cause is extravagance or misfor- 
 tune, is sure, I assume, to be in debt ere long and in 
 the end to be a burden upon others. He knows 
 this, but he hopes that in some way times will change 
 or the conditions of thrift be relaxed, so that he may 
 avoid the end which old age generally witnesses. 
 
 And it is these classes rather than the paupers, 
 who are so full of discontent and so easily roused to 
 rebellion as to threaten very seriously the perma- 
 nence of our institutions. They believe that certain 
 evils may be remedied by legislation and they clamor 
 for such laws as they desire. Wholly unaware of the 
 impossibility of mere legislative remedies except to 
 cure manifest injustice, they lean in the main on a 
 broken reed, and their agitations only disturb trade 
 without benefit to any one. The strike may do in 
 prosperous times, though then it is seldom called for, 
 but to resort to it in times of financial distress is an 
 appalling blunder often repeated and with increasing 
 irritation on the part of the unsuccessful. It has 
 been found that an appeal to violence by strikers is 
 sure to be put down with force, and the loss of life 
 and property is a sad concomitant which will be 
 avoided in any well-regulated country. 
 
 CAPITALISM. 
 
 It must be confessed here in passing that the cap- 
 italist sometimes needs correction rather than his 
 
PAUPERISM AND CRIME. ^i 
 
 operatives, and it is impossible to excuse Mr. Pull- 
 man and his enormously lucrative methods of busi- 
 ness, when it is clear from the testimony recently 
 taken that he rents his tenements to workmen at a 
 price representing a valuation of nine hundred dollars 
 for each room ; that an employee received in the year 
 $345.68, was charged $15.71 a month for rent and 
 water, and so had but $157.16 or forty-three cents a 
 day left whereon to feed and clothe his wife, two 
 children, and himself ; and that the boasted giving of 
 men work during dull times was just to the extent 
 of getting their rents paid.* Still I should say that 
 neither legislation nor strikes would help the work- 
 men at Pullman, and that, in seeking aid from either, 
 they only showed how easily they could be misled by 
 bad counsels. These people always have the sym- 
 pathy of the country until they use violence, and then 
 they are declared to be public enemies. 
 
 PENSIONS FOR OLD AGE. 
 
 The remedy proposed by Mr. Booth for the pauper- 
 ism which he has minutely described in the volume 
 above cited, is pensions payable to old age. He finds 
 that these people marry young and spend their wages 
 improvidently. He would therefore tax them in early 
 life, and repay these taxes to them in old age. There 
 are several such schemes in England, but their de- 
 
 *See Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1895, P- J ^4- 
 
^2 light on current topics. 
 
 tails are unimportant to us because they are obviously 
 only palliatives. Indeed they might promote pauper- 
 ism by taking away even what inducement to save 
 now exists. The tax would be paid very unwillingly, 
 as the young man would claim that he needed his 
 money, and he would the more readily cast himself 
 on the town in the belief that it had defrauded him. 
 Then the old paupers, feeling that they had provided 
 for themselves, would be less likely to do anything 
 but lie about. This pension looks like a premium on 
 pauperism. Moreover, who intends at twenty to be a 
 pauper at seventy, and so is ready to be levied on for 
 a tax ? 
 
 PRINCIPLES WANTED. 
 
 The difficulty with this and all similar schemes is 
 that they proceed from no principle. They simply 
 find a condition, and they say, " How can this be 
 mollified ? " They deal with humanity in a hopeless 
 spirit. It is " bread and games " again, as at Rome. 
 
 Let me enumerate a few principles which must be 
 reckoned with, or we shall do more harm than good 
 by our attempted charity, and I would state them in 
 the words of our teachings : — 
 
 Charity is believed to consist in giving to the poor, but it con- 
 sists in the promotion of good. He who gives aid to a villain 
 does evil to his neighbor through him. Charity consists in do- 
 ing right in every calling. To do injustice is to hate the neigh- 
 bor. Every man is our neighbor, but distinctly ; a society more 
 
PAUPERISM AND CRIME. 
 
 163 
 
 than one person, the country still more, the Lord's kingdom still 
 more, the Lord most of all. (Arcana Ccelestia, 8 120-8 123.) 
 
 And note the following from the " True Christian 
 Religion " : — 
 
 The love of self wishes well to no one, nor to the country, 
 except for the sake of self. It does good for its own sake 
 alone. In the love of self one loves others only as his slaves, 
 (n. 396.) 
 
 Man is not born for his own sake, but for the sake of others, 
 (n. 406.) 
 
 A man is to be loved according to the quality of the good in 
 him. (a. 409.) 
 
 To love the neighbor as one's self is not to despise him, but 
 to deal justly with him. (n. 41 1.) 
 
 He who loves society loves those of whom society consists. 
 In doing good to society he consults for the good of each indi- 
 vidual, (n. 412.) 
 
 The country is to be loved more than self. (n. 414.) 
 
 Love for the Lord's kingdom is love to the neighbor in its 
 fulness, (n. 416.) 
 
 To be useful is to do good. (n. 419.) 
 
 True charity is to do good continually in the employment in 
 which a man is engaged. He works daily, and when he is not 
 at work, the thought of it is in his mind. Thus he becomes 
 more and more charity in form. Such do not place merit in 
 works, because they do not think of that but of their duty, 
 (n. 423.) 
 
 There are duties prescribed by statute law, by common law, 
 and by moral law. They who are in charity perform all these 
 justly and faithfully, (n. 432.) 
 
jS^ light on current topics. 
 
 The first part of charity is to remove evil, the second to do 
 good. So far as one does not desire evil, he desires good. No 
 man can purify himself by his own strength, yet the power given 
 him by the Lord seems to be his own. The Lord gives this ap- 
 pearance to every man for the sake of his salvation, (n. 438.) 
 
 The commandments given at Sinai are in all kingdoms of the 
 world, and were in Egypt from which the Israelites had come, 
 and they were the law of civil justice, without which no king- 
 dom could exist; but they were written by God on stone be- 
 cause they are the precepts also of spiritual life. Transfer the 
 external moral life prevailing in society into the internal man, so 
 that the will and thought are like the act, and you will have true 
 charity, (n. 445.) 
 
 God loves every man, yet He can do good to him only through 
 other men. (n. 457.) 
 
 Also these : — 
 
 If charity were first and faith second in the church, the 
 church would be different. The church would then be one, con- 
 taining all who are in a good life, both within Christendom and 
 outside of it. (Arcana Coelestia, 6269.) 
 
 In heaven there are innumerable societies, all distinct, yet 
 constituting one heaven, because all are in the love of the Lord 
 and the neighbor. {Ibid. 2982.) 
 
 Man can shun evils as of himself by the power given him by 
 the Lord, if he implores it. (Doctrine of Life, 31.) 
 
 So long as man does not shun evils as sins, the evils close 
 the inner mind and prevent it from being opened. (Ibid. 86.) 
 
 The Divine Providence is universal. (Arcana Coelestia, 2694.) 
 
 It is not only with the good, but with the evil. (Divine Prov- 
 idence, 287.) 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. 
 
 l6 5 
 
 Divine Providence with the evil is a continual permission of 
 evil in order that there may be withdrawal from it. {Ibid. 296.) 
 
 No one is predestined to hell. The purpose of creation is a 
 heaven from the human race. Every man is created that he 
 may come into heaven. Every man can be saved, and they are 
 saved who ackowledge God and live uprightly. It is man's 
 fault if he be not saved. {Ibid. 322.) 
 
 The balance of all things in the other life is such that evil 
 punishes itself. (Arcana Ccelestia, 696.) 
 
 The punishment of retaliation comes from this law of heav- 
 enly order, " All things whatsoever ye would that men should 
 do to you, do ye even so to them." They who do good from 
 the heart receive good from others, and they who do evil, re- 
 ceive evil. To every good its reward is joined, and to every 
 evil its punishment. {Ibid. 8214.) 
 
