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IN CREATION

ADEMPTION

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Love in Creation and
Redemption

WORKS BY
Dwight Goddard
Love in Creation and Redemption.
i2mo, cloth  net 31.25
A study of the teachings of Jesus concerning the
Kingdom of God, compared with modern thought.
It is written to show that the Love Jesus had in
mind, when he asserted it to be supreme, was not
limited to the simple sentimental quality of human
affection, but was an eternal and cosmic principle of
God's essential nature.
Jesus and the Problem of Human Life.
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The problem of human life calls for an explana
tion of the conflict that is going on within the hu
man heart between the forces that are working for
the preservation and assertion of the natural life and
the forces working for the creation of a spiritual life :
physical desires versus spiritual aspiration.
The Good News of a Spiritual Realm.
Third Edition, i2mo, cloth  net S1.00
An interweaving and paraphrasing of the Four
Gospels, bringing out clearly the unity and reason
ableness of Jesus' life and teachings.

Love in Creation and
Redemption
A Study in the Teachings of Jesus
Compared with Modern Thought

By
DWIGHT GODDARD

New York Chicago
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1918
By DWIGHT GODDARD
The Bible text used in this book is taken from the American Standard
Edition of the Revised Bible, Copyright 1901 by Thomas Nelson & Sons,
and is used by permission.

New York : 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago : 17 North Wabash Ave.
London : 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street

CONTENTS

I. Jesus: The Kingdom qf God . .11
Introduction Matthew: The Sayings of Jesus
Mark: The Works of Jesus
Luke: Reminiscences of Jesus by
Joanna
John: Interpretation of Jesus'
Teachings
Summary
II. Osborn: The Origin of Life . . 159
III. Bergson: The Elan Vital . . 173
IV. Eucken: The Spiritual Life . . 185
V. Tuckwell: Perfect Experience . 203
VI. Love in Creation and Redemption 257

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The writer has made quotations from various pub
lished works and wishes to express appreciation for the
privilege of doing so, to the following publishers:
Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York. The American
Revised Biblev ,
Charles Scribner & Sons, NewVXbrk. " The Origin
and Evolution of Life." H. F. Osborn.
Henry Holt & Co., New York. "Creative Evolution."
Henri Bergson.
A. & C. Black, London. " Life's Basis and Life's
Ideal." Rudolph Eucken.
William & Norgate, London. " The Truth of Re
ligion." Rudolph Eucken.
E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. "Religion and
Reality." John H. Tuckwell.
DWIGHT GODDARD
Ann Abbob, Michigan.

I
JESUS: THE KINGDOM OF GOD

This is written that ye may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye
may have life in His name.

JESUS: THE KINGDOM OF GOD

INTRODUCTION
FOR the purpose of this work we must
limit ourselves to a consideration of the
teachings of Jesus in their more general,
transcendental and cosmic relations and impli
cations. We shall want to study his life some
what to see what light it sheds on his system
of thought; and we shall also be interested in
the interpretation of his teachings which his
closest friend has provided for us.
Our only sources of information are the Syn
optic and Johanine Gospels. To arrive at an
impression of their relative value as sources,
it first will be necessary to outline briefly our
conviction as to their origin. To the writer the
following appeals as the most reasonable and
probable. At a very early date after the death of Jesus,
Matthew wrote out a collection of the Sayings
of Jesus, for the purpose, evidently, of con
vincing the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah,
foretold by the old prophets. A copy of these
11

12 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Sayings of Jesus by Matthew found its way
to Alexandria, and our best record of it ia
found embodied in the Synoptic Gospel accord
ing to Matthew, and, possibly rearranged some
what by Luke to be more chronological, and
then woven into his Gospel.
About the same time Mark, a relative of
Peter and his companion, while staying with
Peter at Caesarea, wrote down, for the bene
fit of the disciples there, the teachings and
reminiscences of Jesus as related to them by
Peter. As early as 41 a. d. Mark went to
Alexandria and evidently while there wrote out
another copy of Peter's teachings and remin
iscences that varied slightly from the one left
at Caesarea. Later on, whether at Jerusalem.
or at Rome is uncertain, Mark wrote out still
another copy of Peter's teachings and remin
iscences, but this time as it was to go to Gentile
Christians it differed still more from the origi
nal copy left at Caesarea which had been de
signed for Jewish Christians. This last copy
is the one that is known as the Synoptic Gospel
according to Mark.
Some gifted disciple at Alexandria having
before him Matthew's Sayings of Jesus and
Mark's copy of Peter's teachings, interwove
them and added occasional touches and connec-

