KELLEY JENNESS Class Book GopyrigM^ . COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE PILOT FLAME BY KELLEY JENNESS A practicing pastor, engaged in lighting pilot flames BOSTON SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 1912 Copyright, 1912 Sherman, French & Company C!,A33218 ! . FOREWORD The ladies of the community decreed a baby show to provide the funds for a children's play- ground. Where a beautiful child is esteemed a more desirable possession than an automobile, such an effort meets with success. The parson- age had an exhibit for this show, our dolly girl, Virginia, life's most entrancing plaything. Her mother would have liked to display her exhibit, but it happened on that day that "Mrs. Rumsey Jenness" must take a train to keep the date of a temperance lecture. The mother arrayed her dolly with tender glee, and then, with last re- gretful looks, the temperance lecturer departed to meet the stern obligations of the public life. It fell to my lot to hold the exhibit, number eighty- seven, in the Two Year Olds. More delightful than a blossom fete, were the flower beds of babies, filling large school rooms. The crowd flowed by, making comments, which I enjoyed because eighty-seven was a good exhibit. The impartial judges brought from distant cities passed un- known in the procession. When the crowd be- came so dense that I was afraid the heat might wilt my exhibit, I retired with her to the cool fringe of folks on the lawn. In placid satisfac- tion I was chatting with friends about the ac- FOREWORD complishment of the playground funds. From the steps, far down in front, a voice called, "Where is eighty-seven? Who was eighty-seven? Eighty-seven is awarded first prize in the Two Year Old Section." As I went through the crowd carrying my exhibit to receive the prize, I felt that it was wrong that "Rumsey Jenness" was not there too, for the exhibit was certainly more her achievement than mine. I am now called upon to hold another exhibit which is our joint achievement, our book, "Th£ Pilot Flame." It has come out of our yokefellow life ; we have clothed it with our toil ; we have sat up with it nights ; and we have enj oyed it when it was good. I wonder, is "The Pilot Flame" as good an exhibit as Virginia? Shall I enjoy hold- ing it so much as I did eighty-seven? TITLES OF CHAPTERS PAGE The Title Analogy .... 1 I The Child Who Conforms . .16 II The Child Who Varies . . . 54* III Illumination 96 IV The Perception of the Presence of God 1ST V The Lettered and the Learned . 157 VI The Turbulent Bar . . . .192 VII Dark Till Jesus Comes .... 221 VIII Made-Over Garments .... 251 THE TITLE ANALOGY In the regions where natural gas is abundant, most families have in the cellars of their houses an apparatus through which flowing hot water is delivered where it is needed throughout the liv- ing rooms. This hot water is not heated in a tank, whose capacity may be exhausted when on one evening the whole family is minded to keep the ceremony of bathing. The water is heated as it flows, and he who comes last in his use of it gets the hottest. The secret of this mysterious and continuous flow of hot water is the pilot flame, a tiny gas jet in the secret place of the heater, burning in the midst of a circle of powerful gas burners which are set under the coil of water pipes. The pilot flame itself might heat a cup- ful of water in an hour. Ordinarily it burns with a one candle power, but it is able to flash into a flame having the heating power of hundreds of candles. When the water faucets are opened in the rooms above, the rushing stream automatic- ally lets loose a flood of gas which streams out through the circle of powerful burners and is ignited by the pilot flame. The fervid flame roaring around the coiled water pipe heats the water as it flows, so that there issues from the faucets steaming water. The flow will continue 2 THE PILOT FLAME as long as the channel is open. When the faucet is closed and the flowing of the water stops, the supply of gas is cut off, the fervent blaze dimin- ishes to the little pilot flame, and the water in the coiled pipes becomes motionless and cold. But the pilot flame burns on, faithful and expectant; and so long as it burns, the slightest movement of the water will transform the cold inert fluid into a warm, living flood. If the pilot flame has never been lighted, if a strong wind has blown it out, or if the pinhole through which the gas flows to sustain the flame be stopped with rust, then the water which was needed hot, flows out cold. So little gas flows through the pilot flame hole, that if it be not burned, it mingles with the air, and is only faintly perceptible. But if the water is caused to flow when the pilot flame is not lighted, the volume of gas liberated by its flow, but not consumed, fills the cellar and becomes an agent of terrible and deadly power. Some accidental contact with a flame may cause it to rend the house above. Every normal individual has in the uncompre- hended depths of his personality, an apparatus through which the power of God may be. applied to all his flowing activities, so that each activity may be dispatched in the warmth of courage and hope. This apparatus is not readily inspected, because it works in the dim and unexplored por- tions of his nature. It is not necessary to keep it under constant inspection, any more than it is THE TITLE ANALOGY 3 necessary for the family to live in the cellar. Whether or not it is fulfilling its function is de- termined not by an inspection of the apparatus, but by the presence or absence of courage and hope in the flowing activities. It is not necessary for every man to inquire into the origin of this apparatus ; he may accept on large testimony the fact that it is there. It is necessary for every man to take heed that the apparatus is in order, that the pilot flame is lighted and faithfully burn- ing. It is necessary to heed the caution that the winds of greed do not blow the flame out, nor the rust of riches fill the burner through which the power of God has access into the soul of man. He in whom this apparatus is working will find that the power of God is not stored in a little tank-like section of his activities ; nor need it be saved to i>e used sparingly in desperate emer- gencies of sorrow; automatically it flows with the dispatching of his normal activities. That it may be present as the genial warmth of courage and hope expressed in all the rooms of living, it is needful that the pilot flame of the recognition of God be burning. If the pilot flame of the recognition of God has never been lighted ; if the strong winds of greed and bitterness have blown it out ; if the rust of riches has filled up the small access which the power of God has into the personality of the normal man, then all the activi- ties of life are dispatched cold. They may rush forth under the pressure of energy and ability; 4 THE PILOT FLAME nevertheless, they are cold. Faith, burning like a pilot flame, can ignite the outrushing power which accompanies activities, and can turn that power into the genial warmth of courage and hope. It may even happen that should there be great need of activities being dispatched in the warmth of courage and hope and they be forced out with- out this warmth, there may accumulate in the cellar of personality a deadly depression which finds expression in the bitter spirit, in forms of worry and of nervousness, in excessive and rest- less activities, and finally even, in the explosion of despair. The Lighting of the Pilot Flame is the Normal Religious Experience. When there is sufficient emphasis of attention, the normal consciousness can tell whether the pilot flame is burning, whether the recognition of God has been made. When such a recognition has not been made, there is a perception of lack. Definite memories of religious experiences are the incidents of the lighting of the flame. When- ever personal responsibility is emerging and is be- ginning to control the dispatching of activities, the pilot flame may be kindled. The spark that shall kindle the flame is received from the burning flame of another life. The religious duty of par- ents, teachers and pastor ministers is to offer the burning flame in their own lives for the kindling of the new flames. THE TITLE ANALOGY 5 As the pilot flame may be blown out by a strong wind, so the recognition of God may be obliter- ated by the winds of doubt or of dissipation. As rust may fill the aperture through which the power that sustains the pilot flame flows, so the cares of this world and the rust of riches may stop the possibility of kindling a soul. The burning pilot flame furnishes a conscious perception. When it is tenderly lighted in child- hood days, so that its use is anticipated, its pres- ence will be perceived by the heat in the water, that is, by the hope and courage that sustains the daily activities. When the lighting of the flame is delayed and is provoked by a great need, or when it is accom- plished in a public meeting, there is frequently such a perception of outpouring heat and power as to make a radical change in consciousness, an experience never to be mistaken or forgotten throughout a life time. Keeping the pilot flame burning is practicing the presence of God. The accounts of the use of the pilot flame will tell of times when the pres- ence was specially apparent, and will also tell of occasions when in response to a great need, the pilot flame was able to do its work, to meet its emergency and supply a great volume of hope and courage. The analogy of the lighting of the pilot flame will readily provide four aspects under which we may study such a large number of religious ex- 6 THE PILOT FLAME periences that we may reach the accurate concep- tion of the normal case. These aspects are "The Child who Conforms;" "The Child who Varies;" "Illumination ;" and "The Perception of the Pres- ence of God." The material for study consists of one hundred and eight experiences written in some detail, which have been provided by two congregations, one at Berkeley, California, and one at Morgantown, West Virginia. To these written experiences must be added the very much more extensive knowledge of cases which has come to a minister who is constantly absorbed in the practice of lighting pilot flames. Never in the last fifteen years has the average number of cases personally attended fallen below a hundred. While the knowledge gained in practice is undoubtedly used in the interpretation of the cases, for the sake of great accuracy, the written testimonies of a con- siderable number are offered to establish every point. In both congregations the gathering of the experiences was made into a program from which followed many benefits in addition to the gather- ing of the material. A considerable number of the more intellectual type, who are entirely in- hibited in the ordinary evangelistic meeting, came to that "strange warming of the heart." Emo- tions were set flowing, memories were stirred, vague aspirations focused upon a realization, until the after atmosphere of the church was THE TITLE ANALOGY 7 "better than a revival," as many remarked. Many, retarded in their Christian development, discovered their condition, and were led to de- mand the benefits that have been waiting for them out of the royal bounty of the King. It was found that the focusing of attention upon the re- ligious experience lets loose power, just as the contemplation of Jesus produces an impression of uplift and of enlightenment ; that the bringing out of the storehouse of their memories the ex- periences upon which their lives have turned, opens for the people the great storehouse of di- vine bounty. Where one was sufficiently familiar with the pen and sufficiently able to express him- self in writing, ten who did not write out their ex- perience, were reached and stirred, and induced to look back over the way whence they had come. In such a program, all the beneficial results of a fresh and vital testimony meeting are produced, while the depression of worn cant is avoided. As significant as the effect upon the people should be the effect upon the minister. The ac- curate study of cases enables him to lay aside any mechanical theories that may have lingered from theological school-days. In proportion as his knowledge is derived from transpiring cases and is accurate, he becomes a soul expert. In the care of souls that are in the Way, and in the cure of souls that are out of the Way, he comes to that firm, yet delicate skill which is in the fingers of a great surgeon. 8 THE PILOT FLAME The finding of the accurate facts in regard to the normal religious experience waits upon the providing of material for study; that is, a suf- ficiently large collection of accurately described normal experiences. Such a collection must be provided by the ministers who have the entrance into the souls of their people. Much attention has been given to the abnormal and exceptional case. We have abundance of evi- dence that the power of God can transform the gutter drunkard; but we have as yet no accurate method of applying this power. When Professor William James turned the search-light of psychology upon the religious ex- perience, "he loaded his lectures with concrete examples" but he chose all of his experiences from the "extremer expressions" of the religious tem- perament. He has largely used the testimony of the saints, admitting that because they were a specialized class, their experience was abnormal. Pie thinks that the religious impulses must be combined with common sense to obtain the whole- some normal practice. Yet for the successful production of this difficult combination, he leaves the practicing minister to his own devices. There is nowhere provided a clear analysis of the normal religious experience. Professor Starbuck and Professor Coe have each undertaken studies of the religious experi- ence, and have gathered such a collection of cases as they could obtain. They have succeeded in THE TITLE ANALOGY 9 putting clearly into the minds of all religious practitioners at least one important fact — the normal time for vivid religious experience is be- tween the ages of twelve and twenty. While practitioners return thanks to the careful scholars for the facts they have established, they need more. They need the facts upon which they \ can depend for the normal cases. Here the excep- tion does not prove the rule. Hard pressed with his active practice, the minister needs to have worked out for him the steps of the process to be definitely expected in the normal case. The av- erage minister must practice among the average people, with only occasional access to the inhabi- tants of the slums below and the saints above. This book has been prepared in the hope that case gathering will be undertaken by many minis- ters, and thus the material needed for accurate study provided. The pressure of this hope has produced the book. During the six months in which scraps of time have been devoted to arrang- ing the material, three hundred and sixteen indi- viduals have been labored with personally to the end that the pilot flame might be lighted within their souls, and one hundred and forty-three have been carefully prepared by a vital experience and by needed instruction for church membership. The knowledge already obtained from the com- parative study of cases has lent definiteness to the work. The work of preparing this book has been car- 10 THE PILOT FLAME ried on upon a desk that has so many pigeon holes containing the papers referring to the dif- ferent interests of the local church that reference clippings get lost in the maze. The desk is flanked by two constantly ringing telephones, so that each paragraph of the book represents an interruption. A recent census returned three thousand three hundred people who look to this church for all of religion they have in their lives, and who call upon its minister for funerals, weddings, and all of moral help that they use. The minister's study door stands open to them all; he keeps business hours, and carries forward as large a volume of practice as a doctor in light- ing pilot flames, in applying prayer to sickness, and sympathy to sorrow. If the book has suf- fered, the people have not. Each of the two congregations from which the experiences used for study were gathered, neighbored with a state university. In each case the university constituency, — faculty families and students — numbered perhaps twenty-five per cent, of a membership of approximately a thou- sand, a little less in one church, a little more in the other. In both cases the remaining seventy- five per cent, was absolutely democratic, being composed of a few men of independent business and some means, clerks and office workers, me- chanics and working people, including even a sprinkling of drunkards, converted and needing to be converted. Among the women, who do not THE TITLE ANALOGY 11 outnumber the men, are a few of social efficiency and establishment, many capable housekeepers doing the work for their own families, school teachers, office girls and shop girls, and maids in household service. While the basis for the case gathering was thus democratic, the classification of religious experi- ences bears no relation either to degree of attain- ment economically, or to intellectual culture. After reading the written report of cases, some- what more than one hundred in number, and after considering the verbal accounts of ten times as many experiences, we are forced to the conclusion that there is neither male nor female, there is neither capable nor inefficient, there is neither edu- cated nor uncouth, there is neither sensitive nor hardened, in the matter of the religious experi- ence. All of these distinctions drop away as ex- ternals before the primal nature of the individual. With pronouns eliminated and the distinguishing clues of penmanship and grammar smoothed out, a careful reader would be unable correctly to allot the experiences to man and woman, to capable and inefficient. In the cases of the cultured and the untrained, it must be admitted that, in some in- stances, the cultured are able to express them- selves in accurate and personal terms, while the untrained are largely dependent upon well-worn phrases, or phrases suggested by the questions. Where the trained minds make use of the well- worn or suggested phrases, we may have some 12 THE PILOT FLAME suspicion that the expression is not intimately related to the experience. In the cases of un- trained minds, the well-worn and suggested phrases come out weighted with a depth of emo- tionality and personal reality which should not be undervalued. If sufficient allowance be made for differences in power of expression, we shall be forced to the conclusion that the type of the re- ligious experience does not depend upon the out- ward framework of the life. In looking for the true basis for the classifica- tion of religious experiences, we are next obliged to eliminate the conception that the type of the experience determines the after quality of the Christian life. A peculiarly vivid experience is not necessarily the entrance into a peculiarly ex- cellent Christian life. Nor does a peculiarly placid experience necessarily mean a devitalized Christian life. While the abundance and sin- cerity of Christian activities may be offered as testimony to the reality of the experience, the degree of activity cannot be used as the basis of classification of the type of the experience. The fervor with which a man courts his sweetheart does not determine the degree of comfort and luxury which he maintains in his home. His faithful ef- forts at maintaining his home, may, however, be received as evidence of the sincerity of his court- ship, regardless of whether the expression of his courtship was fervid or formal. Like courtship, the religious experience is an adjustment of re- THE TITLE ANALOGY 13 lationships brought about under the pressure of an emotion. Like married life, Christian activity is an expression of the sincere acceptance of this relationship. Nor does the word "temperament" provide any accurate basis of classification. Some of the most emotional Christians can remember no transform- ing single experience. Some of the most matter- of-fact and controlled, can remember one vital oc- casion when their entire consciousness turned over, like a great stone pried from its place. There are two normal types of the religious ex- perience. One remembers a vivid and never-to-be- mistaken occasion, when all inhibitions of unwill- ingness being swept away by a strong tide of emotionality, an adjustment of relationship with God was made. The other type, generally reach- ing back into childhood, tells of episodes and of occasions when it was realized that God was in relationship to the life. This type are frequently hazy as to exactly the time at which this relation- ship was achieved. The religious experience is closely intertwined with the emerging of the consciousness of indi- viduality, as contrasted with consciousness of family and environing institutions, like school and church. If individuality emerges from family consciousness without friction, a placid religious experience will be normal. If there be a friction, or a reaction from family ideals, or a lack of preparation for emerging individuality, a more U THE PILOT FLAME climacterical experience may be expected. On the flowing river of life, at the point where interior responsibility should take control of conduct, there is apparently a lock and a dam across the stream. A sympathetically wise par- ent, or Sunday School teacher, or pastor, may succeed in steering childhood consciousness into the lock, where it is let down so smoothly into adult individuality that the time of the transition is not perceived. If this steering is not per- formed, a few young spirits may accidentally stray into the lock, but it must be expected that the majority will go over the dam. Going over the dam provides a more vivid sensation than passing through the lock. It is not mistaken nor for- gotten. No superior excellence need be claimed for either type of experience. Children whose re-- ligious consciousness has been carefully nurtured will probably find the passage through the lock most pleasing, provided always they are actually, steered through the lock, and not left to float on the pool of immature consciousness provided by the family and church. On the other hand, going over the dam has not been found to be either dangerous or disastrous. In the cases of that large number who have missed careful steering, it may be the only available method of securing that much needed interior submission to divine control, when parental control is breaking up. This type of experience will prevail when the THE TITLE ANALOGY 15 Christian family is failing to direct carefully its children. Both types of experience are normal and ef- fective. Let it be clearly perceived that the type of experience is an accident of maturing life. He who has come through the lock and he who has come over the dam should continue on down the river of life in the fellowship of mutual respect. CHAPTER I THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS The arrival of a baby, trailing clouds of vicarious suffering which are coloured with the glory of love, sets wide one of life's gateways. Just as it is possible to catch an impression of glory by keeping close behind some saint who passes in at the gate of the celestial city, so it is possible to perceive a meaning of life, by being a reverent watchman when the gate of entrance is thrown open. At this entrance. gate is an altar, for an altar is a place where the divine and the human meet and mingle. The high functions of ministrants before the altar at the entrance gate- way of life pertain to the women, the mother lying prostrate but triumphant, and the nurse clothed with the infallible authority of the pope. By meekly lingering around the place where the mys- tery has been revealed, the father may find that the functions of the altar boy will be allotted to him, and he will be permitted to hold the robes, and carry some of the vessels used in the tender processes of receiving the new comer into life. By being faithfully on hand, a father found one important office assigned to him, — he was per- 16 THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 17 mitted to put his big hand under the wobbly little head, and support it evenly on that day when the baby was first put into the bath-tub. When the last baby arrived, having heard the day for this event announced, he was on hand, listening with all respectful attention to the directions of the nurse. The nurse had ministered many times be- fore this altar at the entrance gate of life, and she discoursed with profound insight upon the event about to take place. She said the bath should take place when the baby was neither hungry nor sleepy, but having awakened from a long nap, was ready for a new sensation. The water should be minutely ad- justed to the temperature of the baby's flesh, and the fire should make the air a little warmer, to allow for possible chilling by evaporation. Tall screens should shut out any possibility of a draft, for the roseleaf covering of the baby is abnor- mally sensitive. The nurse folded a large soft towel and laid it in the bottom of the tub. Robes and wrappings having been removed, she gently lowered the little body, letting my hand support behind the head and extend under the uncertain neck. While she tossed the water with gentle pattings, I watched the blossom face, looking for some sign of stirring impressions within. I thought I saw surprise and attention flickering there. Then the baby's eyes, like two violets with the dew on them, caught on my eyes, and pleasure emerged and spread 18 THE PILOT FLAME down to the little mouth, which surely smiled. The nurse lifted her carefully and folded her into a warm blanket and uttered further words of wisdom. "It is good that she did not cry. If you are careless about the first bath, so that the baby does not like it and cries, it will almost surely cry every time you bathe it. When I began taking care of babies, I thought the water ought to be cool to harden them a little, but it is a mistake. I took care of a baby that cried every time it was bathed and acted as if it were abused. It was apparently perfectly well, but the mother dreaded so to bathe the baby, that she kept me taking care of it. When I left it, the baby was more than a year old, but I expect it is crying still every time it is bathed. Now I know that you cannot be too careful about the first time in bathing babies. If the baby likes it, the bathing becomes a happy play time for the mother and for the baby. But if the baby is frightened at the new sensation, the terror may deepen every day, and the necessity of the bath becomes a dreaded strain upon the mother." As each day slipped by, our baby girl affirmed the joy of her bath. The wobbly head stiffened up on its post, until she could sit up in her tub, and had no further use for my supporting hand. She would spatter the water with her little palms, making bubbles ; then she would catch the floating bubbles, and, when they would break, she would THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 19 laugh with that fresh glee of a soul awakening into a beautiful world. The mother, sitting by, would laugh too, and say, "How different it is from my struggles with the boy. He was the first baby, and the nurse was not so wise. I can recall that the first time she bathed him, the water was a little cool accord- ing to her theory of hygiene, and he cried. I protested that he looked somewhat blue, but she said that he needed to be hardened. Every time he was bathed he cried. When the nurse left, and I must care for him myself, the bathing was the ordeal of the day. Even though he is now a big boy, he still dislikes water, and bathing is a duty to which I must nag him." The little girl proclaims that water is a medium soft and delightful, and that bathing has many resources of joy. The boy, child of the same household, proclaims that water is a source of terror, and that bathing is a tyranny inflicted by his mother. If you ask the mother, she will tell you that bathing is neither for the amusement of her little girl, nor for the torment of her boy, but it has in both cases the same purpose and de- termination of keeping her children clean. "The fact that the little girl likes the bath, makes the work of keeping her clean, a beautiful fellowship of joy. As she grows into the knowledge of tak- ing care of herself, she will affirm the goodness of the care I have been giving her. The boy troubles me. I cannot get his consent to being clean. I 20 THE PILOT FLAME can only hope that when he comes to his maturing and begins to be responsible for his own life, that he will get a new insight, and come to a convic- tion of the need of being clean. I hope that the need of being clean will then overcome that early association of terror. That first bath, inflicted on him by a nurse who had theories of hygiene, but who did not observe that a baby is not only a body but a sensitive plate receiving indelible impressions, makes water with him an association of dislike." Such wisdom an acolyte can gain while serving at the altar of the unfolding of new life. Birth is not the beginning of life ; apparently life has no beginning. Birth is the coming into a new environment and development is the response to the new sensations. A number of times human life comes into a new environment, although birth and death may be the most abrupt of these tran- sitions. As the child enters into new ranges of sensation, the associations created will be either of pleasure and approval, or of terror and dis- like. During the first five or six years, the child unfolds in the pool of the family consciousness, soaking up ver} r accurate impressions of what the family considers good and what the family considers bad. If during this time the family religion can have been perceived by him as an honoured ideal, so that his associations with re- ligion are those of devotion and aspiration, he THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 21 will always affirm that the practice of worship has many resources of joy. When he has at- tained the maturity which enables him to know- ingly affirm this ideal, this affirmation will be the true entrance into the Christian state of being. In the cases of the child who conforms, where the childhood feeling before the expression of de- cision can be remembered, it is spoken of in terms of "oughtness" or of "expectation." "I knew I ought to be a Christian," or "I always ex- pected to become a Christian" are the expres- sions generally used. Where the family en- thusiastically holds the Christian ideals and sin- cerely strives for their every day realization, the hope may be cherished that the child will ratify these ideals, will conform to the family type, and will become that satisfying son, of whom the father says, "Thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." At the same time, it must be remembered that the Father hath two sons, the one who stays at home, and the one who goes into the far country. It may be that some theories of doubt held by the parents are reflected in impression upon the unfolding soul of the child; it may be that some lack of respect for the local church provides as- sociations of contempt, or it may be that some failure of every day realization creates the opin- ion of the lack of relation between profession and conduct. In some cases the origin of the associations of disapproval cannot be traced. 22 THE PILOT FLAME Not perceiving the deeper utilities of the family ideals, the child whose individuality is emerging may refuse to be cleansed by the applications of Christianity. Some individualities emerge with so much of protest from the pool of the family conscious- ness, that they make sweeping rejections. With the rejection of the family standards of dress, of methods of serving food, of standards of social life, there is also a rejection of the habits of re- ligious practice. But this rejection may not be final. When the time of sweeping rejection has passed by, and the judgment has been developed to the point of sorting the factors of the family consciousness, accepting some and rejecting others, there is with remarkable frequency a re- newed approval of the family religion. If by some accident the child fails to get out of the pool of the family consciousness the as- sociations of approval, or if he has failed alto- gether of Christian nurture, it may yet be brought about that at the time of his maturing, he may get an insight into the deep utilities of the Christian life. This deeper insight will not be supplied by the family, but will be opened up by some teacher, friend, or preacher. The new insight may be a vision vital enough to overcome the earlier impressions of disapproval or of in- difference. Should the child who varies fail of his personal experience at the time of his maturing, there is THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 23 yet another chance. Even if he has gone into the far country, and tried to satisfy himself with riotous thinking and riotous conduct, there has followed him the family faith in God. When his decision has been delayed until the second in- sight which generally comes between twenty and twenty-five, his religious experience is described as a return to the family teaching. The expres- sion most frequently used is, "I always knew it was right." Christian nurture sets into life the feeling of "oughtness" the consciousness of obligation in relation to God. It is the anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast, entering to that within the veil. However far this anchor may be dragged, there is abundant demonstration that in many cases it does catch and hold, even after many years. The impressions built into the growing brain go the deepest and remain the longest. In his Enquiries into the Human Faculty, F. Galton has computed that thirty-nine per cent, of all as- sociations of adult mental life were those of child- hood, and the associations of recent years were very few. This computation may not hold true for every person, and yet it gives some idea of the abiding hold which childhood impressions have upon adult life. When the written experiences were sorted, si^ty-three were found which make short and definite enough mention of the beginning of the 24* THE PILOT FLAME Christian decision, to be used in a study of the different types. When these sixty- three experi- ences were again sorted as to whether they were the experiences of early childhood, or whether they belonged to the experiences of youth, it was found that thirty-three belonged to early child- hood and thirty to the period between ten and twenty, one experience of a child of nine being included in the mature experiences, because the child was evidently matured by seeing the death of her mother. When there is added to this count, the observations of years of experience, it may be claimed that it is not accidental that the type of the experience divides about half and half. There is the son that stays at home, and there is the son that goes into the far country. As between California testimonies and those from West Virginia, a slight difference in atti- tude can be consistently noted. The California children felt "they ought to ;" the West Virginia children say "they expected to." In the inter- pretation of the change from "I ought" to "I ex- pected" it may be considered that the size and dignity of the Methodist Church as related to the whole population, is much weaker in Cali- fornia than it is in West Virginia. It may be granted that the way the child felt is an accurate 1 interpretation of the attitude of the parent. Where the church is sufficiently strong and main- tained with sufficient dignity to be to the people the expression of an ideal, the attitude of the THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 25 people changes from duty to privilege. The en- folding feeling which nurtures the child changes from "I ought" to "I expected." On the other hand, it may be maintained that the response to "I ought" provides a more vigorous motive than the response to "I expected." Another unexpected fact emerges from the comparative study of California and West Vir- ginia experiences. Twenty-seven of the early childhood experiences come from West Virginia, and only six from California. This is an unex- pected fact, because Methodism in West Virginia still very largely takes its ideals from the early days, and heartily believes in a vivid religious ex- perience to be obtained by the way of the altar, at about the age of sixteen. So hearty is the approval of the vivid type of experience that a number mention wistfully that they have never been able to obtain it, although they made faith- ful trial of the altar. In eight cases it is men- tioned that although it was definitely sought, no additional experience could be obtained at the altar. In West Virginia, Methodism is now an hon- orable inheritance, sometimes amounting to a family pride. The growing child finds this atti- tude in the family consciousness, and so early ratifies it with his approval, that the later and approved experience becomes impossible for him. In California, Methodism has not as yet the strength of many traditions, nor is there the 26 THE PILOT FLAME general approval of the altar experience. Never- theless, the majority of its experiences tell of the more vivid type, attained between twelve and twenty. Where a church is established and is sustaining itself with sufficient devotion and integrity to have the unqualified approval of its members, the general type of experience which may be expected in the children which it nurtured, is that of rati- fication of the family ideals. Where the par- ticular church is a break with the established ex- pressions of religion, a reaction from practices al- ready existing, the more vivid and individual type of experience is most prevalent. Under ten, the religious experience is the ap- proval of the family ideals brought to the point of decision and public expression. The principle upon which childhood experiences should be classi- fied is the degree and kind of approval manifested by the child, coupled with a study of the inci- dents and feelings which brought about this ap- proval. It is as well worth while to put the child down tenderly into the great new experience of self-consciousness, as it is to put the baby down tenderly into the experience of the bath. It is as important that this new experience be associated with pleasure and that it meet with his approval, as it is that the baby be pleased with its bath. The memory impressions, prob- ably retained throughout life, are forever stained with these first associations. The roseate glow THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 27 of affection and of faith, or the blue of criticism and the gray of doubt, flowing from the mind of the mother provide those dyes upon the con- sciousness of the child which are never faded or eliminated. The thirty-three experiences to be studied are those colored with the roseate glow of affection and faith. They put the crown of glory upon "mother." She it is who so genuinely lived her Christian life, and who so glorified God, that her emotion of approval was transferred to her child. The standpoint from which the under-ten-years- of-age experiences are to be studied, is the de- gree of warmth with which the family ideals are affirmed. Five degrees in this warmth may be clearly enough marked off to describe the varia- tions of the affirmation. 1. The first of these degrees is expressed by the words, occurring in a number of the testi- monies, "I never thought of anything else." For these the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God has never been an ideal nor an illustration, but a fact as genuine as their earthly parentage. You would have the same difficulty in persuading them that they are not Christians as you would have in persuading them that they are not the chil- dren of their own father and mother. They at- tend the church services as they do the family meals ; they take the services as theirs b}^ right, and go through with them without particular comment, or with criticism if they happen to de- 28 THE PILOT FLAME sire something else, just as the indulged child set securely in the midst of his home, thought- lessly eats his meals, or secure in the feeling of his father's house, demands something else his ap- petite may fancy. Nearly one-third of the child- hood testimonies belong to this degree of affirma- tion. This type of religious experience may be called "The Son who is at Home." Ten cases will be given, showing the feeling of those who abide among their own people. A. "I was reared in a Christian home and have always felt that I wanted to be a Christian, from the earliest moment I can remember having thought upon such matters. My father was the superinten- dent of the Sunday School, and never thought of al- lowing his children to remain away from church or Sunday School, if it was possible for us to go. I was about eight years old when I was received into the church. I remember it very distinctly. I had a feeling that I was taking a step which meant that I should live a good life, and try to do as Jesus wanted me to do. I always looked upon the Church and Sunday School with about the same idea that I did eating and sleeping, or the day school, so far as it being a part of my life is concerned. I never thought of anything else, but that it was the thing for me, until I was well along in my teens and commenced associating with boys who were indifferent to such things." B. "I was raised in a Christian home where the family altar was made sacred. I was taken to church THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 29 and Sunday School before I was able to go volun- tarily ; as I grew up the habit was formed, and church attendance was a matter of course. There was a period in my childhood when it was a strange pleas- ure to me to attend the old peoples' class-meeting and midweek prayer-meeting. I attended these with my father, and remember an unusual attractiveness about them. But I overheard an elderly woman say to another that I was a very good child, to be at those meetings. This notion stuck in my memory, and I began to think perhaps I was unnaturally good. I do not know how this influenced my later experience, but as I grew into young womanhood these services lost their charm." The episode of the liking for the class-meeting, and the way in which the child's feeling was changed so that this liking was destroyed is worthy of study because it is a little window opened into the soul of a child. The child en- joyed the meetings which presumably were adapted to the older people, just as a child fre- quently gets more enjoyment out of some slight participation in the occupations of grown people than out of playing with toys. It may be justly questioned whether the most carefully adjusted kindergarten occupation provides the child with so great pleasurable interest as a part in the economic life of the home. Does not picking feathers off a chicken provide the child with as much interest as threading straws and colored papers on a string? Is it not more interesting 30 THE PILOT FLAME to sort apples, than it is to sort colored beads? Is it not more wholesome to shell peas for dinner than it is to stick tooth-picks into dried peas for the purpose of constructing a rickety model of furniture? Is not the felt need for kindergarten work, for manual training, for boy movements, the restlessness caused by the failure to involve the child in the economic life of the family? Is it not chores the child needs rather than move- ments? Involved in the same circle of ideas, is the attempt to elaborately adapt the religious exercise to the supposed interest of the child. Is not stretching one of the most wholesome of exercises? Is not stretching the mind and the religious feeling to reach the more mature com- prehension the best method of promoting growth? In recent autobiographies by Jane Addams and by Harriet Beecher Stowe, both of these great and splendid women dwell upon that feature of their early training which shows that their fathers thrust upon them the garments of large and ma- ture thinking, regardless as to whether or not these garments should fit, and in both cases they remember that the maturing of their minds was the stretching to fit these garments. The child whose growing consciousness is associated with flimsy toys learns not strong structure. Religion is so largely feeling and association, that the wis- dom of providing the children with the flimsy toys of elaborately graded lessons may be gravely questioned. THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 31 By looking through the window into the soul of the child opened by the episode of attending class-meeting, another fact of the consciousness of children may be perceived. The comment of the elderly woman, as to her being a very good child, while on the surface fair sounding words, was evidently uttered out of a feeling of con- tempt for an abnormal child. It was the woman's feeling and not her words which stuck in the soul of the child. The words contradicted the feel- ing, and yet it was the impression of the feeling that influenced the child for many years, and finally entirely took away her pleasure in a re- ligious exercise she had enjoyed. In selecting teachers for children, let it be remembered that the dispatching energy of moral or religious influence is the strength of the emotion of approval for religious faith and practice, rather than skill in the use of words. So much for a glimpse into the window inci- dentally opened into the soul of the child. The return will now be made to the discussion of the consciousness of the "Son who is at Home." C. "I think I have always been a Christian. I can remember when a very small child, hearing a dear old grandmother read out of the Bible. At the ac- count of the crucifixion the tears would stream down my cheeks, and I would say, 'Ob, how could they kill such a dear loving Saviour. I could not, for I love Him.' I felt an anxiousness to protect Him." 32 THE PILOT FLAME D. "What made me become a Christian was be- cause I had good Christian parents and was taught to love Jesus as soon as I could understand anything. I always went to Sunday School and church." The above experiences were all prepared by middle aged people, looking back upon their early impressions. The following is a testimony of the unbroken Christian consciousness prepared by a schoolgirl, who has to look back over a space of seven years, and who can be expected to have re- tained accurate impressions. E. "I grew up in a Christian family, church and Sunday School. I was always taught to do what was right, and at an early age I became a Christian. Soon after I j oined the church with a feeling of peace and joy. I have enjoyed very greatly my seven years of Christian life. I get the most feeling that God is near in song and from preaching. I also love to read the Bible, the best of all books. My re- ligious experience is very valuable to me, and I would not, if I could, exchange it for anything in the world." Following are a few short expressions, marked by the fact that the Christian consciousness goes back into such early associations that the time of its beginning cannot be remembered. They are testimony to the accuracy with which a very little child can enter into the Christian perception. The little son of the parsonage went to Sunday School for the first time when he was three years THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 33 old. He returned with a picture of the Good Shepherd carrying the lamb in his bosom. Anx- ious to know how much such a little child might truly apprehend, I took him on my lap and asked him to tell what the picture was about. Without prompting or suggestion, he told the following story about the picture. "Little baa sheep get lost. Little baa sheep all the same me. Little baa sheep, he cry, hard, 'cause he get lost. Jesus man come along and find him, and take him up in his arms and carry him home to his mamma." Was not the whole plan of salvation correctly apprehended? The sensation of being lost and its woe ; the work of the Jesus man who comes and finds, the joy of being found, of being carried and kept, and finally of being delivered safe in the place of abiding affection, does the oldest and wisest any more correctly apprehend the gospel of salvation? The babies who are put down with tender nurture into the bath of the Christian con- sciousness will say, "I cannot remember the time when it was not understood by me." F. "I cannot remember the time when I did not feel that I was responsible to God for all my acts, and that these would be rewarded or punished." G. "From childhood I have felt the necessity of trying to be good. I can remember worrying when not more than six because I thought I did not love God enough." 