 APPLICATION. 
 
 In the light of these principles we see at once that 
 there is a government in the world, namely, that of 
 the good Providence of the Lord, who is no respecter 
 of persons, and that any course pursued in our deal- 
 ings with our fellow men which cooperates with this 
 Divine Law, will be just in itself and will be in the 
 line of ultimate success. These teachings rebuke 
 many things, such as indiscriminate almsgiving, con- 
 tempt for any one, thought of any one as hopelessly 
 bad, neglect to punish crime, disregard of the rights 
 of any race or condition, efforts to secure temporary 
 peace at the cost of any injustice, doing evil in reck- 
 lessness to obtain wealth or comfort or place, and 
 
1 66 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 especially indulging any hatred towards those who 
 may be ignorant or shiftless or depraved. Success in 
 wealth-getting is no success at all, unless the qualities 
 of a true manhood be developed. An avaricious greed 
 is no better than an improvident wastefulness. There 
 is a just punishment for every wrong, and it should 
 be impartially administered. At the same time the 
 love of the sinner, but not of his sin, should lead 
 all right-minded people to put themselves into the 
 Lord's hands as servants of His in leading men away 
 from evil and into an abhorrence of it, which is the 
 necessary preliminary to their loving good and being 
 good. As the Lord deals with individuals, so must 
 we come into personal relations with the erring for 
 their souls' sake. 
 
 CONFIRMATIONS. 
 
 That these principles are right, all experience testi- 
 fies. Given to the world a century ago in a manner 
 so quiet as to leave every one in perfect freedom to 
 receive or reject them, they have found their way 
 unconsciously into the minds of many laborers in the 
 cause of fallen man, until "not alms, but a friend " 
 has become the motto of work for the needy, until 
 great care is exercised to give no aid to wrong, and 
 until there is a general wisdom manifested in all the 
 relations of benefactor and beneficiary which will cer- 
 tainly never be abandoned in favor of the older, less 
 rational, and less kindly methods, and which deserves 
 and will have success, for the Lord is on its side. 
 
PAUPERISM AND CRIME. 
 
 167 
 
 It is also a cause for rejoicing that in legislation 
 there is a growing regard for the rights of all, less 
 favoring of great monopolies than formerly, and a 
 tendency to place all on an equal footing. 
 
 The late humiliating example of the Senate of the 
 United States apparently controlled by a few unscru- 
 pulous men for the sake of their own gain as against 
 the welfare of the country, has received such general 
 condemnation that evidence is given of the gradual 
 development of a public conscience which regards the 
 poor as well as the rich. How far the prevalent sus- 
 piciousness of the poor towards the rich, which is 
 seen in various ways, is justified, it is difficult to say, 
 but it cannot be denied that great wealth has some- 
 times come to the speculator who does nobody any 
 good, while the hard-working agriculturist has seemed 
 to be deprived of his fair reward. I must be allowed 
 to express the hope that the time may come when, 
 after the lottery business has been put down by the 
 force of law and public sentiment, stock-gambling 
 may also receive its doom. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 As to what shall be done with the pauper, it is evi- 
 dent that careful classification must be made. The 
 unfortunate must not be confounded with the un- 
 worthy. There is something wrong in the system 
 described in the English work referred to, when peo- 
 
1 68 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 pie able to work idle away the winter at the public 
 expense, and then go out for a season's profligacy 
 only to return more wicked and shiftless than before. 
 Already in this country we know better than that. 
 Such people would be put under sentence, and would 
 be compelled to work for a sufficient time to make 
 some change in them, and then they would be watched 
 as probationers. 
 
 When we have really classified the paupers, we 
 shall know much better what to do. The aged, whose 
 continued feebleness has exhausted their resources, 
 will be tenderly and thoroughly cared for in places 
 worthy of them and of the community providing for 
 them. Such places will not be almshouses but homes. 
 If we put a soldier into a home because he has spent 
 his strength for the country, so ought we to do with 
 all faithful workers who may come at last, through no 
 serious fault of their own, to need a refuge wherein 
 they may receive the hospitality of the town. 
 
 On the other hand, there are classes to whom we 
 are too indulgent, and so increase the evil. The 
 tramp — we laugh at him for his folly and are satis- 
 fied if he moves on. We should have the eyes to 
 see that thereby we are developing a criminal class 
 of the worst type, drunken, thieving, and murderous. 
 Instead of this joking and this feeding of these idlers, 
 we should catch every one of them, should regard it 
 as an offence against law to have no occupation, and 
 should set them to work making roads until they come 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. 
 
 169 
 
 to themselves. It would be expensive and laborious 
 at first, but the fact is that sooner or later it must be 
 done, for the evil will grow until it will imperatively 
 demand that the obvious remedy be applied. If it be 
 not already settled in law, let it be settled at an early 
 day, that the State demands the work of every citizen 
 and will enforce its demand upon every vagrant. 
 
 Our prisons would not be so full if we had proper 
 workhouses and if we filled them. Nor would our 
 insane asylums overflow if it were not for this great 
 crime of idleness so prevalent with the tramp and 
 with the street girl and with the saloon loafer. Work 
 is their only avenue of reform, as it is with us all. 
 The State must pursue them until they either find 
 work or receive it under duress. In all this, how- 
 ever, the agents must be humane while firm and per- 
 sistent. 
 
 THE PROPER AGENTS. 
 
 Even in what we have done in this respect we 
 have as a rule employed the wrong people as our 
 agents, because they themselves were without princi- 
 ple, profane and drunken ; and thus there was no 
 contact of the misguided with those in whose ways 
 they could see something to emulate. Formerly we 
 cared too little who were teachers of the young, but 
 now we do care. We shall come in time to care just 
 as much who are the mentors of our criminals, and 
 then a better day will be near, with less of brute 
 
170 
 
 LIGHT OZV CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 force and actual cruelty in discipline, and more of 
 intelligence and of the spirit of the shepherd with 
 the sheep that are gone astray. 
 
 MORAL AGENCIES. 
 
 As to the restless work-people in the mills and on 
 the railways, the same principle holds — firm friend- 
 ship. Men used to know their employer, and he 
 knew them. Now he does not know them, perhaps 
 he keeps away from them, and perhaps he hates 
 them. But a great company of working-people can 
 no more be managed by a man for whom they have 
 no respect than an army can be. It is folly to think 
 that the human element of mutual regard can be 
 eliminated, while still cooperation remains. In some 
 way the corporations and especially the managers 
 must come into friendship for and with their em- 
 ployees, and the longer they postpone this effort, the 
 more strikes and recrimination we shall have. But 
 we have only to turn to those employers who do not 
 suffer from strikes, to see that they recognize in some 
 way the fact of mutual dependence and treat their 
 people with justice, as men and women, and not as 
 mere " hands. " 
 
 Tolstoi has pointed out that the folly of the poor 
 of Moscow is due to their imitation of the rich, and 
 he has also declared that the rich care so little for 
 the poor that they will turn their power to no good 
 
PA UPERISM AND CRIME. 1 7 1 
 
 account. There is truth in this. In this country 
 the rich are often boastful in word and manner and 
 dress and equipage and house, and this leads to ex- 
 travagance in the poor in their effort to be as much 
 "in style." It is to be hoped that this vulgarity of 
 wealth will some time learn to value character above 
 display, and then we shall not see hard-earned money 
 squandered in ways which only temporarily satisfy 
 false and foolish ambitions. When the rich say 
 nothing about their wealth and cease to be anxious 
 to display it, one great cause of poverty will be re- 
 moved at once. Less jewelry will then be bought, 
 and more bread. We shall have less gaudiness and 
 more goodness. 
 
 RESPECT FOR USE. 
 