INTRODUCTION 13
tions of his own into what we now know as the
Canonical Gospel according to Matthew.
The documentary sources which Luke had
before him while compiling the Gospel which
bears his name, appear to have been at least
three principal ones. The first was this earli
est copy by Mark which had been left at Cae
sarea at Philip's house where Luke also lived
for two years. The second was a copy of Mat
thew's Sayings of Jesus, or at least a similar
collection. These two records Luke felt free to
rearrange in his effort to have his Gospel chron
ological. The third source is more uncertain.
It includes the nativity section, the "travel" sec
tion, and the passion and resurrection section.
All of these have very similar characteristics.
The writer must have been of Hebrew origin,
lived at Jerusalem, a companion of Jesus from
Galilee to Jerusalem, one who had a sympa
thetic acquaintance with Samaria, intimate
knowledge with Herod's court, and one who dis
tinctly had a woman's point of view. Appar
ently it can best be accounted for by crediting it
to Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward.
Of course to these written sources must be
added personal acquaintances with those who
had seen and talked with the Master and had
witnessed the facts to which they testified.

14 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The Gospel according to John was not writ
ten probably for many years after the others.
There is some doubt whether the Apostle John
wrote it. That he was the source, however,
of its characteristic interpretation of the life
and teachings of Jesus there can be no doubt.
Probably there grew up about John a group of
disciples to whom he imparted his memories of
the words and acts of the Lord, enriched by his
insight as to their meaning and significance,
which only could have been gained by "the
Disciple whom the Lord loved." It is a great
mistake to belittle its historic value because of
this, rather will it be more careful and more
exact — from the increased discernment that
love always gives to an affectionate apprecia
tion. With this somewhat extended introduction
as to our sources of the teachings of Jesus
we can now select with more assurance the ref
erences we desire. First of all as we examine
the groups we note this, The Sayings of Jesus
by Matthew are especially important because
of their early date, and because Matthew caught
more than did Mark or Luke, the central thought
of the Lord's words and made an attempt at
grouping them into some order or system, and

INTRODUCTION 15

because they present the more general, or uni
versal teachings of Jesus.
The Markian sections, which reveal Peter's
point of view are naturally more narrative and
conversational and are of value in the testi
mony they give to Jesus' demonstration of his
own teachings.
The Section credited to Joanna is human and
feminine and is especially valuable as supple
menting the masculine understanding of the
others. It includes the Prodigal Son, the Good
Samaritan, the Annunciation, Song of Angels,
and the Resurrection.
The Gospel of John, to the writer, is of very
great importance as it shows more insight into
the implications of the Master's thought than
the others were able to discern or grasp. Noth
ing shows the poverty of the books written to
present the life and teachings of Jesus from
a "modern" and critical point of view, than
their eagerness to rule out of court, this earli
est and most affectionate appreciation.
We will first examine the Sayings of Jesus
by Matthew. They are found in five groups
embedded in the Gospel according to Matthew.
The first group includes Matt. V, VI, VII.
The second group, Matt. X. Third, Matt.
XIII. Fourth, Matt. XVIII. Fifth, Matt,

16 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
XXV. The general title could be called: The
Kingdom of God.
Group one: Love, the law of the Kingdom.
Group two: Rules for extending the King
dom. Group three: Nature of the Kingdom.
Group four: Relations of the Kingdom.
Group five : The Coming of the King.
By this outline one can see how overwhelm
ingly important in the teachings of Jesus is this
idea of the Kingdom. It overshadows every
thing else; and to its elucidation he devotes
nearly all his teachings and life. There is not
space here to show how persistently he has been
misunderstood from the beginning down to our
own day. It is necessary, however, to briefly
refer to it in order to bring a better understand
ing into relief. To do this let us place certain
facts before us in the form of propositions:
1. Jesus had a deeper intuition and appre
hension of Spiritual reality than any other hu
man being.
2. He had only the Aramaic tongue in which
to express himself.
3. He talked almost exclusively to compara
tively uneducated people.
4. His meaning was grasped to only a lim
ited extent; he again and again complained of