34 THE PILOT FLAME H. "I cannot remember when I was not a Chris- tian." 1. "I think I must always have been a Christian.*' J. "I always felt that I ought to be a Christian, as far back as I can remember. I do not remember to have had any special experience. I was brought up in a Christian family and very early learned what it meant to be a Christian. My mother was a very devoted woman and used to take me to the class-meet- ing, which I enjoyed very much. I had a feeling of relief when I united with the church, as though I had done something that I knew to be right." 2. We come now to consider the second de- gree of warmth with which the Christian ideals are ratified. As might be anticipated, this degree is very similar to the unbroken Christian con- sciousness, and yet it is different because it is dis- tinguished by a point of definite decision, or the expectation of a decision, which the child dis- tinctly remembers. These testimonies were pre- pared by people in middle life, and it is remark- able that the details are remembered with such accuracy after many years. This type of testi- mony is marked by the words, "I always expected" or "it seemed right," and may be called "They who Expect Christ." A. The first testimony of "They who Ex- pected Christ" was prepared by a Christian busi- ness man of good success, who is an exceptionally THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 35 sweet and sincere Christian, who can be relied upon to take a large and gracious part in the prayer-meeting, in the collection, and in the so- cial occasion. The possession of a few of his type gives any church sure foundations. "I well remember a certain Sunday morning, when the rest of the family all went to church, but I re- mained home with mother. I sat by her knee, while she told me in as few and simple words as possible what it meant to be a Christian, and the reasons why Christians should belong to the church. She asked me if I loved Jesus, and if I wanted to join the church. It seemed perfectly clear that it was the right thing to do, and so I did it. Before taking this step, however, mother read as many of the rules of the church as she thought I could understand and explained in outline the church organization and his- tory. I remember a feeling of real joy when I joined the church. I was about eight years old at this time." B. A vigorous woman, of the duty-doing type: "As I grew up in a Christian family, I felt it my duty to become a Christian also. I had no specially vivid experience, but at the time of being received into the church, I felt that I belonged to God. Many times since, I have experienced greater joy and peace. I always feel that whatever I do, or wherever I go, God is with me." C. The following is a testimony prepared by 36 THE PILOT FLAME a woman of deep intellectuality and delicate feel- ing. It is a mixed experience of early religious consciousness, confirmed and deepened by the later personal realization. This experience and the one which immediately follows, may be said to be classic types of the normal experience, for the children who have received tender Christian nurture. There is no morbidness, and yet there is attained at the time of maturing the genuine depth of personal realization, which is the Christian assurance. "Having grown up in a family of strong Christian belief, I cannot remember when I did not feel deeply the necessity of some day consecrating myself to Christ. At sixteen years of age I went forward to the altar at a revival meeting; but not until I reached home, and had been some time in the quiet of my own room, and after continued prayer and consecration, did peace come to my soul. Christ's presence was as real to me as the presence of an earthly friend is real to the senses. Since then, especially when the stress of life has been great, I have gone to Him with an absolute trust in His comfort and guidance, and He never fails me. Nothing can shake my faith, for I know that my Redeemer liveth." D. As the above experience may be said to be the ideal normal experience for the daughter of the Christian household, the following may be said to be the good normal experience for the son. The experience that occurs in the second decade THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 37 of life is given with these two because it is closely associated with and naturally growing out of the consciousness of the first decade. This is as it should be. The testimony which follows was pre- pared by a lawyer, of education and keen critical mental efficiency. "I grew up in a Christian home under the influence of a Christian mother. She started me right in my infancy and she has done more to keep me right from that time until the present than any other human influence. I always expected to become a Christian, but did not take the first important step until I was on a sick bed. I then and there made a solemn vow to God that if he brought me through that sickness, I would make a public confession and join the church at the first opportunity. This I did, during the fol- lowing revival services, held in the little church in the community. I did not want to go to the altar and believed that if there was such a thing as instant conversion I could be converted in my seat. Upon this belief I decided to test the matter. After a short time in earnest prayer upon my knees with God, a sudden change came over me. My whole being seemed to be lighted and everything about me was bright and beautiful. My soul was filled with joy and there was a satisfying something that made me supremely happy. I then went to the altar and pub- licly proclaimed that I was converted. God answered my prayer in that meeting and I have been able to recognize his answer to my prayers at different times since. I believe in a personal God and try to practice Paul's saying, T can do all things through Christ 38 THE PILOT FLAME which strengthened me/ I have received the great- est blessings when I realized that my prayers were answered." Here are two whose conduct is controlled by early Christian nurture, but who were not quite satisfied with their personal ratification. The total collection of experiences yields a consider- able number who confess to this feeling. They should be ranked as cases which somehow failed of their normal development. They should be bidden to strive and seek until they found a satis- fying personal religious consciousness. E. "It was my blessed privilege to have a Chris- tian father and mother, who, ever since I can remem- ber, taught me to read God's word and to pray. I do not remember when I did not say my prayers. If at any time I neglected to do so, when I awoke my neglect would come to my mind, and then I would begin to pray. Many times I have gone back to sleep repeating the Lord's prayer. When between ten and eleven years old, I decided to become a Christian. I went to the altar but was not satisfied. I however was taken into the church." F. "I grew up in a Christian home and grew naturally to look upon church membership as the right and natural thing, so I joined the church with- out any very vivid experiences, and for several years drifted along about as I had before I joined the church." (Follow years of drifting, with no sus- taining consciousness of religion.) THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 39 Then there is an account of a recent return, which will be found under the mature experiences, as it does not apparently grow out of the earlier consciousness but is a fresh experience. G. "I joined the church when still a boy, because it seemed natural and right. But I do not date my Christian experience from that time." A similar case where the years of drifting ap- parently separate the childhood consciousness and the mature experience. We have now set forth two of the types of child- hood consciousness, The Son who is always at home and knows no point of deeper decision, and they who retain the childhood consciousness, in some cases deepening into a personal assurance by a conscious decision, and in others drifting into vagueness only to be recalled by a vivid ma- ture experience. The next degree of the warmth of the ratification of the Christian ideals may be gathered around the feeling of "privilege." These are cases where the Christian ideals are re- ceived not only from the family, but from the church and outside Christian people, so that the ratification of them means the relating of the child's life to a larger ideal. In the first two types, the ideals were accepted, or it was expected that they would be accepted. There is a greater degree of warmth in the realization of a privilege. Somewhat the same shade of difference in general 40 THE PILOT FLAME feeling may be noticed in relation to the ideal of marriage as between people raised under the ideals of New England and those growing up under the ideals of the South. Most young peo- ple in New England will regard marriage as an expectation or as a duty; most young people in the South will regard marriage as an attainment, an accomplishment, a privilege. These same shades of feeling, which are the expression of many influences and ideals, may be detected in re- lation to the ratification of Christian nurture. A. "My parents were Christians. I remember from my childhood days, my mother's prayers and songs, how sweet they were to me. I thought Chris- tian people were the most beautiful on earth." B. "I was sent to Sunday School very young. I only had a mile to go and I went every Sunday that it was not raining, and I always loved to go. I had a good teacher. I knew that she loved everyone in her class. When I was about sixteen, we had a big meeting and I joined the church." C. "It was the influence of Christian people, and class-meeting and a certain teacher that led me to become a Christian." D. "I was raised in the country, by Christian parents and was taken to church and Sunday School when possible. From my first recollection it was my desire to become a Christian and to join the church. I always wanted to go to church." THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 41 E. "I grew up in a Christian family, went to church and Sunday School, felt and knew that the best people were in the church, and never had much thought of sin. At the age of thirteen, I was per- suaded by a well meaning but too persistent woman to go to the altar in a revival meeting. More to get rid of her than because I felt burdened with sin, for I was then too young to realize what worldly sin was, I did go to the altar. God was always real to me, but after that service I felt no nearer to Him than be- fore. I think God gradually came to me. Though I cannot say that I ever had any vivid experience, or felt any great relief or joy on being received into the church, yet there is no doubt in my mind to-day that I belong wholly to God, and that he grows nearer and dearer to me every year." It will be noticed in this case that such is the sense of fellowship in the church, that there is a certain resentment of the implication that an en- trance needed to be gained by way of the altar. The feeling is that since I am already going in and out by way of the door into the sheepfold, it is ridiculous for me to try to climb over the wall. There remain two more degrees of the warmth of the affirmation, these two degrees being closely related and yet it being possible to detect a de- gree of difference in the feeling. The first af- firms, "I believe in my family," and the second, "I believe in my mother." There are five experi- ences to demonstrate each of these degrees. When family pride arises out of worthy ideals, it 42 THE PILOT FLAME is certainly a sustaining enthusiasm, putting a wholesome pressure upon the actions of its mem- bers. If the first interest in a needed activity fails, the best induced interest is certainly the pressure of family affection. This duty of the family to put the pressure of its affections and expecta- tions upon its members should be clearly recog- nized. When water pressure is needed at the individ- ual faucet, the large tank with which it is con- nected is filled. When the pressure of the whole- some emotions is needed behind the activities of the individual, this pressure may be supplied by filling the tank of the family affection. How genuinely effective a pressure of this kind may be is shown by these testimonies. A. "My grandparents were pioneer Methodists, and allied themselves in early life with the 'people of God called Methodists/ their home being the stopping place of the itinerants. In early life my blessed mother also became a Methodist. She could not have done otherwise, raised as she was with the doctrines of the Church, the Christian example of holy living and service to Christ with which she came in daily contact in the lives of her consecrated parents. They constantly admonished her that her first duty was to her Heavenly Father, that she must seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness, all things necessary being then given unto her. She lived well her Christian life, as did also her brothers and sis- THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 43 ters. They all emulated the Christian life that was brought to bear so strongly in that Methodist home. My mother has recently passed over; the beautiful tributes paid to her life from so many sources show her fidelity to home, to the church and its work. These tributes are my precious heritage. These things urged me to identify myself with the church of God at the age of sixteen. I am trusting that some of the consecration of these lives of my parents may be mine, and that I may one day clasp hands with the blessed ones who have preceded me to the Beyond. " 'It seemeth such a little way to me Across to that strange country, the Beyond, And yet not strange, for it has grown to be The home of those of whom I am so fond; They make it seem familiar and most dear, As j ourneying friends bring distant countries near.' " B. "It seems a long time ago, in a Christian family, that the faith seeds were sown, and it seems a long time since they ripened into strong convictions that have remained unshattered. The memory of peace comes back as I recall the time when the Church received me. I believe that I belong to the Kingdom of God, for 'It is your Father's good pleas- ure to give you the Kingdom.' To go on trusting gives such sweet peace. The instincts of my soul convince me that we live again, that we are something more than mere matter, that if we live the best we know how, this very life will be glorified." C. "I was raised up in a Christian family, and no words can tell how thankful I am that such was the 44 THE PILOT FLAME case. I cannot remember when I started to Sunday School, so I must have been very young. I had never thought of anything else than being a Christian. " The following two are a reflection of the feel- ing that a Heavenly Father is put in the place of an earthly father who is lost by death, combined with the feeling of cherishing the ideals of that father. This is a powerful emotional condition, as every practicing minister knows. The feeling of the obligation to cherish the family ideals, if it is tenderly approached, often furnishes an abundant entrance for the son. D. "From a little child my Christian mother taught me to pray and read the Bible; also, to attend Sabbath School. My father died when I was small. I never knew the love of an earthly father, but my Heavenly Father has never left nor forsaken me. When I was twelve years old, I joined the church. I can remember very distinctly the hymn that was sung when I joined the church. It was fifty years ago. I have never felt like turning back. God has taken one by one my kind friends, and I am getting lonely. Yet I can say, 'Praise His Holy Name.' " E. "My father died a few months after my birth. My sainted mother was a good Christian woman — one of the salt of the earth — and to her, under God, I owe all that I am. She led me by the hand to church, Sunday School, and the class-meeting long before I can recollect. She taught me that God was my heav- enly Father — that he loved me and would take care THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 45 of me. I had nothing of doubt or of unbelief with which to contend. My mother was my oracle, and the Bible as she taught it to me was infallible. I early learned to 'trust and obey' and now, after more than fifty years of service, I realize that there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to love and obey." 5. With very slight transition, we pass to the feeling, "I believe in mother." The first case quoted is that of a University professor, a man now in middle life. It is a remarkable testimony to the strength of those early feelings which flowed from the influence of "mother." Amid all the myriad intellectual experiences that have since been passed through, amid all the currents of thought and feeling that have flowed over such a life, that fundamental confidence in mother re- mains. Mother so tenderly put that child down into the bath of life, into the consciousness of the reality of God, that he has ever since claimed that consciousness with joy. A. "I was raised in a Christian family. The prominent and ever present thought that decided me to become a Christian was the memory of a true Christian mother in heaven, whom I believed and still believe to be watching over me, and whom I wished to see and to be with again after this world's life is over. I do not recall any particular feeling on joining the church." This case tells of a recent experience, upon the 46 THE PILOT FLAME occasion of the death of a dear friend. Here is a man with a trained mind. Yet it is evident that his access to God is through the doorway of his personal affections. When one greatly be- loved passes over, he follows on a little way through the gate into the celestial city. B. Here is another case very similar, an edu- cated man serving in the University, who feels that the "noetic" processes of his mind predomin- ate over the emotional, who deceives himself into thinking that he is controlled by his reasoning powers because he does not realize his emotions in a focal center. Yet through all the years of his "noetic" processes the associated feeling which flowed from the lives of his parents, follows and holds him and controls his actions. From a sense of duty, he engages in daily prayer. That sense of controlling obligation, put into his conscious- ness from the lives of his parents, is now inter- preted by him as a persistent and enduring obli- gation. So much more persistent is the associa- tion of feeling with that early bath of the con- sciousness of God into which his mother put him, than all the "noetic processes" to which he has since been subjected. "I became a Christian and a member of the church because of parental training. I have never had any vivid religious experiences, due probably to the fact that the noetic processes of my soul predominate to a marked degree over the emotional processes, and THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 47 consequently determine the course of action to that degree. "Between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, I tried to experience conversion at the altar on three or four different occasions, and finally came to the conclusion that I could not; that is, sudden conver- sion. So, believing it to be the proper thing to do, I joined the church. While I have not walked closely in the footsteps of Christ, nor even seriously at- tempted it, I have tried to live a Christian life from a rational point of view. From a sense of duty, I engage in daily prayer. "The religious feelings are excited in my soul most vividly and perhaps most naturally by scenes of na- ture; the green fields, the blue sky, the singing birds, especially in springtime." Here are added two simple testimonies that yet lead directly back to the feeling of confidence in parents : C. "I was early trained to attend church and re- spect Christian obligations by a Godly father and mother. My father was most earnest in Christian work, and had passed to his reward a short time be- fore my conversion. I have always thought that the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart was the result of the prayers of father and mother." D. "My mother was a good Christian woman, and took pains to train her children, and in early childhood I felt God's influence upon my heart. That is the influence which has been with me all my life. It has never changed." 48 THE PILOT FLAME For the last of the testimonies which ratify the family ideals has been saved the experience of a Christian whose life is a particularly perfect and beautiful fruit of the spirit. Those who de- fine the religious experience as a realization of the religious emotions in a focal center, will deny that the ratification of the family ideal is a saving religious experience. They will say those people who have written these experiences have never been converted. The reply is that the focal cen- ter definition of conversion is too narrow. By their fruits ye shall know them. The lives of these people are all well and familiarly known, and they present as good fruits of the spirit as we are able to find in the churches. Probably more than one-half of the people in the churches are being sustained in their Christian life by this type of experience. The testimony about to be quoted was pre- pared by a young man who undertakes personal sacrifice with that zest which shows it to be so fundamental as to be natural with him. With plain toil he is supporting a widowed mother and taking care of sisters, while at the same time he is educating himself for a beautiful and self-sac- rificing work. On last Memorial Day, we ob- served him as the old soldiers passed by. Totally absorbed in the sentiment of patriotic de- votion, he stood with his hat off, the utmost ex- pression of reverent admiration transforming his strong face. He might well be described as THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 49 "child of the promise" to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants and the giving of the law, and the service of God and the promises ; whose are the fathers, and of whom as, concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever." "I was reared in a Christian home where the chil- dren were surrounded by every influence that tended to direct their lives heavenward. In my home there has always been a family altar, a reverence for the Sabbath day and for God's holy name, and a love for the Bible and its teachings, the Sunday School and the preaching services. "These hallowed influences of my home together with the association of friends, whom I knew walked and talked with God, made my conversion a gradual process in my life, rather than a sudden event at a special revival meeting. So gradual was the process that I have feared at times that perhaps I was not born again. But when I remember that Jesus said 'whosoever believeth on Me shall not perish but have everlasting life,' I am reassured and comforted, for I do believe in Him and love Him so much that my daily prayer is that my thoughts, words and deeds may become day by day, more like the thoughts, words and deeds of Jesus my Master. "Fourteen years ago this coming Easter, I was taken into the church. At that time I experienced great joy and peace. Many times since then, and especially at the Easter services, I have felt that same joy and peace." In the cases where the religious experience is 50 THE PILOT FLAME the ratification of the family ideals, the joining of the church is the remembered and significant event by which this ratification was publicly ex- pressed. The children of the Christian house- holds should be received into the church with the utmost tenderness, reverence and ceremony. Everything that can be done should be done to enable them to remember that it was an occasion to them of stately beauty and deep significance. It should certainly be attended with as much care, tenderness and ceremony as the putting of the new born baby into the bath tub. It is an event attended with far reaching significance. If this public consent to the obligations of the Chris- tian ideal is with reverent enthusiasm, it will give the child new born into the larger household of faith the associations of joy and of confidence. Forever after he will assert that the church is good, that it is his, and he likes it. The minister can take a lesson from the experienced nurse. He can select the favoring moment when the soul is beginning to venture out a little from the small pool of the family consciousness ; he can prepare his altar with as much care as the nurse tests the water; he can see that all occasion of fear or perception of strangeness is removed ; he can receive his children as into their Father's house, and he can in some way make the event so signifi- cant in their minds that they will forever associate with it reverent joy. After several attempts at entering into this THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 51 wisdom received from the trained nurse, there was achieved a few months ago, an occasion of such tender beauty and far reaching significance that everyone present felt that glory shone around. It enabled the minister to enter into that feeling of Almighty God, when he looked back upon the the work of his week of creation and said, "Be- hold, it is very good !" Special meetings in the afternoons were con- ducted by the minister for his church children. In groups they came to the altar, so that there might not be fear, but individually they conse- crated themselves, and of their own free will and earnest purpose, accepted the obligations of the Christian life. The minister then went into each home, to tell the parents that the child, having begun the Christian life, needed their sympathy and sustaining help, and in token that this help would be given, it was expected that they would come and stand behind their child, when the chil- dren were received into the church. It was found in a considerable number of cases that one par- ent, and sometimes both parents were not them- selves Christians. Their little children led them. They were converted and prepared for church membership along with their children. On the appointed day the great altar of the church was crowded closely full, one hundred and thirty-nine, each one tenderly and carefully pre- pared to say the great "I will" to the undertak- ing of the Christian obligations. It was then an- 52 THE PILOT FLAME nounced that the parents who would undertake to sustain these children in the practice of Chris- tian lives, would come and stand behind them, and the great throng of parents entirely filled the al- tar space. The ritual was rendered to the under- standing of the children, and then one by one, in- dividually and carefully the minister gave them the right hand of fellowship, and at the same time put into their hand a beautiful booklet, with scripture verses for each day of the year, telling them to keep it under their pillow, or on their bureau, or in their pocket, where it might be had for daily reading. During the first ten years of life the family has the opportunity of presenting its Christian convictions with such integrity of conduct and such enthusiasm of devotion, as to provide an ideal for emerging individualities. If the chil- dren can remember that of their own free will and good pleasure they ratified these ideals, it will be the sufficient authority in many cases to con- trol them all their lives. If the individual con- sciousness grows up out of the family conscious- ness without break or friction, it may be ex- pected that no vivid crucial experience will be had. If the ratification of the family ideals has been with enthusiasm, it will be confidently claimed that ready access to God is enjoyed. The sus- taining joy and peace of the daily life, the re- source of consolation in time of sorrow, the opti- THE CHILD WHO CONFORMS 53 mistic outlook on daily toil, are not these the tokens that the pilot flame is lighted; that the power of God does flow permeating all the daily life with hope and courage? During the first ten years, the family bears the torch of eternal life. Theirs is the first opportunity to light in the oncoming generation the flame of divine life. CHAPTER II THE CHILD WHO VARIES The two great habits of life are conformity to the parental life and variation from the parental life. In two hours you can see these two habits of life enacted by a single cell vorticella, in a drop of water on a slide under a microscope. The vorticella is shaped like a bell, attached by a stalk to a bit of weed or other substance. When you first see it, it is bobbing gayly on the stalk wav- ing the fringe of pretty cilia that are around the rim of the bell and that are the arms that gather in food. As you watch, the bell broadens and divides down the middle, until there are two little bells swinging on the stalk. Of these, one is like the parent and remains attached to the stalk. The other, while still attached to the parent stalk, develops a circle of cilia near the base. When these are ready, this little bell breaks away and goes skurrying around bumping itself against the limits of the water drop, break- ing and bending its pretty cilia on every piece of weed, testing, trying every place in its uni- verse of the water drop. Finally it attaches it- self by its base to some preferred bit of weed, it loses the extra cilia and grows a stalk by the elongation of its base. It becomes a vorticella 54 THE CHILD WHO VARIES 55 similar to the parent, bobbing on its stalk, gathering in food. The religious experience during the first ten years of life is developed on the parental stalk; probably about half remain attached to the pa- rental stalk. By a more or less enthusiastic rati- fication of mother's religion, access is obtained to the consciousness of the sustaining affection and power of God. The other half break away from the parental stalk, and go skurrying around, bumping themselves against the limit of their universe, examining, testing, rejecting, until at last they find that which appeals to them as good. They here attach themselves, grow their stalk and gather in their food, and approximate the paren- tal type. During the first decade of life the influence of "mother" is supreme. During the second decade it is startling to discover that this influence is never once mentioned except as a memory. The scene of the religious life entirely shifts from the home. A friend, a Sunday School teacher, a pas- tor, an evangelist now has a more significant in- fluence than "mother," and a meeting is generally the occasion of the experience. The influence of "mother" returning as a memory has more power during the third decade than it has during the second. In the cases where "I believe in mother" is the final testimony of the life, this af- firmation was attained during the third decade or later, and not during the second. 56 THE PILOT FLAME In studying the more vivid and better defined experiences of the second decade, it must be con- stantly remembered that this type of experience is passed through by not more than half the people. So much emphasis has been placed upon the upheavals of adolescence, that we are in danger of presuming that these upheavals are to be expected for every child. But life has two facts ; there is conformity and there is variation. There is the child who is at home in the house of his Heavenly Father, and he always stays at home; there is the child who must go into the far country, whose consciousness begins with himself, who must find life and enter into the great emotions as freshly as if before him there had been no other. It is that child we are now to study, the child of variation. We have attempted to select a perfectly normal second decade experience, one which sets forth the factors of the experience, and yet one which shows no morbid tendencies or abnormally devel- oped feeling at any point. We think we have found an experience so simple and yet so abso- lutely characteristic of the second decade, that it might be called the classic experience. The quot- ing of this experience will provide the type case; the analysis of this experience will provide the phases of the normal case. "When a very little girl our Irish servant girl took me to the Catholic church one evening. God THE CHILD WHO VARIES 57 spoke to my heart in that service and that night for the first time in my life I knelt to pray. I continued to pray each night although my ideas were very vague. "Once when I was eleven years of age, my Sunday School teacher, as we left the pew to go out of the church, asked each of us in the class if we loved Jesus. I remember saying, 'Yes,' and being happy for days after. "Then when I was fourteen, there was a little revival service in the church. I realized that I was not a Christian. I realized, too, how God had kept me where I could come in touch with religious things. I longed to be a Christian and yet my heart rebelled so that I could not make a stand. I longed for some- one to talk to me personally, but no one did. One night after church, I stayed to the after-meeting. When the pastor asked if there was not someone to start the new life then, I raised my hand, and a won- derful peace came into my heart. "I did not have any special feeling when I joined the church. I considered that a part of what it meant to be a Christian and so I very seriously joined the church, feeling that it completed what it meant to be a Christian. "I have had many very vivid experiences since. They have nearly always come when I have truly said, 'Thy will be done.' "I think I get my most real sense that God is present in private reading of the Bible." In the ascent of the greatest mount of trans- figuration which human experience provides, 58 THE PILOT FLAME while there are many episodes and variations upon the ascent, yet there may be said to be three great waymarks passed by all who go that way. These three great waymarks are: 1. The Reali- zation or Perception of Lack. "I realized that I was not a Christian." 2. The Focus of Atten- tion. "There was a revival meeting in the church. One night, I stayed to the after-meet- ing." 3. Decision and Expression, the weld- ing of the idea of Christian to the act of expres- sion by a strong emotion. "I raised my hand and a wonderful peace came into my heart." The experiences to be studied will be arranged according as they emphasize one or the other of these "waymarks," although the experience will be given whole. It is not wise in studying life processes to attempt violently to tear these proc- esses apart, for life is more like a circle than it is like a triangle. One part is smoothly related to the other. It is only for the convenience of understanding that we insert the triangle of di- vision within the circles of the great experience. 1. The Perception of Lack. It may be taken for granted that Professor William James is cor- rect in his conclusions in his studies of the Re- ligious Experience, that there is a consciousness of lack on the part of the person who has never come into expressed relationship with God. We do not try to demonstrate the existence of the perception of lack; we grant that it is the con- dition of the people who have come to the second THE CHILD WHO VARIES 59 decade of their lives without the ratification of the Christian ideals. We strive to determine the normal degree of this emotion, and the ideas with which it is associated. The existence in the average person of this emotion should not be ignored; on the other hand, it should not be exaggerated. After many years of absorption in happily adjusted family life, one loses an accurate perception of the feel- ings and attitudes of those who are not married. If the cheer of the home is greatly appreciated, the loneliness of the unattached will be exagger- ated. If the burden of the family grinds and is heavy, the exhilarations of liberty are magnified. In the same fashion, he who has been for many years absorbed in the organizations and activi- ties of Christianity, loses an accurate percep- tion of those who are without. The circles of Christian fellowship being large enough to af- ford ample space for moving around, it requires the energy of an adventure to break out beyond them, and to get into the consciousness of him who is "without." If Christian fellowship is warm and genuine, the empty desolation of the life of the wandering is exaggerated. If Chris- tian fellowship is rigid and fanatical, he who is caught in it may feel himself in a dungeon keep, and his longing to breathe the free air may far outweight his value of the sense that he is safely kept. The minister, dwelling in the midst of the for- 60 THE PILOT FLAME tress of the church, cannot depend on his own in- tuition to inform him of those who are without his walls. Yet here he needs accurate knowl- edge, if he is to continue the ingathering of the people. Since he cannot himself go out, he ought to be willing to be informed by those who are com- ing in, or by those who can remember how it was with them before they came in and why they hesitated so long to come within the walls. In gathering the written experiences, the first question asked was, "What made you decide to become a Christian?" In most second decade ex- periences a memory is retained as to the atti- tude and feeling before the time of decision. The people say that they were hungry, or that they were afraid, or that they were lonely. Hunger is the emotional response to the sight or the memory of food, the necessary condition being that the stomach is empty and needs the food. Religious hunger is the emotional response to the sight of satisfaction in the Christian life on the part of some friend. It is a sight of the genuine enjoyment of the Bread of Life. Or it may be the memory of food, the memory of a satisfaction enjoyed in childhood. Hunger is the most prevalent feeling, the most general kindly light leading on to the Christian decision. From the symptoms, a genuine hunger is indi- cated. People are restless when they are hungry. In a company waiting for luncheon two hours late, we are all restless, displaying a strong tend- THE CHILD WHO VARIES 61 ency to walk around and make aimless remarks, no one being able to keep up a sustained conver- sation. When on the higher levels of spiritual things, there are symptoms of restlessness, of wanting the peace and joy which another dis- plays, of longing for something more satisfying, of feeling a need, we may be sure that the genuine feeling of hunger is operating. The satisfaction of hunger in proportion as it is acute provides a sensation of joy. To come by hunger to God is the most' largely available method of providing a definite experience in our generation. As an initial impulse leading to a definite experience, hunger is more available than love. In two cases only, those of sensitive women, it is mentioned that the emotion of love was realized in a focal center. Heavenly love is the rare flower of mystic devotion. It is not to be presumed that it is already blooming in those who have not so much as come into the sunshine of their Father's country. That the religious experience of this genera- tion is largely piloted by hunger, is not an isolated tendency. Our age is predominated by the im- pulse of hunger. In proportion as we are rest- less, we are hungry. We are hungry for posses- sions, hungry for attainments, hungry for popu- larity, hungry for knowledge. Since hunger is intense on all levels, it is not strange that the people through hunger find God. The strongest piloting emotion in the present age religious ex- 62 THE PILOT FLAME perience, is, "My flesh and my spirit cries out for the living God." The following experiences are piloted by the emotion of hunger. 1. "I was brought up by devoted Christian parents, and think that I was naturally religiously inclined. Many times in my childhood I felt the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit, yet my active Christian life did not begin until several years after I was married. "I think the testimonies given by a friend in whom I had great confidence, was the main thing that made me decide to be a Christian. Listening to these testimonies, I became convinced that there was a peace and joy that I did not possess, and I longed for it. This feeling grew upon me until I firmly re- solved that I would embrace the first opportunity of avowing my intention of trying to live the Christian life. I did so, simply by rising to my feet when the first invitation was given, without any delay or hesi- tation. I immediately sat down again, buried my face in my arms, and gave way to a perfect passion of tears, but very soon the peace that passeth under- standing and joy beyond expression came to me, and I have never doubted that God himself accepted me then, and spoke peace to my soul. I have never since had the slightest desire to turn away from my blessed Saviour." The following simple testimony was provided by a lady who had known much of trouble, but who had finally come out upon the uplands of peace. As she walks in these uplands she conveys THE CHILD WHO VARIES 63 the impression of that rugged strength of char- acter attained by one who has climbed mountains wild and bare. 2. "My early influences were the reverse of Chris- tian. After years of trouble, there came to be an earnest desire to find something more satisfying than the world's pleasures or excitements. My conversion was a very definite and satisfying experience, through which I passed into joy and peace beyond power to describe. Since that time, I can safely say that I have had very positive answers to prayer. God is most genuinely present to me in private devotions, that is, in prayer and the reading of the Bible." 3. "Although I grew up in a Christian family, as I became older I drifted away from the religious teaching I had received at home. But through the influence of some very dear friends, I was brought to realize my need of a personal Saviour. I receive my most real sense that God is present in private study- ing of the Bible and through having performed some little self-sacrifice." 4. "My mother taught me to love my Heavenly Father from a little child, and in the church and Sunday School I breathed a Christian atmosphere. "When I was about fourteen years of age, I saw there was something personal and joyous in religion I didn't have, and I was thus led to seek a closer communion with God. More and more through the years there has come a deeper joy and peace and a witness that I live in Him and He in me. In sorrow He is present in the most real sense, strengthening and comforting me in a marvelous way. Also, es- 64 THE PILOT FLAME pecially in fellowship at family prayers, at the Sun- day services and at prayer-meeting." 5. "The feeling that led me to decide to become a Christian was a deep sense that my life was not what it ought to be, and of the contrast between my life and the lives of some of my friends who were Christians." 6. "I did not grow up in a Christian family, but the church and Sunday School privileges were many and gracious, sowing seed which in after years brought fruit. The Bible was read in the day school, so that it often happened that the Sabbath teaching was that which had been read during the week. "My heart became very restless, and for some time I was seeking to know the way of salvation. The splendid experience I entered into has been remem- bered and treasured thirty-nine years. I had special joy, the most vivid joy of my life, when I was en- abled to say, 'Lord, I believe.' " 7. "During my fourteenth year, Rev. Franklin Ball, then on our circuit, was holding special meetings. A number of my friends and young companions, who were Christians, entreated me to go to the altar. I withstood their entreaties for some time, until I saw that going to the altar of prayer was the cross that I must take up. After several evenings of prayer at the altar, there came to me a peace that was like that of a calm summer evening. Many times since I have felt the same restful influence, especially after a season of prayer. "Sometimes I have stumbled, and failed in living up to the Christian standard of life, but God in his mercy and goodness has spared me until I am now THE CHILD WHO VARIES 65 over sixty years old, and I feel that he is nearer and dearer than ever before. I have not lived up to my Christian privileges as I should have done, but yet I treasure the hope that on some great day I shall hear the welcome words, 'She hath done what she could/ " The above testimony was prepared by a woman who has maintained a Christian home and has made the Christian ideals to be crowned with glory in the hearts of her children. I think she will hear the welcome words. 8. "I always went to church and Sunday School and grew to think it the proper thing. I had no special feeling until Evangelist A. B. Earle visited Grass Valley, some thirty-six years ago. His preaching moved me exceedingly. Still, I did not decide to go forward until a friend urged me to. I went to the mourners 5 bench, and soon felt a com- plete forgiveness and was so happy. It was very vivid and satisfactory." Here are a few sentences selected from experi- ences that show the piloting hunger: "I can re- member clearly the first time I felt as if I wanted more than I had." "At the age of twelve, I had an intense desire to be converted and join the church." "I at last thought surely there was a better experience for me. I sought diligently for a Baptism of the Holy Ghost fire." Here are two cases where the hunger was not 66 THE PILOT FLAME excited directly by the sight of others enjoying the bread of life, but by the memory of childhood satisfaction : 9. "I grew up in a Christian home and Sunday School, but I wandered away into bad boys' company, until I seemed to forget conscience and training and fear of consequences. Then I considered. I took the good Book and went to the woods to read and pray alone. I really prayed and confessed, and made a full surrender. I was ready to change about for God and right. I felt that I had made a definite holy contract, sealed and signed. There came to me the feelings of great relief and joy, and the 'peace which passeth understanding.' For me, the great transaction was done. When I joined the church, I had great joy, for I felt that thereby the human con- ditions of the contract were signed and recorded. I have since had many rich experiences. I am now an old man, but I can testify that whenever the covenant is sealed and signed and complete, then the Divine Father never fails to fulfill his part of the contract, and to greet the prodigal with his soul cheering ap- proval." The testimony now to be quoted was prepared by a young man who became deaf after sick- ness in his childhood. It is an interesting ex- ample of how the memory of the religious satis- factions of the very early years followed him even into the silence of his affliction. 