 Since the Lord has given us all the power to be 
 useful in some distinct way, and since our highest 
 possible achievement is to perform this use, therefore 
 we must respect usefulness with a genuine regard. 
 Wealth, fame, popular control, and all like matters 
 must not be our aim, nor the object of our heartiest 
 commendation, but rather we must show in all our 
 dealing with others that our highest regard goes out 
 to the industrious, and the faithful, and the helpful. 
 We should not undervalue the recreations of life, but 
 we should value most its activities. With so health- 
 ful a sentiment as this in the community, juster ideas 
 of honorable toil would prevail, and we should avoid 
 
172 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 much of the extravagance of youth inevitably leading 
 to pauperism in the end. Moreover people would 
 prefer a moderate compensation for a work clearly 
 useful, to a high salary for doing no good ; and dis- 
 content upon the farm, now working great mischief, 
 would diminish. 
 
 It is this exaltation of the real above the seeming, 
 of the permanent above the temporal, of the spiritual 
 above the natural, which it is the especial object of 
 the teachings of the New Church to inculcate, and I 
 cannot better close this imperfect presentation of 
 them than by quoting a few words from a passage 
 in the " Arcana," wherein we read : — 
 
 To be the least in heaven is to be the greatest, and to be 
 humble is to be high, and to be poor and needy is to be rich 
 and well endowed. They who are in external thought alone 
 cannot understand this, for they think that the least can never 
 be greatest, nor the humble high, nor the poor rich. Still so it 
 is in heaven ; but they do not know it, and so long as they are 
 in externals only, they are neither willing nor able to know it. 
 In heaven he who knows, confesses, and in heart believes that 
 no power is from self, but all from the Lord, is called the 
 least, yet he is the greatest, for he has power from the Lord. 
 So it is with him who is humble ; for, confessing that he has no 
 intelligence and wisdom of himself, he is endowed by the Lord 
 with power, intelligence, and wisdom more than others. Again, 
 he is called poor and needy who believes in his heart that he 
 possesses nothing of his own ; he is rich and well endowed in 
 heaven, for the Lord gives him all riches, and he is wiser and 
 more wealthy than others and lives in magnificence and in the 
 midst of treasure, (n. 4459.) 
 
PAUPERISM AND CRIME. T j^ 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The summing up of these thoughts is, that the 
 good Lord has made every one to fill a distinct place ; 
 that many are not in such usefulness nor on the way 
 to it because of adverse conditions arising in war and 
 otherwise ; that nevertheless it is the duty of the 
 right-minded not to excuse or by neglect to increase 
 such disorders, but to apply to their remedy the im- 
 mutable principles which lie at the foundation of 
 Divine order, and that in so doing careful classifica- 
 tion is the necessary preliminary to be followed by 
 just and steadfast discipline ; and that there is much 
 in present social custom which tends to perpetuate 
 hard feeling and improvidence, and that here the 
 wrong-doers should be at once rebuked. Moreover, 
 it is urged that we must all work on this great task, 
 as individuals with an interest in individuals, and that 
 we must do this as a part of our religion, that is, of 
 our neighborly love. 
 
 In this union of churches for this work of uplifting 
 the unmoral and immoral classes, there is the true 
 bond of brotherhood in the Lord Jesus. It is vastly 
 more profound and every way permanent than any 
 mere external combination. As the prophet saith : — 
 
 They helped every one his neighbor ; and every one said to 
 his brother, Be of good courage; and the Lord said, I have 
 chosen thee, and not cast thee away. (Is A. xli. 6, 9.) 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH 
 
 / 
 ' 7~ 
 
 James Reed 
 
 It was stated in the introductory chapter that the 
 doctrines of the New Church, as understood by those 
 who accept them, are a complete system of spiritual 
 laws. They do not merely define in a new and dif- 
 ferent manner certain points of theology, but throw 
 fresh light on all subjects of human thought. They 
 teach not only a new faith, but a new philosophy. 
 Thus doing, they present Christian belief, life, and 
 worship on grounds which are philosophical and ra- 
 tional. We are not required to take on trust Divine 
 and spiritual mysteries which are above our compre- 
 hension ; but the truth comes to us as something 
 that appeals to our reason and judgment and finds its 
 support in the undoubted facts of nature and science. 
 The system is not only comprehensive, but connected 
 throughout. It not only takes into account the vital 
 points of religious belief, but shows them in their 
 relation to each other, and to all truth. It is no ex- 
 aggeration to say that, when they are received, they 
 seem as clearly evident and demonstrable as the law 
 
 174 
 
NATURAL AXD SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 
 
 i7S 
 
 of gravitation, or any undisputed principle of physi- 
 cal science. Thus faith becomes the friend and ally 
 of reason. The real truth concerning God's nature 
 and providence, the Holy Scriptures, the life here and 
 the life hereafter, is seen to be something which man's 
 intellect can comprehend as clearly and explain as 
 rationally as he can comprehend and explain the facts 
 of his earthly history or the phenomena of his natu- 
 ral existence. 
 
 The great key to the distinctive philosophy of the 
 New Church is the doctrine, so called, of Discrete 
 Degrees. One cannot but marvel at the flood of 
 light which this doctrine throws on all subjects. Let 
 me endeavor to define it as briefly and concisely as 
 possible. 
 
 Our first experience in life is that of finding our- 
 selves in a natural or material world. We did not 
 come here through any will or purpose of our own, 
 but were called into being by a power other than our- 
 selves. We see around us sun, moon and stars, 
 w r ater, earth and clouds, hills and mountains, valleys 
 and plains, animals, plants and stones, in endless va- 
 riety, together with other objects fashioned by human 
 hands. These visible things are at first the only 
 things of which we have any knowledge. We see 
 about us also human forms, men like ourselves. We 
 see our own bodily forms, and are confronted w T ith 
 the necessity of providing for them food, clothing, and 
 shelter. They must be protected from the sun's ex- 
 
I 7 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 cessive heat, from the bitter cold of winter, and from 
 the raging tempest. They must be nourished by the 
 substances which the earth supplies, else they will 
 waste away and perish. This first external view of 
 human conditions makes the natural world appear to 
 be the whole of the created universe. But, after a 
 while, if we are wise, we begin to perceive that it is 
 not the whole ; yea, that it is but the least and lowest 
 part of that which God has created. The body which 
 we see is only the outward form and clothing of some- 
 thing which we do not see. Within the body, superior 
 to and exercising control over it, is a power, a human 
 individuality, which loves and thinks, and makes the 
 body do its bidding. A corpse has all the organs and 
 members which a living body possesses ; but they are 
 wholly unserviceable. It has eyes, but there is no 
 sight ; ears, but there is no hearing. And why ? 
 Because that indwelling something which we call soul 
 or spirit, and which used the body for its earthly tab- 
 ernacle, has departed. Sensation is gone, because the 
 power to take cognizance of anything by means of 
 the senses is gone. The loving, thinking, and rea- 
 soning part of the being, who once dwelt in the body, 
 no longer has his home there. 
 
 Now let us try to lay hold of this vital truth, 
 namely, that the spirit and the body are wholly dis- 
 tinct from each other. By no possible means can the 
 spirit become matter, or matter be converted into 
 spirit. When brought together in a living person, 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 
 
 177 
 
 they act as one ; but in reality it is the spirit which 
 acts, the body is only acted upon. The two belong 
 to entirely different planes or degrees of life ; in 
 truth, they belong to two different worlds. Accord- 
 ing to the teachings of the New Church, the spiritual 
 world is an inner world, bearing the same relation to 
 the soul or spirit of man that the world of nature 
 bears to his body. By no possibility can it be seen 
 with natural eyes or touched with natural hands. We 
 do not see the souls or spirits of our friends while 
 they are living in the flesh ; we are made conscious 
 of their presence only by means of the bodies which 
 they inhabit ; and yet we know perfectly well that 
 they themselves are not those bodies. What we love 
 is not their physical forms and features, but the higher 
 spiritual nature to which the forms and features 
 give expression. When, however, the body dies, the 
 spirit wakes to consciousness in the world to which it 
 belongs, and of which it forms a part. It sees with 
 its own spiritual eyes, hears with its spiritual ears, 
 and touches with its spiritual hands — in a word, it is 
 clothed with a spiritual body. This is according to 
 the apostle's teaching : " There is a natural body, and 
 there is a spiritual body." The world in which it 
 finds itself is real and substantial, full of visible ob- 
 jects ready, for its use, full of human beings clothed 
 with spiritual bodies like its own. Even so near is 
 that other world to this. But no line of demarcation 
 could be clearer and sharper than that w T hich exists 
 
178 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 between the natural and the spiritual part of a hu- 
 man being. It is the distinction of Discrete De- 
 grees. The relation between the two is not that of 
 continuity, but of correspondence. That is to say, 
 the two act and react on each other. The one is to 
 the inner world what the other is to the outer world ; 
 but neither can cross the line by which they are 
 divided. 
 