INTRODUCTION 17
their lack of understanding, or of his inability
to say all he had in mind.
5. His words were not written down for some
years after his death, and then what was writ
ten down, was what was remembered of what
had been only imperfectly understood.
6. We are therefore warranted in seeking
in the recorded words a deeper and more trans
cendental meaning than lies on the surface.
7. As everything he taught centered about
his conception of what is translated by the
words, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom
of God, it is absolutely necessary to get first
of all as clear a picture in our minds, as it is
possible, of what Jesus had in his mind, and
which he tries so hard to express.
8. His disciples thought he meant the Messi
anic Kingdom that was to be established after
his resurrection and second coming. That this
was wrong is conclusively shown in the repeated
efforts that Jesus himself made to correct it.
9. With the development of the ecclesiasti
cal organization known as the Catholic Church,
there grew up the assured conviction that the
Kingdom was the Church, at least it was the
true membership of the Church both past and
present. 10. With the Reformation this was changed

18 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
to make the Kingdom the whole body of the
Church membership as tested by faith in the
true creed.
11. With the increase of scientific knowl
edge, and the passing of creedal tests to the
spirit of life and character, the Kingdom be
came the whole body of those who were con
sciously or unconsciously submitting their lives
to the control of the will of God as seen in
Jesus. Or to express it differently, the King
dom became that ideal state of society in which
the will of God was regnant, or as Ritschl ex
pressed it: that state of society in which the
good of all transcended the individual good as
a motive of conduct, i.e. an ideal human society.
12. Heaven became more and more simply
the place of felicity where the redeemed went
after death, and with the increase of scientific
knowledge it became more and more unreal and
imaginary. 13. To show to what an extreme form this
idealistic interpretation has advanced in our
day, we have only to turn to Principal D. C.
Cairn's book, "Christianity in the Modern
World." On page 24 he says : "What, then, are
these distinctive Ideas of Jesus on which his life
and character rests? There are four that are
central. 1. The Divine Fatherhood. 2. His

INTRODUCTION 19
own necessary place in the spiritual realm as
Mediator of the New Life. 3. The freedom
and Responsibility of Men. 4. The Kingdom of
God." Throughout the book in speaking of the King
dom he uses phrases like the following: a new
spiritual society ; a new order of humanity gen
erally present among men; to attain its full
embodiment and expression in the day of his
triumph; a great spiritual structure to be built
up as men have built up a civilization; a nas
cent commonwealth of redeemed humanity.
This makes the Kingdom of God, therefore,
almost a subhead under humanity, instead of
giving it the one place of importance that Jesus
actually gave it in his discourses, and results in
evitably in a most amazing misunderstanding
of the Great Teacher's system of thought.
14. The reasons for all these misunderstand
ings may be found in the limited meaning con
tent of the common words Jesus was compelled
to use. The word kingdom inevitably carries
with it limitation. It means the country over
which a king has dominion, or the population
over which he holds sway, or, the Kingship of
Jesus, as Dr. Glover writes. The words the
Kingdom of God, or of heaven, or the king
dom, all appear to have been used by Jesus

20 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
interchangeably. Now what was the concep
tion in Jesus' mind. After we have studied his
sayings with this in view we shall be better pre
pared to answer. But before we do this it is
necessary to decide on some tentative transla
tion that will relieve one's mind of the old words
suggestive of error. In the book "The Good
News," in which I tried to interweave and para
phrase the four Gospels, I used the words 'the
Spiritual Realm.' This is not entirely satis
factory for it still uses the limited word 'realm,'
which, although when used with Spiritual
means the whole universe of immaterial spirit,
yet nevertheless does not suggest the essential
thing in Jesus' teaching, namely, that this whole
universe of immaterial Spirit is Life. The
Kingdom as Jesus develops its implications
is the cosmic flow of immaterial vitality. The
Kingdom of God is, in this lajge sense, the
cosmic Spiritual Life.