10. "I was raised in Christian surroundings up to THE CHILD WHO VARIES 67 the time I became deaf. After becoming deaf, I be- gan to drift away from the church, feeling that as I could not hear, worship was not for me. When I graduated, the feeling came to me that I should like to come back into closer relationship with the church, and to claim my part in Christ. When I had done this, I experienced a feeling which I cannot well de- scribe, but expect it was relief, warmed up with the feeling of joy and peace. I was glad to be back with you all again and to have my part with the young people. I went down to Santa Cruz to the Christian Endeavor Convention. At the sunrise prayer meeting held on the beach, I had a vivid experience of the presence of God, although I could not hear. Some- times in looking over a song book, I meet one or two of the songs I heard years ago. In reading them over, the feeling that God is present comes to me." A sufficient number of the experiences piloted by hunger have now been quoted to give a fair conception of the manner in which this feeling now operates among the people. From the ex- periences the number might be increased, but the different aspects of the feeling have been covered. The minister who is attempting to arouse hunger for the bread of life will be informed that he must focus attention upon the good things which are enjoyed by Christians, which are not being enjoyed by those who have not this experience, and yet may be attained by the gateway of con- version. Or the minister must focus attention upon the memories of the enfolding sense of 68 THE PILOT FLAME safety and satisfaction enjoyed in a Christian childhood. A few of the experiences mention that the pilot- ing emotion of their conviction was fear. These experiences are few. Even when fear is men- tioned, it might more accurately be described as an uneasiness which was relieved by the sense of safety attained by the Christian decision. It is not to be denied that the old process of find- ing God through fear provided a most vivid and effective experience, sufficient to alter the whole life. It has been a wonderfully use- ful method. The relief from fear is joy, fre- quently to the point of hysterical weeping or laughing. It is an experience not mistaken or forgotten. Why are we no longer able to use the strong old process? We sometimes say fear is not wholesome, that it is ignoble, that it is not endur- ing. We can just as readily prove that any strong emotion is unwholesome, that it is ignoble unless it be welded to a noble action, that it is not enduring. Any emotion is a stress and a relaxa- tion. There are certain phases of living which require a strong emotion for their proper de- velopment. The experience of setting* up the home and the experience of setting up the Chris- tian life are best undertaken in the fusing fires of a great emotion. The after value of the re- ligious experience justified the employment of the most vivid impulse that can be reached. We THE CHILD WHO VARIES 69 make no claim to have improved upon the way of the fathers in soul development. We but say, somewhat wistfully, that we do not now find fear to be very operative in the lives of the people, and therefore it is not a great acting feeling which can be counted upon to pilot the religious experi- ence. Fear on any level is rapidly passing out of experience, except as it is transformed into worry. The popular animal stories show that animal life in the wild is one long intense fear. A man's life in savage conditions is much the same, fears of Indians or outlaws, fears of the unknown and unexplored wilderness, fears that the crop will fail or the water dry up, all unite to make fear the most vivid association of his consciousness. In civilization the Indians are eliminated and most of the people are lifted high above the margin of subsistence; a man may travel many years on trains and boats, and never once be in a wreck. When fear was the most present factor in life, it might readily enough be evoked in the cause of the religious experience. A careful reading of the feelings of the fathers who conducted the great camp-meetings of seventy-five years ago will demonstrate this fact. The following case is the clearest example we have of coming by fear. It was prepared by a lady well along in years, who has lived a vigorous and effective Christian life, and has since entered into many deeper experiences : 70 THE PILOT FLAME "What was it that made me decide to become a Christian? I felt it was the only safe thing for me to do. Beside my desire to be sure I was a child of God; I felt I must flee from the wrath to come." The fear of the ridicule of companions is often mentioned, but this kind of fear comes nearer to the hunger for approval than it does to the old theological fear of the wrath of God. The fol- lowing two cases will show this: "When I was about ten years of age, I attended a camp-meeting. I knew that I was a sinner, and oh, how I longed to accept Christ! But I was afraid of the ridicule of my companions, and so rejected Him. About two years afterward, I went to hear B. Fay Mills speak and was converted. I felt a deep feeling of peace come into my heart when I really gave myself to Christ." "I had a desire to be saved and to do what I knew to be right and to please our Heavenly Father. This impulse was long repressed through cowardice, and a fear that I could not continue as good as I thought a Christian should be all my life. I do not think it is easy to live up to the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. When I joined the church, I had a sense of relief and peace that at last I had made a decision." This fear that they may not be able to con- tinue in the Way, has some frequency. To it must THE CHILD WHO VARIES 71 be applied the assurance of the companionship and sustaining presence of God. Here is a somewhat careful account of the ef- fect of preaching "Hell fire" upon a modern mind. This memory was provided by a business man, who was himself a glorious and exuberant Chris- tian, able in a most remarkable manner to testify to the presence of God in his life. "My earliest recollection of a religious experience was when I was about ten years of age, and we were living at Dodgeville, Wisconsin. They had a revival meeting in the old stone Methodist church. My mother, who was a very pious woman, took me to all the meetings after school hours. When there was an invitation extended to go forward for prayers, I went forward and knelt down at one of the front pews and remained on my knees for perhaps an hour; in the meantime, no one came to inquire into my condition, as I was a child, I suppose. Their thoughts were taken up with those who were older; but young as I was, I was just as anxious to lead a Christian life and to be one of God's little children, as I have ever been since. "I also remember in the same town in what was called the 'frame church' in upper Dodgeville, they held revival services, and the pastor used to expatiate every evening on the wrath of God and on eternal punishment. It is not too strong to say that he did his best to hold us over hell. He painted the pic- tures so vividly that the effect produced on my young mind was simply terror, a kind of fascinating terror like Halloween and witch stories. It had a tendency 72 THE PILOT FLAME to drive me away from the Father I was trying to love, instead of drawing me towards Him." The following is an instance of conviction of sin, which comes near to the old fear experience. It was prepared by a sensitive woman, who has great power in prayer, and from whose interior life flows the streams of living spiritual influence. She is of the quality of which the saints of an- other age were made. "Although under the guidance of Christian parents, and although I had never committed very great sins, yet long ago I came under the deepest conviction of childish wrongs. I threw myself at Jesus' feet, and there, while repeating over and over my misdeeds, and begging forgiveness, that peace which passeth understanding came into my soul. Everything seemed bright and beautiful; even the people's faces glowed, for 'the glory of the Lord shone round about us.' Since that time, with the exception of a few times when I tottered on the way, I have done my duty as I see it. My most vivid experiences are answers to prayers. The nearest I have ever been to God was at a protracted meeting, at the beginning of which but four among my seventeen class-mates were Christians. I began to pray for them, one by one ; one by one they came. Finally in a body, we were all with one accord marching toward the Kingdom of God. I get very near the Heavenly Father in song, prayer and testi- mony. Nevertheless, I think the most successful co-operation with Christ by myself is manifested in my everyday life, while endeavoring to do the little things which seem likely to aid others." THE CHILD WHO VARIES 73 Although the next experience is piloted by love realized in a focal center, it is yet closely re- lated to the fear emotion because it is a realiza- tion of the sufferings of Jesus. A genuine con- templation of the cross does produce the convic- tion of our unworthiness in view of the great price paid in the suffering of Jesus. "I was brought up by Christian parents and care- fully trained by them. I was taught from my very infancy to love God, but I loved because I was taught to love, not that I had any deep feelings, or sense of gratitude. I had been told times without number the beautiful story of the babe in the manger, the cruel death on the cross and the resurrection, but all that meant really nothing to me, until God spoke to my heart and I lived. "It was my mother's custom to call us around her every Sabbath afternoon, and spend an hour or two in telling us stories from the Bible and in singing hymns. One Sunday afternoon about four o'clock I stood by my mother while we sang, ' 'I'm going to see the bleeding Lamb, Will you go, will you go?' "I had sung those words many times before, but they conveyed little to my mind. On this Sunday af- ternoon, quickly like a flash of lightning comes, their meaning was revealed to me. At the moment that I realized who the Lamb was, a vision appeared, and impressed my mind so indelibly that time cannot efface it. I saw my dear Saviour nailed to the cross ; I saw the ragged bleeding holes in his hands and feet; the 74 THE PILOT FLAME cruel thorns piercing his brow, and the wounded side. In that instant I realized his love for me, and also his terrible sufferings. My heart almost broke with sympathy and love, and remorse that I had not loved him truly and served Him before. How he suffered, how he suffered, and I had not loved Him, was the dominant thought in my mind, and it seemed that my heart would break. I burst into a flood of tears, and threw myself into my mother's arms. She was sur- prised and alarmed at my sudden weeping, and anx- iously asked why I wept. I sobbed, 'O mamma, it hurt Him so, it hurt Him so, and I did not love Him. I love Him now, I do love Him now.' There with my head on my dear mother's breast, I gave my heart to Jesus." Many were hungry, and some were afraid, and many were lonely, before they entered into the Christian experience. The feeling of loneliness as the piloting emotion has been left for the deep- est study because of the conviction that the great underlying emotion that leads on to the vivid ex- periences of the second decade, is the feeling of being lost and lonely. It may be that having broken out of the pool of family consciousness which was so joyfully sustaining during the first decade, that religious hunger is the memory of the satisfactions of that time. The religious ex- perience is the setting of the life in a new and larger pool of paternal consciousness. To be- come as a little child means to relate yourself to this larger consciousness, just as the child is re- THE CHILD WHO VARIES 75 lated to the family consciousness, to imitate its ways, to accept its teachings, to enthusiastically affirm its ideals. The religious experience, looked at from the standpoint of its piloting emotions, may be described as the relief of loneliness. The almost universal mention of the desire for "some one to talk to me" or the memory of the fact that a Sunday School teacher or companion "asked me" to go forward, shows the feeling of loneliness. The various ways in which loneliness acted to lead on the soul will be shown in the following cases: The first of these is the experience of a child of nine, who was evidently matured by see- ing her mother die, so that the experience prop- erly belongs to the second decade type. 1. "When nine years old I stood at the bedside of my dying mother, and saw her pass into eternity, singing that good old hymn, 'Alas, and did my Sav- iour bleed !' Then I thought, I want to be able to die like that, and I want to go to mother. My Chris- tian experience began then. After mother was gone, little brother, three years old, and I, were left alone in the house while father and older brothers were out at work. We had no near neighbors and often times we would feel afraid and oh, so lonely. At such times we would go and kneel by the little bed, and repeat the prayer mother had taught us, and our fears and loneliness would all be gone, and we would feel that mother was near us. I thought, the Lord has sent mother as our guardian angel, and I still think that He did. When I was eleven years old, I was con- 76 THE PILOT FLAME verted and joined the Methodist Church. Several days before my conversion, I felt so burdened I could scarcely eat or sleep. Almost at once, the burden seemed to fall from me, and I was so happy. Oh, how I wanted to share my happiness with everybody. Since then I have had many blessed experiences. I have felt the burden of other's sins, and have had my prayers answered by seeing them converted. I have great faith in prayer. I never could pray or speak in public, and sometimes feel disappointed because I was not given that gift, but I know that many of my feeble prayers have been answered. "Twice through sickness I have been so near eter- nity that I have almost had a glimpse into heaven. At one of these times, my spirit seemed to have left my body. I walked along the river of the Valley and Shadow of death, singing, 'All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name,' waiting for the Lord to tell me to step over as the river of death seemed but a narrow stream. While waiting there, my brother who had died the year before, came to me and talked to me. He asked questions about my family, and told me his work in heaven was tending a flower garden, — he had always been an enthusiast for flowers. I wanted to stay longer with brother, but I seemed to hear a voice say to me, go back to earth and raise your family; they need you. I began to return singing the doxology. The next thing I remember I was trying to make signs of life with my body, to let my friends know that I was still with them. My memory of the hap- piness which I experienced while waiting in the Valley is beyond my power to describe. "The second time I was so near the other world I had a vision of glory also. Angels came for me in a THE CHILD WHO VARIES 77 ship flying through the air, which rested on the house- top. A ladder was let down to my bed from the ship, which I climbed. I tried to step into the ship but something would draw my foot back every time. After making several attempts, I perceived that so many were praying for my recovery that I could not go. I told the angel why I could not go, and I re- turned to my bed. I had not been able to speak above a whisper for some time, but then I sang the old hymn, 'The Good Ship of Zion' so loud I was heard in the next room. I hope to be as happy when my final summons comes. I get the most comfort or feeling that God is near, when alone in my own home. I can commune with God while about my household duties. I love to be alone with God. I also get great comfort from hearing a good sermon, and by trying each day to do something to help someone else." This experience with the vividly remembered account of its visions has been quoted at length, not only to show how a lonely child was sus- tained and comforted, but to show two other as- sociations of the experience. In time of ex- tremity and of semi-consciousness, most of us will have visions of some kind. They will either be visions of terror and of fog and of black dark- ness, or they will be visions of light and glory. How much better that the pain of sickness shall be swallowed up in a vision of light, so that for- ever the memory shall treasure that impression, than that the pains of sickness be swaddled in 78 THE PILOT FLAME the bands of depression and blackness ! From a constant practice in sickrooms, it may be asserted that the advances in nursing do not provide the patient with as many impressions of peace and joy, as did the old practice of sustaining the pa- tient with fervid prayers and familiar hymns of triumphant faith. The depression of sickness is as great as the pain. It cannot be questioned that this depression can frequently be relieved by the practices of a strong Christian faith. In the above quoted experience it will be no- ticed that the high points of the experience are associated with death, and it is to be granted that the little girl of nine who watched her mother die, was made morbid. Nevertheless, as will be shown in a later chapter, it is a general fact that the gateway through which the first vivid religious experience is attained, is the gateway which opens for the later experiences. Powerful memory as- sociations make this the case. 2. In the following experience, the mother sees her child die, and other members of her family depart, until her affections are gradually more abundant in heaven than on earth. "My mother was a good Christian woman and took great pains to train her children, and in early child- hood I felt God's influence upon my heart. After I grew up and mingled more with the world, I be- came cold and careless about spiritual things. After I had a family, my affections centered upon them. A child that was very dear to my heart was gathered THE CHILD WHO VARIES 79 by the Grim Reaper. How bitter was this sorrow! How my heart rebelled! God did not seem the lov- ing Father he was represented to be. After other members of my family were called Home, I began to feel that I had more interest in Heaven than on earth. I lost interest in the earthly things that had before engrossed me, and set my affections on heav- enly things. I have never experienced such great joy as some have in their experience, but I now have a great desire to live near to God and to be ready to meet Him when he calls me. God seems very pres- ent when reading his word, and in reading spiritual songs and hymns. I hope ere long to see Him face to face!" The above experience was written by an old lady nearing the sunset. Since it was written, she has passed through the gates, sustained by great peace. We have just laid her away, re- joicing that the love of a little child that was lost for a little while, anchored her affections to that within the veil. She now sees Him face to face. 3. The following case is pathetic in its lone- liness and yet strong in the beauty of its con- solation. It was written by a Swedish girl who is alone in a strange country, and living in that isolation of the servant in the house. It shall be quoted as it is written, in uncertain English. Would that we could also reproduce the hand- writing with its suggestions of hard work and an- other language. Would that we could also re- 80 THE PILOT FLAME produce the strong sweetness of such direct and sustaining faith. "I became a Christian when I was fifteen old. My father or my mother were not Christians. I could not go to church or Sunday School very much. I am so glad and thankful that I have turned to Jesus, for he helps me much in everyday duties. I have had to look to strangers for to live and for help. I feel I do not have to depend on strangers now. I seem to feel God is near me in preaching, but I know He is near always. I trust he will always claim me as his child, and I can always feel that I am his child also." The above are a sufficient range of experiences to show that hunger, or fear, or love in a focal center, or loneliness, may any of them be the emotions that make the soul ready for the en- trance into the consciousness of the Kingdom of God. The next waymark that may be noticed, which may be said to be a general characteristic, is the longing for the touch of another life. "I longed for someone to talk to me." "After urg- ing by my companions." "A Sunday School teacher spoke to me." "The pastor sat down be- side me." These are the expressions which show the longing for the touch of another flame, which is burning. So general is this testimony, that we may say that spiritual life proceeds from spirit- ual life. The pilot flame is kindled by the torch of another life. THE CHILD WHO VARIES 81 Since it injures the vividness of the experi- ences to tear them apart, another waymark must be pointed out before experiences are quoted to the point that life proceeds from antecedent life. This additional fact is that the religious experi- ence is preceded by a focus of attention. While in a number of experiences already quoted it will be seen that this focus of attention was attained by the death of mother and child, at Sunday afternoon household worship, and in a number of ways, yet it must still be granted that this focus of attention is most frequently attained by a re- vival meeting, or a special meeting. The emotions of hunger, or of fear, or of lone- liness, exist in the second decade in the average person. These emotions may be strangulated by the pressure of more clamorous emotions of greed and ambition and struggle for attainment. The object of the focus of attention is to give these emotions a chance to assert themselves, to come to vigor. A sentence from the recognized author- ity, Jules Payot on the "Education of the Will," helps to clarify this point: "All that is neces- sary to give vigor and life to an emotion or a desire, is to make the object to be obtained per- fectly clear in the mind, so that all its attractive, delightful or simply useful aspects may be brought boldly into relief." A successful revival brings boldly into relief all the attractive, de- lightful and useful aspects of the Christian life. That so many have found salvation in a revival 82 THE PILOT FLAME meeting, shows that this focus of attention on the ends to be obtained, does succeed in giving vigor to the piloting emotions that lead on the realiza- tion of the great experience. One more sentence will be quoted from Payot, mentioning a necessity which is well recognized by every practitioner among the souls of men. "When feeling surges up into consciousness, we must seize the occasion to launch our bark." We must take advantage of our good moments, that is of our moments of high and heavenly emotion- ality, as if the voice of God called us. When the flame leaps up, then God hears. When feel- ing, when hunger, or fear, or love, or loneliness, surges up into consciousness, then if you will hear His voice, you shall find satisfaction and safety, love and fellowship. The difficult question must now be asked, how are the vague emotions brought to the point of decision and expression? How are the vague im- pulses gathered up into a life decision, producing an impulse strong enough to govern the trend of a whole life? How is the entire consciousness turned over, so that the affections and enthu- siasms of the life find a new source? We enter not into the mystery of the quicken- ing of spiritual life. We believe that God enters in. But we believe that God presses upon life eager to enter in, and that we do Him no irrev- erence to set in the white light of knowledge the habitual methods by which he enters in. THE CHILD WHO VARIES 83 There is no uniform method by which the emo- tions come to the point of decision. Any claim of any easy uniform method suggests the quack. A cure-all for the aches and pains of the body, to be applied freely all the way from corns to head- aches with marvelous results instantly attained, arouses our scorn. The cure of souls is a prac- tice, not a prescription. Each case, with its con- stitution and complications, must be understood by itself. The cure of souls is best accomplished by those who have deep insight and constant practice, although nursing of souls by those who tenderly regard them is sometimes just as effect- ive. The weakness of the great organized meeting is at the point of individual variation. The great meeting does get the focus of attention ; the great meeting does make clear the attractions and the usefulness of the Christian life, and thus give vigor to the emotions that lead on to Christian decision and expression. But the great meeting fails in dealing with the individual; it does not remove individual difficulties ; it cannot generally provide enough of the burning flame in the lives of friends and Sunday School teachers to light the flame in the new life. A great meeting passes out a prescription ; it does not give a treat- ment. The two steps "decision" and "expression" must be firmly linked together. From the study of the cases, and from observation of many who 84 THE PILOT FLAME are "getting through" the conclusion becomes ap- parent that "decision" without expression is al- most useless. Every pastor is familiar with the cases of those who have said, "I resolved within myself to be a Christian, but not to say anything about it," and the resolve did not amount to much. The holding up of the hand, or the sign- ing of a card is generally not a sufficient expres- sion. "It is impossible to overestimate the energy which is given to the feelings and the will by taking a decided public stand." (Jules Payot, Education of the Will.) "In letting our will be known to those around us, action pledges our honor ; it reasserts our resolutions, and both of itself and by calling to its aid the power of opin- ion, thereby increasing its power, it brings us strong and manly joys in recompense." In the light of the almost universal testimony that public confession is necessary, the command to "confess" gains new significance. "Whoso- ever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man confess before the angels of God." "With the mouth confession is made unto salva- tion." While we firmly link "decision" and "expres- sion" or confession, some latitude must be allowed as to the method of expression. Running through most of the West Virginia testimonies is the conception that the religious experience is to be definitely attained by going to the altar at the revival meeting. While the majority testify THE CHILD WHO VARIES 85 that the experience attained at the altar was vivid and satisfying, five definitely mention that they were disappointed and although a number of attempts were made, no new experience was at- tained. They felt cheated and baffled, and their confidence in the vitality of the relationship with God was shaken. The mistake is sometimes made of promising that they who will come to the altar shall have an emotion. Many disappointments are thus pro- vided which sometimes provoke a lifelong skepti- cism. The promise of the invitation should be, if anyone now feels in his consciousness hunger for the better life, a longing for eternal safety, a desire for the surrounding and sustaining con- sciousness of his Heavenly Father, if anyone now has any of these emotions, it is the voice of God calling his station with a message. If he will arise and apply himself to the instrument, if he will firmly weld his emotion to an expression, he will find it a continuing and sustaining power in his life. The mistake of supposing that there is but one method of expression is shown in the experience of Frances Willard. The experience of Frances Willard is used because her whole after life at- tested the good quality of her experience. The experience of the five was very similar, but be- cause the goodness of their lives is known in a small circle, the question might be raised as to their having been truly converted: 86 THE PILOT FLAME "It was one night in June. I was nineteen years old, and was lying on my bed, ill with typhoid fever. I had heard the doctor say the crisis would soon ar- rive. Mother was watching in the next room. My whole soul was intent as two voices seemed to speak within me, one of them saying, 'My child, give me thy heart. I called thee long by joy, I call thee now by chastisement.' The other voice said: 'Surely you who are so resolute and strong will not break down be- cause of physical feebleness. You have never yet been convinced of the reasonableness of Christianity.' In my weakness the controversy seemed long. At last, in the language of consciousness, I concluded: 'If God lets me get well, I'll try to be a Christian girl.' But this resolve did not bring peace. 'You must at once declare this resolution,' said the inward voice. Complete as had always been my frankness toward my dear mother, it cost me a greater humbling of my pride to tell her, than the resolution had cost of self surrender, or than any utterance of my whole life has involved. After a hard battle in which I lifted up my soul to God for strength, I faintly called to her in the next room and said: 'Mother, I wish to tell you that if God lets me get well, I'll try to be a Christian girl.' That winter we had revival services in the old Methodist church at Evanston. These meetings seemed my first public opportunity of de- claring myself. The earliest invitation to go forward, kneel at the altar and be prayed for, was heeded by me. Shrinking and sensitive and humble, for fourteen nights I knelt at the altar, expecting some utter trans- formation. I prayed and agonized, but nothing oc- curred. One night when I had returned to my room THE CHILD WHO VARIES 87 baffled and discouraged, it came to me quietly that this was not the way; that my 'conversion/ my 'turn- ing about,' my 'religious experience/ had reached its crisis on that summer night when I said 'yes' to God, and confessed to my mother." Allowance must be made for the apparently in- creasing number of cases where the public meeting inhibits any fresh experience of the incoming of God. If decision and expression has been truly obtained at home, it needs but to be ratified by the public joining of the church. Cases will now be offered which are typical of the altar experience obtained by thousands. The experience in each case is written after many years, yet it will be noticed that the name of the evangelist, the person who held out the torch of light, the circumstances to the smallest detail are retained, as if photographed upon the conscious- ness. By actual trial it will be found that peo- ple can better remember the episodes of their con- version than they can the episodes of their court- ship. "I had a good Sunday School teacher. I know that she loved everyone of her class. I was about sixteen years old. We had a big meeting. Brother Chidister was the pastor. My Sunday School teacher asked me if I would like to be a Christian. I told her 'Yes.' Then they commenced to sing 'Just as I am without one Plea.' When they were about through, she spoke to me again, and I went to the altar. I 88 THE PILOT FLAME was there two nights and a day, and a day (evidently day and night meetings were held). The last night, I felt a great joy. When Sister Chidister com- menced to sing, 'Happy Day' I took hold of my teach- er's hand. Everybody around me and the old church itself seemed to be light with a new light. "I have at times experienced great joy in the Sun- day School lessons. I love to study the Bible by myself and to pray alone. I get the most help from the prayer meeting. We all seem to be close to God then, and I always go away feeling happy." The following experiences exhibit the vigor of the old time days: "Will say, as to my testimony, I am glad I've got religion. Was born in 1837, September the 5th. Was born again of the spirit the 20th of Dec, 1847. Am still on the way. Praise the Lord, for all his goodness and mercy! Now what brought me to seal my salvation was this: Brother Billy Wagner was class leader in the new church (the old one now), and we had a revival meeting in the basement. Brother Worthington was pastor. It was a great and glorious meeting. Many of the young girls and the young men from the school were converted. I mind Brother Dolliver was attending the meeting. I thank the Lord a thousand times I am still on the way. To have religion has saved me from a thousand snares." "My father was class leader as far back as I can remember. All of the eleven children were converted in the old church. I was converted in the December THE CHILD WHO VARIES 89 of 1862 under Rev. Ison's ministry, and know for my- self I was born of the spirit, justified, freely loved. I sought diligently for a baptism of the Holy Ghost fire. Glory to God, I never will forget when the fire fell. Now, he keeps me day by day by his power, and gives me the peace the world cannot give, or take away." The following experience will suggest the effi- cacy of asking for the written testimonies. Here is a truly beautiful soul which yet has been in- articulate through the years. The power of ex- pression comes through education, but the ex- periences of the soul are primal: "As my par ants was christons, while in mi child dayes I remember my mothers songs and prayers, how sweat they was to me; Christon people the most beautiful thing on irth. When about 15 I interd the altar where I first saw my savor the dark cloud broke a way, the light broke through whitch was all joy and peace. But the stunting part came afterwards. Prayer never came to me could not explane my ex- spearance tride to pray in secreat could only give mi self in to his care and trust him to take care of me I no god has dun his part as long as I doo I have made meney mis stakes and blunders when I doo rong I ask him with in my hart to for give me and he sets me on my feat a gayn I cant sing mutch but thank god I can read the bible I love the church I love the Saboth School I love all of gods people I love God best of all be cause he first loved me Not brotight up mutch in Saboth School in mi former 90 THE PILOT FLAME dayes only late years had the operitunity Read- ing the bible bin mostly my j oy I take it as my gide, my savoer, my receiver." Many of the experiences already quoted entire show the same type of vivid transforming deci- sion and expression. There is added a group of sentence testimonies to the efficacy of the altar experience : "When I was about ten I attended a series of meet- ings during a great revival. I felt the power of his love. It seemed to me my whole life was changed, for such peace and happiness and love flooded my soul that only those who have felt it can tell." "My conversion was complete and most satisfying. I felt a deep peace and joy, and had full assurance that my sins were forgiven." "Forty-eight years ago to-day I was truly and happily converted in the little church two miles north of Morgantown, named Drummond's Chapel. I was at the altar for nearly two weeks, pleading with Jesus to give me a rich blessing, and Jesus only knows how happy I was." "At a revival meeting I came under conviction, and agreed with two other boys to go forward. One boy and myself were converted, and I felt a quiet joy expressed in tears." "At a revival meeting for Sunday School children, as I knelt by the altar, I felt that warmth in my heart, THE CHILD WHO VARIES 91 and I realized that it was really good to be a child of God." "During a special meeting a young man came to me, and asked me whether I did not want to be a Christian. I went up to the front of the church, and knelt at the rail. This was the beginning of my Christian life." "An evangelist with a mighty thirst for souls talked an hour with me. I felt a complete surrender, con- secrating my whole life to God, and I treasured a secret desire to go to Africa as a missionary." "I consider Christian training of the first import- ance, but I made a public confession at a revival meeting." By general agreement it may be granted that the experience obtained by way of the altar dur- ing the past generation was a vigorous method of bringing the religious emotions to decision and expression. The problem that confronts the modern care-taker of souls is whether or not it is still the most useful method. Some study needs to be made of the environ- ment, some careful testing made of the soil in which it is expected that germination of the spir- itual life is to take place. The churches are much larger than they were a generation ago, and the altar is farther away. Gifts of devotion have made many churches show more wealth and taste in their appointments than surround the 92 THE PILOT FLAME most of the people in their homes. These sur- roundings furnish culture after spiritual life is germinated, but the atmosphere provided is gen- erally too cold for the germination of life. If a large meeting is contemplated for the purpose of giving vigor to the religious emotions and get- ting the focus of attention, it is practicable to use a tent or a tabernacle. The same effect is fre- quently attained by building rough board chorus platforms, scattering temporary chairs and hang- ing up bizarre banners. The rough appoint- ments of the camp-meeting ground were most successful in providing that warm democratic at- mosphere needed for the germination of spiritual life. The feeling of this need is behind Peter Cartwright's famous prayer that the Methodists might be saved from wanting pews, or organs or steeples for their churches. The successful evangelist helps on the creation of the democratic and homelike atmosphere. He opens up before the minds of the people a great pool of cleansing. Into this pool he puts the preachers first, then the saints, then the church membership, making the way clear, definite and apparent to those who are without, making it seem but a little way to those who must come, making them see that it is the relief of loneli- ness. The great democratic and homelike meeting can successfully do these things. The great meeting cannot successfully carry the seeker through de~ THE CHILD WHO VARIES 93 cision and expression. It cannot fill its prescrip- tion. The Two-or-Three assemblies do find Jesus most abundantly in the midst. The minister in a little church has the advantage. The minister in a large church can use his chapel or his base- ment, and if he can divest himself of his auditor- ium manner and polished utterance, he may per- haps be as successful as the minister in a little church. In looking back over the last ten years, during which the writer has watched with somewhat over a thousand, while they came through the point of decision and expression, it needs to be confessed that the best experiences have been obtained in the home, in the pastor's study, or, in some cases, in the business office. Education has so developed individuality, that decision and expression can hardly be obtained by any general applications, especially if the seeker has passed out of child- hood. When you are seeking the place where the pilot flame of the consciousness of God may be lighted in a life which has matured without this con- sciousness, you grope in darkness to find the hinges of a rusty door, you reach out the flame of your own knowledge to apply it at many points, if perchance you may find the place where the power of God comes in with sufficient force to be ignited. One night there was serious sickness in my home. We needed water to flow out hot from the 94 THE PILOT FLAME heater in the cellar. The water came out cold. The pilot flame was out. I had to go down into the cellar in the dark and the cold. I fell over an apple-barrel, and ran into a beam and bumped into the heater. I groped in the dark, feeling for the door, which stuck for lack of use. With my little match, I reached for the place where the flame might light. After several attempts, I found the place; the little flame leaped up, and I knew all would be well — the water would come up hot. As I climbed the cellar stairs I had a haunting sense of familiarity. What was it like? Oh, I know! It reminded me of the work I had been doing in the afternoon, stumbling and fumb- ling around in the cellar of a man's mind who was sick unto death and who was old, trying to light for him the pilot flame of the perception of God. As I paused on the stairs, the pilot flame leaped into a fervid blaze. The water needed upstairs was running hot. I retraced my steps and stood before the water-heater with respect — it acts so like the operation of the great experience. There is the subconscious or instinctive mind, like the cellar; there is in this cellar an apparatus, an op- portunity through which God may enter into the life, like the tiny hole through which the gas comes to produce the pilot flame. The little flame must be lighted. It does not light itself. It must be kindled from the flame held out by another life. When it is not lighted, there is something consciously wrong with a man. He THE CHILD WHO VARIES 95 feels hungry, or he feels lost, or he feels lonely. A focus of attention enables him to tell how he feels. At such a time the flame may be lighted, and sensations of joy and peace will inform him that a vital transaction took place. When the flame is burning the water flows hot ; when the assurance of the presence of God is enjoyed, ac- tivities are dispatched in warmth and hope and faith. There comes a night of stress, of sick- ness, of the shadow of death. Woe unto him whose pilot flame is gone out, or has never been lighted ! The normal work of the church is to light for every individual the pilot flame and to keep it burning. CHAPTER III ILLUMINATION Illumination is the effect of beholding Jesus. It is the way people feel when, by some method of contemplation, or of association, they have been enabled to see Jesus. Any normal person who has his attention so focused that he beholds Jesus, in any aspects of his revelation from the purple of his power to the crimson of his sacri- fice, will find as the tension of the great vision ebbs away, that there is left in his consciousness a deposit of stimulating and uplifted feeling which may be described as illumination. In some cases the beholding of Jesus is visualized, as in two cases when the crucifixion is seen in detail"; in many cases it is a mastering perception of depth of sacrifice and height of love, or of range on range of truth and strength and power. In some cases it is a perception described as light, above the brightness of the noonday sun, such as Paul experienced on the Damascus road. The beholding of Jesus is generally described in terms of the feeling which it left behind, although in a number of cases the testimony simply knows that something happened. The way in which a great beholding produces a stimulation which will be expressed in varying 96 ILLUMINATION 97 degrees of feeling, may be seen when a party of people are looking from one of the great scenic points. Before there was any railroad, we made the pilgrimage through the forest to behold the Grand Canon of the Colorado. During four days we threaded our way through the pines, which is the best preparation for the great vision. On the afternoon of the fourth day, the guide, Hank, promised that we should see the sun set in the "big hole." The road kept threading through the pines, and we jogged on at the same pace, see- ing nothing strange, almost ceasing to expect anything very great. As the long shadows were sifting through the pine needles, we started up a little rise, where there seemed to be a streak of light beyond the trees. Hank suggested that we might get out and walk, as we were nearing the cabin where we were to stop for the night. We came suddenly around the turn in front of the cabin. Then I saw it. Right at my feet, drop- ping away into purple depths, rising in flaming peaks of glory, the most stupendous vision of height and depth, of vastness, of distance, of de- tail, of flaming contrasting color and mingling deeps of harmony. The rays of the setting sun, falling through that crystal air crowned with glory all the procession of the Bright Angels, while the purple fingers of the night shadows were stretching up from the weird labyrinth of unex- plored canons. The tension of that great vision held me paralyzed for some minutes. Then 98 THE PILOT FLAME I felt a kind of lightness in my head. Seeing a little tree near, I went over and put my arm about it for support. My wife moved over and took hold of my arm, both reaching out instinctively for something that might steady us. I noticed that we both panted, drawing the convulsive breath of a great tension. Thus we stood, and looked and looked, straining to learn the details of the vision, ere the purple fingers of the night took the crown of glory from the Bright Angels. Hank called us to supper. We mechanically and silently accepted the supper. Hank began to laugh at us. "Well," he said, "is it as big as I told you? You ain't as bad as the last folks I brought. The man went into hysterics and some of the women began to cry. They all act funny, and lots of them take hold of that tree just like you did. One woman I brought in fainted. They all feel strange. Some of them are silent, and sit and stare like you do. Again they get to talking, and will talk half the night, telling everything that ever happened to them. When I get folks out here, I always watch them, because they act like drunk folks." The vision of the Bright Angels has for its effect a feeling 1 . It provides a conception of height and depth, of distance and of color, on such a vast scale, as to be registered in the con- sciousness by a feeling. While the vast view has for its effect a feeling, as this feeling ebbs away, it does not leave behind it a renewing of the whole ILLUMINATION 99 nature, which is accomplished by a perception of some splendid aspect of the nature of Jesus. It leaves behind no bonds of the obligation to be- come like it. Jesus is a personality, which once having been perceived becomes a source of con- stant suggestion of the obligation to become like him. By beholding as in a mirror, by contempla- tion and association, we are transformed into his likeness. A grand canon does not suggest to us that we can become like it, and while the vision of it remains as a splendid memory, the stimula- tion which it evoked vanishes. Jesus having once been perceived by the in- terior consciousness, without the aid of eyes, it is possible to see him again, and finally to form the habit of beholding him for the illumination of every day. It is as if you had discovered the glories of the Grand Canon in your own con- sciousness, and at will could lift your eyes from cramping littleness and daily details to be illu- minated by its vastness. The effect which the beholding of Jesus has upon the interior life is capable of spreading it- self throughout every kind of activity, so that the general condition of warmth and courage and energy may be provided for all the normal activi- ties. The way in which this claim may be made upon Jesus is not mystical and uncertain. The infinite power of Jesus and its entire availability for each person is entirely beyond our