 Not only are the soul and body of man distinct 
 from each other and yet united by correspondence, 
 but all the operations of the mind through the body 
 stand in a similar relationship. We listen to the 
 voice of a speaker ; what we hear is words. Vibra- 
 tions made by him on the air affect our ears with the 
 sensation which is called sound. These words, or 
 sounds, are purely natural or physical effects ; but 
 they are the recognized mediums of something which 
 is far more than physical. They convey to us, from 
 him who utters them, the thoughts of his mind. 
 Those thoughts, as they exist unexpressed in his 
 mind, could not possibly be apprehended by us. 
 They are spiritual, and our natural ears cannot lay 
 hold of that which is spiritual. The spiritual must 
 clothe itself with the material, in order that men, who 
 dwell in the body, may take cognizance of it. The 
 thoughts must take outward form in words. The 
 words are not the thoughts ; the thoughts are not 
 the words ; but they correspond to each other, the 
 one being on the natural plane what the other is on 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 
 
 179 
 
 the spiritual plane. Thus do we have a still further 
 illustration of the law of Discrete Degrees. 
 
 The body lives from the presence of the spirit 
 within it ; but how does the spirit itself live ? We 
 must remember that it is no less a created object, or 
 form of life, than the body itself. There is but one 
 uncreated source of being, and that is the Infinite 
 Creator; He is life, and imparts life to all things that 
 exist. They have no life in and of themselves, but 
 are receptacles of life from Him. The soul or spirit 
 of man is such a receptacle. It is filled and fed with 
 the influences which minister to its growth and devel- 
 opment, as surely as the body is nourished by the 
 food which nature supplies. We have no more power 
 to love and think of ourselves, than we have to act of 
 ourselves. Love and wisdom, or goodness and truth, 
 entering into our minds, and causing the activities of 
 affection and thought, are as much a gift of God as 
 are the natural rain and sunshine. The soul is the 
 life of the body, but the breath or spirit of God, re- 
 ceived by each one according to his form and nature, 
 is the life of the soul. To sum up briefly : Life flows 
 from within outwards. The Lord God himself is its 
 inmost fountain. From Him it proceeds by succes- 
 sive steps or degrees which constitute the different 
 planes or levels of the spiritual world, until in the 
 natural bodies of men and in other fixed substances 
 of nature it has reached its outmost limits. God is 
 the first cause, and the spiritual world, considered in 
 
180 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 a general way as one great whole, is the mediate 
 cause, of physical being. 
 
 From all these things it follows that the spiritual 
 world is a world of causes in its relation to the nat- 
 ural world, which, therefore, is a world of effects. As 
 the life of the body is communicated to it through 
 the spirit, the bodily condition must be more or less 
 affected by the spiritual condition. The close rela- 
 tionship between the mind and the body has been 
 frequently observed, and is, to some extent at least, 
 recognized by physicians. It has been known that a 
 morbid or discouraged mental state is unfavorable to 
 recovery from sickness, whereas, if the patient can 
 be brought into a bright and cheerful frame of mind, 
 the prospect is deemed more hopeful. But while this 
 general truth has been seen, there has been no full 
 apprehension of the fact that all natural disorders of 
 every kind have a spiritual origin. If men had lived 
 from the beginning in the true order which was di- 
 vinely appointed for them, they would not have been 
 subject to the physical ailments under which they 
 suffer. To a certain extent, this spiritual cause of 
 disease is plainly manifest ; as, for instance, if a man 
 goes to excess in the indulgence of any natural appe- 
 tite, he has to pay the penalty in bodily pain or weak- 
 ness of some sort. The habitual drunkard grows 
 helplessly imbecile or prematurely old ; the signs of 
 his indulgence are visible in the loss of vigor, and, 
 not unfrequently, in the inroads of marked forms of 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 181 
 
 disease. In like manner, any mental habit which vio- 
 lates the divine laws of being, always tends to pro- 
 duce abnormal bodily conditions. Who can doubt, 
 for example, that complete self-absorption, with the 
 propensity to dwell on one's own ailments, misfor- 
 tunes, or grievances, tends to bring about unnatural 
 states of body as well as of mind ? We must re- 
 member that the spiritual world has its evil as well as 
 its good side. It comprises hell as well as heaven ; 
 and so far as we cherish what is evil in ourselves, we 
 come into association with hell and with the infernal 
 spirits who are there, just as we invite the compan- 
 ionship of angels whenever our hearts are turned to 
 what is good and true. Accordingly we find Sweden- 
 borg saying : — 
 
 Diseases have correspondence with the spiritual world. They 
 have not correspondence with heaven, but with those who are in 
 the opposite, thus with those who are in the hells. By the spir- 
 itual world, in the universal sense, is meant both heaven and 
 hell ; for man, when he dies, passes out of the natural world 
 into the spiritual world. That diseases have correspondence 
 with those who are in the hells, is because diseases correspond 
 to the lusts and passions of the mind ; the latter also are the 
 origins of diseases ; for the origins of diseases in general are 
 different forms of intemperance, likewise the various kinds of 
 pleasures merely corporeal, also envyings, hatreds, revenges, 
 lasciviousness, and the like, which destroy the interiors of man, 
 and when these are destroyed the exteriors suffer, and draw man 
 into disease and thus into death. . . . From these things it may 
 be manifest that diseases have correspondence with the spiritual 
 world, but with unclean things there ; for diseases in themselves 
 
^2 light on current topics. 
 
 are unclean, inasmuch as they originate in things unclean, as 
 was said above. (Arcana Ccelestia, 5712.) 
 
 If these statements are true — and surely there is 
 no reason to doubt them — it would appear that, far 
 more frequently than men are aware, they may bring 
 diseases upon themselves by cherishing evil thoughts 
 and feelings, which, if they would, they might avoid. 
 They open the door to infernal influences by allowing 
 themselves to indulge a sinful imagination, or to brood 
 over their fancied wrongs, or to build unprofitable 
 castles in the air which serve to keep them from an 
 orderly and useful life among men. All these un- 
 healthy conditions of mind predispose a man to un- 
 healthy conditions of body. If one is indolent, he 
 abstains from needful exercise ; if he lets his imagi- 
 nation dwell on the pleasures of the table, he is prone 
 to overload his stomach with unwholesome food ; if 
 he gives the reins to any form of sensual lust, he 
 subjects his body to a current of morbid and feverish 
 activities whose essence is infernal. We know not 
 how far our own pains and weaknesses may be due to 
 evil states and feelings in the mind ; but of this we 
 may feel certain, that if there had been no sin, there 
 would be no sickness. The world around man would 
 not have been capable of producing sickness, if there 
 had not first been something wrong in the world 
 within him, which gave the original impulse. 
 