MATTHEW'S SAYINGS OF JESUS
THESE Sayings of Jesus as recorded in
five sections in Matthew, each ending
with the words "And when he had
finished these words, etc.," are supposed by
scholars to be substantially the whole collec
tion as referred to by both Eusebius and
Papias as having been collected by Matthew
into five books. They are not merely a
collection of unrelated sayings, but each sec
tion appears to have some definite unity of
thought, and the five sections together are
sub-heads of one general subject. They all have
to do with "universals" rather than with par
ticulars, with great basal principles, so much
so that the general head may be called: Jesus'
Conception of the Spiritual Life. To bring
this out clearly it is only necessary to substi
tute for the usual, but concealing and parabolic
words, the Kingdom of God, the words, the
Spiritual Life.
Section One, Matthew v, vs., vii
Love, the Law of the Spiritual Life
The first group are the Beatitudes, the
blessedness of those who make Love in its dif-
21

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

ferent applications, or expressions, the rule of
life (5:3-12).
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be
comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the
earth. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain
mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see
God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be
called sons of God.
Blessed are they that have been persecuted for
righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you,
and persecute you, and say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is
your reward in heaven : for so persecuted they the
prophets that were before you.
These are followed (5:13-16) by the well-
known passages about the likeness of those who
make love the rule of life to the purifying power
of salt and the illuminating power of light.
Then follows (5:17-20) the assertion that his
teachings are not contrary to the moral teach
ings of the old prophets but are the fulfilling
of them.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS

Think not that I came to destroy the law or the
prophets: I came not to destroy but to fulfill.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth
pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass away from the law, till all things be accom
plished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these
least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall
be called least in the kingdom of heaven : but who
soever shall do and teach them, he shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven.
Tor I say unto you, that except your righteous
ness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the
kingdom of heaven.
Try substituting 'the Spiritual Life' for 'the
kingdom of heaven' and see how much clearer
the meaning shines out.
Verses 21-48 give illustrations to show how
love will fulfill the old law. Jesus says : "You
have heard that it was said to them of old time
. . . but I say unto you," etc., and then he
teaches that love is to supersede murder, hate
and even anger; that it must do away with
adultery, lust, and even unclean thoughts ; that
it will avoid perjury, deceit, unwise vows and
even extravagant statements; that it will ex
clude revenge, and will even call for active
kindness in its place. (5:38-48.)
Te have heard that it was said, An eye for
an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

But I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil:
but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also.
And if any man would go to law with thee, and
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile,
go with him two.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him
that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and
pray for them that persecute you.
That ye may be sons of your Father who is in
heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the
unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what reward
have ye ? Do not even the publicans the same ?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do
ye more than others? Do not even the Gentiles
the same?
Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect.
In the passage 6 :1-18, Jesus teaches that love
will oppose all hypocritical show, and call for
humility of conduct, of almsgiving, and of wor
ship. This passage includes the Lord's prayer,
and therefore teaches that worship is to be
prompted by a sincere and humble love-control
of life. It is to be first of all a grateful recog
nition of our Heavenly Father and his good
ness and authority. We are taught to desire the

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 25
realization of the Spiritual Life, the increase
of love control in the life of the world. We are
taught to look to Him for daily sustenance,
for strength and guidance and protection from
evil. Each phrase is a petition for spiritual bless
ings, and ignores all physical ends, and the
prayer is therefore direct teaching that in the
mind of Jesus the Spiritual Life was the only '
life of man worth prayerful thought. The only
apparent exception to this is the phrase, usu
ally given : "Give us this day our daily bread."
If this is correct it logically forces us to inter
pret the preceding phrases in a physical sense.
The Kingdom is to be evidenced by an increase
of social righteousness, a social state in which
God's will is more perfectly done, and we are
to look to God in prayer for our daily physi
cal needs. But this is quite contrary to Jesus'
teachings elsewhere. In this very section he
has insisted that we are not to be anxious about
daily bread or any other physical needs. We
are to seek first the Spiritual Life and its needs
and not to worry about the physical needs, be
cause the Heavenly Father knows of them and
will supply them before we ask. Elsewhere in
the great temptation, Jesus himself resists the
temptation to be anxious about bread by saying:

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that comes from the mouth of God."
Later on after feeding the multitude he says:
"Work not for the bread that perisheth, but for
the food which abideth unto eternal life, which
the Son of Man shall give unto you."
I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers ate the
manna in the wilderness and they died. This is
the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that
a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the
living bread which came down out of heaven; if
any man eat of this bread he shall live forever.
But this phrase ceases to be an exception to
the entire spiritual basis of the Lord's prayer,
and ceases to be contrary to Jesus' other teach
ings if we substitute for the authorized text
a very early reading recently found in Latin
MSS. in Irish monasteries. I believe this read
ing is found in one early Greek MS. also. Then
the Lord's prayer will read:
Our Father who art in the Spiritual Realm,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us for daily bread the word of God that
comes from heaven. And forgive us our debts as
we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
"The word of God that comes from heaven,"
Jesus later identifies with himself as God's self-

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 27
expression, in the Spiritual Life. "We live
and move and have our being" in God, and its
sustenance is in the form of redemptive Love
which Ho has given for the Life of the Spirit.
John understood this profound truth better than
the others and we shall later on have reason
to return to it. Sufficient for now it is to say
that in this Spiritual Life which Jesus is now
revealing to his chosen disciples Divine Love
is to be its origin, Divine Love is to be its sus
tenance, and Divine Love, in mystic fellowship,
is to be its goal and great reward.
Then follow successively pleadings for the
inward sincerity and singleness of purpose that
love alone can give. To give encouragement
to them in thus entrusting their lives to this love
control Jesus says (6:25-33) :
Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for
your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put
on. Is not the life more than the food, and the
body than the raiment?
Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow
not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns;
and your heavenly Father f eedeth them. Are not
ye of much more value than they ?
And which of you by being anxious can add one
cubit unto the measure of his Life?
And why are ye anxious concerning raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all
his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field,
which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the
oven, shall He not much more clothe you, 0 ye
of little faith?
Be not therefore anxious saying, What shall we
eat? or, What shall we drink, or, Wherewithal
Bhall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;
for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all these things.
But seek ye first His kingdom, and His right
eousness : and all these things shall be added unto
you. In this 33rd verse, which is one of the most
important verses in all of Jesus' teachings, if
we substitute the reading, the Spiritual Life,
for, the Kingdom, the meaning comes out very
much clearer. It is no longer symbolic, but is
didactic. But seek ye first the Spiritual Life and its law
of Love, and all these things shall be added unto
you. Chapter seven begins with instructions about
not being censorius or fault finding, but to let
loving humility bear and forbear with the faults
of others. Following he again urges them to
trust the Heavenly Father to supply all that
they really need for their lower physical needs,

 THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 29
simply because He is their Heavenly Father
and knows their needs, and in that trust which
love gives, he urges them to make the adventure
in faith for a higher Spiritual Life, by forget
ting the things which have to do with a lower
life in an effort to attain the higher and to
accomplish it by the rule of life which the cen
turies have called the Golden Rule.
Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, even so do ye also unto them.
With verse seventeen there follows a suc
cession of precepts illustrating the difficulty
of following the way of love, but impressing
the fact that it will be only those who do suc
ceed in making love the rule of life that shall
be able to enter the higher life process of the
Spirit. (7:21-23).
Mot every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy
name cast out demons, and by thy name do many
mighty works?
And then will I profess untb them, I never
knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

30 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Section Two, Matthew x
The second section comprises the sayings
connected with the sending out of the Twelve,
while the instructions are primarily directed
not to disciples in general, but to the chosen
Twelve in particular, yet nevertheless close
study will show that they have a very decidedly
general application. This is confirmed by his
later instructions to the seventy, and, after the
resurrection, to disciples in general. It is
doubly confirmed by a serious study of Redemp
tive Love as a motive and as a deeper urge in
life control.
Verse one says:
And he called unto him his twelve disciples, and
gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast
them out, and to heal all manner of disease and all
manner of sickness.
What was the nature of this authority over
the forces and conditions of physical existence ?
Without doubt it was the authority that comes
from possessing the knowledge and control of
spiritual forces, which Jesus knew to be of
superior power to physical forces. In a true
sense they were to perform miracles and they
did perform miracles. Not by sheer arbitrary
fiat, but by employing supernatural forces to