compre- hension, but the method by which this power is 100 THE PILOT FLAME used and consumed in the life activities may be understood. A simple test which can be made by anyone upon his own interior states will clarify the con- ception of the process by which the power of Jesus can be used. Any activity as it passes through the central station of the brain, not only dispatches commands to the muscles which are to proceed, but at the same time it lets loose a number of feelings about the activity. There is that instantaneous prophecy which perceives whether the activity is going to accurately ac- complish the purpose for which it was intended, that delicate foreknowledge that enables the baseball pitcher to perceive the instant the ball leaves his hand whether or not it accomplishes its intended purpose. This perception of accuracy is the guide to all who dispatch activities that are so intricate that they must be connected with a personality, and it is a feeling, in that it is in- stinctive and functional, rather than reasoned. As the activity passes, it leaves behind other feelings. There is the feeling of success, of ac- complishment, of approval if the activity has ac- complished its intended purpose. There is the feeling of failure, of waste and annoyance if it is a small matter, of discouragement if it is a large matter, when the activity fails to accom- plish its intended purpose. When a number of activities have passed, leaving behind them the feeling of approval, these feelings all summarize ILLUMINATION 101 themselves, making a general feeling of satis- faction, of glow, of well being within the con- sciousness. We feel exhilarated, happy, pleased with ourselves and the world. But when a num- ber of activities have passed leaving behind them the feeling of failure, of the irritation of wasted effort, of insufficient skill, these feelings are sum- marized in that general feeling of depression, of clouds and darkness round about, as if the con- sciousness were under a cold fog. A casual look into your own consciousness at the end of a vig- orous day will tell you readily enough whether your feelings have summarized into a glow of ap- proval, or whether they have summarized into a fog of disapproval. We long for the glow of approval. That glow gives energy to all the functions, to digestion, to relaxation, to sleep. That glow provides the eager desire which enables us to take hold on life with appetite. We dread the fog of disapproval. It is the dead waste of unsuccessful effort, rotting on our shores, putting a palsy on future energy, robbing us of desire and interest, appetite and rest. On the day when our feeling has summarized into the fog of disapproval, we understand very well that utterance, "From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." As most of our activities are in competition with our fellows, many of whom are more skillful than we, the fog of disapproval has greater 102 THE PILOT FLAME frequency than the glow of approval. We need a method by which the fog of disapproval may be scattered, that we may at least be given an- other chance, a new day, a new energy, a new faith in life and in ourselves. It is just at the point where the fog of disapproval is gathering that the practice of beholding Jesus is available. If the acts have been related to him, and have been undertaken with the faith that they are in harmony with his will, the following feeling is of approval, regardless of what the exterior re- sult of the act may have been. So long as the following feeling of activity is approval, the fog of disapproval cannot gather. The only safe method of dissipating the fog of disapproval is by relating the life to the higher approval of Jesus. Some artificial ways have been discovered of dissipating this fog, and arti- ficially providing the glow of approval. The difference between this artificial glow of approval and the wholesome higher approval of Jesus has been recognized ever since Paul warned the Ephe- sians to be not drunk with wine, but to be filled with the Spirit. The similarity between the stimulating effect of the approval of Jesus and the effect of alcohol has been recognized ever since the day of Pentecost, when it was neces- sary for Peter to stand up and declare that he was not drunken as was supposed, but, like David, he foresaw his Lord always before his face. "Therefore," he says, "did my heart rejoice, and ILLUMINATION 103 my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope." Professor James says (Varieties of the Re- ligious Experience, p. 387), "The sway of alco- hol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour." If Professor James were writing this sentence at the present time, it is probable that he would substitute "sense of approval" for "mystical faculties," for the function of feeling is not now so mystical to us as it was. Dr. Peabody (Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 349) says, "The drink habit is in a very large degree the perversion of one of the most universal of human desires, the thirst for exhilaration, recreation and joy; and to remove the only available means for satisfying this normal craving without providing adequate sub- stitutes, is like blocking the channel where a stream does harm without observing many new fields the same stream is likely to devastate." Every minister of course has in his church at least several men who are reformed drunkards, and who have been able to substitute for the de- lusion of the stimulation of alcohol, the whole- some glow of the approval of Jesus. These men will agree in testifying that it was the desire to feel the sensation of approval upon their acts, regardless of what those acts really were, that 104 THE PILOT FLAME caused them to drink. One man of sensitive temperament and college education told this; he said that the men who were his drinking compan- ions were mostly coarse, heavy and slow brained. After they had taken a few drinks together, they felt like they were truly smart; the things they said seemed to themselves gay and mirthful; they felt capable of schemes and plans ; they felt like they were what they liked to be. The morning after was of course ten times more gray and stupid and heavy, with plain work and plain food more loathed. But for one glorious hour they rioted in the sense of approval, of efficiency, of capacity. If it is desired to look for a place where the devil is incarnate, we may find him in alcohol. The devilish hold which alcohol has on life is the fact that artificially for a short time, it produces these precious sensations of approval. Mr. Hadley of the Jerry McAuley mission re- ports that sixty-two per cent, of the large num- ber of drunkards treated by the process of con- version are permanently able to substitute the approval of Jesus for the false stimulating of alcohol. Rev. Mr. Avery of the Christian Home for Intemperate Men, finds out of seven thousand men who have entered the institution, sixty per cent, have been transformed into practicing Chris- tians able to find their necessary stimulation of approval in Jesus. It may be gravely considered whether or not ILLUMINATION 105 the saloon with its devilish method of providing the feeling of approval does not grow and in- crease in proportion as the church fails to gen- erate a large and generous fund of the approval of Jesus which may be vigorously applied to the lives of plain people. The mistake is often made of claiming that conversion is completed by an act of will. Con- version is never complete until it is summarized in feeling. There is danger, and there is wisdom at this point. The danger is that the case may be left at the point of the surrender of the will, and the habit may never be established of receiv- ing and using the power of the approval of Jesus. This danger constantly attends the modern great meeting, which attempts to get de- cisions by the hundreds, and fails to see that the decision and expression are thorough enough so that the after effect is the distinctly recognized feeling of the approval of Jesus. It does not suffice that a later and more individualized at- tempt should be made to carry the conversion to its completion. When the tide lifts, then the boat must go over the bar. When the will sur- renders, it is the lifting of the tide. It is the op- portunity. Then if it is vigorously pushed out, the little boat of self-consciousness can cross the bar into the great deeps of God consciousness. If it be not pushed out at this moment, the tide will sink away; the enclosing bar of self will emerge, the boat will be stranded. 106 THE PILOT FLAME The wisdom of the fathers was greater at this point. We emphasize an act of will ; they empha- sized an act of faith. We stir people up to the stress of resolution ; they stayed with them to the time of relaxation, or the receiving and using and depending upon the approval of Jesus. Many are trying by supreme will, by battles and strug- gles to find the force we call the power of God, when they only need to relax and feel the power lift under them. The fathers understood this. To a seeker they kept saying : "Don't depend on yourself; give up everything!" "Depend on God; he is there; let nothing stand in the way." Say, "Jesus receive me." "Launch out!" These expressions are well-worn until they have doubt- less lost much of their effectiveness, but they have helped many a too rigid will and faith to relax and feel the power from without flowing in. The supreme relaxation which permits a feeling to surge up into consciousness, is a taking up of all the anchors, a letting go of all that we are, be it accomplishment or weakness, and a brave putting forth across the bar, into the deeps of the God consciousness. Not until we feel the great seas lift under us, is there a glorious certainty of their reality. The ineffectiveness of the modern practice is the failure to launch the boats when the tide is up. While we must claim that the religious experi- ence is not complete until it is summarized in feel- ing, much range must be allowed not only for ILLUMINATION 107 different degrees of feeling, but for differing times at which the feeling is perceived. Such is the growing habit of participating in public meet- ings with a kind of public consciousness, that many are held back at such time from much in- dividual consciousness. The size of meetings, the general growing social consciousness tends at such times to keep dormant the individual conscious- ness. Exceeding skill is required on the part of the preacher who is lifting up Jesus, that this public consciousness is broken up, so that indi- vidual consciousness may emerge. It becomes more difficult as the size of the meeting passes over two or three hundred. Another modern habit must be penetrated. Feelings have been in such disrepute during the past generation, that many deny that they have any. Many a time we have seen a man, white as he will be when he lies in his coffin, shaking with the tremendous impression of the presence of God, yet frantically declaring, as if he was cling- ing to a post, "I don't feel anything." When the tide lifts in some souls, all the anchors are let down, and if they succeed in holding, it is then declared that there was no tide. Coming home from a wedding some time ago, I felt utterly disgusted. As we walked along, I said to my wife, "If it were in my power, I would take back that act. When I was turning over the certificate into the keeping of the young hus- band, he informed me that he was getting married 108 THE PILOT FLAME from a sense of duty. He said he had no feel- ing at all ; that he had selected a thoroughly nice girl and married her, just as he selected a suit of clothes or a piece of land. I loathed him. I wanted to choke him and kick him out. Think of all the great tides of emotion that have lifted and sweetened and beautified life, and that nau- seating young chump says he has no feeling about the most sanctifying event of his life." My wife laughed, and said, "Don't be so frantic. The young man is one of those moderns who think it is mature to practice denial on his feelings. Did you see him look at the bride? I think he feels pretty much like the rest of us at such a time. I hope the bride will have wisdom enough to laugh at him, and teach him better." Many a man in whose life has lifted the great sweet cleansing tides of religious feeling, prac- tices denial like that young man at his wedding. The religious life, like the married estate, for its best realization, needs to be undertaken upon a high tide of glowing emotionality. Religious feeling is as natural as romantic love, and it should be given the same reverential right of way in guiding a life. A feeling, of sufficient intensity to be detected, is the correct assurance that the religious experi- ence, the lighting of the pilot flame has actually taken place. Without exception the written testi- monies speak of the "feel," generally of the first conscious coming in of the presence of God. In ILLUMINATION 109 the large majority of clearly written cases the "feel" has followed immediately as the tension of decision and expression is relaxing, but the "feel" is not universally obtained at this time. Where the experience has been the ratification of the family ideals, the "feel" is frequently attained during the preparation and final act in joining the church. A deepening and conscious personal realization of the "feel" should be, and generally is, accomplished during the second decade. In some cases, a more intense feeling is realized in association with bereavements or with an addi- tional consecration and self-sacrifice. The range of described feeling is large, one ex- pression blending into another, from the definitely described incoming of a great light to the in- articulate declaration that something happened. For convenience of understanding, the kind of feelings may be gathered into four classes. 1. Bright Glory. This charming old expres- sion of the fathers includes those testimonies of the "feel" which specify light. 2. Peace and joy. The largest number of modern expressions come under this classification. S. Sense of safety. Under this name are gathered, "satis- faction," "assurance," "relief." 4. Inarticulate Experience. There is a definite knowledge that something happened, but an inability to describe it. 1. Bright Glory. There can be no contro- versy that an intensely focused experience of the 110 THE PILOT FLAME incoming of the power of God is a bright light perceived as external to the person who beholds it. The tongues of Pentecost, and the light upon the Damascus road above the brightness of the noonday sun, may be described as the most in- tensely focused of these lights. It is not claimed that the perception of light occurs in connection with the other conversions under Paul's preach- ing. He but requires that faith shall be in the heart, and that public confession shall be made, the following feeling being looked upon as the individual and private gift out of the bounty of a gracious Father. The gift of "bright glory" of the definite perception of light still occurs with sufficient frequency, to make it easy to believe that the description of the tongues of Pentecost is accurate. In Mr. Hadley's account of the famous conver- sion of Jerry McAuley, the following statement is given concerning the climax — (Hadley, Down in Water Street, p 31) : "There was a shock came into the room, something similar to a flash of lightning, which every one pres- ent felt and saw. "Jerry fell down on his side prone on the floor, with tears streaming from his eyes. " 'Oh, Jesus, You did come back; You did come back! Bless your dear name.' "Jerry's companions were so frightened by what they saw, that they sprang from their knees, ran out of the house and fled down the street." ILLUMINATION 111 While this flash of lightning is thus clearly described, it must be remembered that Mr. Had- ley does not claim to ever have seen it in con- nection with the many thousand of conversions he has witnessed. On one occasion, during my own ministry, a light was witnessed which appeared to be ex- ternal, following a focused conversion. At a time when the tide was coming in during the pastorate at Berkeley, California, and the consciousness of God was flooding into the lives of most of the congregation, and many were being converted, a man named Hay came into the morn- ing service. He was a man of good ability, but for forty years he had been an intermittent drunkard. Between spells he maintained a small shop and worked as a harness maker. During the service, about the middle of the sermon, he arose suddenly and went out, looking as if he were in great pain. After service, an official ex- pressed it as his opinion that the man had been taken with acute indigestion. We do not fre- quently enough see men suffering under "convic- tion" to recognize the symptoms. Hay came to prayer-meeting on Wednesday evening, and to class-meeting on Sunday. At class-meeting, he would arise and tell of his helplessness, and ear- nestly ask for help. Many talked with him, ad- vising faith in many forms. After he had been coming to class-meeting for about a month, he seemed utterly discouraged. "It ain't any use," 112 THE PILOT FLAME he said. "You tell me to have faith. I do have faith. It ain't any good. In the morning I get up, and start to sweep my shop. I have to go out and take a drink. Then when I finish the shop, I have to get another drink. Faith ain't any good." He came to prayer-meeting one evening, and sat where the light fell on his face. His expres- sion convinced me that the final battle was being waged within his soul. At one moment the strange glow of deliverance and hope would trans- form his face, to be followed by an expression of contempt and emerging brutality. That odd verse in Jude about the contention of the arch- angel and the devil disputing for possession of the body of Moses, came to my mind. The arch- angel and the devil were disputing for the pos- session of the man Hay that night. With un- usual agony, he claimed he had tried faith, but "It ain't any use." I felt that Hay must be saved. I told him we would hold a prayer-meet- ing in the room above his shop, the next evening, and I invited all the people who believed Hay might be saved to come. All night, I turned restless upon my bed, feeling that the archangel and the devil contended in my own soul. Here was a clear case where an application of salvation ought to save. I had no expectation of a mir- acle, but I thought that strength enough ought to be provided to overcome the appetite. When I arrived for the prayer-meeting, I found ILLUMINATION 113 that Hay's wife had cleaned the room, and Hay had borrowed chairs, and arranged them in rows, expecting a considerable number whose faith should contribute to his help. Just two people came, Sister Fell and Brother Freeze. In heavy depression, I sat waiting past the time to begin. Without any preliminaries of prayer or of sing- ing, I suddenly said to Hay, as if delivering a message. "Your appetite can be taken away from you." He dropped heavily upon his knees, as we knelt around him. Sister Fell prayed a little. Then Hay burst out, and prayed for him- self, a few words of claiming faith. It had come ; triumphant illumination. We arose, singing the doxology to a peculiar short meter. We held Brother Hay by the hands, and shouted with a few tears running down our cheeks. That dingy little room blazed with light. It was external. It was above the brightness of the noonday sun. It was a bright glory. Sister Fell said, "Look at Brother Freeze." He, a man crippled with rheu- matism, was leaping and dancing. The thirst was taken from Brother Hay. The next morning he went into his drinking place, asked for his account, lingered to tell the bar- keeper of his conversion, when he thrust the cus- tomary glass under his nose. He was a man past seventy; the thirst of forty years was absolutely and instantly taken away. When the pilot flame was lighted in the life of Brother Hay, there was such an uprush of power 114* THE PILOT FLAME that it made an external light. We all saw it. While I have never before or since witnessed such an external radiant light, I have many times seen upon the faces of people such an amazing illumi- nation that the impression was of light shining from their faces. At one time in my early minis- try, a man who was blind arose and said that he had an irresistible impression of light round about him. One can hardly conceive of more positive evidence that the incoming of the power of God is correctly described as light. These evidences of "bright glory" make en- tirely comprehensible the following expressions which are taken out of the experiences : "My whole being seemed to be lighted. ,, "I had a vivid knowledge of change from darkness and fear to light and love." "The old church seemed lighted with a new light." "The dark cloud broke away; the light broke through which was joy and peace." "My experience was bright when I realized that I started in the right way." "When my mother looked at my shining face, she said: 'What has come over my boy?' " The following account of the feeling of illumi- nation was prepared by a man of most advanced intellectual culture. It is quoted at this point to show that "bright glory" is not denied to those who are of the distinct intellectual type, and that ILLUMINATION 115 illumination may follow upon the clear compre- hension of one of the great doctrines. "Up to the age of twenty-one, I thought I was a Christian. In reading the life of John Wesley, where he details his feelings of conviction just before his experience 'while he was reading in Romans' I came to the conclusion that I was depending for salvation on exactly the same things that Wesley was; and as he did not think that he was a Christian, I concluded that I could not be. I still think I was not a Chris- tian, though I had been a church member, Sunday School teacher and officer, and active worker in the church for twelve years. After a week's heavy dark- ness and depression, during the latter part of which I had a consuming desire to read the Scripture on every opportunity, I had a distinct, vivid, vital ex- perience while reading Romans six. It came at first as an intellectual perception of my relation to God and Christ, and then as a very great emotional light." Two other university professors tell of illumi- nation following upon a clear perception of their relationship to God. These three men who are able not only to definitely experience illumination, but to accu- rately describe that it followed upon their clear perception of their relationship to God, provide a valuable clew as to how illumination may be brought about. The testimonies of the simple and the testimonies of the learned agree that il- lumination follows upon a beholding of Jesus. 116 THE PILOT FLAME The testimonies of the learned are probably more accurate when they say that it is not only a be- holding of Jesus but the realization of the per- sonal relationship to him, that precedes the vivid realization of illumination. You can behold Jesus by a process of clear and concentrated thinking, perhaps more genuinely than by a visual or auditory impression. The number whose busi- ness it is to think are increasing. Let them understand that by a clear and concentrated thinking process they can behold Jesus, and come to claim as theirs the experience of bright glory. The best gift, earnestly to be coveted, is to summarize one's contemplation of Jesus in the transforming feeling of bright glory. If some- where along the way the great "light has shined out of darkness and shined into our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus," we can hence- forth go about living neither dismayed, confused or doubting. When bright glory is more ear- nestly coveted, we can expect that it will be more frequently experienced. 2. Peace and Joy. At the present time, the beholding of Jesus summarized itself most fre- quently in the feeling that is called peace and joy. It is useful to notice that when the need of God has become a hunger, the finding of God pro- duces a feeling of peace and joy, or of satisfac- tion. Hunger, the most frequent piloting emo- tion of the present generation, makes apparent ILLUMINATION 117 the necessity of an outside relief. Hunger of the stomiach never becomes relieved by the secre- tion of its own juices ; in fact, the more abun- dantly the digestive juices are secreted, the more clamorous is the cry for some substance provided externally which they can work upon. In the same manner, the hunger for God never becomes satisfied by any turning of contemplation inward upon self, by any energizing of will, or shaking up of good resolutions. The hunger for God is satisfied by the perception of some power having come in from without. The following two testi- monies are particularly clear on this point: "Such a flood of peace and joy enveloped me that I knew it could come only from above." "Jesus seemed so near and real to me I felt I could reach out and clasp him in my heart. Oh, the love and joy that filled my whole being." The many testimonies that have been given, all confidently assume that something came into their consciousness from without. They could no more believe that the relief experienced was generated by expectation or by auto-suggestion, than they could believe that the feeling of satisfaction after a good meal was brought about by auto-sug- gestion without any reception of food. While a focus of attention upon Jesus must precede a conversion, it is not correct to say that conversion follows upon expectation. In the twenty-seven West Virginia cases where it was 118 THE PILOT FLAME expected that conversion was to take place by way of the altar, it was found as a matter of fact that the only experience was the ratification of the family ideals. In speaking of the circum- stances of the conversion of drunkards Mr. Had- ley says that in many cases conversion takes place when the man is at least partially drunk. The following case is one where it is definitely stated that there was no expectation of conversion. The testimony is provided by a young man of un- usual devotion and rare beauty of Christian life. In every opportunity to express the Christian life which is provided by the church, he is found re- sponsive and faithful. He is one of those self- less natures that find greatest happiness in habits of devotion and self-sacrifice, so readily practiced as to seem instinctive. In gathering the experi- ences we have discovered that many of the most sustaining people, those whose lives outside of their business, are largely identified with the church, are a bit wistful and poverty stricken when it comes to their own interior and focused experiences. They feel that at the Great Supper of the Master, because they have not on the wed- ding garment of a focused experience, they will be content to wear the garb of service, and wait on the other guests. These who serve in the Master's household ought to find themselves en- riched by the recollection that this was the way of Jesus himself. We know him not much in focused interior experience; we know him almost ILLUMINATION 119 entirely in relationships of love and service. The most genuine identification with the consciousness of Jesus is attained by those who take upon themselves the washing of the disciples' feet. Of such as these was the young man who prepared the following testimony: "Immediately previous to my conversion I was rather cold regarding all religious matters. The church services did not interest me. During a spe- cial meeting, a young man came to me and, touching me on the shoulder, asked me if I did not want to be a Christian. I went up to the front of the church, not knowing why I did so, and knelt at the rail. This was the beginning of my Christian life. I had a profound experience. I found afterwards that a prayer band, with my sister as leader, had prayed for me all that Sunday afternoon. As a free moral agent, I had nothing to do with becoming a Christian. "On being received into the church, I felt a new strength and determination. I have had several ex- periences since, that seem particularly significant and vivid, — twice, when I have felt that secret sins had been taken from me, — once, when I realized that my life should be given to some Christian work, and several times when trying to help others. "Probably because through a prayer band I was converted, I feel the presence of God most deeply when in prayer with a few fellow workers, especially when we pray for ourselves and for the success of some definite work. At any time in the day, I can turn my heart to God and feel the reality of His pres- ence." 120 THE PILOT FLAME A string of pearls, expressions of the peace that passeth knowledge will now be made, in order that we may have a clear judgment of what the normal amount of feeling is in this generation. Bright glory is comparatively rare, but "peace and joy" is the usual description of the feeling which summarizes the consciousness that God has come into communication with the life. Here is the string of the pearls of peace : "What a wonderful peace I enjoyed I shall never forget. I was unspeakably happy." "The memory of peace comes back." "Peace and pardon!" "Peace and joy came to me." "I remember the feeling of satisfaction and rest." "Peace like a calm summer evening." "I felt a great relief and joy when I came out for truth and righteousness." "After I made a complete surrender and was ready to change about for God and right, I had a feeling of relief followed by joy and peace." "I went to the mourner's bench, and after a while I felt a complete forgiveness, and was so happy. The experience was vivid and satisfying." "I had a special joy when I could say, 'Lord, I be- lieve.' " "I felt joy and peace beyond power to describe." "When I raised my hand, saying I would start the new life, a wonderful peace came into my heart." "As we children knelt around the altar I felt that warmth in my heart, and I realized that it was really good to be a child of God." ILLUMINATION 121 If we should gather from all the testimonies already quoted the pearl of feeling which is on the end of each one, we might greatly lengthen this string. The normal test as to whether or not the pilot flame is lighted is the possession of the pearl of the feeling of peace. 3. The Sense of Safety. As the relief of hunger produces a feeling of peace and satisfac- tion, the relief of fear provides a feeling of safety, or of relief, or of assurance. As the number of cases where fear was the leading emotion are be- coming rare, so the sense of safety is not so fre- quent as peace and joy. On the whole we may come to the conclusion that joining the church is attended with the "sense of safety." The definite public act produces the feeling of a contract closed and delivered. It provides the impression of the recorded title to the dwelling-place in the eternal city. Following are some of the expres- sions of the sense of safety: "I joined the church with a great feeling of relief." "I felt a complete surrender and consecrated my whole life to Christ." "I am so glad I have turned to Jesus, for I can always feel that I am his child." "I remember the feeling of satisfaction when I joined the church." Throughout all the testimonies the "sense of safety" is in no case the feeling of being saved 122 THE PILOT FLAME from the penalty of sin, but it is rather a feeling of satisfaction in having settled upon a program of life and of having made provision for the fu- ture. There is left among the people almost no feeling of the guilt of sin. Even in cases where a recognized sin, such as swearing, must be re- moved, the feeling is that here is a great stone in the way which must be lifted out rather than of overwhelming guilt about the past. There is but one mention made of remorse, and that is not for sins committed, but for the failure to love Jesus more, on the part of a sensitive little girl. Not only from the written cases, but from knowl- edge of many cases of drunkenness, of immorality, of swearing, of violent temper, it can be affirmed that the feeling of having sinned against the holiness of God has almost passed away. Sins are regarded as weaknesses, and the appeal to God is for help and strength to overcome them, rather than for forgiveness. Truly the con- ception of the All-Father has almost entirely dis- placed the conception of the Righteous Judge. When we are striving to bring men into that state of mind at which the God power becomes avail- able for them, we can more readily convict them of failure than convict them of sin. The modern man is like the Prodigal son. The time of his redemption draws nigh when you convince him that he is filling his belly with the husks which the swine did eat. When you have shown him the vision of the Father's house with bread enough ILLUMINATION 123 and to spare, while he perishes with hunger, then he will arise and go. The sense of safety does not in modern feeling mean the remission of the penalty of sin, but it is the sense of being enfolded in the great Shepherd's flock, of belonging to one who is able to provide through time and eternity. Since this feeling is generally obtained as the result of join- ing the church, it should be recognized that join- ing the church is the necessary condition of sus- taining the Christian life. Any emotion which is not ratified by a decision and an action, will quickly ebb away, leaving be- hind it scarcely any trace. But an emotion which at the time of its flood is ratified by a decision and an action, will leave behind it a deposit, and this deposit may readily become the foundation of a habit and practice. A beholding of Jesus must be followed by a decision, and this decision must be turned into an action. The most useful action is the joining of the church, which im- mediately provides duties of attendance and op- portunities of self-sacrifice. As the only whole- some and permanent outcome of romantic love is marriage, with all that it brings of duty and sacrifice, so the wholesome and permanent out- come of conversion is membership in the church, with all that it brings of habit forming practices of devotion and of sacrifice. Romantic love which willingly enters into the bonds of matrimony is that reconciliation of naturally warring personali- 124 THE PILOT FLAME ties which achieves that great ideal of peace, the home. Romantic love which refuses the bonds of matrimony, becomes that stream of morbid and unwholesome filth running down all the gut- ters of civilization. The bright glory of con- version which willingly enters into the bonds of the church becomes that permanent reconcilia- tion, that at-one-ment of God and man. The conversion which refuses the bonds of the church, is a tide that ebbs away, leaving the life more empty and desolate than before the possibility of washing was realized. 4. For final proof that a transaction be- tween God and the human heart definitely takes place, the "inarticulate feelings" provide the most reliable proof. They offer as reliable evi- dence as can be imagined, that something set apart from the round of daily life did verily take place. They are provided by people who are not accustomed to express themselves. Their experi- ence does not consist of phrases put into their mouths, for they have no phrases. They testify that something happened. "I had an experience that seemed vivid." "I arose feeling that God had come to me. It was a clear knowledge but I really do not know how I felt." "I had a deep experience, but I cannot express it." "I had a vivid experience." "I felt good." "I cannot express it." "I know the time when I was converted." ILLUMINATION 125 A careful recollection of the time when we are possessed by any great emotion will offer proof of the accuracy of the inarticulate testimonies. When we are possessed of any strong emotion, we rarely know how we have felt, until the emotion is relaxing its grip of tension. When we are very angry we rarely think we are angry; we have intense feelings about a particular situation. Not until we are cooling off do we describe ourselves as angry. People in great sorrow are nearly inarticulate. The min- ister whose work brings him constantly into con- tact with the climaxes of grief, knows that when there is much weeping grief is relieving itself. When the tension of inarticulate grief holds on too long, there is danger that reason will be wrecked. It is the memory of the emotion, not the emotion in its intensity, which is the inspira- tion of art and eloquence. Tennyson was for many years easing his emotion, before he could write "In Memoriam" of his friend. The in- articulate knowledge that something important happened is good evidence of the time when the pilot flame was lighted. While it is conceded that illumination may vary all the way from bright glory, to the in- articulate knowledge that something happened, it must be claimed that a feeling is the only final confirmation and assurance that the religious experience is completed, that the pilot flame is lighted. The experience that stops short of the 126 THE PILOT FLAME feeling is incomplete. The surrendered will, the claiming of faith, open the door; but not until the flame of feeling proclaims the kindling touch, does the warmth of illumination flow with all the activities of the life. CHAPTER IV THE PERCEPTION OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD In gathering the written testimonies the last question asked was, "How do you get the most real feeling that God is present?" In all the testimonies this is the question most easily and most accurately answered. Somewhat more than half the people have had no vividly remembered transforming experience of conversion; a consid- erable number have tried faithfully to experience such a renewing and have failed; a considerable number have had an occasion when the ratifica- tion of their family faith has provided them with a personal consciousness of God; yet a consider- able number, in many instances the most sus- taining and active members of the church, have been so completely identified with the Christian consciousness that they remember no angles in their experience. They have been carried along in the omnibus of the church, and having perfect confidence that the driver knows the way, they have not noticed the places where the road branched. When they are asked at what special times they have the most genuine consciousness that God is present, they understand readily what is 127 128 THE PILOT FLAME wanted. The fact that this question needs not to be explained, but is immediately comprehended and accurately answered, is a marvelous testi- mony to the common perception of God conscious- ness. If God were not in communication with the life, this question would be considered an ab- surdity. It would not be understood, and could not be answered. If the God consciousness and the soul of the individual are separated by an unknown and uncrossed ocean, it is absurd to ask what was the last message received. But if the two are connected by the cable of faith, if the soul has set up the receiving station of prayer and aspiration and contemplation, so that daily messages are being communicated, then when the question is asked as to the latest message, it can have a ready answer. The ability to answer this question provides the most accurate test to determine who should be reckoned within and who should be reckoned without the fold. Every generation must have a method by which to divide the sheep and the goats. It must always be possible to say to the people, some of you are the sheep, safe folded for all eternity, and some of you are the goats, wandering without, condemned to be lost. The fence between the sheep and the goats must be builded. Yet the religious friction of each gen- eration is caused by maintaining the old fence before the pressure of the oncoming generation. It is always too small, and it always frets and THE PRESENCE OF GOD 129 confines the growing generation. To discover the place where a new fence may be safely builded which will yet include a larger number within the fold, is to smother out friction and fretting in the enfolding sense of safety in the care of the Great Shepherd. When Jesus was trying to make his disciples feel that it was entirely safe for them to substitute accurate belief on Himself for vague belief on the Father, he says, "In my Father's house are many mansions." The God consciousness manifests itself in many apart- ments, or rooms of living. Each generation must occupy its own apartment, and go in and out by its own door. That is, each generation must have its method by which to declare who is within and who is without. In the last two decades the gold from the mines of the world has doubled. Because gold is the foundation measure for values, the whole eco- nomic world seethes in irritation around the mov- ing of the landmarks which determined value. What is the source of this doubling of the gold? Have vast new veins and pockets been opened up? Not many. The gold has been doubled by the discovery of a new process by which it may be separated. The possibility of separating, and not the gold, has doubled. Gold is separated by its sensitiveness to quick- silver. This method of separation provided the last generation with its supply of gold. The stamp mills took the quartz, and faithfully stamp- 130 THE PILOT FLAME ing night and day, reduced it to sand. The stream of water floated this sand out upon the wide table smoothly covered with quicksilver. The gold was attracted to the quicksilver and absorbed, and the waste sand went on and was piled up as useless tailings. But there emerges another possibility of separation, the cyanide process of gathering gold. By this new process, the tailings can be reworked. The world's supply of gold is doubled. The last generation had its separation by which it determined whether or not the sinner was sensitive to God. By the vivid process of focused conversion, hard hearts were beaten into the sand of the conviction of sin, just as the stamps beat the hard quartz into sand. The revival meeting with its stream of intense emotions car- ried this beaten sand of the broken and contrite hearts over the sensitive table of the quicksilver presence of Jesus. Many were drawn out and absorbed by Him, and are indeed true gold. The process of the focused conversion to separate those who should become the gold of eternal life from those who should go into the heap of tail- ings was a good and vigorous process. It sepa- rated pure gold. It likewise provided a large heap of tailings. By finding a process that will absorb the gold out of the tailings, it is possible that we may double the amount of the pure gold of Christian character which shall endure unto eternal life. THE PRESENCE OF GOD 131 Every modern pastor finds on the dump heap of his church a considerable number of people who ought to know themselves as Christians. On the dump heap just without the church, he finds the man who excels in civic righteousness, the man who is splendidly devoted to his family, the man whose business or professional integrity is the pillar of fire in the wilderness of dishonesty. Some process needs to be used by which the church can get the gold out of the tailings, some process by which such men may know themselves as Christians. When they know themselves as Christians, they do undertake the duties and re- sponsibilities of this relationship ; they do give their religious emotions a chance to come to vigor. When this additional method of separat- ing the gold of Christian character is applied with wisdom to the cases where it is needed, it has been found to provide as pure gold as the older method. By asking the question, "When do you feel that God is most real?" and finding out whether there is any experience that enables the question to be answered, you can declare to a man whether or not he ought to consciously recognize himself as a Christian. If he has some material of ex- perience with which to answer the question, you can declare to him that he has the station in his consciousness, that his instrument is signaling the wireless messages, that he needs to arise and learn the code, and then he will understand the messages, 132 THE PILOT FLAME Marvelously effective for such cases has been found the use of a few verses from the tenth chap- ter of Romans. The difficulty most frequently expressed by such people, is that they do not feel that Jesus is a living personality. They ask the question, "Who shall descend into the deeps ; that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead?" The answer is, "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach." The power to recognize God is already in your consciousness, although you may have choked it by denial. Give it a chance to come to vigorous growth, and it will become a fruitful vine. The next verse tells how to provide this vigorous growth: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salva- tion." It is one of those remarkable comprehensions of the great apostle that although he himself was gathered by the process of focused conversion, he yet recognized that many had already in their hearts the word of faith, and they but needed to give it expression in order to give it growth and power. During the last ten years a remarkably large number of the most genuine Christians have been gathered by this method. The practicing minister must discriminate with care as to whom THE PRESENCE OF GOD 133 he is to apply this process. It is entirely ef- fective with those who have such an intellectual development, that once their minds are thoroughly convinced they are in the habit of acting on the conviction. With the increasing number who act on convictions, this process becomes more largely useful. The cyanide process for soul gathering, the new measure by which it may be determined who is without and who is within, the new doorway into another apartment of the indwelling Father, may be used by ceasing to demand the beginning, and by inquiring into the present consciousness of the person. If you can demonstrate to him that his station is calling, you can induce him to learn the code, and to become as skillful a receiver and dispatcher of the wireless messages as you have in your congregation. Many souls linger lonely and unattached, out- side of the church, waiting for some overwhelming experience to knock them over on some Damascus road, long after they have passed out of the sec- ond decade of life when it is normal to have such experiences. Under the same impression as to the radical nature of an emotion, many linger lonely and unattached out of the married estate, wistfully expecting even down to old age, a trans- forming romance. Some observers who are will- ing to be informed by life as it is, are beginning to doubt if romantic enthusiasm can be relied upon to successfully arrange every marriage. It 134 THE PILOT FLAME is not to be denied, of course, that romantic en- thusiasm does most successfully arrange mar- riages. But before the facts of the greatly in- creasing number of broken marriages, and the greatly increasing numbers who do not undertake marriage, it should be recognized that in many cases marriage may as successfully be undertaken upon a basis of fellowship as upon a basis of ro- mantic enthusiasm. Those who are able to admit two facts into their philosophy, who are able to work by more than one process in the business of reconciliation between God and man, will find a whole new range of people who can come to their reconciliation on the basis of fellowship. In every parish from the mining camp to the University center, we have found a considerable number whose faith has been smothered out by the rank growth of the materialism of twenty-five years ago. These are now people in middle life who see the rank nature of the weeds of material- ism they have been growing. If they knew how, they would give the delicate plant of faith a chance to grow. The new process, or rather the old Pauline process as described in the tenth chapter of Romans, has been successfully used. By faith and confession they are able to clear away the weeds and give the faith plant a chance to grow. Such undertake their reconciliation on the basis of fellowship, and it turns out very well. The written testimonies are rich in evidence as THE PRESENCE OF GOD 135 to the habits by which the presence of God is being] practiced. This evidence is particularly good because it deals in current events. These glimpses into the inner lives show that the Holy of Holiest is not empty, but that the Ark of the Presence is there, shedding forth glory which as a stream flows out and fills all the outer courts of living. In written testimonies the veil has been lifted which hangs before these inner sanctuaries which have been esteemed too sacred for the pub- lic gaze. Some doubt has arisen as to whether the Ark of the Presence is still with us. There is a de- mand that Christians publicly testify as to their interior experiences. The demand is that the Ark of the Presence shall be brought forth from its sacred seclusion, and be exposed in the blaze of publicity, that the multitude may be convinced that it is not lost, but that the Presence of God still dwells among men. When the host is strug- gling toward the promised land, it may be neces- sary to thus expose the Ark of the Presence, but when God's people are settled in their own land, and have builded unto Him a great temple, which is the demonstration of his Presence, it may be granted that for the most part the Ark of his Presence may be shrined in sacred privacy. Nevertheless, occasionally the veil may be lifted to assure ourselves that the Ark of the Presence is still with us. The Christian lives of our peo- ple have such an Holy place, and the Ark of the 136 THE PILOT FLAME Presence is in it. Their lives are not those whited sepulchers within which are the dead men's bones of morbid and self-seeking thoughts. In their interior life, many have an "upper room," wide and clean and prepared for the use of their Lord, where he comes in to sup in fellowship. After reading the more than one hundred tes- timonials as to the habits of the people in per- ceiving that God is present, we exclaim: "It is all true ; all the things we claim for religion are actually done for people, not in some far time, but here in our midst." Let the manifold bless- ings wherewith God is able to bless him who call- eth be proclaimed with redoubled assurance! All but three testify that they were conscious of God's presence as the result or association of special habits of worship, or upon special occa- sions. The three say they feel Him always near, and at any time can reach up the arm of prayer and find Him. These may be called the ex- uberant Christians, and they are fairly scarce in this generation. Twenty-three distinct kinds of practices may be counted in association with which the presence of God is distinctly perceived. No doubt the list could be increased. For the sake of clearness, these practices have been ar- ranged into seven groups, in the order of their importance. The number of times the practice was mentioned have been counted, and the number enclosed in brackets, following the summary name of each group. The sum of these numbers is THE PRESENCE OF GOD 137 greater than the sum of the cases used, because generally more than one habit of perceiving God was mentioned. No attempt was made to induce people to specify a large number of practices, nor was any particular emphasis put upon this ques- tion. The returns may be considered as a fair inlook into the interior lives of the normal Chris- tian people. 