 This relation between mental and bodily disorders 
 seems to be plainly indicated by the fact that our 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. ^3 
 
 Lord, when He was in the world, associated the two 
 with each other. He said to the man sick with palsy, 
 " Thy sins be forgiven thee ; " and His oft-repeated 
 declaration to those whom He healed was, " Thy faith 
 hath made thee whole," or, " According to thy faith 
 be it unto thee." We shall presently see that we 
 have no right to draw from these facts any sweeping 
 conclusions with regard to what is ordinarily possible 
 among men. But they manifestly confirm the gen- 
 eral law of connection between the natural and the 
 spiritual, showing that the Lord's power to heal men's 
 bodies made one with the influence which He brought 
 to bear on the evils that oppressed their souls. By 
 the conflict which He was waging against infernal 
 spirits, He gained control, such as no one else ever 
 had, over the spiritual sources of disease, and thus 
 restored the sick to health and strength. But this 
 was only a secondary matter. His real and essential 
 work was that of saving them from their sins, and 
 of making sure for them the eternal blessedness of 
 heaven. 
 
 Let us then endeavor to maintain healthy and nor- 
 mal states of mind ; let us not knowingly cherish 
 anything that is evil. This course of action will un- 
 questionably be a safeguard against disease, for the 
 reasons which have already been stated. A sound 
 mind tends always to produce a sound body. But, 
 at this point we must call a halt. We must not fall 
 into the mistake of supposing that in the present 
 
1 84 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 state of the world all bodily disease and infirmity 
 can be accounted for by reference to mental condi- 
 tions existing in the patient, or can be traced to the 
 particular- sins of those who are afflicted. On the 
 contrary, we well know that among those who suffer 
 the pains of sickness are often included the best of 
 men and women. Many a sick chamber is more full 
 of the atmosphere of heaven, than any other place on 
 earth. Moreover, even infants and young children 
 are not exempt from bodily ailments and sufferings. 
 Other factors, therefore, must be recognized in this 
 matter, beside that of personal transgression. The 
 intemperate man or the libertine not only brings 
 disease upon himself, but may transmit the seeds of 
 it to his posterity. The same must be true of those 
 who indulge more subtle evils. That diseases, no 
 less than deeper characteristics, are hereditary, is a 
 well-attested fact. Thus they are, indeed, the effect 
 or consequence of evil. But, being indirectly and 
 unconsciously communicated, they are something for 
 which the individual is not responsible, and they can- 
 not by any means always be removed by efforts on his 
 part to rise into a higher atmosphere of spiritual life. 
 Again, we must not forget that the natural world, 
 in which we live as to our bodies, is a real world, and 
 an essential part of the created universe. Of itself 
 it is, indeed, dead, being animated and vivified by the 
 spiritual world within it, as the body is animated and 
 vivified by the soul. But within its own domain it is 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH, ^5 
 
 subject to conditions quite distinct from its relation 
 to anything higher. It constitutes one great whole, 
 with all its parts related to and dependent upon each 
 other. If any part becomes disordered or disar- 
 ranged, the w 7 hole is more or less sensibly affected. 
 What, for example, would become of the earth or her 
 sister planets, if the sun were to be extinguished and 
 blotted out of existence ? What would the animal 
 kingdom do, if the vegetable kingdom were to be 
 destroyed ? Again, how could our bodies live, if in 
 the world around them there were nothing to minis- 
 ter to their sustenance ? They must not only be 
 filled with life from a higher plane, but must receive 
 strength and support from things on the lower plane 
 to w r hich they themselves belong. The earth, no 
 less than the heavens, is the Lord's, and He hath 
 given it to the children of men. " He hath put all 
 things under their feet." That is to say, He has 
 made natural or physical objects for man's service. 
 There is not one of them but contributes to the ful- 
 ness and perfection of his life while he lives on 
 earth ; and no small portion of them is absolutely 
 essential to his earthly existence. In a word, nature 
 has its own laws which must be kept, in order to re- 
 ceive the full benefit of our life here below. Those 
 laws are entirely distinct from spiritual laws, just as 
 nature itself is distinct from spirit. In other words, 
 the laws are divided by Discrete Degrees from each 
 other, yet in reality they make one. Whatever is 
 
1 86 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 conducive to orderly life in this world, corresponds 
 to something which is conducive to orderly life in 
 the spiritual world ; whatever tends to make man's 
 body strong and healthy, corresponds to that which 
 strengthens his soul. The food of the body is the 
 outward visible type of food for the spirit ; but, as we 
 have had occasion to observe so often in the course 
 of this discussion, the two things are entirely distinct 
 from each other, and must never be confounded. 
 Natural laws, though corresponding to spiritual laws, 
 must, nevertheless, be kept on their own plane, as if 
 they were wholly separate and independent. It is, 
 indeed, little that man knows about spiritual condi- 
 tions ; but he has been able, from the beginning of 
 his existence on earth, to fulfil, at least within certain 
 limits, the requirements needful for sustaining his 
 bodily life during the brief period of its continuance. 
 
 Let us be sure that we clearly and fully apprehend 
 this principle ; for it bears very strongly on some 
 considerations which are to follow. There are cer- 
 tain rules of life pertaining to the body, and to the 
 body alone, which are as imperative as any other 
 rules, so long as we live in the body. Those rules 
 bear the same relation to the plane of nature, that 
 other and corresponding rules bear to the plane of 
 mind. Why is it necessary that we should eat or 
 sleep ? Why is it necessary that we should have a 
 certain amount of air and exercise ? Why do we 
 need heat and light from the sun, and rain from the 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. ^7 
 
 clouds ? Simply because the life of our bodies is 
 made dependent on the reception of such things as 
 nature provides. They must appropriate to them- 
 selves these outmost gifts of the Lord's bounty, just 
 as our minds or spirits should appropriate the inter- 
 nal and more precious treasures of love and truth. 
 Hence follows another principle which has been 
 already alluded to, If anything is out of order in 
 the world around us, the body feels it. If there is 
 a famine, the body suffers from hunger. If there 
 is a drought, it suffers from thirst. If there is too 
 great dampness or miasma in the atmosphere, the 
 body is affected. Food of an unsuitable kind or in 
 too great quantity, water tainted with impure sub- 
 stances, bad drainage, or any kind of filth or pollu- 
 tion, becomes the medium through which harm may 
 reach our bodily senses and members. These out- 
 ward natural conditions may themselves be due to 
 perverted spiritual ones. Man's neglect, careless- 
 ness, or indifference may have been the means 
 whereby the world around him is visibly corrupted ; 
 or, in deeper and more subtle ways, of which he is 
 unconscious, these secondary causes of disease may 
 have sprung into existence ; but no reasonable per- 
 son can deny that they do exist. Such being the 
 case, they must be dealt with where they are. For 
 the natural evil we must seek a natural palliative or 
 remedy. The imperfect drainage system must be 
 replaced by a better. Filth must be removed from 
 
1 88 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 the places which it contaminates. On the natural 
 plane, as far as possible, all things must be set in 
 order. And if we find in nature, as we unquestion- 
 ably do, substances which serve to relieve pain and 
 to drive away sickness, we should not hesitate to use 
 them and to thank the Lord that He has provided 
 these gifts also for our health and comfort. As an 
 inhabitant of both worlds, man should hold himself 
 amenable to the laws of both worlds, and should 
 gratefully acknowledge his dependence on the helps 
 which reach him from without, no less than on those 
 which come from within. 
 
 Thus, there are three factors which enter into the 
 consideration of bodily health and sickness : first, 
 the life of the indwelling spirit ; secondly, hereditary 
 tendencies and influences ; and thirdly, the natural 
 environment, with all that it implies. The trouble in 
 dealing with the subject has too often been that one 
 or another of these factors has been lost sight of. 
 Medical practitioners, as a class, have doubtless been 
 disposed to rely too exclusively on external remedies. 
 They have frequently treated the body as if it were 
 an inanimate machine which could be patched and 
 mended at pleasure without regard to its connection 
 with any higher source of being. The importance 
 of spiritual influences as affecting natural conditions 
 has been more or less overlooked. The Christian 
 physician, in the full, true sense, is one who follows 
 in the footsteps of his Lord ; and, while he ministers 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 189 
 
 from the overflowing store-house of nature to the 
 relief of the body, remembers that his work is, at 
 best, only cooperation on the lower plane with the 
 help which comes from above. This element in his 
 effort to heal may not be made prominent in anything 
 that he does or says ; but it can hardly be absent 
 from his thoughts, if he endeavors — as all men 
 should, whatever be their profession or vocation — to 
 act in the spirit of his Master. 
 