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 31
dominate lower natural forces. Jesus knew that
love and faith and vision were creative and dy
namic and if employed in accordance with their
own laws were sufficient to condition all physi
cal states. Of this we shall speak again when
we come to Jesus' demonstration of his own
teachings. Then follows the names of the Twelve, after
which he continues (5-10) :
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and charged
them, saying, Go not into any way of the Gentiles,
and enter not into any city of the Samaritans.
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers,
cast out demons ; freely ye received, freely give.
Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your
purses. No wallet for your journey, neither two coats,
nor shoes, nor staff; for the laborer is worthy of
his food.
This preaching which they are to do is not
concerned with promulgating an intellectual
creed, but it is to be a witness to the reality of
a Spiritual Life tbat is close at hand, not com
ing in the sense of time and space, but as avail
able immediately for appropriation if their
hearers can be brought to a loving desire for

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

it. They are not to go far away at first but
to those who are near and in a sense prepared
for the message.
Then they are to preach not by words alone
but by the illustration of their own faith and
trust and obedience. They are to believe that
this higher life of the Spirit under the impulse
of love is a reality and that the essential needs
of the physical body will be supplied ; and that
its laws of faith and trust and above all love,
are supreme over physical conditions and
forces. In veTses 11-15 Jesus gives them their
"marching orders." They are not to become
restless vagabonds, purposeless roamers; they
are not to be itinerants forever moving about,
but neither are they to vegetate in one place,
to become stagnant, and inert; their purpose
is to radiate love, to express love, in message,
and kindly service and ministration, to heal
the sick, benefit, serve, bless, wherever they go.
But if they find themselves hampered or frus
trated, or impeded in this self-expression of
love, then they are to move on to more hopeful
conditions. In other words missionary fervor is to be a
characteristic of this higher Spiritual Life.
Love in its deepest essence calls for self-expres-

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 33

sion in service. If one accepts love as the con
trolling principle of life, he must yield to the
immediate urge to self-abnegation and unsel
fish service, to venture forth in faith, that the
Spiritual Life is a reality, worthy of confidence
and rich in its promises of happiness and growth
and inward fellowship. In another place Jesus
promises to those who yield to this urge, "No
man that hath left house or brethren . . .
for my sake and for the Gospel's sake but he
shall receive a hundred fold now . . . and
in the age to come — eternal life."
Then in verses 16 to the end of the Chapter,
Jesus warns them of the incidental dangers and
physical hardships and perplexities that will be
the logical experience of those who make choice
of the Spiritual above the physical but in all
he promises, and comforts them with the assur
ance that the Heavenly Father knows and ap
preciates and will be close at hand with com
fort and protection.
In verse 19 he says:
But when they deliver you up, be not anxious
how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given
you in that hour what you shall speak. For it is
not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father
that speaketh in you.
He warns them that their devotion to love

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

and to the Spiritual Life will act as a divisive
force and separate them from their closest rel
atives and associates; that it will cause men,
even their nearest relatives in some cases to
hate them and to put them to death. But Jesus
urges them to hold steadfastly to their love
guidance, to return good for evil, when circum
stances become unbearable, if possible, to move
on, but not to stop witnessing for the Spiritu
al Life and its law of Love.
And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's
sake: but he that endureth to the end, the same
shall be saved.
And be not afraid of them that kill the body,
but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear
him who is able to destroy both soul and body in
hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? and not
one of them shall fall on the ground without your
Father. But the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than
many sparrows.
Every one therefore who shall confess me before
men, him will I also confess before my Father
who is in heaven.
But whosoever shall deny me before men, him
will I also deny before my Father who is in
heaven. Even affection for father and mother must be