1. Private Devotions (52). Either Bible reading or prayer is speci- fied, Bible reading being apparently more frequent than prayler. In one case, the reading of hymns is specified. 2. Public Worship (29). This includes singing a n d preaching, prayer-meeting and testimony meetings. Only four particu- larly enj oy testi- monies, and an equal number men- tion that they dis- J i k e testimonies. The number that mention preaching and the number that mention singing are about equal. 138 THE PILOT FLAME 3. Service (20). In nearly every case it is speci- fied that the service must have been to the point of self- sac rjfice. Giving to the needy, Sun- day School teach- ing,, and all forms of activity are in- cluded. 4. Crises of Life (18). This includes the death of a dearly beloved, grave sickness, fi- nancial trouble, de- cisions for a life of special Christian service, and private difficulties. 5. In Thought (10). Cases where it is carefully mentioned that thinking which has reached a vital and illuminating con- clusion, has brought the exhilaration of the perception of God. 6. In Nature (9). The contemplation of wide views, the aspects of the forest, the feeling of spring, THE PRESENCE OF GOD 139 the sunset and the stars are mentioned. The association of the master work- man is perceived in his handiwork. 7. Intercessory Prayer (7) . Personal knowledge of those who per- ceive God best by intercessory prayer makes it apparent that these people also love a revival. The habit of find- ing God was begun in a revival meet- ing, and associa- tions thus formed are powerful enough to bring some return of the beginning emotion. Some of our mem- bers hunger for a revival, as for the return of spring. They need the an- nual revival, since this is their best method of associa- tion with God. 140 THE PILOT FLAME The nearly doubled accent which by this count falls upon private devotions is not to be ques- tioned. Bible reading and prayer are the manna of the soul, which must be gathered fresh every day. At least half the energy of the church should be directed to arranging the private de- votions of the people, and to inquiring by some careful method of oversight as to whether the Bible reading is with understanding and the prayer with devotion. The largest failure of the church is to suffi- ciently emphasize the private devotions of the peo- ple, and to inquire with tenderness and with per- sonal directness into their condition. The habit of actually dissolving worries and laying 1 down burdens by the method of private prayer is fad- ing out of general use. Spiritual exercises should be as carefully and specifically arranged, as present day exercises for the body, and the people should be urged to ob- serve them with the same practical energy and faith that we have in bodily exercises. The great accent on Bible study in classes fails somewhat in teaching the people how to make application of spiritual exercises to their own needs. By per- sonal practice they should have ready access to the illumination which comes from a contempla- tion of Jesus, they should be able to soften a too harsh and grasping ambition by a meditation on death and eternity, they should be able to cast out worry, with the power of love and a sound THE PRESENCE OF GOD 141 mind; they should be kept from nervousness by the peace which passeth understanding, and they should have ready in practice the prayer of faith that shall heal the sick. Spiritual exercises should be as carefully ad- justed to the individual as glasses to the eyes. The first principle of this adjustment is associa- tion. In a remarkable number of cases it is men- tioned that the practice through which God was first consciously recognized, is the practice by which the return of His presence is most surely recognized. Where this connection has not been noticed, it has yet been found to hold good in many instances. The method by which God has become conscious in a life, makes a passage-way by which he can most readily come again. Whether or not conversion shall lead on to a life of devotion, depends upon a habit of recognizing God being formed by the deposits that are left upon the receding of the first strong tide of feel- ing. If, at this time, it is recognized that God can enter again by the doorway that has been opened, and the habit of thus receiving Him is formed upon a high tide of feeling, this habit will suffice for a life-time. This is the first and most important principle of adjustment by which spirit- ual exercises should be adapted to the individual. The method of his incoming once having been discovered, the habit of receiving Him must be formed and emphasized and accented. He who is passing through his conversion, and is ignorant 142 THE PILOT FLAME of his own spiritual nature, should be tenderly and sympathetically and individually guided. The failure of evangelism on the wholesale is at this point. The wave of feeling recedes and the habit of receiving God is not formed. Not only the first wave of feeling, but any subsequent vital spiritual experience will provide valuable memories by which the experience itself may be at least partially reproduced. Any verse of Scripture, any rhythm of poetry, that has pro- duced unusual illumination, any text associated with a sermon that has brought about conviction, should be treasured and learned. It can then be recalled in time of spiritual torpor, and if mem- ory carefully associates it with the circumstances under which it was first the incident of the gen- uine spiritual feeling, it will have a remarkable power in bringing again that feeling. Not only memory, but hope may be used to energize the religious feeling. The method by which hope is to be applied, is a definite medita- tion on the end to be obtained. The method of applying hope is to be used when the strength or courage fails before an undertaking. This is the method which Jesus used as he faced the fear- ful agony of His passion and death. The High Priestly prayer, offered just before He crossed the brook Kedron, going into the garden of the shadows, moves in the consciousness of the pas- sion and death and resurrection accomplished. His last promise to his disciples before He en- THE PRESENCE OF GOD 143 tered the garden was the assurance that he would go before them into Galilee. Jesus gathered strength for his supreme struggle, by a medita- tion on the purposes to be attained, by a dwell- ing on the goodness of Galilee fellowship. He de- liberately put Himself down on the far side of His agony and struggle, and looked at it as if it were accomplished. When courage fails before an agony), or energy before fan undertaking, the definite method of obtaining spiritual help, is a meditation from the far side of the agony or the undertaking. This method of applying hope is unconsciously practiced; it should be definitely recognized and the practice of it learned by every partaker of the promises. Both memories and meditations are doubled in value if they can be ready in the consciousness to be used when they are needed. They can only be ready in consciousness if they have come out of the experience and need of the individual. As specialized exercises are needed for weak- ness of the body, and as a specialized medicine is needed in sickness, so specialized help and ex- pert council are needed in the formation of habits of devotion. Comparatively few have a sufficient grip on the principles of association and medita- tion to apply them to themselves. The failure of almost all methods of arranging devotions is that they are based upon the calen- dar, or upon the religious year, or upon the uni- versal Sunday School lesson, rather than upon 144 THE PILOT FLAME the needs of the individual. The general menu may help to remind us what is in the market, but it fails to be of much assistance in catering to the appetite and needs of the individual. In the same way, the general menu of the Sunday School lesson, or the consecutive reading of a given Book of the Bible, may fail to provide the spiritual ex- ercises needed for the worry, the nervousness, the struggle, or the sickness of the day. While no church could undertake to select the daily spirit- ual menu, it could yet clearly teach the people how their needs can be most genuinely supplied, and could help them to form for themselves the habits of vital devotion. When the church learns to make individual adjustments of spiritual exer- cises, it will find an almost inexhaustible market for its services. The demand for the services of the church fails, not because they are not good and useful services, but because they are so gen- eral that the individual fails in appropriating them. The accent upon public worship as a method of practicing the presence of God, is only a little more than half as great as that upon private de- votions. When it is considered that public wor- ship includes singing, preaching, prayer-meeting and testimony meetings of all kinds, the question will be asked, "Are we not devoting too much en- ergy to the public service, and too little to pri- vate devotions?" This question should not be superficially an- THE PRESENCE OF GOD 145 swered. Because there is a special relish for strawberries, it may not be wise to banish meat and potatoes from the diet. If the public serv- ices are looked upon as meals, and the members of the household of faith are assembled to partake of them, as the children are summoned to assemble around the family table, no mistakes will be made as to the relative importance of the various fac- tors. It is not wholesome to constantly eat alone ; neither is it wholesome to constantly wor- ship alone. Where there are two or three con- genial friends, there is comfort and there is rich- ness of fellowship. Jesus says where two or three are gathered together there am I in the midst. The "two-or-three" meetings may provide rich- ness of fellowship. A great banquet provides in- spiration and that genial warmth of the social spirit which is generated by numbers of one mind in one place. A great Supper of the Soul pro- vides inspiration and a genial glow, that atmos- phere in which the united efforts of public better- ment are undertaken. If the public services are the meals of the household, the wise caretaker of the family table will provide a variety, will remember the various preferences of the individuals, and supply them in season, but will also provide on the whole sub- stantial and carefully wrought upon services, at regular intervals. As the housemother gets her best reward when her meals are eaten with appe- tite and forgotten, so the housemother of the soul 146 THE PILOT FLAME gets his best reward, when his services are at- tended with satisfaction, assimilated to the soul's health and forgotten. 3. Service. Only twenty mention that follow- ing service do they have the afterglow of that servant who hears the "Well done" of his beloved master. Yet we know that to establish and make permanent any redeeming emotion, it must be ex- pressed in an activity. To obtain the twenty mentions of service, all forms of service from giv- ing to the poor to Sunday School teaching, had* to be included. In two cases it is claimed that the writer did not know by experience what was self-sacrifice. In a number of expressions may be detected a certain scorn of looking for any re- ward of service. In no case was Christian gener- osity or attendance upon the services of the church looked upon as service, with the exception of Sunday School teaching. The self-denial men- tioned is the giving up of some pleasure or de- sired social indulgence, rather than money or time contributions. The wage of joy in payment for service is nearly lost out of the lives of the people. It is as rare as conscious thankfulness for daily food. So far are we lifted above the margin of sub- sistence, that the universal feeling is that we should have daily food as a right rather than as a bounty. If for any cause the daijy food is shortened as to quantity or variety, there is the bitter cry of injustice or wrong done somewhere. THE PRESENCE OF GOD 147 The habit of giving fervid thanks before and after a scant meal is lost. The stimulus of thankfulness as an aid to digestion is also lost. Since digestion waits on appetite, and appetite is stimulated by thankful contentment, it may be pointed out that one of the causes of the modern inability to rejoice and digest its more abundant food is the failure to feel thankful. Upon this analogy it may be seen why the wage of joy for service is largely lost out of the lives of the people. The church fails to give thanks and to rejoice over the ordinary gifts of main- tenance, both of money and of time. It is a mis- take to put the whole maintenance of the church upon the debt-paying basis, for joy does not follow the paying of a debt. The contributions of the people should be received as gifts, and any gift that is brought into the house of the Lord should be the occasion of rejoicing and thanksgiv- ing. If the people should feel genuinely thank- ful for the daily food, the church should rejoice and return thanks for the weekly envelope, it should recognize and honor the contributions of time and attention given to the maintenance of its services. The failure on the part of the church to rejoice and give thanks for service has brought about the condition where in an age of greatest Christian generosity there is the least conscious receiving of the wage of joy for service. As the giving of thanks, even before a scant meal, pro- motes digestion, so the giving of the wage of re- 148 THE PILOT FLAME joicing even for scant contributions, aids in the more effective reception of the spiritual meals of the church. No cold rights of debt collecting should be claimed by the church, for by so doing she fails to pay the wage of joy for service. No superior scorn for the rewards of service should be encouraged. The laborer is worthy of his hire in every phase of life, and service of the Lord should get its wage of joy. The following testi- mony is the best example we have of the kind of feeling that should normally follow service. "I have had many experiences, nearly all upon rendering some service, or when I have sacrificed my- self that I might by so doing aid somebody who seemed to need it more. Then I have had God's presence in a very marked manner, and have been very happy." 4. Crises of the Interior Life. Not so fre- quently as in the former generations are sorrow and calamity the source of a deeper sanctifica- tion. Bitterness and discouragement naturally follow upon an economic calamity; only when wrought upon by the Christian spirit does calamity become the teacher of cheerful patience and renewing courage. Many roots of bitter- ness remain in Christian lives, which springing up make of no avail the benefits of the promises. Still there are some whose deep distress is sancti- fied unto them, as is shown in the following testi- monies : THE PRESENCE OF GOD 149 "At a time of great sorrow, when I had received a telegram telling me my father was dead, when I was sobbing in frenzy, a great and holy calm fell on my heart. Many times in difficulty I have felt led by God, and have been directed by prayer and by read- ing the Bible/' "My daughter was dying, and I was anxious that she have a clear experience before she passed away. In my praying to this end, Christ appeared to be very near to me. My prayers were answered, and my daughter was reconciled to death." In several cases of grave sickness and upon the taking of an anesthetic, it was vividly realized that underneath were the everlasting arms. 5 and 6. In Thought and in Nature. It may be surprising that these two methods of feeling the illumination of God's presence should re- ceive a considerable accent. They may be said to be the modern methods. The tremendous de- velopment of the authority of thinking, makes it useful to be able to affirm that a man can find God by thinking after Him as well as by feeling after Him. In ten cases it is mentioned that clear and careful thinking upon some of the great doctrines of the relationship of God had brought the perception of his presence. In student Bible classes where discussion was the method of teach- ing a number knew that He was in the midst. The following are two such expressions: "I can best worship God through thought. He seems to me nearer ; although if it is quiet around me, 150 THE PILOT FLAME I get good from prayer. More and more I feel a desire to read the Bible." "My most real sense of the presence of God comes from private study of the Bible. It has always been my source of inspiration. I am getting much from real thinking, and from quiet talks with a dear friend.'* Lifting up the eyes unto the hills and consider- ing the heavens, does produce a feeling of as- sociation with the master-workman. This as- sociation in some cases is so intense as to approach a doctrine of pantheism. Because of this danger of teaching a doctrine of pantheism the possi- bility of finding God in association with his works has not been so generally encouraged. If this danger is to be avoided, we must have a clear doc- trine of association rather than of pantheism. What is that presence that the poet feels hov- ering so near the flower in the crannied wall, and that most of us can detect above the splendid ex- pansiveness of a wide view, or in the overwhelming majesty of a mountain peak crowned with eternal snow? Is it a presence some of us love to come upon in the mysterious recesses of the great for- ests? Has it a personality, that finger we feel we can almost touch in the glory of the great abysses? That witchery of life that tumbles with the cataracts, is it a delusion? Is it not an as- sociation ? When a thing is made and completed, it is cut off from the maker. He has no further power THE PRESENCE OF GOD 151 over it. Watch the man blowing glass for win- dows. Through the long blow-pipe, the breath of his body enters into the glowing ball of molten glass. The mass expands and grows until it is a great cylinder. Blowing, swinging, forming, he truly made it. But when the cylinder has passed on to the flattener, his relationship to it is ended. The glass-blower does not interfere with the glass in my window; his breath does not ani- mate it, nor does he keep it from getting broken. Nevertheless he made it, and if I am not satisfied with seeing the glass in the window, but want to trace it back to its origin, I cannot explain it without admitting that the glass-blower made it. In the same way God made the world; the breath of his purpose went into it; the ultimate nature of things requires God the maker, just as the glass requires the blower. On that first Satur- day night, after the week of toil in making the world, it is said that the heavens and earth were finished and all the hosts of them, and God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. God viewed his work with satisfac- tion, just as a glass-blower might pause for a moment in going out on Saturday night, and view with satisfaction a car-load of glass finished and going out into the world to its intended useful- ness. When you see a window glass, you generally think nothing about the blower. His work may have required a considerable degree of skill, but 152 THE PILOT FLAME he blows many cylinders an hour, day after day, so that there is behind his work no great degree of idea or personality. The machines are even now taking over his work, and mind that is be- hind the making of the glass is further banished. But when you see a rarely beautiful piece of cut glass, through which the light shimmers in a thousand rainbows, you think of the skill of the maker; his hand comes nearer. If you yourself were a glass-cutter, and were shown a mag- nificently perfect piece of work, you would recog- nize in the work the master of the craft which you followed. By looking at the perfection of the work which you longed to do and could not, you might even come to love the master workman you had never seen. In the perfect piece of work, your mind would meet the master-mind. Through your craft of glass-cutting you would come into a kind of relationship. Occasionally you meet a cutter who with reverent pride will show you a piece he has cut after the manner of some mas- ter craftsman of the old world. By trying to cut after the perfect pattern, association brings knowledge of the master-mind. When you behold a cataract, shimmering with its myriad rainbows, more largely beautiful than any piece of cut glass, the ideal of what is beauti- ful in you rushes out to greet the realization of beauty from under the hand of the master workman. In the perfection of his skill, your mind greets his, and in the excellent glory of THE PRESENCE OF GOD 153 the things which he has made, you know Him. This doctrine of knowing the mind of God by appreciating his work, gets strength when it is considered that Jesus described his oneness with God, as consisting of knowledge of God. As ap- preciation of the best in music and in art is cul- ture, so appreciation of the best creative work- manship may be devotion. Very simple people may have this apprecia- tion, men who arise early to deliver milk and who see the dawn, men who are making the sur- veys of the wilderness, or who are protecting the natural resources. Three such young men write as follows: i "My life in the mountains and wilderness section of the state, makes it impossible for me to attend any church. But the hills seem to me to be more truly His temples than those built by men; indeed, the city churches have seemed to me temples of con- ventional forms rather than temples of religion and brotherly love." "I find my greatest blessing or feeling of nearness of God when I think of his wonderful works. I feel his love more abundantly at such times." "Sometimes in the evening as the stars are out in all their beauty and I stroll out somewhere, I look up and can almost feel I am able to talk directly to God. Then, again, as I have seen men's lives touched by some power divine, it draws me toward Him. Bible study and personal meditation also mean much to me." 154 THE PILOT FLAME The following testimony shows an appreciation of the privacy of the stars. The man who loves this privacy is one whose business is in a great hotel through which roars the traffic of the city. "I get my greatest blessing when alone with God. When trials specially heavy come, I always take a walk. Under the stars, alone with God I fight it out, and get a victory which comes in no other way to me. These experiences do me more good than anything else. Preaching does not move me often, and I shrink from testimony. Each day I have to fight the same battle over again, and I know I must continue to do so to the end. Self will assert itself, and I need to keep a close watch." For a look into the normal devotional habits of the people, a number of little testimonies are quoted, showing how the methods of realizing God are generally grouped, with that tremendous ac- cent on private devotions. "Prayerful meditation is most helpful. At times of great trial I have found God closer and more real. I do not get much help out of testimony meetings." "Private reading of the Bible brings me nearest to God, although I am often thrilled by prayer, testi- mony and preaching. My faith is strengthened most by reading the biographies of modern workers, and by contact with vigorous Christians." "I have felt God's presence as a result of self- sacrifice, and in the study of nature, but I think I THE PRESENCE OF GOD 155 have had the keenest sense of his presence in private devotions and in prayer." "When I go tired and blue to prayer-meeting, I am nearly always refreshed. I feel God nearest when singing, especially the old hymns. I find Him very near in testimony." "My most vivid experiences have come when I have truly said, 'Thy will be done.' I get my most real sense that God is present in private reading of the Bible." "I find God's presence nearest when in communion with Him in prayer, especially in the ministry of intercession. My greatest uplift is meeting with a few who have on their hearts some particular per- son to plead for." "I feel the reality of God most deeply when in prayer with a few fellow workers." "Christ's presence is made manifest in various ways, but less often on account of direct prayer than from prayerful contemplation, when I seem to commune directly with Him." Here are two of the exuberant Christians, whose word is added in order to have the full range of the methods of devotion. "I cannot say that there is any special way in which I get the most real sense of God's presence, for to me he is present in everything, and the feeling which comes to me in his Divine presence is such that I cannot find language to express it. He has wonderfully answered my prayers again and again." "At any time in the day I can turn my heart to 156 THE PILOT FLAME God and feel the reality of his presence, although I have had several specially vivid experiences." The wide range of testimonies will make clear the fact that relationship to God is a personal re- lationship, capable of being realized under many aspects. If a number of men should be asked when they have the most real sense of possession in their wife and family, one would say: "When we are gathered around a cozy little dinner, all well and happy together"; another: "When my business is difficult and I must strain every nerve to suc- ceed, the spur is the sense of doing it for my family"; another: "When I make some personal sacrifice that my wife and children may be bene- fited;" and another: "When I saw my child die, then I realized my possession and my loss." There would be found a number who would say, "I carry about with me always the sense of my wife and family; they are the background of my thought all the time, on my mind and heart, so that one time is not very different from another." According to our temperament, or maybe more accurately according to the accidents of our ex- perience, we realize our affection in our family; after the same fashion we have possession in our God. CHAPTER V THE LETTERED AND THE LEARNED At a recent Wesleyan Conference, Mrs. Hugh Price Hughes of the West London Mission, made this plea for Christian testimony: "Testimony of the right sort goes right to the heart of peo- ple who sit unmoved throughout any amount of Christian apologetics. I myself realized personal religion through the personal testimony of a lit- tle girl friend — the daughter of Benjamin Hel- lier — who told me of what Jesus Christ had done for her. One girl I know of in London, rescued from the depths of infamy, has gone among other girls of the same sort, and has built up a whole class-meeting of such cases. What I want to plead for is that the work of personal witnesses for Jesus should not be left to the unlettered and the unlearned." In answer to this plea, which is the voice for very many who are called to work not in the slums, but among the average people, the following testi- monies are offered. Each of the testimonies in this chapter comes from a man who has, in his, own experience, sustained the shock of material- ism; each is from a man who occupied a profes- sor's chair in a state university; not in a sec- tarian school. In quoting the experiences, the 157 158 THE PILOT FLAME personalities of the men providing them have been so thinly veiled, that they will be readily recog- nized by all who have known them, and the testi- monies will come with the strength, of a speaking voice. Not all the testimonies from the men of the university faculties are included in this chapter. Strong streams of living Christian influence flow down from the lives of many professors in state universities. Their testimony is the stronger, be- cause they are removed from any suspicion of professional necessity. The testimonies selected illustrate the two distinct types of experience, and incidentally they very nearly cover the de- partments of university instruction. An educator friend, fresh from a pilgrimage to Harvard and to Columbia universities, came to sit with me a few days on my porch last summer. Although we had met occasionally on the surface, it had been nearly twenty years since I had greeted his soul. At the close of our student days together at Stanford University, we had parted in alienation. The final judgment of this friend upon me was that I must be a hypocrite. All around the Stanford Quadrangle we sat in class- rooms together, and in every one of them was being taught some phase of materialistic evolu- tion. How could I know what I must know to en- able me to pass blithely all the quizzes, and yet have the presumption to cling to the memory of a youthful emotional experience. To declare THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 159 that God had called me to the Christian ministry, and to determine even at great financial sacrifice, that I was under some fantastic obligation to undertake this humiliating work, was, in his opin- ion, to exhibit myself still bound in the swaddling bands of the dark ages of superstition. My little experience was sneered out of argument as evi- dence, and I shut it up in silence. Yet all the time it ruled and dispatched my actions. The energy of that experience had taken me out of the woods where I was cutting logs on the old New Hampshire farm; it had dispatched me through the preparatory school and two universities, and without any great friction or privations, had pro- vided bed and board and books all along the way. In order that I might fitly contain and acceptably pour out that experience to the people, I had brought the clay of my earthen vessel, and de- posited it on the wheel of the universities that it might be properly shaped. When that shaping was accomplished, to refuse to put the vessel to its intended purpose would shock a necessary in- tegrity of my nature. My friend classified me as destined to belong to the Jesuitical species who clothe the people in the moth-eaten garments of an outdated theology, while retaining for personal use the white robes of pure truth. We parted in alienation. I have written ser- mons enough to fill sixteen volumes in the shadow of the determination never to preach anything 160 THE PILOT FLAME beyond what I intellectually believed. During the early years this friend came once to hear me preach. He reported at alma mater that I looked pretty and told the people to be good. He may have been justified in the sneer. My first sermon was from the text "He went about doing good." I have reproduced this sermon with many varia- tions. Twenty years soften alienations, and enrich the memories of affections. Wistfully I welcomed my friend to sit upon my porch. Carefully I avoided the depths ; I displayed my family ; I dis- played my participation in social betterments, those strenuous and thankless works that ought to earn a wage of universal respect. My friend had changed in his attitude toward me. I seemed to shake off the old accusation of being a hypocrite, and to be stimulated by an un- expected respect. He spoke of the practice of religion as that "strange necessity of the peo- ple." He said that the maintenance of the com- munion, with the practice of having the people come forward and kneel when it was received, un- doubtedly had the best authority of psychology behind it, because an interior state was expressed in a related action. With a research interest, he inquired as to my success in making an activity follow an emotion. I was so cheered with these crumbs from under the table of the banquet of knowledge, that by the second day, I began eagerly inquiring as to THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 161 the method of serving the courses at the great banqueting tables. From the discourses of my friend, I gathered a number of conceptions as to the progress of the last twenty years. When we sat together at the banqueting table, the favorite flavoring of the courses was physiology; now the favorite flavoring is psychology. But it is not the laboratory investigation, reaction time, case counting psychology we knew, but a new brand. Yet the psychology of our day laid the founda- tion for the new, because it made the demonstra- tion that not thought but feeling dispatched ac- tivities. The new flavor is the comprehension of feeling. The new exploration is of that unknown cellar of the soul from which feeling arises. The new investigation asks in what aspects feeling may be said to be a more reliable guide to con- duct than a reasoned process. And the reach of positive culture is the study of how the volume and dispatching energy of the desirable varieties of emotion may be increased. As one who feels himself old, my friend ac- knowledged that it was strange and difficult for him to find his way around in the world of feeling, and to rethink a scheme of things which eliminated the time element. On the last day of sitting to- gether on my porch, he told that as an act of de- votion he was consecrating his Sunday evenings to the preparation of a manual for teachers, showing them the meditative and association proc- esses by which they could get more fresh energy 162 THE PILOT FLAME of feeling into their work. Wistfully he explained that teachers needed the warm stream of devo- tion turned into their lives; that they needed en- thusiasm in their somewhat barren work, even as much as they needed increased pay. When this bread from off the banqueting tables of high knowledge had been given me, I exuber- ated with joy. My hot emotions came pouring out. I felt that tingling joy of a new morning. There surged up in my consciousness the feeling of fifteen years ago, when working in a frontier parish, I discovered out of a box of new books from Germany, that archeology had turned the flank of higher criticism, and that henceforth I was released to preach the old Book with greater confidence and authority. For the first time in twenty years I felt that I could wrap the scholar's gown about me, and find in it warmth and comfort, and that the wearing of it would put helpful authority behind my ef- forts to get my people forward into the promised land of better Christian attainment. Has not the time come to bring out of silence the religious experiences that were vital enough to creep out from under the great stone of ma- terialism which was let down upon them, vital enough to put up some shoots and to manage to live, even with the weight of the great stone upon their roots? During twelve years of the pastoral care of two large churches whose affilia- tions are with two state universities, my own THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 163 faith has gotten its sap from the men on the faculties who have been members and sympathetic workers in my churches. At least one from every department of study and investigation, I have known intimately ; they have been the friends who sit down by my fireside and eat my apples. All restraints of publicity being removed, I have in- quired of them confidentially if they had any per- ceptions of themselves as hypocrites. There was the Man in Zoology, he who had skill in getting little echinoid hearts hung on glass hooks, and in keeping them beating in a chemical solution. He handled with his hands the word of knowledge in the origins of life. Yet at the church door he was a hearty gladhander, and he enjoyed singing in the chorus when there were special meetings. One evening he rang my study bell in the midst of a storm. He thought he would catch me in, and we would have a good talk. When, welded by the storm without and the privacy within, we had come to good confidence, I said, "Tell me, you Man in Zoology, how do you get along with this matter of your religion. You seem to be thor- oughly enjoying religion, and thoroughly work- ing at science, and I can't detect, any conflict going on in your interior?" The Man in Zoology stretched himself comfort- ably before the fire, with the peace of an onlooker upon a conflict, and said, — "It is the fellows higher up in the theoretic departments who create 164 THE PILOT FLAME that conflict. We men in Zoology who are work- ing on the foundations, know how uncertain they are, and so we don't build any tall towers upon them for ourselves. Just to-day my chief came out of his private laboratory, and told us that he had concluded that after ten years of work, he was on the wrong scent for the fact in the origin of life he was tracking. We admired him for his courage when he managed to smile, and to tell us that we would clear out all the apparatus of the experiments and begin over again. "I don't see any necessity of attempting to live in an unfinished house. I passed one next door to you here, that was as far as the rafters, and the rain was beating in and the wind whistling through. That is science. "Religion is a much lived in old house, and it is home to me. My father was a preacher, the hearty kind that had revivals. I was converted at one of his meetings, and it was a genuine and good experience. Nothing I have ever known has felt so good as the rejoicing around me that night. The care with which father got me ready to join the church made a true transition from childhood into life. Church folks are my folks, and I like them. "I like going to church on Sunday mornings, as I do the Sunday dinners my mother used to bring out of the oven. Fifteen years I have been living in boarding houses, and have been receiving my lukewarm portion of course dinners. Now, I THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 165 will tell you what I came down for this evening. I am going to have for my very own, forever and ever, the nicest girl in your congregation. I am hoping she will have whole chickens and big dishes of mashed potatoes for Sunday dinners ; I have had course dinners enough. The church, the girl and the Sunday dinners create in me that warm glow of happiness which means home. I never get such feelings out of the finest laboratories in the world with the sea water running through them. "Yes, my dear pastor, I will have another apple. I like eating apples by your study fire, and having some one to talk to who understands about my girl. When I have obtained the girl and the study fire, in memory of you, I will sup- port an apple box of my own. When I find fel- lows bilious with doubt, I will bring them in and feed them apples." My Man in Zoology peeled a long circling peeling with the deft precision of his dissecting hands, and we agreed that it should go on the coals, because we liked the fragrance of a sizzling peeling. As he munched he continued: "You remember Longfellow's Excelsior boy, who carried the banner with a strange device through snow and ice? He scorned the valleys where the hearth fires glowed, and where the even- ing lamps of home were lighted. And finally he perished in the night and the cold, out there alone by himself. A big dog had to go out and bring 166 THE PILOT FLAME in the body. My respect goes to the big dog and not to the fool boy. If you are going to make any useful Excelsior excursions amid the snow and ice of the mountain tops of unascertained knowledge, you must have a home base in the valley. The old romantic scheme of discovering the north pole was after the pattern of the Ex- celsior boy. The Excelsior boys all perished in the snow, while the conquest of the pole is ob- tained by the faithful building of snow houses to sleep in, having the grub on hand, and the back track kept open. We who are pursuing the north poles of knowledge, have no need of mak- ing ourselves lonely ; the best preparation for a dash amid snow and ice is to get full of warmth and cheer by the fires of home." After some months my Man in Zoology received his promotion to another great University; there was a homelike wedding, with a whole chicken din- ner, and he departed with the nicest girl in the congregation. The other day, we received the "stork" card and my mind went back to the rainy night by my study fire. Friends of passage tell me that he has "folks" in the great church that stands by the university, and "folks" among the students. From the stream that flows out of his interior life, "folks" feel the hearth fires of home and the evening lamp, and the sustaining strength of that old house of living that is builded on a sure foundation; they are not frosted with Ex- celsior snow and ice, nor forced out into those THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 167 desolate wastes that are not yet made ready for "folks" to dwell in. That hearty father who believed in revivals, who saw his boy converted at his own altar, who carefully prepared him to join the church, and that wholesome mother who followed the church service with a good dinner, succeeded in lighting in their boy's soul the pilot flame of faith and hope, all bound about with the associations of af- fection. He is set now in the midst of forming life ; from his interior life and conviction flow streams of living influence. Because the pilot flame is lighted, the streams of influence flow out warm. Affectionate association is able to keep the pilot flame burning, and to heat up even the cold waters of Zoology. My Man in Physics was one of those on whom the lot fell to do the sustaining drudgery of the university. He put the freshman class through the laboratory courses. He did the kneading for the great batches of bread-baking. Solid and accurate, he was, able to explain to the utter- most, able to show the point in Physics where as- certained knowledge ends and guessing and imagi- nation begins. In the Sunday School he taught a Bible class, and he always stayed for the morn- ing service. When the sermon would be going at a good gait, and the time had come when I needed some sustaining warmth for a lift, I would look to the light on his strong face. His expression was that 168 THE PILOT FLAME "yea, yea" of sympathetic appreciation which a speaker craves for the dispatching energy to lift a crowd of people. He had an invalid wife and a garden and to both he gave that rich devotion which is expressed in minute care and the high joy of giving. When classes were out, I liked lingering in his laboratory, and getting all the wealth of his force of instruction concentrated on me. He would show me the choice apparatus, and tell me what it demonstrated. With the words of accuracy upon the crossing places of the application, he showed me how the conclusion, which is called the law of the conservation of energy, is the one basis of the whole modern attitude which looks upon the uni- verse as an interplay of natural forces. Some- what troubled, he told me that the men in Physics rather shuddered at being made to shoulder the whole responsibility of applying this law to his- tory and to sociology, for he said, we are not sure that the conclusion covers the universe. I put to him the question I wanted answered by the man who knew. "Does your most accurate knowledge of electricity make it a concept like our concept of spirit, or more like our concept of matter?" And he replied, "Electricity gets less like mat- ter, the more we know of it. It transcends the earlier conceptions of force, and easily leads your mind off into vast regions where time and distance and the stepping stones of THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 169 matter are eliminated. It is undoubtedly the modern analogy by which we can understand spirit." My Man in Physics lent me the books on elec- tricity that a layman could read and understand. With his careful accuracy he showed me the analogy; he showed me how to make the con- nections, so that now I can light my churches with the inspiration of this conception. He showed me how readily the age of electricity might be the forerunner of the age of the spirit. He set me the task of studying the spirit as he studies electricity. He said it was more important to know it in appliance, than in absolute essence. The spirit bloweth were it listeth; you do not need to discuss whence it comes or whither it goes, but you need to erect stations where it can