 On the other hand, there are those, especially in 
 recent times, who maintain that the only cure for 
 the body is to be obtained from mental or spiritual 
 sources. Theorists of this kind abound, under such 
 designating terms as Faith Cure, Mental Healing, 
 and Christian Science. They discard all the medical 
 experience of ages. They brush aside the laws of 
 hygiene, and disregard all natural conditions. They 
 eschew the effects of heredity, and claim that noth- 
 ing is needed for restoring the body to health ex- 
 cept some influence brought to bear upon the mind. 
 Surely, if the manifest order of creation be taken 
 account of — which comprehends all the planes or 
 degrees of human life — the position thus described 
 is fearfully one-sided ; dangerously lacking in the 
 knowledge of those physical facts and needs which 
 must lie at the foundation of bodily health and treat- 
 ment. Having seized upon one important truth, and 
 having, perhaps, in some instances successfully ap- 
 plied it, they make the fatal mistake of supposing 
 
190 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 that it is the whole truth. And, as a consequence, 
 many in the community are suffering from their nar- 
 rowness and ignorance. 
 
 There is no method of treatment which does not 
 claim to have effected its cures. The newspapers 
 abound in advertisements of patent medicines, con- 
 taining certificates, apparently genuine, from those 
 who have experienced relief from their use. Won- 
 derful stories are told of cures accomplished by visits 
 to holy shrines, or by touching the dead bones of 
 saints. Every school of medicine can furnish its 
 proofs of successful service to men. Why should we 
 doubt that there is some measure of truth in all these 
 claims ? Why, again, may we not believe that there 
 are certain physical conditions which chiefly need, for 
 their amendment, the help that comes from a change 
 in the mental state, such change being effected some- 
 times in one way, and sometimes in another ? The 
 devout Roman Catholic may experience it when he 
 comes in contact with such things as to him seem the 
 most sacred. Others may feel it when, for the first 
 time, they are made vividly aware of the reality of 
 spiritual things, and there flows into their souls the 
 strong assurance of higher help and support. But in 
 the vast majority of cases, the needs will be different 
 from these, and the work can be effectually done only 
 in other ways. There is little danger that the time 
 will ever come, as long as men have infirm bodies, 
 when natural remedies will not be sought, and the aid 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 19 r 
 
 of the educated physician will not be valued. Let 
 us try to be just in our judgment of these matters; 
 broad, comprehensive, and tolerant ; not shutting our 
 eyes to any obvious truth, but, at the same time, not 
 pinning our faith to any partial system which arro- 
 gates to itself the exclusive power of healing. 
 
 For the reason that the philosophy of the New 
 Church distinctly recognizes the spiritual source of 
 life as an element which may affect even the bodily 
 condition, there has been some slight tendency on 
 the part of those who accept it, to favor the bold 
 general assumption that mental or spiritual influence 
 is the one infallible panacea. The only way in which 
 this error can be dispelled with many who fall into it, 
 is, doubtless, the hard way of experience. But those 
 who can view the teachings of the Church as a whole 
 will keep out of this pitfall. Moreover, if they care- 
 fully examine the theories of these new schools, they 
 will find them sadly lacking in the principles which 
 the New-Churchman sees to be most vital. Perhaps 
 the most prominent among them is that which calls 
 itself Christian Science, and which, like many delu- 
 sions in the history of the world, has gathered to 
 itself a large number of devoted adherents. A brief 
 examination of the doctrines embodied in this system 
 may not be out of place at the present time. 
 
 A primary and fundamental teaching is that there 
 is no personal God. This is plainly stated at the 
 very beginning of the " Platform of Christian Scien- 
 
192 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 tists," as formulated by Mrs. Eddy, the founder of I 
 the sect. " There is neither a personal Deity, a per- 
 sonal devil, nor a personal man." " God is principle 
 and not person " (Vol. 2, p. 192). The ground for 
 this belief is said to be that a person is necessarily 
 finite and limited, and principle is not. As if our 
 limited conception of personality as exemplified in 
 human beings were the only true conception of it ! 
 As if there could be no such thing as an infinite per- 
 son, a being of perfect love and wisdom, superior to 
 the limitations of space and time! What, indeed, is 
 the true idea of personality, unless it be that of one 
 who loves and thinks ? In the New Church, we are 
 taught that the Lord is love itself and wisdom itself, 
 and that love and wisdom are the life of the universe; 
 but they do not exist in Him as mere abstractions ; 
 they are the essential elements of His personality. 
 They are the things which cause Him to be the In- 
 finite, Divine Person that He is. And man, too, is a 
 person — created in the image, after the likeness, of 
 God — because he is endowed with will and under- 
 standing, that is, with the power of receiving love and 
 wisdom from God, and of using them as if they were 
 his own. Take away the idea of personality from 
 God, and he ceases to be an object of worship. All 
 clearness of thought respecting Him is gone, and in 
 His place you have nothing left but a vague, cold Pan- 
 theism. 
 
 Secondly, according to the creed of Christian Sci- 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 
 
 *93 
 
 entists, " Matter or the mortal body, is nothing but a 
 belief and an illusion. When belief changes — as in 
 dreams — matter or the mortal body, changes with it, 
 and is wherever or whatever belief makes it " (Vol. 2, 
 pp. 193, 194). On this assumption, the whole theory 
 and practice of Christian Scientists rest. The body 
 being nothing but "a belief and an illusion," its pain 
 and sickness are a belief and an illusion also. The one 
 thing for the patient to do is to accept this doctrine 
 as true, and by accepting it to rise above the sense 
 of physical suffering. Or, in other words, since there 
 is no reality to such suffering, it becomes to him the 
 nonentity that it is, if he can only think so. Thus 
 the whole work of healing is made to depend on a 
 certain act of faith in the mind. Or, to quote again 
 from Mrs. Eddy : " Sickness is a belief, and to under- 
 stand this, destroys the belief and breaks the spell of 
 disease. To the metaphysician [which is a name 
 applied by the Christian Scientists to themselves] 
 sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to 
 be awakened, which should not appear real to him, 
 and when he makes it unreal to his patient, he cures 
 him." (Science and Health, Vol. 1, p. 188.) 
 