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 35
secondary to one's faithfulness to love as the
essential of the Spiritual Life.
He that loveth father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that doth not take his cross and fol
low after me, is not worthy of me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he
that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
The natural life of the body relative to the
higher life of the Spirit is of little value. The
physical life is not to be held lightly, to be
scorned, to be fretted away, but the Life of the
Spirit is worth more, and when the choice is
forced on one, the lesser must give way to the
better, and in that conflict of the soul for its
highest Life, God is on the side of those who
are willing to sacrifice all for its attainment.
And not only will God reward them with its
perfect experience, but he will also reward those
who incidently aid the disciple in his venture
for its realization.
And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of
these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the
name of a disciple, verily I say unto you he shall
in no wise, lose his reward.
The heading, therefore, for this second sec
tion might be, "The Missionary Urge of the

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Spiritual Life, or the necessity in Love for
Self-expression."
Section Thbee, Matthew xin
In this section are grouped a number of the
parables, of the Kingdom and the title for it
might be called, the Nature of the Spiritual
Life. In verse ten, his diciples come to him
and ask why he so often taught in parables,
which were obscure.
And he answered and said unto them, Unto
you it is given to know the mysteries of the king
dom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Then follows an explanation of the discrim
ination, which is quite characteristic of Jesus,
and shows most clearly the profound apprecia
tion of the revolutionary character of his teach
ings. If his teachings were simply to add cul
ture to existing minds he could wisely speak
plainly, but his teachings were not for mere in
formation and culture, they were an inner test
of life and destiny. The Spiritual Life involved
a radical and profound reversal of life currents
and Jesus knew that the greater kindness was
not to satisfy curious intellectualism, but was to
awaken and suggest thought that by its vitality

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 37
might grow or develop into a desire that would
be more congenial soil for the birth of that
higher Life of the Spirit. Jesus longs to tell
them the whole truth but love restrains him and
he speaks in parables. The first parable is the
parable of the sower, verses 3-9 and 18-23. The
essential of the parable is that the Kingdom of
Heaven is Life, that germinates from seed
thoughts in the variable soil of the human mind.
Verse 23 says:
And he that was sower on good ground, this is
he that heareth the word (or receiveth the germ
of the Spiritual Life) and understandeth it; who
verily beareth fruit.
The germ of the Spiritual Life falls like seed
thoughts in the soil of the physical, material,
animal mind of reflective self-conscious men
and women, boys and girls, and germinates there
only to die, or wither away, or grow as that
human mind gives it varying welcome. The
mind is physical, the new Life is SpirituaL
The Kingdom of God according to this parable
is not the Messianic Kingdom, or the Church, or
an ideal state of society, or the Kingship of
God ; it is the germ of a higher Spiritual Life,
something different from the natural and physi
cal, something that grows and unfolds and bears
fruit in the individual soul timelessly.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

The next parable is found in verses 24-30.
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man
that sowed good seed in his field.
Here also the essential thought is the vital
ity of the Spiritual Life, but this time the hind
rances to its growth are not found in the wel
come or lack of welcome in the human mind,
the varying intensity of the human desire for
a higher life, this time the hindrance is found
to be in the physical life process itself. The
tares represent the appetites and desired of the
physical nature for gratification, in competition
so to speak with the newly awakened aspira
tions of the soul. So long as the physical life
persists the two natures must grow side by side,
the struggle for survival will be keen and try
ing but loving patience, in the end will win for
the Spiritual.
The roots that run down into the material
will slowly dwindle and with the death of the
body will be easily separated; but the corre
spondence of the soul with the immaterial Spir
itual Life, by a loving control of life, will in
crease until with the death of the body, the har
vest of life-giving wheat of the Spirit will be
gathered into his store house.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS

Verses 31 and 32:
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a grain
of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed
in his field.
Again the likeness is to that which is instinct
with life and vitality, that is, small and insig
nificant at first but grows to be of surpassing
importance. Verse 33 still likens the Spiritual
Life to a living germ, but this time it is the
vitality of leaven.
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto leaven
which a woman took and hid in three measures of
meal, till it was all leavened.
So Jesus would have us understand our own
natures may be entirely transformed from
material to Spiritual by yielding them to the
living action inherent in the love and faith of
the Spiritual Life process.
In verses 37-43 Jesus explains some of the
parables to his disciples, taking to himself a
most important place in their application. He
says: He that soweth the good seed is the Son of
Man ; and the field is the world; and the good seed
are the sons of the kingdom.
How much we would like to ask Jesus the
exact significance of the phrase "the Son of
Man!" Does he mean that he is in a special,