strike. Wherever it strikes, you can study it, and you can learn to apply it as the great illuminating force in the lives of the people. "With the same tolerance," he said, "with which I ride on street cars and punch a button when I enter my room, regardless of my inability to ex- plain the ultimate nature of electricity, I avail myself of any impressions of illumination of the spirit which can reach me. I know you are long- ing to turn on the spirit with as much accuracy as you do the electric light in your church. I sympathetically recognize your difficulties in deal- ing with the souls of men. Not only does the connection have to be established in each case, but 170 THE PILOT FLAME the receiving stations are generally kept closed by the will." It was my Man in Physics who made me see that the point upon which I should focus accurate study was the place where the spirit strikes. It was this purpose that set me to collecting the re- ligious experiences of my people, to arranging them into types, so that it might be possible to see what was the normal type and what were the variations to be allowed for in the individual. It was my Man in Physics who made me see that the age of electricity means an age of convenient ap- pliances that make manifest a power which al- ready exists. He it was that set me a-toiling for the age of spirituality, which shall mean all the souls of men normally open for the spirit to strike upon and a ready connecting up of the spirit with the activities which are the arc light on a slum corner. A number of sermons came out of the fellowship of the Man in Physics, and the sermons are like this: Every time there surges up into your consciousness an impulse to lift on another's burden and carry it on your own back; every time there surges up the warm memory of a good father or a good mother, which holds you back from vice or meanness ; every time you feel yourself energized by a great and beneficent pur- pose; then know that it is the voice of God, call-' ing your station. Arise! Receive the message! From the sympathetic study of the religious THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 171 experiences of all my people, from the heads of university departments, down through students, business and professional men, mothers, weary household drudges, country people whose hands are so misshapen with heavy toil that they can- not wield a pen, and minds so untrained that they cannot spell the simplest words, I am forced to the conclusion that the religious experience has some fundamental qualities in common. It is al- ways an upburst of warm emotionality. It is al- ways perceived as something from outside, as if a blow upon a rock had opened up an unexpected spring. In many cases, the vividness with which the re- ligious experience is remembered stands out like a bolt of lightning across a sky. Hardly would any skeptic be found to deny the reality of ro- mantic devotion between men and women ; the American home is established upon the belief that this experience is quite definite, and may be counted upon to be nearly universal. Yet by actual test I have found that more people in mid- dle life can remember with vivid detail y the inci- dents of their religious experience than can re- member the incidents of their courtship. The difference between the trained and the Un- trained mind, is that the trained mind can lumi- nously describe its experience, while the untrained mind is dependent for its expression on well-worn phrases. There is no religion of a mature mind. Genuine feeling has no age. It is always youth- 172 THE PILOT FLAME ful. Yet the mature mind can provide the lumi- nous description. The following is such a description. It is the birth story of a large and gracious personality. The marvel of this man is the way in which hard experiences have made him mellow. He has known personal sorrow and tragic loss by death, so that he, a man of rich affections, has no home of his own. He grows flowers of beautiful loyalty over a grave. On the matter of a con- viction, he is the stuff of which martyrs are made. For liberty of speech, he once sacrificed his life work and his professional standing, and went out in middle life not knowing whither he should go. The strength of his ability quickly restored him. For twenty years he has had a long lever under the educational system of a backward state, and he never takes his pressure off that lever. At every commencement he is demanded by high schools for the address. He is the head of the Department of English. In the church, he is as large a factor as the preacher. He is on hand. He will take all of his excellent efficiency, and give his valuable time, and sympathetically focus himself on a revival ef- fort. Many there are who have considerable more confidence in him and in the authority of his Christian life than they have in themselves. We never any of us heard him tell of his own interior life. But when he knew that we genuinely wanted these' interior experiences, he graciously THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 173 opened up the guarded casket of his own mem- ories, brought out this gem, and gave it to me. "My early religious experience is so vivid in my memory to-day that I can recall those days and weeks, incident by incident. These experiences may stand out more clearly because I have so often called them up for critical examination. There have been times when I have thought that they should be accounted for on natural grounds. I have essayed the task, but with no satisfactory results. I have read Pro- fessor James's 'Varieties of the Religious Experience' and know that my experiences were typical. I have come to believe that such phenomena can be accounted for only on the ground that at such times the human soul is opened to the inflowing of the spirit of God. At such times the door is wide open; at other times we cannot or will not open it. "My earliest recollection is of my older brothers and sisters telling me how our mother, gone beyond then, took them often into an inner room and knelt and prayed with them. In my boyhood, my idea of God, of Jesus, of Judgment, of Heaven and of Hell, were singularly realistic. I had seen death. It was the most depressing thing in the world. I was fully convinced that I must be converted before I could look upon it without fear. I do not think that when I did turn, I was directly influenced by this fear, and yet I am sure that it was in the background of my consciousness. "When I was about fifteen there was a 'protracted meeting' at our church, and I attended regularly. It was a noisy meeting. The preacher said that the 174 THE PILOT FLAME spirit of God was present in power. I think it was. My mind was focused on the thought of going for- ward to the 'mourners' bench'; but I was unable to come to a decision, until one night, as I stood about the middle of the church, I was seized with a trem- bling. I commenced to weep violently. It seemed to me involuntary. A friend came and took me by the hand and led me to the altar. I knelt silently that night, and my emotions subsided somewhat. The next night I returned to the altar, and was as demon- strative as any of the 'mourners.' I was praying and pleading like the others, when about nine o'clock, I lost consciousness. Suddenly I came to myself. I was lying on my back behind the altar, my head held by a young man, whom I knew not very well, but for whom I cherish even to this day, a very tender feel- ing. He was with me when I passed over; he was kind and solicitous in that hour of darkness, and re- joiced with me when the light came. "I have no words to express the ecstasy of that moment. The faces of the people seemed divinely beautiful; the light was like a heavenly radiance. The sensation of all life spreading into a calm seren- ity, the sweet peace which fell upon me, seemed too glorious for earth. I remembered my fear of death; it was all gone. There was a joy, a contentment with living, a permanent happiness, an overflowing feeling of good will to all the world, that left nothing fur- ther to be desired. "I thought, of course, all Christians enjoy this in- finite peace. I wondered why I had not heard more of it before. Later, I learned that the shadows and mists of the earth valleys cloud the open vision. One THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 175 does not always dwell in Eden. Coming are tempta- tion and struggle. My confession has not for its pur- pose to deal with these. "For many days I went about almost in a trance. Before I went to school, and on my return, I had the task of strewing out fodder to a number of cattle. Behind the pile of fodder was my place of prayer. I cannot tell with what delight I looked forward to those moments, and how great was the joy of my de- votions. Often at night, I looked up at the stars and felt a companionable nearness and understanding, I had not known before. God was my God, and he was very near. Often my emotion was so great, that I found relief in tears. This was apt to be the case when I would sing a revival song suggested by the glorious beauty of the starry heavens: " 'O there my precious treasure lies, And there my heart shall be; My glorious home beyond the skies, The heaven I long to see.' 'As I look at it now, there was a very large meas- ure of 'other-worldliness' in this experience. We have come to believe that in Christianity joy should grow out of service, and shouting should follow the gather- ing of the harvest. Christianity could not save the world if that were not the genius of its gospel, and yet let us not forget that the wise and loving Father 'who knoweth our frame' has put into Christianity this mystical element, and that he smiles on us, when drawn aside by a heavenly homesickness, we see visions and dream dreams." 176 THE PILOT FLAME Just at the point when the boy changes into the man, and the stream of life's activities begins to be dispatched from the centers of interior con- trols, the pilot flame of the conscious perception of God was lighted. Through all the years of being educated and of educating under the pres- sures of materialistic thinking, through personal sorrow and the public experiences which pessimize the spirit, the stream of life's activities has flowed out warm with faith and courage. A more accurate account of the lighting of the pilot flame in the climacterical type of the re- ligious experience could hardly be found. We have now to offer an equally accurate account of the occasional type of experience, when it is reaized that God is in communication with the life, but the beginning of this consciousness reaches so far back into childhood that its starting point is not remembered. The family ideals are af- fectionately affirmed, and individual conscious- ness emerges so smoothly from childhood, that there is no break or friction. The Dean of the Wheels of the Whirling Age; Dean of the Engineering College, he is called in the university catalogue. His office is off the entrance hall of the great building full of strong wheels and fine wheels and flying bands, all vibrant with applications of power. The Master of Wheels is still a youngerly man, with the firm in- vestigating ways of a man who tests things; he sets his jaws like the wheels that have cogs, and THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 177 when his eyes fall on you, you perceive an appli- cation of power. His students respect the vast resources of his ability. One evening when the students and instructors had gone and the power was humming low, he pushed back on his desk those schedules that have to do with cement and steel, with strengths and resistances, and wrote out for his pastor the memories of childhood and of God. "I cannot remember the time when I did not recog- nize my responsibility to God and did not try to meet it. I cannot remember the time when Christ was not real to me, so that I cannot point to any one single fact or circumstance that led me to Him. My alle- giance to the King of Kings is explained by environ- ment and early training, coupled with a natural dis- position for study. I was a child who pondered great questions. My memory reaches back to a little boy in dresses, who spelled out the scripture texts on the Sunday School cards. I learned to read in this way. At four I was letter perfect in the catechism. Never- theless, I did not conform to the type of the model child. My temper surged up and carried me away with its fury, whenever I suffered a real or supposed injustice. But at tranquil times, Jesus was perfectly real to me. "My parents were of the type that carried their Christianity into their daily lives. Father read us many selections from the Bible, and I remember as a delight his reading of stories from the Bible, out of a book we had in the family collection. Anything that father read seemed wrapped in the dignity of 178 THE PILOT FLAME high importance. My Sunday School teacher was a vigorous applier of Christianity. She counted by scores those whom she had accompanied to the 'foot of the cross.' "I remember in vivid experience an answer to prayer that came to me when I was about eight years old. The day had been rainy, and the men came from the fields to work in the granary and about the barn. It was just the kind of a day for a boy to have fun in the barn. My spirits were keyed too high to please an old colored preacher who was working for father. He reproved me sharply for some prank, which I thought was wholly innocent, and which I was sure my father would have enjoyed had he been present. At the supper table, after the men had gone, I told father about it, and demanded hotly that Dunmore attend to his own business. Father evidently foresaw further clashes with the old negro, which he did not want to encourage. He said he had been lax in his discipline of me. I was hot with wrath; I arose from the table and plunged out into the rain. I wandered off toward the strip of woods where the turkeys nested. On the way, came down the question upon me, Am I wrong?' I knelt down under the spreading branches of the big chest- nut tree. The situation was too difficult for words, but the intention was an appeal to a higher judge. My anger definitely disappeared, and my whole being was flooded with light. I was under the necessity of running. I forgot the stone bruise on my heel that had made me limp for days, and ran on as if on wings, gathered the eggs, and all in a glow, came running back to the house, shouting before I reached THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 179 the door, 'Mother, come out and see the rainbow!' Mother left the work and came, but she seemed more interested in my shining face than in the rainbow. I can remember the feeling of that consciousness be- tween us of high and holy things, too wonderful to go into words. Mother said, 'Why, what has come over my boy?' "Having found the way, I tried harder to control my temper. The memory of the mounting up with wings as eagles, helped me to succeed better. I pon- dered on the question whether people who were con- verted loved Jesus more than I did. Could conver- sion make me any happier ? Had I already been con- verted ? The only way I knew of people getting into the church was by way of the altar. I was too timid to talk with anyone about my experiences. But I prayed for courage to go to the altar, or else that some of the workers would invite me. Though I at- tended every meeting, no one came to me. I came to the conclusion that they all thought me too young, and that it would not be right for me to go to the altar until I was asked. For years I prayed for some one to invite me and wondered about conversion. "I was fourteen, when at last, Miss Appalona Walter, an evangelistic worker, came back to me at the close of one of the evening services, and asked me if I would like to be a Christian. I told her gladly that I would, and I promised I would go to the altar the next evening, if she would come back for me. During the season for seekers, for four even- ings, I knelt at the altar. I felt a great peace, but no new experience came. I had seen others cry out in agony, and then rise with that new light in their 180 THE PILOT FLAME faces, many so happy that they must make some vio- lent movements to relieve their feelings. I didn't have any necessity of shouting. At last one of our neighbors seemed to understand my case, and said that I ought to praise Jesus for the love I felt for him. This neighbor insisted that I rise and sing with the congregation, 'Oh, how I love Jesus!' We sang that song together, again and again, and gradually I came to feel that there could be no more room for any greater happiness. "When I was taken into the church, the man at my side continually sobbed, but to me it was too happy an occasion for tears. All the occasions I have passed through since pale into insignificance before the stately beauty and impressiveness in which memory has wrapped that event. "After I had been received into the church, I cannot say that Christ was nearer to me than before, but my faith was stronger, and I found a sense of finality in being an avowed disciple of the Master. For these years, I mention a few of the high points. "Some two years along upon my way of life, my father and I were taking advantage of the late winter snow to haul rails and wood from a marsh through which ran a stream. During the morning there had been a cold rain, and the stream ran high; toward evening the rain changed to sleet and fine hard snow, and the wind pierced like a knife. We took turns going with the team, in order to keep warm. Late in the afternoon while father was away with the load, I undertook to rescue some rails from the swollen stream. After I had succeeded in dragging the tim- bers out of the water and slush to an accessible point, THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 181 I got on a log which had fallen across the stream. I was tired, cold, wet through, and thoroughly dis- couraged. Doubts like the cold closed in upon me. For the first time, I doubted the reality of all my past religious experience. 'Why should I love Jesus, anyway?' came to my mind. Automatically I began to recount the reasons, and I had not gone far when the light broke in upon me. Out there alone in the woods, I sang and whistled, almost unconscious of the raw wind that fast froze my dripping garments. This was the second and last time that I ever felt the surge of so great power within me that I must shout. "High School Commencement was approaching and my graduating essay was ready. I was the class valedictorian. My confidence in myself was supreme until the rehearsal before the principal and teachers, when my voice broke once or twice. I felt humili- ated; so much was expected of me. Every time I attempted to read over the essay in private, the cold perspiration would come out and run down into my eyes. The contemplation of my appearance on the platform was a horror. I wanted frantically to be a credit to my parents and to my class, but as com- mencement drew near my stage fright increased. During the wait of commencement evening, while each of my classmates faced the audience, got through and received their applause, my terror reached the point where I would have run away, were it not for bring- ing shame to others. In my extremity, I remembered a source of help. I gazed upward, and definitely I prayed, 'Jesus, help me! Sustain me, in this my hour of need !' My fear vanished. I faced the cheering audience with a smile. My essay became a 182 THE PILOT FLAME message which I delivered with a feeling and free- dom that had never before been mine. "Up to this time, I had appealed to God's grace to help me control my temper, to keep me from falling in times of temptation, and to sustain me in times of crises. Between definite appeals, I had considered my religion as a variety of luxury to be enjoyed. I had not understood it as a force in the ordinary in- cidents of the day. I first came to a full realization of this inexhaustible source of help when I was teach- ing a country school. I had made no apparent blun- ders with the school, yet inwardly I was in a constant state of irritation and strain. At the close of the day's session, I would be utterly exhausted. I was fast spending my reserve of nervous energy. I re- solved to take Christ into the schoolroom with me. From that day the whole occupation and aspect of teaching changed. The pupils seemed to be con- trolled by a new spirit. They obeyed my minutest suggestions and for the remainder of that term dis- cipline was an obsolete and unnecessary word. No matter how busy the day, I went home feeling as fresh as when I entered the school room in the morn- ing. "Follow years of study, of struggle, of temptation. My childhood faith is remolded and readjusted. Years of study along scientific lines have on the whole, I believe, added strength and reality to that faith. Just at the time when the future was roseate with promise, I was called upon to pass through the greatest ordeal of my life, to endure the greatest sorrow, I believe, that can come to anyone." Here the stream of this life passes through a THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 183 valley of the shadow so wild and desolate that it is like a canon in a riven rock. Through the long stretch of years flowers of a beautiful loyalty have been grown on those ragged rocks. We may not enter here. "My faith was shaken and I was rebellious. I clung to duty, but my heart was sore. I could not say 'Thy will be done.' Three years later it was my opportunity to influence a number of young people in deciding to take Christ as their saviour. As I saw these people radiant in their new found love, there stole again into my heart the peace of complete recon- ciliation. Then the memories which had tormented me day and night and from which I had sought to flee, became shining jewels to be cherished for all time. "These are some of the high points. Can I doubt the witness of the spirit? In times of depression, doubts do assail me, and I wonder if I could have been self-deceived. It is then that these mountain- top experiences come back to me, and doubt gives way. I am glad that I remained at the altar until there was no question in my mind of acceptance by God; I am glad that the crisis of life brought ex- periences so positive, that they will not be denied by my most doubting moods ; I am glad that these experi- ences proved Him to be sufficient for every phase in life. I am most thankful that I found and proved Christ as a boy. If I had waited for maturer years to guide me, I do not believe I could have accepted the truths of the Bible. My mind does not yet clear up the mystery of immortality, but my own inner 184 THE PILOT FLAME consciousness tells me that this life is only a prepara- tion for that which is to come, a life in which my own individuality is to continue. I however feel the con- flict at the point where science, though pointing to a supreme intelligence* also suggests by analogy that we shall live only in the lives that follow. Specula- tive discussions on the future state trouble me some- times. "This I know: Christ is real in this life, and when I permit Him, He walks with me and my heart warms within me. I need Him for this life and am willing to trust Him for that which is to come. "Christ's presence is made manifest in various ways. Less often on account of a direct prayer, than from prayerful contemplation, when I seem to commune more directly with Him. It is then that he appears 'The fairest among ten thousand, and the One altogether lovely.' " Up to this point the cases cited of my people who belong to the ranks of the lettered and the learned, have all been in demonstration of the value of an early experience, and a youthful habit of realizing the resources of an emotional practice of prayer. These youthful experiences have been anchor sufficient to hold while the ship outrides the storms of materialistic thinking and of bitter and blighting life accident. Memory of some- thing that did happen, has been able, in a degree, to reproduce the experience. From the actuality of the youthful experience, there remains author- ity sufficient to still dispatch the activities of THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 185 large and varied lives, and these activities are perceptibly colored by a constant faith in Jesus Christ. The pilot flame still burns, and succeeds in dispatching the activities warm, if not always hot. In the collection of written experiences, there are a considerable number of like nature. They are sufficient evidence to substantiate the state- ment that a genuine, vivid, youthful experience will, in many cases, have enough enduring au- thority to discount any materialistic teaching or any numbing experiences that are encountered. The family that had daily practice in Christian living, the Sunday School teacher who broke the text from the context to make many applications, the pastor who held his meetings and who pre- pared his children for church membership, the altar workers who invited sinners to come, have actually outmolded in the lives of my let- tered and learned the faculties of the great uni- versities. Some who are willing to grant that a youthful experience makes a memory anchor sure and strong will raise the point as to whether it is pos- sible to get the pilot flame lighted at the time when the intellectual life is full and matured and keen. In our practice we have seen it accom- plished in a number of cases. We offer two in- stances to show how the type of the experience may differ, yet be vital enough to be clearly rec- cognized. These two cases are used because they 186 THE PILOT FLAME are similar in that they were attained through an intellectual process. The first of these experiences is written by my Friend who is a Luxury. He is the kind of Lux- ury that Emerson had in mind when he said he would much prefer to go without the necessities and have the luxury. He is one of those pro- fessors so charming in all the departments of living that you would begrudge him to any harsh and executive success that would force his per- sonality into some narrow specialized channel. If he should come along in a rattle-trap buggy drawn by an old nag, and at the same time there should come along the man with the tooting auto- mobile of blatant success, and both should call to you to come and ride, and you dared to make the choice you truly esteemed the greater pleas- ure, you would scramble into the rattle-trap buggy. It would be the greater luxury. He would tell you something blithe and good and gay. He would make you see the flash of a red bird; he would make you feel the bursting of buds ; he would stop at the top of the hill and expand you with a great scene. The ways of this Friend who is a Luxury I thoroughly know. We went on a long, driving, camping trip together, with our women and little children. Such an intimacy cries upon the housetops any weaknesses which had been shut up in closets. Similar trips have played havoc with friendships. But the memories of that trip are of the amber sweetness of wild THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 187 grapes when they are setting, the peculiar blue purple of smoke when it goes up into hemlock branches, the possible efficiency of camp-cooking, the good, pungent, gay jokes that the Friend who is a Luxury can provide or cause you to pro- vide. It goes without saying that such as he has a charming wife, and children, who are joyously growing up in the aristocratic poverty provided by a professor's salary. There is also a little grave, the source of a beautifully accepted and sanctifying sorrow. This man who provides out of his inner nature the best luxuries of living, writes a simple and luminous account of his religious experience: "Up to the age of twenty-one, I thought I was a Christian. In reading the life of John Wesley, where he details his feelings of conviction, just before his experience, 'while one was reading in Romans,' I came to the conclusion that, in my small way, I was depending for salvation on exactly the same things that Wesley was, and as he did not then think he was a Christian, I concluded that I could not be. I still think that I was not a Christian, though I had been a church member, Sunday School teacher and officer, and active worker in the church for twelve years. After a week's heavy darkness and depression, dur- ing the latter part of which I had a consuming desire to read the scriptures on every opportunity, I had a distinct, vivid, vital experience while reading in Ro- mans VI. It came first as an intellectual percep- tion of my relation to God and Christ, and then, as 188 THE PILOT FLAME a very great emotional light. For a period of six months, I did not let myself sleep at night till I had received an assurance of God's acceptance. This I now think was a mistaken desire on my part, but God honored the faith. "Another vivid and illuminating experience came to me when I put to the test the verse 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' I found it true in every particular. "The sense of God's presence comes to me asso- ciated with nearly all Christian practices. The most real sense, I think, is attained in private reading of the scriptures. Then there comes as my most genuine experience, first, a new intellectual perception, and then an emotional exhilaration and joy." If you can discover a practice whereby God's presence becomes actual to you, you can retain that lyric appetite in life. Your spirit makes the youthful declaration that life has relish and is worth the exploring. You become that genuine luxury in life. You grow large and luscious and abundant fruits of the spirit. This final testimony of the learned is added because it is an instance of an illumination fol- lowing an intellectual perception. This brief ex- pression is the look back over a long life. I hesitate to characterize this personality, because I know him so well, and he is yet so intimately with me. He is of my present household. Over the body of his son, and over the body of his wife, I have spoken the memorial words while he sat THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 189 bowed in grief. I held his hands and went down with him to the gates of death, in the tension of a desperate operation. In looking back upon the experience, his affection proclaimed that his pastor saved his life. But the skill in the fin- gers of the great surgeon must have its recogni- tion. Since his personality is too close to me to be characterized, let me mention some of his works that his testimony may be weighted. On the wheel of his instruction, he has molded and pol- ished a large proportion of the lawyers of a state. He is the son of that illustrous father who bolted the Virginia Assembly, rather than vote for secession. But when the final accounts are opened, it may be found yet more illustrious that this strong man superintended a Sunday School throughout his life-time, and that his son walked in his footsteps. The more than fifty years of continuous service given by this father and son, is the testimony to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Him who is God unto Father and unto son. Between them, they have builded a Sunday School which matches the strength and lift of the great gray stone tower of our church. Through this Sun- day School has passed one-third of the children of the community. This Sunday School has never wrestled with the problems of a paid superintend- ent, or of teacher training, for the superintend- ent has always been a man too costly to be hired, and the teachers have always been superior to any 190 THE PILOT FLAME teaching force found in the public schools. More than a dozen eminent educators are found giving the golden margin of their energies, the precious freshness of the Sunday morning hour, to the faithful teaching of the scriptures. Like John on Patmos Isle, our superintendent now looks back over a long life and sums up the difference between inherited religion and experi- enced religion: "What I may term my second epoch of religious experience is the only interesting period to me of my Christian life. "The first epoch was marked by the absence of any settled, positive conviction of a present God — he was a far distant God — and I had doubts as to whether it was a part of the divine economy that we creatures of the world should have any conscious, distinct rela- tions with Him. This was a very vacillating, un- certain, and unsatisfactory experience. "The second epoch was the coming into conscious- ness, following the intellectual conviction, that God had from the very beginning of His creation estab- lished and maintained communion with men, through the patriarchs, the prophets, and then through His Son, who, when he went away, told us he would send the Comforter in his stead. I never came into a real religious experience until I got a full appreciation of the fact that this is the era of the Holy Spirit, that he is actually in the world, as Christ was; that through Him we have actual and conscious commu- nication with God; that He is a guide and comforter in all the vicissitudes of life; that in all the small con- THE LETTERED AND LEARNED 191 cerns of our lives even, he takes a sympathetic in- terest, and in great trial and sorrow He is a very- present friend — He is the conscious link between earth and heaven. "This conception and this consciousness worked the emancipation in my religious experience. It was a dead religion without it." CHAPTER VI THE TURBULENT BAR On the minister at the university church is laid the responsibility of becoming the pilot aboard, while the soul craft crosses the turbulent bar from the sheltered bay of youth into the open sea of the world. The many years of traffic over this diffi- cult bar has taught the pilot to dread getting aboard the soul craft that has been built too nar- row in the home shop. The craft that is too nar- row and inflexible breaks in the difficult passage. Those who, anxious for that craft they have formed out of their own lives, stand at the door- way of the home shop looking, are filled with bit- terness when they see that the soul craft is broken. They are inclined to blame the pilot and the tides of the thinking world; they are not able to perceive that they built the craft too narrow for the passage of these difficult waters. Two types of the narrow craft are specially dreaded by the pilot; one is characterized by forced con- formity to the authority of the church and the home ; the other, by rigid condemnation or equally rigid approval of social amusements. When the pilot gets aboard the narrow craft, he immedi- ately looks to the interior structure. If rigid conformity has been attained by rigid parental 192 THE TURBULENT BAR 193- authority, the pilot knows that the craft is a shell. There is no possibility of an adaptation to the many new factors ; there is no practice in that most difficult art of riding the currents of liberty under the steering master of self-control. Blinded by the exhilaration of speedy going on the currents of liberty, the narrow craft hits the rock of self-indulgence and goes to pieces. But if some volitions have been exercised by the soul captain, if some responsibility for conduct has been assumed, then the craft, however narrow, is built with braces. It will not come through the passage of the bar without injury, but there is a chance that it may be put into the open sea of the world ocean morally afloat. To those who are building the soul craft in the home shops the pilot would like to send the counsel : put the little craft that you have built upon the placid waters of your home cove; let it learn by experience to know good and evil, and by practice the difficult art of self-control. Do not expect that the soul craft shall come out from the shop of parental control, and, without any experience in riding upon the open water, it shall be able to make in safety the passage of the turbulent bar. After the summer siesta, the moment of awak- ening has come to the university city. The streets are alive with trunk trucks and the sidewalks are alive with fond parents, so numerous and impor- tant as to put into insignificance those precious 194* THE PILOT FLAME freshmen they are convoying. Misty-eyed mothers hold their tall boys by the hand for the last time; they know that when next they see them, such liberties will not be permitted, for the boy will have put on manhood. In common with all the other caretakers of the university, the soul pilot is on duty waiting for the specific calls to get aboard the craft en- trusted to his care. The parsonage door-bell rings. I greet a country preacher, vigorous, tyrannical, bellicose. Behind him stands his boy, dragged by parental authority to be put into the custody of another preacher. The boy's manner proclaims the habit of the weary necessity of sub- mission, but in his eyes are already lighted the red lamps of rebellion. "Here's my boy, Earl," says the preacher; "I came to turn him over to you. I have made him go to church, and I have made him take part in prayer-meeting. He has stayed in nights, and he has never been to dances, nor to moving pic- ture shows. Now you look after him." He transferred to me his parental authority. He was not a man who could be informed by any facts. It was useless to tell him that four hun- dred of the students were apportioned to my flock, and that there were in addition about a thousand church members. He could not understand a preacher who was an influence but who did not at- tempt to exercise authority. In his congregation whoever was absent on Sunday, made explanation THE TURBULENT BAR 195 on Monday for that absence. The preacher who was dealing with such large numbers that he did not know who was absent from his congregation, was beyond the rim of his comprehension. He thought it was my business to see that his boy regularly attended the means of grace. He transferred the boy's membership to my church, and departed secure in his transfer of author- ity. Haunted by the impression of coming disaster, and by the burden of authority which had been transferred to me, I put more than any rightful share of time on that boy. At a "function," I sought him out and sat down beside him. Pa- rental control was already shattered. The boy's soul was already in the far country. Nor was it a case of youthful rioting at the first exhilaration of liberty. That kind sometimes takes thought and returns. Earl's soul was already blood- poisoned with superficial cynicism. He thought he would shock me. He said, "I went to a dance the other night. A lot of your girls were there. I can't dance yet, so I looked on. I concluded that the girls who were too good to dance were the ones who were not asked. Pretty girls are not troubled with scruples, are they?" Then he laughed, feeling so clever and stimula- ted with wickedness because he had shocked an- other preacher like his father. Earl had no sub- stance to be squandered in riotous living, so he 196 THE PILOT FLAME squandered his inheritance of piety in riotous thinking, and bitter reactions. By his junior year, he found some opportunity to put his riotous thinking into conduct. The careful "stroking" of fellow students who were "swift" finally gained him membership in a fra- ternity that was the rotten spot in university life. He was business manager and chief promoter of every possible form of student degradation. Poverty standing somewhat in the way of his own indulgence, he evidently enjoyed being an on- looker at the wild smashing of controls of home ideals, of moral purity and of righteous conduct. Religion to him became a sneer. His senior year divested him of every trace of his country preacher father, except that there was still mental ability enough and habit of work enough to enable him to graduate. His face was disease marked, and his body was flabby and slouchy, from much lounging on couches. His father came to see him graduate. He did not perceive his boy at all. I suppose the boy had decent hypocrisy enough to cover his conduct, and to exhibit the fraternity house on good be- havior. With childlike gratification the father said, "Earl is smart. He got into a good fra- ternity, where the boys had money. He got a lit- tle off on philosophy, so that he don't believe in churches any more. But he'll come out all right. I raised him well." It is the regular "stunt" for fellows who are philandering with the young THE TURBULENT BAR 197 hussy vice, to persuade "dad" that they have been beguiled by the stately lady philosophy. When my brother preacher councils with par- ents who have a boy to educate, he will tell them of the unearthly blandishments of lady philoso- phy, and how she got his boy. My brother will never know that he built the craft of his son on the hard narrow lines of parental authority, and that he failed to put in any braces of the habit of freely choosing the good, the wholesome and the enduring; that he set the craft adrift at a place where the waters of living meet and churn in their fury; that what happened is what can be expected when such a craft attempts the difficult passage-way over the turbulent bar ; — it went to pieces on the rock of self-indulgence. The pearly nautilus did not always make his shell so smooth and excellently braced that it was strong enough to withstand old ocean's mightiest heave. If you will get a skillful fossil friend to conduct you back through the dim ages when stories were written in the rocks, he can show you a first variation when a nautilus thrust out a lit- tle bay window on his shell, and thus got more surface, and an advantage over the fellows with plain shells. Then you can see where bay win- dows on the nautilus shell increased in size, and became fluted, and ever more intricately turned and fluted, until finally the bay windows covered the whole shell. Then there is a gap; there are no more fossils of nautilus shells. We return 198 THE PILOT FLAME again to the smooth strong modern shell which was the original type. What happened in the gap? The fossil friend will tell you that the nautilus shell had become too delicate and too intricate ; the bay windows which at first pro- vided an advantage had, by their too great devel- opment, become a weakness ; the bay-windowed nautilus was not strong enough to withstand the ocean's heave and it perished. When Ralph's mother sang the gospel hymns, her face took on that radiance which is the re- flection of the great white throne, and her eyes were those lighted lamps in the windows of heaven which guide home the pilgrims of the night. Ralph's father completed each year the reading of the New Testament in Greek; with the same fidelity with which he selected the text of his Sunday morning sermon, he also selected the clas- sical allusion. An ideal of poured out service, accepted in his youth, still kept glowing his de- votion to the boisterous church which struggles with the vulgar and the vigorous. Ralph was nurtured in that aristocratic poverty which does without the abundance and provides a few of the best luxuries. His appreciation of culture was a vigorous appetite, because it had never been sur- feited, but always stimulated by the splendid as- piration and meager attainments of his home. The mother's tender, vibrant voice, became in her boy a lyric tenor, not of commanding enough THE TURBULENT BAR 199 quality to set him apart, but of that delightful caroling buoyant quality, that makes a room full of stodgy folks feel "How good is life, the mere living." And his eyes instead of being the lighted lamps in the window of heaven, were the twinkling lights that overflow from the house of mirth. Ralph sang in the choir, and was himself a glow- ing luxury in a plain church. In default of stained glass windows, a weary congregation could look at him. The damp black curls lay about the arches of his white brows, and his mobile face would let any passing mood shine through. Devotional music of a classic quality he could wrap about him like a mantle of glory. During all the years of his university life, he sang faith- fully for the plain people of the church of his par- ent's devotion, but we knew during the last year that he was alien. His eyes looked down with critical amusement upon the plain necessities of a plain church. A collection hitched to an emo- tional appeal was to him a vulgar child's play; a testimony meeting in which some ancient brother in a sing-song whine told of something that hap- pened to him years ago, was to him an offensive display of dotage. Mingling with his parents in the festivities of Ralph's graduation, I perceived that he was a man-child in whom a mother should exult. His place as officer among the cadets, made him be- comingly exhibited. He belonged to the Artil- lery, and wore blue clothing with touches of red, 200 THE PILOT FLAME covering his tall and shapely frame. His man- ners were so naturally excellent that he seemed leisurely taking part in a gay festival. He was too full of the goodness of living to have taken any dull scholastic honors. Already he had ob- tained a position which would put him into the executive office of a great corporation. Now when the festivities of graduation were finished, and for Ralph, the period of dependence on his parents had closed, and he had consciously come to manhood, he came around to see me in my study. He said, "I want you to give me my church letter, and to dismiss me in all good fel- lowship. Then I want to tell you that I expect to identify myself with a more cloistered church, for my life associations and affiliations. I do not want you to feel that I go in bitterness or as a wandering sheep; I have fallen out of har- monious respect for the church of my father. It is like eating in a cheap restaurant ; my appetite fails. I would rather have much less food, with a better service. I have realized that you main- tain here at the university a church that is cul- tured above any I can expect to find in our de- nomination. If I am to find in a church pleasant associations, somewhat of uplift and of inspira- tion, I must associate myself with a church that maintains certain dignities and reserves. "Take this question of amusements. With clean conscience I can say, I never experienced THE TURBULENT BAR 201 any evils at any of the dances I have attended. On the other hand, I have heard much more of vulgar suggestion and insinuation from the preachers of our denomination, than were ever generated by a dance. As I have been an on- looker while such things were being said, I have concluded that some preachers speak so often and so vehemently on this subject, in order to stir up the vulgar emotions which are so much more readily reached than the high emotions. One of these sermons lets loose in a crowd more nastiness than the average dance." Ralph smiled at me in that knowing way that means you are no longer talking with a child, and continued: "Doesn't the fact that I can say these things to you and you can understand, show that you are not typically of our denomination? Have I not watched you many a time covering and draping raw vulgarities, until by your sleight of hand you have made us forget that they are still practiced?" Then I knew indeed that the boy had come to man's estate. I tried the last reach; I showed him the glory of service. I took him behind the scenes. I showed him that while before the peo- ple we might appear to be an institution of self- satisfaction and vainglory, as a matter of fact we had come nearly to a standstill due to the pull in opposing directions of our two great necessi- ties. On the one hand, we must still be the re- 202 THE PILOT FLAME ceiving station for the poor and the vulgar and the ignorant ; on the other hand, we have now a whole generation, like unto himself, who have been refined by Christian culture, until