 In other words, as has been shown, disease is to be 
 driven away by the simple exercise of thought, by a 
 confident affirmation of the mind that it is non-exis- 
 tent. No matter what the nature of the sickness is, 
 it cannot withstand this mental conviction. Consider 
 yourself well and incapable of being otherwise, and 
 
194 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 you will be well. The final test of this doctrine, 
 as in all other cases, will be that of experience. It is 
 sufficient for our present purpose to state that expe- 
 rience shows it to be repeatedly unsuccessful. Where 
 it has failed, the blame has been conveniently laid 
 upon lack of faith in the patient or in those by whom 
 he was attended. Nevertheless, the fact remains 
 that, for some reason or other, it has often, if not 
 generally, failed. But the particular point to which I 
 would direct attention is that the operation of this 
 pretended law of healing is ascribed to a purely in- 
 tellectual effort. One belief is cast out by another. 
 The belief that man is sick is cast out by the belief 
 that he is not. How different is this from the great 
 fundamental teachings of the Scriptures, which are 
 summed up in the saying : " If thou wouldst enter 
 into life, keep the Commandments." If there is any 
 fact well attested in our experience, it is that the 
 evils of our spiritual nature cannot be removed by 
 any mere change in our mode of thinking. Their 
 presence with us and power over us are something 
 which will not be thrown off by trying to ignore 
 them. Each individual evil to which we are inclined 
 must be shunned as sin against God ; shunned, not 
 once or twice merely, but repeatedly, as often as it 
 makes its appearance, which it will do many, many 
 times. And are we to suppose that our bodily ills 
 are less stubborn, or can always be removed in a 
 shorter and easier way ? If there is any analogy be- 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH 19 <j 
 
 tween the evils which infest the mind and the dis- 
 orders which affect the body, then must there be some 
 analogy between the ways in which the two kinds of 
 evil are got rid of. The faith of which our Lord 
 speaks, and whose excellence He so strongly empha- 
 sizes, is not the mere faith of intellectual belief, but 
 that which leads men to learn His w r ill in order that 
 they may do it. Such w r as the faith of those whom 
 He made whole. They had not simply come into a 
 changed state of mind with regard to certain matters ; 
 they were not merely inspired by a sudden confidence 
 that He could help and save them ; but their hearts 
 and wills were touched with a deep sense of their 
 unworthiness, and of their need of strength higher 
 than their own, together with a sincere desire to live 
 a life according to His teachings. Christian Science 
 seems to be among theories relating to bodily health, 
 what the old doctrine of salvation by faith alone was, 
 among the so-called tenets of Christianity. 
 
 And how absurd and unreasonable the whole thing 
 is in its denial of natural realities. These people 
 say, " There is no such thing as matter ; matter is 
 nothing but a belief and an illusion ; " and yet they 
 go on calmly eating their three meals a day. Thrice 
 in every twenty-four hours, they take to themselves 
 what they pronounce "a belief and an illusion," with 
 all the zest that is common to humanity ; and they 
 well know that if they refrained from so doing they 
 would soon cease to live in this world. This food 
 
i 9 6 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 goes to the support of their natural bodies, which, 
 again, they declare to be " nothing but a belief and 
 an illusion.'' There is no difference between them 
 and others in their dependence on all the gifts of 
 nature. In summer they are warm, in winter they 
 are cold ; and when night comes they are weary, and 
 must rest. These mere "illusions'' which we call 
 our bodies must indeed seem to them rather hard to 
 dispel — rather stubborn and persistent. It is diffi- 
 cult to treat the matter seriously, difficult to believe 
 that the advocates of the theory are in earnest about 
 it ; and yet the evidence is quite too positive to be 
 called in question, that many of them are sincere, 
 and wholly unable to perceive the inconsistencies 
 and absurdities of their doctrine. Having been, per- 
 haps, physically helped, as they suppose, by the mode 
 of treatment involved in the system, and having thus 
 been led to believe in some spiritual power, and in 
 an influence of the mind over the body, they hasten 
 to conclude that all its teachings are true, and em- 
 brace it as a new revelation and a new religion. 
 
 It is not unjust, in considering a system of this 
 kind, which claims to be based on universal laws of 
 life and to embody infallible methods of restoring 
 physical health, to point out a palpable false state- 
 ment in which gross ignorance is joined with aston- 
 ishing assurance and presumption. In No. 16 of the 
 " Platform of Christian Scientists " we read as follows : 
 " The word Adam signifies original sin — error, and 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH, I9 y 
 
 not man. Adam is from the Latin demens, meaning 
 madness, to undo, to spoil " (Science and Health, Vol. 
 2, p. 196). The absurdity of this statement will be 
 at once apparent to one who has the least knowledge 
 of the history of language. "Adam" is a Hebrew 
 word occurring hundreds of times in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and rightly translated by its English equivalent 
 "man." To say that this word, which is so common 
 in the oldest book in the world, was derived from a 
 word in the Latin language, which was not known 
 until centuries after the Bible had been written, is to 
 make an assertion that is indeed ridiculous, and may 
 well throw doubts over the writer's claims even to 
 common honesty and intelligence. 
 
 But, not to dwell on these secondary matters, in 
 what sharp contrast does the doctrine that there is 
 no personal God and that all nature is but a fantastic 
 illusion, stand with the teachings familiar to New- 
 Churchmen ; namely, that God is truly our Father, 
 revealed to us in the Divinely human form and nature 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ ; that He is the source of 
 our life, the Giver of our blessings and the true ob- 
 ject of our worship ; that according as we keep His 
 laws and shun evils as sins against Him, we are en- 
 abled, in our finite degree, to become like Him ; 
 that He has created us to be both internal and ex- 
 ternal, both spiritual and natural ; that His mercy 
 surrounds us on all sides, that it meets us in the 
 rays of the sun, in the food we eat, in the air we 
 
i 9 8 LIGHT ON- CURRENT TOPICS, 
 
 breathe, and in all earthly blessings, as well as in the 
 deeper and more vital influences which sustain the 
 life of our souls — that all these things, being His 
 gifts, are real ; not, indeed, having life of themselves, 
 but being filled with life from Him, just as the body 
 of itself is dead, but lives from the spirit which is 
 within it ! Thus, and thus only, can we see and be- 
 lieve that all things which God has created for the 
 use and enjoyment of man are very good. Thus 
 only can we respond to the exclamation of the Psalm- 
 ist, " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name 
 in all the earth!' 
 
 There is another class of believers in spiritual in- 
 fluences as being the sole and sufficient means of 
 promoting bodily health, of whom we should speak 
 with respect and gentleness, though we cannot accept 
 their opinions. They are those who so interpret the 
 Gospels as to think that the power which the Lord 
 gave His immediate disciples over disease, was equally 
 given to all who at any future time might pay Him 
 their allegiance. "These signs," so it is said in the 
 last chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, " shall 
 follow them that believe : In my name shall they 
 cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; 
 they shall take up serpents ; and if they drink any 
 deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay 
 hands on the sick, and they shall recover." There 
 was, as we know, a literal fulfilment of these promises 
 in the days immediately succeeding the Lord's resur- 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 199 
 
 rection and ascension. We read in the book of Acts, 
 how the Apostles did cast out devils, speak with new 
 tongues, take up serpents without harm, and heal the 
 sick by the laying on of hands. But the fact that 
 they were able to do these things, by no means 
 proves that the ability to do them would be perpetual. 
 The time in which they lived was an exceptional one. 
 It was a crisis in the affairs of men and in the history 
 of the world. An unusual state of things existed 
 which called for unusual treatment. Ordinary proofs 
 of the Lord's divine nature and authority would not 
 have sufficed in that dark and unbelieving age ; so 
 that evidences which we call miracles, because they 
 are contrary to our ordinary experience, were neces- 
 sary for convincing men of His authority, and for 
 establishing His kingdom. After these events had 
 taken place, and had been duly recorded in the Gos- 
 pel narratives and in the Apostolic writings, the 
 knowledge of them as thus written was sufficient to 
 carry similar conviction to succeeding generations ; 
 and the exceptional conditions of that particular pe- 
 riod ceased to exist. On this subject Swedenborg 
 writes as follows : — 
 
 The Jewish nation only believed in Jehovah on account of 
 His miracles ; for they were external men, and these are im- 
 pelled to Divine worship only by external things, such as mira- 
 cles, which strike their minds. A miraculous faith was also the 
 first faith with those with whom the new [Christian] Church 
 was to be established ; and it is also first with all in the Chris- 
 
200 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 tian world at this day, wherever the miracles performed by the 
 Lord are preached. For the first faith with all is an historical 
 faith, which afterwards becomes saving when man by his life 
 becomes spiritual. (Apocalypse Explained, 815.) 
 