they do not en- joy the hurly-burly of the receiving station. "Ralph," said I, "we are keeping the preachers disgracefully poor, we are stretching every en- ergy, we are hanging on the running boards of the automobiles of the rich, in order that we may provide stone cathedrals for our sons who do not love us in our poverty. Do we love stone cathe- drals? No, we do not. Are they a good place to germinate the life of the soul? Does a man get his soul converted in a stone cathedral? No, a stone cathedral with the rituals and reserves that go with it, is a cold storage plant, where we try to preserve the fruits of spiritual agriculture. For the germination of life, we need sheds nearer the soil; we need tents and tabernacles, we need the patient, exaggerated appeal, the over-emo- tionalized singing. "I serve in the university church because the cap and gown of culture unfit me for the toil which I thoroughly respect in the germinating sheds. When I was as old as you, Ralph, I, like your father, had felt the glory of the call to poured out service. I tried to become a personal worker at the North End Mission. One night I was kneeling beside a drunkard at the altar. With the best of my sympathy, I was trying to go with him and hold his hand. It must be confessed, THE TURBULENT BAR however, that the smell of him was nauseating to me. Suddenly he lifted his head from the altar rail and looked me over. Maybe the five generations of Puritan ancestors showed; maybe he perceived that gross sin was as abhorrent to me as filth in the gutter. That sinner did not like me. He said, 'Young fellow, what do you know about it? You git out of here. You go back where you belong.' It was I who fled away convicted. The pain of having poured myself out in service and of having been rejected, was sharper than the bite of the East wind that swept in from the frozen sea that night. I walked through all the slums, and half hoped that some- one would sandbag me. I bade farewell to the slums, and to the ideal of uttermost service. If I cannot be a captain who goes down into the great waters of the sinning soul, I can be the pilot over the 'turbulent bar.' " Ralph was moved at the beauty of service, but he said that he could feel in his own conscious- ness no call to undertake it. With that charm- ing mirth twinkling in his eyes, he said, "I think my father has done service enough for two gen- erations. I had better do a little personal liv- ing." Out of that graciousness which kept Ralph from doing anything abrupt or ugly, he left his church letter with me for a time and we corres- ponded. After six months, he found his wife in a cultured and wealthy family, and life called to him to come and be happy. He joined a stone 204 THE PILOT FLAME cathedral, and was married to ease and culture, to which estate he was fitted. On the turbulent bar, we lose the craft that is too narrow; or that is too elaborately fluted. These are the exceptional craft; the many are piloted safely through and started upon the open voyage. If the university church can keep flowing over the turbulent bar a high tide of genuine spiritual life, it can catch more wandering vessels than it loses on this difficult crossing. The following ex- perience was written by a clear-brained student, giving, in perfectly frank reality, the feeling of finding himself caught in such a current. "I did not grow up in a Christian family, nor was I ever under Christian influences before coming to the university. I had attended Sunday School but rarely, for I lived eight miles from a church. During some years, I did not attend even once. As I grew up I gave no thought to religious matters, and grew more skeptical, contemptuous and antagonistic. I attended church occasionally from a desire to accompany some- one or to see someone there. "About a year ago I was attending more regularly for the reasons mentioned. During the special serv- ices, a sermon was preached against swearing. It struck me rather forcibly, as I was a very profane fellow. The sermon started me to thinking. The following morning I began a fight to give up the habit of swearing. A week or so later, I became con- THE TURBULENT BAR 205 vinced that if there was really anything in Chris- tianity which was better than worldliness, I wanted my share in it. I accepted a call to make a stand for a better life, without any particularly vivid ex- perience of a call from God. I had a firm determi- nation to give Christianity a thorough trial. I joined the church with a feeling of joy and satisfaction, feeling that a great transaction had taken place. "There then came upon me a series of battles last- ing several months. The ballroom, smoking and other worldliness, kept calling me back to my old careless and irresponsible life. I learned how to pray ear- nestly. This, with the consciousness that I had taken a firm stand, kept me till I really knew that my sins were forgiven and the desire for them removed. My Christian life then became more of a reality to me. "I had at first intended to quit dancing just until I joined a church which did not disapprove of it, but I found that I was having constant struggles on this point. New obligations of service and new kinds of duties were constantly appealing to me, and I had a troublesome time over each new one. My significant experiences, through this first year of my Christian life, have been my triumphs over weaknesses, through the power of Jesus Christ. My most real sense of God's presence comes in time of trouble and indecis- ion when I resort to quiet prayer. There is then received a sense of joy and peace which comes in no other way. When called upon for prayer in the meet- ings, it does not mean so much to me. I am, however, willing to undertake it as a form of service, for I feel that in time it is going to have more reality." Some there are who have no rebellions and con- 206 THE PILOT FLAME sequently no struggles. They are the sons to whom the Father says, "Thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine." They frequently feel wistful when they witness the keen joy of the returning prodigal. Because they have been al- ways eating at the Father's table where there is fatted calf and to spare, they do not realize the great joy of the satisfaction of a gnawing hunger that has lasted long. Nevertheless, these are the sons to whom belongeth the inheritance and the solid satisfaction of the Father. Of such, is the following. "I was brought up in a Christian home, and have always enjoyed the services of church and Sunday School. I do not remember having a definite reli- gious experience, until at the age of thirteen, during meetings conducted by Mr. Moody, I made my first public confession of Christ. "I have experienced a sense of God's presence es- pecially when studying the Bible with others, and at the time of a special sacrifice. There comes to my mind a time when, with others of our young people's society, I engaged in mission work which took me away from the meetings at our home church, which I greatly enjoyed. Some of the greatest realities of my religious life grew out of that sacrifice, and the effort to speak to the people in the little church about Jesus. "One other noteworthy memory stands out dis- tinctly. After I had been for some time engaged in church work, I had become much dissatisfied with my own religious experience, questioning if I had ever THE TURBULENT BAR 207 had any thing that counted. In a special meeting, Rev. Mr. Taylor from Sydney, Australia, told us of the remarkable work that had been done in connection with his church, in which hundreds had been con- verted. In the course of his address, he quoted three verses that exactly suited my need. 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' 'Now, being made free from sin, and become servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and in the end everlasting life.' 'Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before his throne with exceeding joy . . .' I was able from that time to trust God as I had not be- fore, and for a period of about three weeks, it seemed to me that I was consciously led by Him. That period of uninterrupted peace terminated with dis- obedience in what seemed a trivial matter, and I have never since been able to entirely recover the abid- ing consciousness." THE GOODNESS OF GOOD GIRLS. Out of respect for the glimpse which is to be given into the virgin heart of good women, let any who read the following experiences kindly put off the shoes and remember to come reverently and tenderly, for now they tread on holy ground. The four ex- periences now to be quoted were all written by young women when they were about twenty years of age; they were vigorous students and gra- cious and attractive women. They may be de- scribed as flowers of the co-educational method of education. 208 THE PILOT FLAME In one of the great western high schools there is a thoroughly good teacher, who puts behind her teaching the moral force of a thoroughly good woman. Her madonna like face awakes in giddy girls the perception of the deeps of the meaning of womanhood; boys growing the strong wing feathers for flight into the world, grow also perceptions and ideals of goodness, which are the guardian angels that hold them back from many a miry pit. More lasting than the bonds of good scholarship are the bonds of good char- acter which she puts upon all her students. "From childhood, I felt a desire to be good and to love God. I can remember, when not more than six years old, worrying because I thought I didn't love God. When I was about eleven, my father was con- verted and I joined the church with him. As yet I had perceived no change of any sort in my own life or heart. But about a year later, I attended Sunday afternoon meetings for children, conducted as regular little prayer or class meetings. Our leaders, Mr. and Mrs. Ames, explained to us that everyone needed to repent of wrong things they had done, and they asked how many of us would like to become Chris- tians. Several of us stayed to an after-meeting and prayed about it. I arose feeling that God had for- given me. It was a clear knowledge, but I do not know how I felt. I went home and told my parents about it, and immediately I began to read the Bible, a portion every day. Had it not been for the fellow- ship which I had in my mother, I am afraid I should THE TURBULENT BAR 209 have become abnormally conscientious. My mother used to pray with me about troublesome things, and in others she showed me that I was inclined to go too far. "My only period of doubt was a little while in high school, when the implications of evolution first came up. I knew my people would oppose any such doctrines as sinful, and I said little of my question- ings. I decided that if any such thinking was going to destroy my peace, I wouldn't believe it. By thus simply refusing to face the question, I gained time to develop mentally, and to see the folly of suppos- ing that truth in nature and in the Bible could con- flict. "My most genuine sense of God's presence comes from private study of the Bible. It has always been my source of inspiration. During the last two years, I feel that I have begun to do real thinking. The stirring life of the Christian Endeavor and of the Christian Association has obliged me to build many bridges between books and real life. I feel that my bridges are becoming ever stronger, and better able to bear the traffic of living." The Sweetest Girl in the Congregation. This is what the Man in Zoology called her, that night he came in the storm to eat apples and talk by my study fire. You met him among the "Let- tered and the Learned." Now this is a little win- dow opened into the heart of the girl, a few months before his coming. She is now making a faculty home. She does not groan about the scantness of the professor's salary, but she re- 210 THE PILOT FLAME joices in every benefit provided by the university, and thus makes all good gifts her own. "I greW up in a Christian family, church and Sun- day School, and always tried to be a Christian. Not much joy was associated with joining the church, be- cause it followed as the result of learning the cate- chism. I felt as if a greater responsibility rested down upon me, because I must strive harder to be good. "I can remember very clearly the first time I felt that I must have more help in being good. It was at a revival meeting for our Sunday School children. I loved those meetings, and always wanted them to come again. As we children knelt around the altar, I felt that warmth in my heart which I knew to be love for God. From that time continuously, I have realized that it was truly good to be a child of God, and I had more enthusiasm in trying to be a good girl. "From that time on my life was about the same, until I came to the university. It is here that I have found the beauty and inspiration of my religion. God has been revealed to me in a wonderful way, and I will never cease to thank Him for it. I have watched Christian people as I never did before, and I have realized that it was a high calling and a blessed privi- lege to be among them. If I had not been allowed to come to the university, I think my Christianity would have faded with my childhood. The church and the Christian Association have been a home place of rest to me. When I go to the meetings, tired and blue, I am nearly always refreshed and comforted. Since THE TURBULENT BAR 211 I have been here I have realized also the opportunities for service like wide open doors which stand before the Christian. "Then, too, God has shown himself so clearly in our family affairs that I know how to trust him bet- ter/' Poverty was struggled with in this case. "I feel God drawing nearest when singing, espe- cially the hymns of many old associations. I don't care for the new hymns. Also He is very genuine in testimony, especially when I am trying to help the little girls in my Sunday School class. God is good and I could not live without Him. My aim is to serve Him, to keep my life pure and helpful, to do my part and to leave the rest to Him. I have confidence that if I but fill my corner with work for His glory, he will arrange my future." Whether or not the emerging individuality of the child shall be held and harnessed by the family consciousness, depends upon whether the family consciousness is based on fellowship or whether it is based on authority. If the family is not able to relax its arbitrary authority after individu- ality has emerged, friction and rebellion may be expected. Then will follow a reaction from the standards of the family. This reaction may be from what is considered "orthodox" to what is considered "liberal;" or in case the family au- thority is "liberal," the reaction may almost as readily be to "orthodoxy." Much of the seething 212 THE PILOT FLAME unrest in the family life and in the religious life, may be traced to the growing habit of prolonging the period of family authority. With the neces- sity of prolonging the period of financial depend- ence in order that the children may receive the higher education, has grown the impression that the family conceptions as to what things are de- sirable and what things are hateful, should also be enforced upon the children. Disagreements arise which burst the bonds of family affection. Round about sixteen years of age, individuality has taken control of conduct. The only normal regu- lator of individuality is responsibility. If the attempt is made to substitute parental authority for responsibility, difficult frictions arise which generally are not healed in a life time. The two following experiences are used in illus- tration, because they were written by two girls, of the same age, of similar disposition, of equally vigorous mental endowment, from middle class homes. They sat side by side in the class-rooms, in the church and in the meetings of the young people. The necessity of "breaking" was the same, but it happened that in one home the stand- ard of enthusiasm was "orthodoxy" while in the other it was "liberality." The necessary sense of responsibility was attained by breaking the bonds of family authority. If with emerging in- dividuality, responsibility is not freely given, the necessity of its attainment is such, that it will be seized at the cost of family harmony. THE TURBULENT BAR 213 The soul-tossed girl of the first experience is like the tiny drop of water that reflects the uni- verse; she has toward things accepted as true, that attitude of heresy which is troubling the whole present generation. "As I think back into my childhood, there are very few experiences which I remember before there had come to me a definite sense of right and wrong, and I am sure that with the sense of right and wrong came a feeling of the reality of God, — God, a Father in heaven, just as real as my earthly father. I was responsible to this God for all my acts and he would see to it that these were rewarded or punished. God seemed like a kind of invisible giant man to me. "I learned to read early, and I remember when I was about seven years old, I read one of Miss Alcott's books in which a boy said he did not fear God, but loved Him. I had read about fearing God and keep- ing his commandments, so I asked my father what it meant to fear God. He said that it meant to respect and obey Him. I said that wasn't what I meant by fear, and that I, like the boy in the story, loved God but did not fear Him. That moment, — though to think of God as of love rather than as of fear is not regarded as a heterodox doctrine to-day, — that moment, an attitude of heresy toward the things ac- cepted as truth by my people, entered into my soul. That attitude has been with me most of the time since, like a wall built across the way of my full acceptance of the doctrines and ideals of my people. For the sake of feeling peace and harmony, I would be per- fectly willing to accept their doctrines, but I cannot 214 THE PILOT FLAME do it. I doubted small points at first, but didn't dare to think out very far from what I had been taught was the truth. By the time deeper doubts came, I was nominally a Christian and a member of the church. "Before joining the church, I had no deep religious experience. Growing up in a Christian home, attend- ing church and Sunday School regularly, taught to love Jesus as naturally and as early as I learned to love my relatives, at first I felt little difference between myself and other members. I supposed we were all Christians because we were members. Later, through preaching of pastors, and talks of Sunday School teachers, I came to feel that there was a dif- ference. The difference seemed less a question of wrongness or of rightness in the lives of the two classes of individuals, than that Christians were people who had 'gone forward' in a revival meeting. I have always felt alienated and unhappy when pres- ent upon such occasions. The only altar service that ever appealed to me as being beautiful and akin to my spirit, was two years ago at Trinity Church, when on Easter evening we knelt among the lilies. I never before wanted to 'go forward.' One night, how- ever, I did stand up under an intense emotional stress, caused by listening to a hell-fire revival sermon. I think after that I did work a little more diligently at my religion. I liked the communion service. At this time I would try to square up accounts between my- self and my God. On many occasions I chafed under what I considered the arbitrary and narrow minded rules of the church. "The next fall after joining the church, I entered the high school. My attitude of rebellion was nour- THE TURBULENT BAR 215 ished, for I began the study of the sciences under Unitarian influence. I began to doubt many things in the Bible, but I could not express my doubts at home because of my father's rigid old-fashioned or- thodoxy. This made me doubt all the more. "After high school; I became a teacher. I joined the Christian Endeavor for the influence I might have upon my pupils ; and because the pledge promised prayer and Bible reading daily, I read my Bible and tried to pray each day. From this time, there came a change in my life and in my attitude toward many things. Gradually there came a clearer, more positive religious life; at the same time, there came deeper, more intense periods of intellectual doubt. "At times since, I have been so fully filled with a feeling of spiritual insight and richness, that the whole world seemed transformed to me. Perhaps a few weeks later, I would be plunged into the depths of despondency and doubt. I have not of late years had a perfect, lasting faith in a real personal God. "I have no one habit through which God becomes most real to me. Prayer is not generally a genuine transaction to me. Testimony is more helpful to me than is prayer. Sometimes God comes through ser- mons to me, and sometimes through songs. I have done many things from the sense of duty, that might be called service. While such service gives me the feeling of satisfaction, I do not get out of it the exhilaration of joy. "These are all my doubts and difficulties; in all honesty I mention them. They are beginning to drop away from me like the fog that belongs to the morn- ing, but is gone in the clear shining of the noonday 216 THE PILOT FLAME sun. More constantly there grows before me the hope of making my life lovely. More constantly I am in the attitude of reverence before the conception of making myself a true bearer of the lovely spirit of Christ. I feel myself like an artist striving to be worthy to paint a great picture. The ministrations of Trinity Church have led me out of the harsh re- gion of doubts, and have laid upon me the necessity of striving for spiritual loveliness. I am beginning to idealize the family, so that my father's orthodoxy is becoming interesting to me like a family heirloom." The following* letter was written from the home environment during the long vacation. It is selected from the collection of experiences be- cause in it is a break with "liberality." Such is the necessity of an emerging personality to accept as authority its own experiences, that it is often necessary to break with any family ideal that has been vigorously enforced. "I have had the intention for some time of respond- ing to your call for a frank account of my religious experience. I owe so much to Trinity Church that I cannot disregard any such request; God has been doing things for me. "When I first came into the church, I had ac- quired from my mother many prejudices against the 'superstitions' and 'restrictions' of the Methodists. I determined not to let 'narrow-minded' people in- fluence me, and not to let my religion interfere with my pleasures. I have been trained to detest narrow- mindedness. Dr. Jordan has been held up to me as THE TURBULENT BAR 217 indeed David All-Star Jordan, a hero of my mother's, and consequently of mine. I have always wanted to be wide and noble-minded like him. I knew he didn't believe as Christians do, but I thought he would probably occupy a higher seat in heaven than many narrow-minded Methodists whom I knew. I could see no harm in dancing, playing cards and theater-going. The old ladies to whom * worldly pleasures ' were an abomination, aroused antagonisms in me, and I became bitterly rebellious. "About a month ago the subject at the Epworth League meeting was a Christian's pleasures. The talk was on hindrances to spirituality, and the refus- ing to be conformed to the will of God. My heart beat like a trip-hammer. As soon as the leader fin- ished speaking, something pushed me up on my feet, and then and there I confessed my sin, and I openly resolved to seek God's will in all things thereafter and not my own. At that moment I entered a new world. If it had been in Peter Cartwright's time, I would probably have shouted; it would have been a relief. As it was, I trembled like a leaf for about fifteen minutes. "When I told my mother, there happened just what I had expected and had dreaded. She thought I was going insane, and became bitter toward the church for thus leading me on. She suffered dreadfully. It seemed to her that a great gulf had opened up be- tween her and her daughter, for she knew that hence- forth all our views would be different. For two nights we argued the matter, mamma imploring me with tears not to 'shut myself up from all the pleas- ure in life.' She had nervous attacks. I feared at 218 THE PILOT FLAME times she would die, but I knew that if she had been dying, I could not have changed my decision. I felt numbed, and I lived in a sort of trance. After three days had passed, we decided to consult a Christian friend whom we both trusted. That good woman soothed mamma, and though she could not show her her mistake, she at least made her feel somewhat more reconciled. She put new strength into me, and en- couraged me to keep close to God. Since then, things have gradually been coming right through God's prov- idence. "Through this experience I have learned many truths that I knew not before. I have learned 'who- soever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple.' When I made my confession that night, I did not merely renounce danc- ing; I gave up the world, decided forever between God and mammon. "Day by day I have been learning more of the fullness of the Christian life. The Bible means much more to me. It is as if God's words had been intensified. There are such wonderful promises ! And there are such plain commandments ! I am burning to do His work. When I think of my own inability, I am appalled. Then, however, comes the thought that His strength is made perfect in my weakness. So when He calls, I am going. I have said, 'Here am I, Lord, send me.' I have been de- vouring what missionary literature I can get hold of. It takes vital hold on me. The 'evangelization of the world in this generation' rings like glory bells in my mind. With God's help and His guidance, every act of my life shall be performed with this mighty pur- pose in view. THE TURBULENT BAR £19 "It is my great wish to become a Volunteer, but I have been held back by the fear of breaking my moth- er's heart. I feel that God does not yet want me to say, 'I volunteer to go to the foreign fields'; but I do say, 'I volunteer to go where God wants me to go, wherever that may be.' If God ever reveals to me that it is His will that I go to the foreign field, with- out hesitation, I will go, knowing that he will remove all obstacles. If it is His will that I go, I could forsake houses and lands, brothers and sisters for the Kingdom of God's sake. "I feel that I can tell you about my experience at home because I know that you will not misjudge my mother. I feel that in His own good time God will reveal things to my mother also, and then we will have a deeper fellowship than ever before. I shall be glad when the time comes to return to the Uni- versity and to Trinity Church. I am thirsty for the springs of spiritual life which I found there." In these written testimonies of the young peo- ple, it will be noticed that the question of amuse- ments seems often to arise, and it will be won- dered if the church with which they were affiliated was campaigning against amusements. As a matter of fact the question was rarely mentioned in the church, and then the problem of right and wrong was always put upon the individual con- science. It is not altogether accidental that this question bulks so large in the testimonies of the young people. Regardless of the discussion of the inherent rightness or wrongness of dancing, THE PILOT FLAME the willingness to give up this pleasure furnishes a test of devotion. Something to be overcome, to be given up, to be denied, self to be sacrificed after a definite fashion, answers to a necessity of the religious experience. Jesus says, He who would be my disciple, let him take up his cross and fol- low Me. The taking up of the cross, the feel- ing of the weight upon the shoulders, would ap- pear to be the necessary preparation for the "follow Me." Especially in university life, the giving up of dancing is a cross ready prepared, standing by the wayside. The bearing of this cross provides a considerable weight upon the shoulders ; it provides a genuine preparation for entrance into the experience of "following Me." CHAPTER VII DARK TILL JESUS COMES The Sixth Chapter of John's gospel contains the account of two occasions when Jesus harshly and abruptly refused to serve the people. It is the explanation of how he lost his crowd. There- after the many went back and ceased to follow after Him. He had said to his disciples, let us go apart and rest a while, and they had set off for a picnic on the far side of the Lake. But just then Jesus was too popular, because of the wonderful cures of the sick. The crowds followed, press- ing around Him. They brought their diseases and wretchednesses, clamorous and boisterous. All day he healed them and taught them ; all day he poured out his power to fill up their weakness, for he saw them as sheep without a shepherd. Moved by His own compassion, Jesus poured out an intoxicating amount of power that day. The people were to Him the sheep of his pasture, and He took care of them as His own. Sheep always make the appeal of helplessness. One time in driving through the Coconino forest, the largest stretch of unbroken timber in our country, I observed the life of the creatures. All the birds knew how to find the berries, the haws 221 222 THE PILOT FLAME and the isolated water holes ; there are no springs or streams in the great forest, but when during the unbroken summer the little pools in the rocks dried up, the birds could come with unerring flight for fifty miles to the tanks. The cattle took care of themselves ; they found all the good pasturage within a day's journey of the watering troughs; they never wandered into the wilderness, nor lost their way. They might go five miles, but they knew when to turn back to water. They knew how to care for the weakness of their little ones. One mother cow would take care of a whole group of little calves while the mothers went back to drink. And the horses are just as wise, — they ran in little bands and came in to the water tanks at regular intervals of a day and a half. When the riding horses were hobbled out over night, to find them in the morning, you had to follow the line of the best pasturage. But the sheep must have the shepherd always with them. He makes his bed with them at night, and by day he stays always with his one flock. He must find them food ; he must find them a place to rest and make them lie down, and he must drive them to the water. If the sheep are left to themselves they do not find the rich grass ; they do not return to the place where they have found water and been satisfied; they wander away into the burned and rocky places, and bleating, lost, alone, they lie down and perish in the vast wilderness. Jesus saw much people as His sheep that were DARK TILL JESUS COMES 223 hungry. He caused them to sit down where there was much grass, just like the shepherd causes the sheep to rest when he has found a good place. And he fed them all, out of the bounty of his method of breaking a few barley loaves and fishes. When they had eaten and were boisterous, they would take Him by violence and make Him a king, to lead a forlorn revolt and set up some new tyrant to fleece the poor sheep. Such was their interpretation of His Kingdom. And Jesus withdrew Himself, far away into the mountains alone. The next day, they press into the Capernaum synagogue with the same purpose. The memory of free bread had strengthened their determina- tion. Jesus tells them that He will not provide any more free bread, but that he will give them eternal life. They demand to know what they shall do, and he tells them to believe on Him. The multitude is angry, feeling that they have been fooled by an impracticable fellow who talks about heavenly bread instead of using His new process to multiply barley loaves. Shuffling feet of the multitude press out. They follow no more after Him. Between these two harsh days when Jesus saw the people as His sheep, and the people saw Jesus as a bread king, occurs a tender interval, setting forth the manner in which Jesus comes, and the kind of work He does in the world. If the de- tails that belong to the night and to Galilee are 224 THE PILOT FLAME dropped out, and the essential facts of this com- ing of Jesus are written in italics, as is done in the following quotation, it will be readily seen that every phase of the religious experience toil- somely collected from the lives of the people, cor- responds in a marvelous manner with this coming of Jesus. "And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea; and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. And the sea arose by reason of the great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus, walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship; and they were afraid. But he said unto them, 'It is I; be not afraid.' Then they willingly received Him into the ship; and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went." By gathering up the italics, we get the uni- versal statement. It is dark when Jesus has not come. They were afraid. They see Jesus. They willingly receive Him. Immediately the ship is at the land whither they went. 1. It is dark when Jesus has not come. They were afraid. Some critics have thought that the disciples saw Jesus walking on the shore, which was nearer than they supposed, and some have thought that there was not sufficient need to justify a miracle. But the incident is like the DARK TILL JESUS COMES 225 Jesus which the heart knows. Peter and John and the rest were afraid out there on the Lake; the wind was against them; they had rowed far into the darkness and the night, and they had not made any shore. They were afraid. What need is greater than fear? I would rather be hungry than be afraid; I would rather have a sharp toothache than be afraid. I remember one time when I was a little boy, and had a brother and some sisters still smaller, father and mother went away one after- noon and left us. As it came on toward evening, there was a storm. The thunder was so near, it shook the house, and I thought the lightning struck a tree down in the pasture. Suddenly it was dark ; we crouched by the hearth ; as the fire got low, we were afraid to go out for more wood; we all huddled in the bed and put the cover over our heads, and clung to each other, scarcely dar- ing to breathe in the darkness and the cold. As we huddled there in the darkness, I heard Father say "whoa" to the horses. I can remember yet the flooding joy of relief. I jumped out of the bed, ran to the woodshed, brought the wood, blew upon the coals, and immediately there was light and warmth and happiness. I understand how Peter and John and the others felt out there on the Lake in the darkness and the wind. The storm had gathered high up in the mountains, where the wild mad power of differing streams of atmosphere had let itself 226 THE PILOT FLAME loose, and the naked force of the thunderbolts beat on the mountain crests. When the fury of these forces of difference was full, driving the unre- sisting rain before them, they rushed down the steep gorges, laying low the fields of Gennesa- reth, where the close standing stalks of wheat were bending with the weight of the ripening grain, and with unbound fury the storm falls upon the sea. Galilee, by day so blue and famil- iar, the place where the fishermen toil for their daily food, is whipped into a mass of churning waves. The wind and the rain marshaling their forces from opposing directions, make the place of peaceful industry their battlefield. It is all right, not much harm is done, so long as these forces contend among themselves. Out there in the turmoil and darkness is a boat, and in the boat are men. They are not foolish nor igno- rant men ; they know the sea ; it is the place of their daily labor. Because they know it and its treachery, they are afraid. Their oars beat the waves in impotent weariness; they are unable to contend with the forces let loose around them; they cannot reach the farther shore, nor can they return to the shore from whence they came. Oh, the many wide Galilean seas, the many dark nights, the many contrary winds that sweep down from the mountains of contending leader- ship through the gorges of custom, and fall upon the little boats that struggle ! Oh, the many men DARK TILL JESUS COMES 227 far out on the deeps of life, attempting to cross to the farther shore in the darkness of unfaith, overwhelmed by the unbound greed and ambition which has gathered fury in the ruling classes above ; beating against the contrary winds of weakness and overwork, hopes and aspirations unattained ! For it is now dark, and Jesus is not come! They have no hope that Jesus will come, for they have left him far away in the mountain of miracle and of prayer ; they saw Him as He van- ished in the glory of the sunset colors, and they came away and left Him, and it is now dark. How can he come? There is no other boat, and if he should find another boat, how could a single rower make his way out to them? If he should come, what good would it do? It would make the load in the boat heavier, and wind and darkness would still be there. So says the soul, out on the wide dark ways of custom and of circumstance. It is dark and I am afraid. Yet I expect no help. There is no other boat. How can He cross to me? I see no way in which the Man of Galilee can come across the two centuries and live again for me. He is gone. It is true, I can look back and see Him in those dim ages of miracle and prayer, wrapped in the sunset glory of myth and devotion, standing high amid the clouds of mediaeval faith, but the world has left Him there. He cannot come to me. He is but a single rower. I have been carried along THE PILOT FLAME by the strain, stretch, struggle, of all the ages. Hand-toil, brain-toil, battle-energy, have gone to fashion me, and these turmoils of all the ages have pushed me far out on the deep ways of life. How- is it possible that one frail pair of oars, worked by faith and joy and love, can beat against the contrary winds, when the oars pulled by the strong and many arms have failed? If Jesus should come, what difference would it make? I would still have to work and toil and suffer; the service of Him implies certain conventional obli- gations which would but further burden my al- ready difficult life. He would be one more in the boat, and the load would be heavier. No, it is no use. I expect when I am no longer able to toil, and the contrary winds blow yet more fiercely, I shall go down out here in the deeps of the sea. I can see no farther shore. I hardly believe there is any. It is dark, and Jesus does not come. In a few matters of their fundamental nature all men are alike, whether they be our best racial mixture products of economic plenty, of moral fiber and of spiritual aspiration, or whether they be gendered in the teeming low life of tropical Africa, or glimmer into existence in the static orient. One of the matters of fundamental na- ture is this: With all men it is dark and they are afraid, when Jesus is not yet come. This is the true summary of all the investigations of the religious nature. In order to establish this deep DARK TILL JESUS COMES 229 fundamental fact of the religious nature, we have but to consider the summary of many careful in- vestigations which have been made. There are the famous conclusions of Professor James, which have never been whittled down by further investigations, but have been built upon and substantiated until they have become the sure foundations of the comprehension of the religious nature. His conclusion of the whole matter is that man, the general species of him, has a feel- ing of incompleteness ; he has a sure conscious- ness that there is something wrong with him, that he is in the dark. This much when he is upon the fair seas of living. In time of stress, or sor- row or bereavement, this feeling amounts to an agony, a desolation, a fear. Every man's soul is the little boat far out in the turmoil of black waters. The calm unexaggerated conclusion which we can obtain from the extensive study of the interior consciousness of the men and women who are in the churches to-day, is as follows : When they are children, being reared in the sin- cere type of Christian home, they have a feeling of oughtness impelling them toward Jesus and the obligations of righteousness. When you light a candle, there is something in a moth that impels him to fly toward it. This instinct may be an in- herited intelligence, which manifests itself in a chemical reaction. The light affects the moth, so that it is obliged to fly toward it. The light of the gospel, burning in the Christian home, af- THE PILOT FLAME fects the soul of the child, until it is impelled to make some response to it. The childhood feeling of oughtness if not satisfied in a personal ratifica- tion, develops into a restless hunger, a longing, a desolation, a fear. It is true, it may be long stifled by the pressure of other interests. It may be covered over with cinders and lava of burned out desires, but far down below the restless heart still glows, at least through the third decade of life. This much we know, not by the imposition of established theologies, nor by the application of any theories of psychology, nor by causing the people to deceive themselves with set phrases. This much we know, by the careful study and comparison of a large volume of cases collected from honest and intelligent people of the modern mind. All of civilization, all of inherited excel- lence, all of education, cannot light the darkness and relieve the fears of us men, if Jesus is not yet come. To establish the fact upon a world-wide basis, that it is dark and men are afraid when Jesus has not yet come, we now have that report of Commission Four of the World Missionary Conference, upon "The Missionary Message" which is an investigation of Christianity in its conflict with all non- Christian religions. This marvelous report contains new facts which have not yet been thought into our practicing theolo- gies. The assimilation of these facts will help to provide that living theology which we must have, DARK TILL JESUS COMES 231 if we are to ferment a living faith. More than two hundred carefully written documents, pre- pared out of a whole life of keen contact with the religious consciousness of the peoples of all non- Christian countries, has gone to swell the voices of this testimony. When more than two hun- dred missionaries of all denominations unite to tell us something of the fundamental religious nature of man, we can receive their testimony as final established fact. When the ancient Roman Em- pire had conquered many peoples, there arose the necessity of a fundamental law by which to govern them. The codes of all the provinces were col- lected, and compared, and what they had in com- mon was established as the jus jurii, and the jus jurii is still the foundation of the common law. This "Missionary Message" is the jus jurii of Christian theology. From it we can gather the fundamental uniformities of the religious nature, and thus we can arrive at a common living theol- ogy- For purposes of testimony the religions of the non-Christian world fall into five classes, the ani- mistic, the Chinese, the Japanese, Islam and Hinduism. Each one of these religions is a liv- ing faith in proportion as it succeeds in unifying the interior life by relieving fear. The animistic religions yield most readily to the Gospel, because their scheme of relieving fear is so inadequate. Upon wide testimony it is es- tablished that the truth of the Gospel that makes THE PILOT FLAME most powerful appeal to the animistic peoples is the unity and omnipotence of God. "The analy- sis of the religious experience of converts given by Warneck and Moody, and corroborated by sat- isfactory evidence from China, India (hill tribes) and Central Africa, and in a remarkable way by recent independent testimony from Korea, makes the reason plain. To the animist the world is peopled by many unseen beings, who are envious of the living, and who, unless propitiated, strike them with disease and calamity. The whole life of the animist therefore lies under an incubus of terror. He may propitiate some, but he cannot propitiate all. . . . Hence the message of one Almighty God comes as good tidings of great joy. The climax of the Gospel is that this God of love has not only the power, but the will to protect His worshipers. The love becomes real, it becomes possible to realize it through Christ. The picture which the testimonies give of the re- lief and abounding gladness which this brings the animist is profoundly impressive. The spell of the reign of terror is broken, and the new life is a jubilee of liberty and joy. At first, there is little sense of sin. . . . The Battak convert retains the simplicity of his faith. He takes all his earthly troubles to his great Protector and Father, as well as his inner conflicts. He believes profoundly in prayer, and his faith is often strik- ingly verified. God proves Himself a reality within the world of nature and circumstances to DARK TILL JESUS COMES the appeal of childlike faith." (Missionary Mes- sage, p. 219.) The sustaining element of the Chinese religion is ancestor worship, which is a palliative but not a full deliverance from fear and interior con- fusion. "The nerve of ancestor worship lies in the conception that the ancestor still exists, and is dependent in the unseen world on the reverence of his descendants, and that in turn he can con- trol their destiny." "Its power of resistance to the Gospel is due to the way in which through the ages it has become inwoven into the very texture of Chinese society, so that for a man to become a Christian is well nigh to become an outlaw." "Still another factor in the religious situation is the existence of powerful sects which have left the ancient religions, out of discontent with their spiritual insufficiency. It is from these, in con- siderable measure, that Christians have been re- cruited." If we substitute for the family ancestors as the overshadowing benevolence, the feeling of patri- otism, we come to the strength of the Japanese re- ligion. To a remarkable degree the individual is bound by the family, and the family by the state. The converts to Christianity are mainly from men who under industrial pressure have migrated from their own district, and thus broken away from the feeling of control and relatedness. Being swaddled close in the bands of the family and the state, somewhat of the 234 THE PILOT FLAME desolation of darkness and loneliness is mitigated. All the reports of Islam show it to be a more vital faith, with greater resistance to Chris- tianity. The psychological study of Islam shows how closely it corresponds with Judiasm, and it may be best understood by remembering Paul's great discourse between the difference of being "under the law" and "under grace." Its hard legalism with its outward conformity to law, pro- duces spiritual pride in some, and in others that deep spiritual discontent with the exile from God. The reports show in Sufism and in the remark- able and imperfectly understood Bahai movement, which is spreading so widely in the nearer East, and in the practice of the Zigr in Egypt, that longing for a more vital union with God than can be won through the Law, has broken the iron bonds of Moslem orthodoxy. The testimonies upon Hinduism show a vast and developed consciousness of the unseen, which is yet formless and void because it lacks roots in the historical Christ, and because it is not firmly welded to betterment activities. Hinduism is a vast tapping of unseen power, it is the dis- covery of the natural gas of faith, but this great volume of power pours out into the atmosphere and is dissipated, useless and lost. Not till this faith shall be rooted in the historical Christ, and shall be capped and piped into the service of bet- terment works, shall it be of any avail in the lives of men. DARK TILL JESUS COMES 235 The comparative study of this marvelous col- lection of testimonies sets up in clear, strong per- manent outline not only the missionary message, but the gospel message. It is dark, when Jesus is not yet come. Men are afraid. The vast fabrics of the non-Christian religions are clumsy devices to supply a genuine need. They are like the tallow candle as a method of lighting; the slow turning clumsy water wheel as a method of raising water, the wheelbarrow as a transporta- tion system. Korea, probably more remarkably than any other country, has taken the great leap from tallow candles to electric lights ; from the waterwheel to mountain water, stored, filtered and piped into each dwelling, and from the wheel- barrow to the express train for transportation, and more remarkably than any other country, she has made the leap from animistic fear to safety in the arms of Jesus. The burning words of the naming apostle, Wil- lis R. Hotchkiss, of the Friends African Indus- trial Mission, summarize the darkness and the fear. "Go where you will, here in the homeland, or in the meanest jungle hut in Central Africa, you will find that men are conscious of God ; they are conscious also that there is something wrong within themselves, and that they must strive in some way to find a meeting place with God. This is the explanation of the myriad forms of religions in heathen lands, for every superstitious rite and ceremony of heathendom. Every idol 236 THE PILOT FLAME before which millions are bowing down in abject slavery of spirit, every horrid orgy that racks the world with pain and deluges it with blood, is but a testimony to the universal God-consciousness, the wail of the universal need. I have seen the African women dance hour after hour, day after day, until one after another fell in convulsions at my feet. Why? Simply the blind, deluded ef- fort of these denizens of the Dark Continent to satisfy that imperious need." We have this testimony from the mouths of many witnesses and observers, until we can best differentiate the species of man by calling him "the God-conscious animal." The soul darkness of many peoples has been given first mention because it is the essential dark- ness. "If the light that is within be darkness, how great is that darkness." How dark it is when Jesus is not yet come was realized by Isaiah when he said, "We wait for light, but behold ob- scurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes ; we stumble at noon- day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men." There is another kind of darkness that appeals to many with more insistence than soul darkness, and that is the darkness of circumstances. The souls of those who sit in darkness are numb and dumb; their wild strivings for expression are hard for us to interpret, but the appeal of the DARK TILL JESUS COMES 237 darkness of circumstances comes up from every un-Christed land. Perceiving the circumstance darkness of the lands where Jesus has not yet come, is now the education of the church. We are made to hear the wail of the widows in India, who in the days of childhood become a curse and a reproach, who, while their sisters adorn themselves with the gar- ments of good cheer, must sit by themselves and weep. We are made to hear the cry of the in- numerable women "Behind the Curtains," that the hard taskmasters of tradition and custom may let them out to see the big beautiful world before they pass from it. They hear the music and gayety of the banquet of life going on below, while they are shut in a dark and desolate little closet upstairs. The whole church is made to see the bones of famine children, sticking out through their skin, asking for mush first, and then for care and culture and Christ. The scum of the famines of fifteen or twenty years ago, the waif children given to the missions, have now become the torch bearers in their worlds. The appalling poverty and benumbing drudg- ery in which the bulk of the people in the orient must live makes a great darkness. It is worth all of missionary effort yet made in China to break the power of the dragon and enable China to warm herself with her own coal. The degree in which the gospel has penetrated in China may be measured by the degree in which the people have 238 THE PILOT FLAME their fears of the dragon so far relieved that they get out their own coal with which to warm them- selves. Through the six thousand years of China's benumbing torpor, the dragon of fear has kept under his claws the vast coal deposits, the widest and deepest veins in the world. If every time you meet a missionary from China, you will ask him to tell you an episode showing how the people value coal, which should be as abundant as in our coal regions, you will have a test by which to teach you the power of the old dragon of fear. The last two mission- aries I asked gave these episodes. One said, "I have seen an old woman, blind, sitting in the midst of a stubble field on a cold bleak winter day, trying to gather stubble sufficient to warm her brick bed and heat some water for her tea, while immediately under the field where she felt around for stubble were wide untouched veins of coal." Another missionary from the richest prov- ince of China said, "We always turn out the ashes without sifting, although coal is expensive, be- cause the old women come and patiently pick over the ashes, looking for bits of cinder that will burn. If they can get a few coals, they are so grateful it gives us access into their lives." When Jesus shall be at last seen, coming across the dark waters in China, then will the power of the dragon be broken and the people will be able to warm themselves with their own coal, and for many millions the darkness of exceeding poverty DARK TILL JESUS COMES 239 will be gone. Yet it is still dark on many a great Galilean Sea, and there be many little boats bat- tling with the contrary winds, for Jesus is not yet come to them. Nor do they expect Him. The disciples out in the little boat did not comprehend the possibili- ties of the divine. They had seen Jesus heal the sick all day, and feed the five thousand by break- ing five barley loaves and two small fishes, but they did not expect Him to come to them. Their situation is peculiarly difficult ; there is no way of getting into communication with Jesus ; he is far away in the mountains. To expect Jesus, though vaguely and uncer- tainly, is great gain. It was the hope of the Messiah that made a chosen people. In all out- ward matters of race and ability, the Hebrews were not different from the warring Semetic tribes that surrounded them ; indeed, in many as- pects they seem inferior. They had not the com- mercial ability or the seafaring skill of their nearest neighbors, the Phoenicians, they never assimilated the culture and formal refinement, nor the facility at government of the Egyptians ; nor did they attain the abundant life of wealth which the Babylonians drew from their grain fields like tawny seas and their irrigated orchards. They had but this one imperishable virtue, they expected the Messiah. At times the bulk of the people were drawn away after Baal, Mammon and Moloch; but always carried along 240 THE PILOT FLAME from mouth to mouth of the prophets, is the clearly expressed expectation of the Messiah, the clear faith that when the people reached their ex- tremity, there they would find their God. This expectation was great gain. While the proud city of the Phoenicians has become a place where the fishermen dry their nets, and we pray to be saved from that commercial pomp that shall make us one with Nineveh and Tyre; while Babylon is dust heaps, which we turn over if, perchance, from her venerable libraries and her well codi- fied laws, the outlines of her deified brick walls and the corners of her ziggerats, we may let loose some fresh rays of light on those insignificant little neighbors who expected the Messiah; while we know Egypt only from her graves and her mummies and the mutilated statuary which the ever encroaching sands have covered and pre- served, while time and dust and sand have been obliterating the places of wealth and pride and power, — the children of the promise, the little company of the God-seers, who saw the light and greeted it from afar, they have taught the world to praise and to pray; they have put into the mouths of that unnumbered congregation that as- sembles under every sun and sings in every tongue, the words of exultant gladness and grati- tude to Him who sent us the Messiah; they will yet gather the whole world together around the feet of God with their words of penitence for sins, sorrow for weakness, merging always into DARK TILL JESUS COMES 241 the confidence of faith and strength and power received. To be great enough to expect the Christ is to be of His fellowship and kind. There are a few rare souls among non-Christian peoples who have undoubtedly been of the fellowship of the Christ. In one of the ancient palaces of the Babylonian ruins were found terra cotta drain pipes, showing that the king's home had a water system. The glory of our age is not a water system for a pal- ace, but water systems for all the people. The glory of Jesus is His availability for the mass of simple toilers everywhere, who would never be able to come to any comprehension of God, if they did not first see Jesus. The great difficulty of bringing Jesus to alien lands, is that they don't expect Him. And when they don't expect Him, they don't want Him. That same rage which Paul encountered at Athens and Corinth, finds expression in a Boxer Rebellion. The sea arose by reason of the great wind that blew. They rowed five and twenty or thirty fur- longs. They rowed enough to get across the lake ; they put forth enough effort to have many times crossed the lake. On any shore where the waves break in endless procession and slide back purposeless into the deeps, the longing arises to connect the power here wasted to some useful ac- complishment. Just as the waves gather them- selves to their crest, break upon the shore and slide back into nothingness, so lives that are not 242 THE PILOT FLAME welded to an eternal purpose by the vision of Jesus, come to the crest of their growth, break in death and slide back into nothingness. The waste of life and effort that is not controlled by the vision of Jesus is the most tremendous squan- dering of the natural resources of the soul. Any other waste become trivial beside it. That night on Galilee, with the black water fall- ing into the boat, they see Jesus, walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship. It was a breathless sight. To see Jesus in any of his as- pects is an experience so great as to summarize it- self into a feeling. But He said unto them, "It is I; be not afraid." Then they willingly re- ceived Him into the ship. To truly perceive the personality of Jesus is. always among men followed by the willingness to receive Him into the ship. When they saw him upon the water, they thought Him a spirit, and he would have passed by, being judged by the disciples as one of the additional terrors of the night. Many times Jesus is let to pass by, be- cause upon Him is reflected from the mind which beholds Him the shadow of impressions alien and clammy, associated with graves and terrors. Je- sus is natural and friendly, like the sunshine and the flowers, like all the simple, joyous facts of friends and love and home and hope. He offers himself so simply. "It is I; be not afraid." When Jesus comes, it is like that everywhere. He does not find fault that he was not expected nor DARK TILL JESUS COMES 243 seen sooner; he does not say, "Clean out the boat so that it shall be a fit place for me, repent in sackcloth and ashes." He does not say anything about the clumsy use of oars, nor does he ex- plain how it happened that the contrary winds came down from the mountains. He just offers Himself, "It is I; be not afraid." The failure to willingly receive Jesus is because He is not truly seen. If between the appearance of Jesus and the consciousness of him who be- holds there rises the fog of the chill suspicion that he is an alien spirit, or if the boisterous waves make possible only a distorted glimpse of Him, then there will be refusal to receive Him into the boat. Again the evidence which established this fact may be taken from the "Missionary Message" with its more than two hundred testimonials as to what has been found the chief hindrances in the way of the full acceptance of Christianity. The Chinese see Jesus as not of their family, and the Japanese see Him as not of their race. He is to them an alien spirit, and for this reason they will not receive Him into their boat. Islam is the only religion which aggressively rejects Jesus, and we quote a paragraph to show that it is a distorted aspect of Jesus which causes the most vital non-Christian religion to refuse to re- ceive Him into their boat. (Missionary Message, p. 24*3.) "When we inquire into Mohammed's rejection of Christianity, we find that he never 244 THE PILOT FLAME had anything but the most perverted idea of what Christianity really was. The Christianity which he rejected was a very debased type, half poly- theistic in its theology, superstitious in its wor- ship, and with a sacred history encrusted with puerile legends. He had evidently never read the New Testament, and his conception of Jesus is largely derived from the Apocryphal Gospels. It is not therefore historically just to say that Mo- hammed rejected Christ. Suppose that to-day there were to arise a great religious genius among the peoples of the Congo, suppose that all that he knew of Jesus Christ was what he could learn from those representatives of His who condoned the policy of King Leopold, would it be just to say of the religion that he founded that it rejected Christianity? The Moslem rejection of Christi- anity rests upon that fatal misunderstanding of what Christianity is which is revealed in the Koran. It remains tragically true that had the Church of Syria been faithful to its Master the reproach of Islam had never been lain upon Chris- tendom. The thought has somber consequences. New religions may be maturing which in like man- ner will be 'anti-Christian' and stand in future centuries as a barrier in the way of winning the world." One summarizing sentence will be quoted from the conclusions as to Hinduism, showing how mani- fold and terrible evils have arisen out of a dis- torted view of God. "Our correspondents trace DARK TILL JESUS COMES 245 the manifold ills of Indian life, the immense out- growth of mendicant asceticism, the petrification of society in the caste system, the abuse of child- marriage, and the manifold hardships of widow- hood to the same deep root as that which is mani- fest in all the infamies of popular idolatry — the defective conception of God, the turning away of the human heart from its Father in mistrust and fear." A true sight of Jesus produces an arousement of all the powers and potentialities that are in the nature of a man. We know how in the days when the gospel was new, and the vision of Jesus was not entirely obscured by vast organization, it took only about three hundred years for the authority of the Gospel to come from the hearts of the Galilee fishermen to the throne of the Caesars ; we know how in the Reformation, when .Jesus had been shut away in the big, dead shell of the church, it became possible for Him to come through the Book into the hearts of men, and it set loose the love of liberty and inventive genius, until we claim the Reformation as the source of our industrial plenty and our political freedom. We have it on the word of a cool economist that if John Wesley had appeared in France instead of England, we would now be talking of the world dominance of the Frank instead of the Anglo- Saxon. Who shall limit the power or the wide flowing potentiality of the seeing of Jesus ! When John and Peter and the huddled and fear- 246 THE PILOT FLAME ful disciples in the bottom of the ship had will- ingly received Jesus, immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. When Jesus is re- ceived, the quality of eternal life begins. Unsus- pected powers are let loose. Oars which beat the waves in impotent discord, now come into the har- mony and control of the great personality. Every dip of effort counts, and immediately the farther shore of attainment comes into view. There is no need to discuss the nature of deity which enabled Jesus to become conscious in a man. There is no need to speculate about the na- ture of the body of Christ that enabled Him to walk on the water. These concepts are beyond us, as is timeless being, or beginning of being. It redounds to our great profit to tell of every instance in which Jesus comes to a man, and to % ... note with care and sympathetic faith what is ac- complished by his entrance. The details of the way in which Jesus comes to the soul of a man is that enduring romance of eternity, ever of the newest and most vital interest to us. To keep the vital freshness of the coming of Jesus, we must make it news. We can put into it what our eyes have seen and our hands handled of the Word of Life. We must tell about how Jesus is getting into the ship. While we cannot but envy those who are fresh from the mission fields and can bring the news of how the ferment of the Christ-presence works when it is put into the measures of fresh meal, DARK TILL JESUS COMES 247 we must yet report what we have seen and know does happen when Jesus gets into the ship. I have served in the home mission fields, and in such a fundamental matter as the getting of Jesus into the ship, there is not such a radical difference be- tween an Arizona cowboy and a University stu- dent. There was this difference: in Arizona the publicans and sinners, that is the barkeepers and the miners, would come out to hear the preacher. When they saw Jesus lifted up and were drawn unto Him, it would necessitate some radical changes in their living. These outward changes are such good evidence that Jesus has come into the ship, that they often induce others to seek Him. I well remember one man who was known by his ingenious profanity. Jesus entered into his ship. Immediately there came into view the shining white shores of purity. The filth of thought and the filth of language were purged away, and his lips dropped good cheer and the testimony that made others see Jesus. But I do not see that his case was radically different from that of a nice little girl church member who said to me not long ago, "My trouble is that I tell lies, small untruths about lots of things." When Jesus came into her ship, he needed to purge her lips just as truly, and He did. I have not been able to see that there was such a great difference between church members and those with- out in the matter of the coming of Jesus into the ship. It gave me the same kind of a thrill as 248 THE PILOT FLAME when a sinner is converted, when a beautiful old lady who had been a church worker all her life arose in prayer-meeting and said, "I was con- verted last Sunday. All my life I have had great terror of death, for I did not realize that Jesus was with me. I feel his presence and it is light and joy." It takes just as much of the power and reality of Jesus to rescue a student from the pessimism of too much knowing without doing, which is intellectual dry rot, and to bring him to the place of optimistic service and flowing activ- ity, as it does to raise a drunkard from the gut- ter, and put into his mouth the song of praise, and into his flesh an appetite for wholesome things. On one occasion when Jesus was seen by a number of people to come walking across the dark waters, he got into the ship of a man who had been a slave to drink for forty years, and the exceeding glory of his coming above the brightness of the noonday sun, burned up the old appetite. There was a student who had a bad habit which disappeared in the presence of Jesus ; there was a splendid young woman who had striven all her life to do her duty, but to whom Jesus had never been real. She found the glory and the arousements of his presence. There was a young man who felt a call to preach the Gospel, but who had long kept the impression of this call under the heel of his ambition. When Jesus came into his ship, he was willing to go where he was wanted to go. There was a woman whose heart was filled DARK TILL JESUS COMES 249 with bitterness because of the unworthiness of her husband. She found that the exceeding worthiness of the Christ could come in and satisfy her, and the black desolation of her night could become a dawn. There was one who had a scold- ing tongue and a quick temper, which were trans- muted into power and repose, because Jesus had come into her ship. I have a collection of the things which Jesus does for people when he comes into the ship. I have compared them until I am sure that it is not important to ask whether the lips drop profanity or lies or fault finding; that there is not such a wide chasm between drunkenness and bitterness ; that it is no matter whether you have been a church member and toiled in the vineyard of the Lord since early morning, or whether at the noon- tide of your life you are still without, waiting in the market place. The important question is, "Have you seen Jesus? Do you feel his presence? Are you conscious of the sustaining joy and as- surance of having Him with you? Or, is it dark with you, for Jesus has not yet come?" The coming of Jesus is real knowledge. I would not say that all who have Him with them can tell of the definite moment when he came into their ship, but I am sure that all who have Him with them are conscious of his companionship. Not many would be found to deny that the matter of a man falling in love with a woman is a real experience, but if you will make careful in- 250 THE PILOT FLAME quiry you will find that more can remember the incidents of how it was when they saw Jesus, than can remember the details of their courtship. I think that any husband or any wife can tell in their hearts whether the hearth fire of their affec- tion which they lighted together long ago is still blazing, or whether the coals are covered deep with the ashes of indifference. You do not need any elaborate tests. In your heart, you know. Have you seen Jesus recently? Is he now getting into your ship? Or, does the sea arise by reason of the contrary winds that blow? Is it now dark, and Jesus not yet come? CHAPTER VIII MADE-OVER GARMENTS Some fifteen years ago, Bishop Newman ap- pointed me a missionary to Arizona. He thought there was a church there that needed the energies of a young man. I felt that Methodism had the right to give me marching orders, and although it involved a long and expensive journey to the jumping off place of sand and sage-brush, I con- cluded that as good soldiers of the cross, my wife and I must arise and march. Our first pastorate of two years represented our married life, and there were no little ones with us at that time. It was necessary to dispose of our first housekeeping possessions, and to set forth into the wilderness. The hundred and fifty dollars in hand seemed ample funds for the journey; I thought it was fairly provident for a Methodist preacher to have so much. My mind was further at ease be- cause the Superintendent of the Mission had promised to have some funds at Los Angeles, to provide for traveling expenses. But after stay- ing a week in Los Angeles for the Conference, and visiting relatives and friends, we found on the morning that the long journey into the wilder- ness was to begin, that I had just five cents in my pocket, and the Superintendent told us that 251 252 THE PILOT FLAME the missionary money had not arrived. Bishop Newman was going on that train, and the Super- intendent. The tickets were purchased and the Pullman reservations taken. It seemed impossible for us to turn back and hunt up a friend from whom to borrow. In those days we were young enough to laugh at our predicament. The Lady, who has always been my good comrade in adven- tures, persuaded me to toss up the nickel to see which one of us should carry it. For the next ten days, we were passing that nickel back and forth, each trying to persuade the other to get a cool drink with it, as under the unbroken blaze of the sun we came to feel like dried sponges. Our only resource in addition to the nickel, was a large box filled with walnuts in the cream, that is, nuts taken off the trays before they are dried. There is somewhat the same difference between walnuts in the cream and dried walnuts which come into the market, as there is between fresh peaches and dried peaches. Those walnuts belong to the day, because Bishop Newman took a fancy to them. All the company cracked them by squeezing the big nuts together. The train thundered into the oven of the desert heated seven times hot. Bishop New- man lay against the linen cover of the seat, the sweat running off his iron gray curls, and drip- ping over the edges of his splendid oratorical jaw. With deliberation he picked out the wal- nuts, and talked. The thermometer mounted to MADE-OVER GARMENTS 253 a hundred and ten ; the alkali dust fine as powder penetrated the ventilators, until the length of the car was a dim distance. Bishop Newman talked on in a glorious elo- quence. I know now that he was Elijah turning back into the wilderness to die. After that journey into the wilderness, he tried to hold one more round of Conferences, and then the message came that Bishop Newman, the man of the richest personality of any we have produced in Metho- dism, had passed in behind the veil. Perhaps the furnace like glory of the desert was to the Bishop that day the chariots of the Lord and the horse- men thereof. We happened to be the Elisha that followed after, so he spilled over upon us the brim- ming cup of his spirit. He was traveling back over his own life, interpreting as from the farther shore the significance of his experiences. He told us of his journey around the world with President Grant, when they had been re- ceived in state by every king, emperor, czar, ruler and potentate in the world. "I saw every reg- nant power ; I was greeted by every reigning ruler in my generation ; I have stood upon every con- siderable body of land in the world; I have seen life and the glory thereof. "I look back with greatest satisfaction upon the hard scrabble years of my youth in the Metho- dist itineracy. At the close of the Civil War the church in the south was utterly disorganized. They sent me to New Orleans, to a weak church, 254 THE PILOT FLAME where my way was fenced about with fierce hatred and prejudice. The yellow fever broke out. I stayed and prayed with the living and buried the dead. After the fever had passed, my church flourished, and now there are three Conferences growing out of the reorganization of the church in the south. I am glad I was sent to New Or- leans, and I am glad I didn't run from the yellow fever. I have never since been afraid that I was a coward. "Of all the marvelous conversions I have wit- nessed, the most childlike and the most Christ-like was that of Chief Justice Chase, who joined me Metropolitan Church in Washington. We had together many talks ; he sharpened my under- standing of materialism and taught me evolution. I kept showing him Christ. That was all I could do. At last he was overcome by the beauty of love, and the authority of Jesus. One Sunday morning, after the communion was finished, I asked if there was no one else to come that morn- ing to the Lord's table. Chief Justice Chase arose, and walked down the aisle. It was a stately and impressive coming, as if he carried in his hand the glowing crown of a trained and mas- terly intellect to lay at Jesus' feet. He bowed himself in the utmost humility, with splendid sub- mission, hiding his face on the altar rail." The memories of that communion service in his Metropolitan church moved the Bishop, until the MADE-OVER GARMENTS 255 tears washed his eyes, and suddenly lifting up his lion-like head, he exclaimed: "Give me back me Metropolitan Church, and ye may take y'r Bishopric." Then he lay back in silence against the linen cover of the seat, and slowly picked out a walnut. That company of great memories was too sacred for the intrusion of any foolish remarks. While the silence lasted, it was told up and down the car that we were to be paid for the horror of the heat by seeing the awesome mystery of the desert, a perfect mirage. From the brake- man the information was obtained that such an one as we saw generally preceded a thunder storm. We moved to the other side of the car, and for some thirty minutes we compared observations on what we saw, trying to make ourselves under- stand that it was a shadow and not substance upon which we looked. Out there on the desert sand, about half a mile away, was a blue lake, or more probably an enclosed harbor. We could see placid waves roll in and break on the shingle. Standing around the shore were tall stately palm trees, the kind that are called "royal palms" in the Islands, — the kind your mind pictures when you say "fronded palms." There was a castle- looking building on the shore, which was not so distinct as the palms. The mirage fitted so nat- urally into the vivid blazing day, that it created no more comment than a rainbow. 256 THE PILOT FLAME As we returned to our seats opposite the Bishop, the Lady quoted, "We know not where His isles may lift their fronded palms in air, We only know we cannot drift beyond His love and care." I expect she was feeling lonely and scared, as each hour slid us deeper into the desert, with only a nickel between us. The Bishop took a few more nuts ; then with a new blaze in his eyes, he began with the Superin- tendent, and asked him suddenly: "Why do ye believe in immortality ?" The Superintendent was accustomed to talk appointments and church poli- tics with bishops ; to be suddenly called upon to deliver a reason for the faith that he preached was bewildering. He floundered a few moments; then he landed clear and strong on the statement that he believed in immortality because it had been believed and taught by the strongest and best men of the Christian centuries. The Super- intendent said he had grown up in the Methodist church; his father had died when he was a small child, and it had been his mother's hope and am- bition that he should be a minister. He believed in immortality, as he believed in the church; it was established by twenty centuries of believing and teaching. He thought that the people who did not believe in immortality were of the same MADE-OVER GARMENTS 257 kind as those who did not believe in marriage, or the home, or children, or plain hard work, or honesty, or any of the fundamental duties and moralities which are the foundation stones of all good living. For his part he did not believe in arguing about immortality, any more than he did about being loyal to his wife and devoted to his children. All this talk about evolution was but another phase of the world, the flesh and the devil, that age-old trinity of evil against which we op- pose the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For his part, he was determined to proclaim over the dead, the hope of immortality, and to teach all the peo- ple he could reach to live in the fear of the judg- ment; The Bishop beamed on the Superintendent, and said, "Well done, good and faithful servant." He respected him for his work's sake, and that year he made him Presiding Elder in a great home Conference, so that he went no more back to the mission. Then the Bishop turned to the Lady, with the same question, "Why do ye believe in immor- tality?" Because the Bishop's own soul beat against the bars of mortality, I think he was interested in what we would say. We knew not much of life, but the Lady and myself had come fresh from the most evolutionary University in the world. He wondered if we had managed to escape into the Methodist ministry with any fundamental faith, 258 THE PILOT FLAME or if we, like the Superintendent, launched forth into the desert on the authority of tradition. The Lady said: "My mind takes hold most firmly on the argument of incompleteness. All that a man is more than a brute has no justifica- tion, if there be no hereafter. To be fit and to be strong and to survive is the prime obliga- tion of life, if there be no hereafter. Patriotism, loyalty, sacrifice and service are ranked as fool- ish perfumery that tickles some erratic nerve, if there be no hereafter. As the wing of the bird is developed while the bird is yet in the egg, and is the true prophecy of the air which is the ele- ment to which it is adapted, so the mind and emo- tions of a man are the wing yet confined within the egg of this present life. They have no suf- ficient justification without a hereafter. The moral law, the obligation to serve and love and sacrifice, have no sanction of authority except in immortality." Returning again to his memories, the Bishop replied: "I knew Senator and Mrs. Stanford; I was their pastor when they dreamed the dreams of the great University. The Senator wanted to give back his wealth to the people of the west by teaching their boys and girls to keep close to life and to think for themselves. I am glad they taught you to think at Stanford's University, that 'wing of the bird in the shell' — it is the true likeness of the soul that flutters, and is not filled. The eye is not filled with seeing, neither the ear MADE-OVER GARMENTS 259 with hearing, nor yet is the appetite satisfied with food." The Bishop turned to me, and with vision splendors gathering and gleaming behind the dull- ness that was even then filming his eyes, he said to me with authority, as the Bishop not of my ap- pointment but of my soul, "Why do ye believe in immortality ?" At that time I was one who had been out on the red ridge of battle in the warfare between science and religion. In struggling to attain an honest intellectual basis upon which I might preach the gospel to the people, I had seen every traditional argument bursted as with a bomb- shell. I had been walking around the walls of Zion, and instead of marking the towers thereof, I had marked the breaches in the wall made by the bombshells of radical thought. I felt like everyone of those breaches was torn in my own soul; I had seen them and I could not deny their existence. Thus I responded: "Bishop, when I am on the walls of Zion fighting, I do not call attention to the breaches in the wall, but since you ask me as one of the generals of the campaign, I will point out the place, which you probably already know, where we must rally for our last stand. We have finally to retreat and make a stand on naked faith in Jesus Christ, and the word of his promise. We cannot even claim an analogy in the fact that he arose from the dead; for we do 260 THE PILOT FLAME not expect to arise just as he arose. His dead body was not found in the tomb ; the resurrection life surged through his mortal body. We do not expect any reassembling of the particles of dust which form our mortal house. Our faith greets the morning of the resurrection not upon the claim that just as He arose, our bodies shall be reani- mated, but we base our claim upon the promise, 'because I live, ye shall live also ;' 'where I am, there shall ye be also;' 'I go to prepare a place for you — if it were not so, I would have told you.' "We have accepted immortality as assurance, and forgotten that the constant expression of St. Paul is 'the hope of immortality' — 'by faith ye are saved' and that 'faith is the becoming substance of the things hoped for' and that faith is not sight, else it has no longer the virtues of faith. The hope of immortality is not easy to attain, nor yet to hold. The descent into the grave is yet accompanied by the terrors of un- certainty. The vision-hope of immortality is the gift of Jesus Christ; it becomes knowledge only to those who are pure in heart. "When we are driven to the last stand, Bishop, we have to admit that Paul's great analogy of the grain gives way. We put into the ground seed, it is true, and it provides for itself a new body. But the seed was not dead, inorganic. It had the new body folded away; growth in the world as we know it is only a matter of expan- MADE-OVER GARMENTS 261 sion. When we pass the body of the dead through the crematory, there remains only a handful of dust, that can fly before the wind along the waste. What is left after death is not chemi- cally different from the handful of the desert sand, that you see out there flying in the wake of our train. How inorganic shall put on organic, or how mortal shall clothe itself with immortality, we can no longer preach. We do not know. By faith alone in Christ, we claim the hope. Sepa- rated from Him, we fall into the abyss of hopeless nothingness. We are the dust that flies before the wind along the waste, whence and whither, we know not, willy-nilly blown." When I had finished, we fell on silence for a time. We looked out at the stretches of the desert, where the wind was tossing up meaning- less hillocks of sand and then wearing them down again; where the gaunt branches of the mosquite rattled their dry bean pods and cast a thin and uncertain shadow; where the weird cactus covered with thorns and dust lifted itself against the sky like a blasted finger of hope. The Bishop lay against the linen cover of the seat like one inanimate. As my eyes turned back from the desert way, I saw that a miracle had been wrought. It was as if a candle had lighted behind his features, and his eyes that had re- treated deep in their sockets, took on an expres- sion like opalescent color. When he had pro- ceeded a little way in his talking, I knew that he 262 THE PILOT FLAME did not see us any more, but that we were permit- ted to be present and hear wonderful things on a Mount of Transfiguration. "Why do I believe in immortality? To me the greatest gateway of the soul is that scene on Mount Tabor, which we call the transfiguration of our Lord. When I was in Palestine I found the place. High up on the northern slopes of Tabor, far away from the ruins of the ancient village, is a lovely glade enclosed with oaks and adorned with flowers. Shut in from the world, all nature breathes a sense of repose. The view of the sky, so far and so purple blue is unob- structed. One peaceful night, accompanied by three of the disciples who were drawn apart to rest a little, the Son of God had an interview with two visitors. These visitors talked with Him of the decease which he should accomplish at Jeru- salem. "The two visitors were Moses and Elijah. One had been absent from earth fifteen hundred years, the other nine hundred years. That they re- tained their names and their personal identity is beyond question. Though separated by vast dif- ferences of time, yet their recognition was com- plete. "Personal identity remains. Moses must al- ways be Moses, and Elijah must always be Elijah. We can never be other than ourselves, more than ourselves, less than ourselves. He that is right- eous will have to be more righteous still; he that MADE-OVER GARMENTS 263 is lovely, will have to be lovelier still, but he that is filthy will have to be filthy still. "Peter, James and John had never seen Elijah and Moses; no pictures were ever made of them in Jewry; in all the history of their lives no de- tails are given as to their physical appearance, yet Peter, James and John had no difficulty in recognizing Moses and Elijah. The strong flavor of their personality, clinging even to the bare written account of their work, was a suf- ficient means of identification. "Not only was the personality of Moses and Elijah intact, but they were still absorbed in the kind of work they had done when on earth. For forty years Moses gave himself to the uttermost to redeem his people from Egyptian slavery, and to make them a nation who recognized Jehovah as their King and Lord; Elijah toiled all his life to redeem his generation from the passion slavery of Baal worship, and to induce his people to claim Jehovah as King. Moses and Elijah talked with Jesus of the efficacy of sacrifice and service to redeem the people. Moses, Elijah, Jesus, the great redeemers and social saviors. After fif- teen hundred years, Moses was still demanding of the Pharaohs of dark oppression, 'Let my people go' and Elijah was still praying, 'Oh, God of my fathers, show unto the people that thou art God.' "We will keep our identity, we will keep our in- terests, we will keep our work. 264 THE PILOT FLAME "Moses and Elijah appeared in glory. Their appearance was not more remarkable than the great change in the appearance of our Lord, He who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Of his personal appearance Isaiah said, 'He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. His visage was marred more than other men, and His form more than the sons of men.' Now behold the contrast! The fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. His transfiguration body differed from his resurrection body. He came forth from the tomb bearing the marks of crucifixion in his hands and feet and side; his raiment was the familiar garb seen so often by the disciples. He stretched out his hands, saying 'It is I, myself.' But at the transfiguration his soul shone through his body, and his robe, travel-stained and dust-covered, becomes white and glistering, as if new from the wardrobe of the skies. This was the prefiguration of His ascension body, which in the moment of ascension from earth to heaven passed the glorious trans- formation, — the elimination of the earthy and the mortal, and the manifestation of that body which is the inner residence of the soul. The disap- pearance from sight was the shaking loose of the mortal and earthy. "For me, the old idea is reality. Within our exterior bodies there is an interior form, nearly MADE-OVER GARMENTS 265 related to the imponderable substances of the uni- verse — like electricity; like force, like magnetism. At birth it is formless, but it is changed and fashioned and formed by the life experiences; the hour of death is the release of this invisible in- terior body, which yet retains every imprint of life which has been upon it. As we have worn the image of the earthy, in personality, in aspiration, in work, we shall wear also the image of the heavenly. This is our hope ; it is also our terror, if we warn not men of the fearful reality and im- mortality of themselves. "The discovery of Heaven is as real as the dis- covery of the new continent of America. There was a time when people living on the shores of the Mediterranean fancied that sea was really the limit of the world. They were accustomed to stand by the columns of Hercules and see the waters flow thereon. Now and then came a shrub, sometimes a flower, occasionally a dead body. For centuries they said, 'There is nothing be- yond the Mediterranean, nothing outside.' They fancied that the two currents, one running out and the other running in, performed a revolution, or a circular current, and this was their explana- tion of what they saw. But at last a brave mar- iner pushed his boat through the columns of Her- cules and beheld the broad Atlantic, whose waters lave Albion's white cliffs and wash America's en- lightened shores. "So the materialists of our little day, standing THE PILOT FLAME by the Mediterranean of life, say there is nothing beyond; but anon some flower of paradise ap- pears, some branch from the tree of life, some Moses and Elijah pass these columns to astonish the people who live on the shores of this inland Mediterranean, with the truth that there is a vast Atlantic of life and immortality beyond. The materialists of Greece were accustomed to say that the music was in the harp, as the less poetical minds of our day say that the steam is in the tea-kettle. But Socrates replied that the music is in the harper. The harp strings may be susceptible to musical vibrations and the atmos- phere to musical sounds. The harp may be broken and the music cease, but the harper may receive a new harp, and sweep new strains there- from. The human body is a harp, but the harper is within. You may destroy this human body, but the harper shall have a new instrument on which he can play immortal music." The golden vibrant voice of the Bishop ceased to flow; he had in his throat the most wonderful harp string I have ever heard. In the splendor of his utterance the worries of the work, and the heat of the way, and the difficulties of the future had fallen away from us. We stood with him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and we saw that the manner of his countenance was altered and that behind a light like a candle glowed. Out of the windows, for the first time we saw the unutterable splendors of the Arizona sunset. MADE-OVER GARMENTS 267 We watched while the clouds shaped themselves into visions of purple and amethyst glory, and gates of pearl swung wide open to permit to mor- tal eyes a glimpse of the golden streets. "At even' time it shall be light.' 5 But a few weeks and we heard that the harp of the mortal life of the Bishop was broken. Nevermore shall my mortal ears feel the melody of his voice as it vibrated from those harp cords in his throat. But the music is in the harper. He has received a new harp, from which he sweeps the same old strains. I shall greet the great personality of the harper again. Though worms destroy this body, yet in my own person- ality I shall greet the Bishop again. Fifteen years have passed since this discussion took place, and for the first time I have attempted to give utterance to its memories. The experi- ence was so vital that every detail is etched into my consciousness, as acid bites into glass and traces a permanent pattern. It has been in the background of my mind, as the events of the life of Christ were in the mind of St. John. After many years I can make an interpretation that yet retains the accuracy of the original discussion. The accidental group that answered the ques- tion, "Why do you believe in immortality?" give the different arguments not because they have been taught of theology, but because they have been taught of life. The way in which this ques- tion is answered reflects the mental generation 268 THE PILOT FLAME of the person who answers. The arguments which support the flame of faith are differently fashioned with each mental generation. The spirit of man is forever the lamp of the Lord, but the pattern of the lampstand is fashioned by the generation. That a group of people, closely bound together in the same church organization, should give such differing answers to this question, reminds us that the hope of immortality is not a doctrine, but a feeling, an assurance, a personal preparation. The pattern after which we have fashioned our earthy garments of faith, shall be the pattern upon which our white robe of eternity shall be shaped. With the splendor of his faith, the Bishop was fashioning his eternal robes, as we journeyed into the wilderness. And those who followed him that day, in the fear of poverty? Does not our experience run parallel with that of Mary in the garden who in housewifely caretaking, came with spices for the dead body, but who had the beatitude experience of throwing the spices away, and clasping the feet of a risen Master, the Lord of power over life and victory over death? JAN 11 1913 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: April 2005 PreservationTechnologie A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATIC 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111