 That is to say, in the beginning of the Christian 
 Church, ocular evidence of the Lord's power over all 
 things disorderly and evil was essential as a means 
 of leading men to believe in Him. The kind of faith 
 thus produced, however, was not genuine faith of the 
 heart ; but prepared the way for it, and afterwards 
 ceased to be necessary. So, too, a knowledge of the 
 fact that the Lord performed such miracles when He 
 was in the world, and that His disciples performed 
 them by virtue of His presence with them, serves a 
 similar purpose for those who may read about it in 
 the New Testament and are thereby led to perceive 
 that He was no mere man like themselves. But, 
 after a while, if they continue to grow in Christian 
 faith and life, they are no longer influenced by a 
 mere belief in the verity of certain historical events. 
 On the contrary, their faith becomes a living trust in 
 a divinely human Lord, who has all power in heaven 
 and on earth, who is always present with them to 
 help and to save, and who by His providence, seeks 
 ever to lead them in such ways as will most surely 
 promote their everlasting welfare. As they read the 
 Gospel story in this spirit, and with the recognition 
 of this deeper truth respecting Him, they see that 
 bodily healing was but a mere incident — but one of 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 2 oi 
 
 the ways whereby He gave expression to the higher 
 work which He was doing, namely, that of overcom- 
 ing the enemies of men's souls ; and they know that, 
 whether they be afflicted with physical diseases or 
 not, they have in themselves evil tendencies which 
 correspond to leprosy, palsy, fevers, and all other 
 forms of sickness that the Lord healed ; and they 
 know, furthermore, that He is continually endeavor- 
 ing, so far as they will permit Him, to remove these 
 evils from them in order that his unchanging pur- 
 pose of bringing them into heaven, may be fulfilled. 
 The abnormal conditions, peculiar to a time like that 
 of which the Gospels treat, have passed away, and 
 there is no more need of a day of Pentecost when 
 cloven tongues of fire shall appear, and the disciples 
 shall speak in many languages ; there is no reason 
 why the viper's deadly poison should cease to pro- 
 duce its usual effects, or the ordinary laws of nature, 
 which are also the laws of God, should be apparently 
 suspended. For a faith has been, or should have 
 been, implanted in their hearts, which does not de- 
 pend on such things as these, and which binds them 
 to their Lord and Master with the cords of a deeper, 
 truer, and holier relationship. 
 
 These considerations naturally lead us to reflect 
 on the ways of the Lord's providence, among which, 
 if we think truly, we cannot fail to recognize the fact 
 that by means of lesser evils He often seeks to ward 
 off or prevent greater ones. The absolute freedom 
 
202 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 of men is essential to their spiritual growth and 
 progress. The Divine interpositions which we call 
 miracles are not common, because they would have 
 the effect of destroying this freedom. But the fact 
 that man is free carries with it the possibility of his 
 doing evil rather than good, although he knows that 
 the evil is forbidden. So far as evil exists in the 
 world, it causes unhappy consequences ; it tends to 
 produce disorder of all kinds, spiritual, moral, natural, 
 physical. Now, as we well know, or should know, 
 these evils are, under the wonderful providence of 
 God, made serviceable for their own correction. If a 
 man experiences in his own body the effect of wrong- 
 doing, he is thereby warned to abstain from it ever 
 after. And if the Lord sees that by means of physi- 
 cal suffering our characters can be built up and 
 strengthened, and our spiritual life throughout eter- 
 nity may be made more useful and happy, He per- 
 mits it to come upon us. This outward evil does not 
 proceed from Him any more than other evils do ; for 
 He is love or goodness itself, and is no more capable 
 of evil than the sun is capable of emitting rays of 
 dense blackness. All evil is, as has been previ- 
 ously said or implied, the direct or indirect effect 
 of man's misuse of his freedom ; but the Lord, watch- 
 ing over him with infinite love and wisdom, permits 
 these lower effects to manifest themselves in such 
 ways that they may most surely react upon the hid- 
 den causes from which they spring. This is indeed 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 203 
 
 a profound subject, and we can only touch, as it were, 
 upon its borders ; but, surely, our experience must 
 have been narrow and our observation superficial, un- 
 less we have learned from all the lessons of life, that 
 what we call misfortunes, whether they take the form 
 of disappointed ambition, loss of property, or bodily 
 sickness, are often, yea, always, blessings in disguise, 
 through which higher and nobler possibilities are 
 opened before us, through the infinite mercy of Him 
 who knows our needs far better than we ourselves 
 can know them. 
 
 The law that lesser evils may assist in the removal 
 of greater ones, has its application even on the plane 
 of man's physical being. It explains why drugs, even 
 those which are poisonous, may be efficacious in cur- 
 ing bodily disease. " Things harmful to man," says 
 Swedenborg, " are serviceable in absorbing maligni- 
 ties, and thus as remedies " (Divine Love and Wis- 
 dom, no. 336). In other words, substances taken into 
 the body, which in too great quantities or under other 
 conditions might be hurtful, attract to themselves, in 
 a state of disease, the malignant germs or humors 
 which, from a merely external point of view, are the 
 essence of the disease, and, passing out of the body, 
 carry the disease with them. Thus Divine provi- 
 dence concurs with the remedies which man applies, 
 and bodily sickness is relieved. Here, again, a large 
 field of inquiry is opened, which we can only touch 
 upon in the briefest possible way ; but this brief allu- 
 
204 
 
 LIGHT ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
 
 sion may serve to suggest a reason why the reception 
 into the system of things essentially harmful, may 
 yet be a method whereby the Lord works for the 
 restoration of order and health in the lowest, as in 
 every other degree of man's life. The evils which 
 are overruled for good, are no less under the Divine 
 care and tributary to the Divine purposes, than agen- 
 cies, intrinsically excellent, which minister directly to 
 the creation and preservation of the universe. 
 
 The great truth, however, which comprehends all 
 other truths, is that "the Lord God Omnipotent 
 reigneth. ,, In His hands are the issues of life and 
 death. " He hath made us, and not we ourselves." 
 He has caused us for a while to live in this natural 
 world, clothed with natural bodies ; but the true pur- 
 pose of our existence is spiritual and eternal. In His 
 sight, our life here on earth is wholly subsidiary to 
 the never-ending life hereafter. His providence has 
 primary regard to our preparation for that life, to the 
 end that it may be a happy one, in which all our fac- 
 ulties shall be brought into the freest exercise and 
 trained for everlasting usefulness, Sooner or later, 
 death will set its seal upon our earthly bodies, and we 
 shall wake to consciousness in that inner spiritual 
 world, which, from the first moment of our creation, 
 has been our home. Then shall we see clearly the 
 meaning of all our experiences. Then shall we un- 
 derstand the uses of the trials through which we 
 have passed. Then shall we know that it was not 
 
NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH. 205 
 
 possible for the kind and wise providence which pre- 
 sided over our lives, to let us suffer a single moment's 
 pain that could not be made serviceable in the devel- 
 opment of our spiritual character. Still further, we 
 shall see that all the springs of our being are in Him. 
 From Him come all our life and strength and health. 
 Now, as ever, He is the good Physician. Through 
 whatever channel relief comes when we are in dis- 
 tress of body or mind, it proceeds from Him. He 
 meets us in the inmost chambers of our souls. He 
 fills our hearts with good and our minds with truth, 
 and provides for us all the healthful influences of na- 
 ture. " He forgiveth all our iniquities ; He healeth 
 all our diseases ; He redeemeth our life from destruc- 
 tion, and crowneth us with loving-kindness and ten- 
 der mercies/' So far as it is good for men to be 
 spared the discipline of sickness, He will either with- 
 hold it from them or will provide the means of cure. 
 We can fear no danger if we really believe that un- 
 derneath are His everlasting arms. And while we 
 should not relax our efforts to make the conditions of 
 this life comfortable, and to maintain sound bodies as 
 the dwelling places of sound minds, our first and 
 chief endeavor should be to work with Him for the 
 establishment of that permanent happy state after 
 the labors of this world are ended, when " there shall 
 be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying ; for the 
 former things are passed away." 
 
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