40 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
personal sense, the representative of the human
race ? Or does he mean more generally that the
seed of the Spiritual Life is sown by human
instrumentality, is passed naturally from one
to another, one generation, one race to another ?
We cannot escape however, the fact that he
is teaching in these parables, tbat the likeness
and nature of the Kingdom of Heaven, is to
be living and Spiritual and is to be involved
in the realm of nature, "the field is the world,"
and in it he has a place of highest leadership
and importance. It is not itself natural, but its
present field of development and growth is,
and like all things of nature, these conditions
are temporal and must have an end. There is
to be an end or a limit of the age of the natural
and material, beyond which the timeless life of
the Spirit will live on unhampered. "Then
shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun in
the Spiritual Life of their Father."
In verse 44 the Spiritual Life is likened to
treasure hidden in a field, to secure which a
man is willing to give all he possesses. Again
in verse 45 :
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man
that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls; and
having found one pearl of great price, he went
and sold all that he had and bought it.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 41
This again emphasizes the inestimable value
of the Spiritual Life to one who appreciates
it, for it he will give all he has of worldly
goods, or physical promise, to obtain.
Verse 47 likens the Spiritual Life to a fish
net, that includes temporarily all alike the
good and bad, but only at the end to separate
them. So Jesus would have us realize that
the urge of the Cosmic Spiritual Life, touches
all humanity but acts as a separating test at the
shore of a higher life. All alike have been im
mersed in the sea of natural conditions but only
those who can pass the test of "goodness" are
privileged to emerge into the higher life of the
Spirit. In closing this section Jesus asks his Dis
ciples if they have understood, and to those who
have become believers in a Spiritual Life he
adds the final injunction, be like a householder
who brings from his treasure things new and
old. Does he mean by this, conserve and use the
best we have of the passing natural life, while
at the same time we cherish the better things
of the Spirit — love, faith, and hope?
The characteristics of the Spiritual Life ac
cording to this section of the Sayings of Jesus,
are these: The Spiritual Life is a growth from
a small beginning, mingling with a similar

42 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
growth of the physical, that goes on to a climax,
when there is a separation of the Spiritual from
the material, the one to live on, the other to
perish.
Section Foub, Matthew xvhi
The central idea in this section is concerned
with the relations of the Spiritual Life. It
opens with the Disciples coming to Jesus and
asking for information as to who would be great
est in the Kingdom of Heaven. So obsessed
were they with their idea of a Messianic King
dom that they had failed to grasp its Spiritual
significance (18:1-4).
In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus say
ing, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of
heaven ?
And he called to him a little child, and set him
in the midst of them.
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye
turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as
this little child, the same is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven.
Then Jesus explains in detail the essential
relations of the Spiritual Life. First of all
if one desires to achieve it he must have a
childlike trustfulness. One can not enter by

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 43
his physical or mental superiority; its portals
are only opened to a loving desire, a childlike
and unquestioning trust. Jesus here reveals one
of his most lovable traits, affection for little
children, and with them as a text, he tells of
the enormity of sin that lies in a brutal check
ing of a child's natural love and trustfulness-.
So essential to the Spiritual Life, says Jesus,
is this childlike trust, that if anything physical
interferes with it, be it the hand, or the eye,
or the foot, they better, far better be sacrificed.
One better enter the Spiritual Life a physical
wreck, and elsewhere he says, in poverty, than
to miss its perfect experience. It were better
to sacrifice any physical good, if it tended to
hinder one's devotion to Love's faith and trust ;
and woe betide the outsider who disturbs Love's
harmony in another; it is brutal murder of a
higher, an immortal Life (Verse 10).
And if thine eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck
it out, and cast it from thee : it is good for thee to
enter into life with one eye, rather than having
two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire.
In verses 10-14 Jesus again returns to his
child text and illustrates the relations of the
Spiritual Life by showing how inexpressibly
precious to the Heavenly Father is the life of
one who does have this childlike trust and lov-

44 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
ing faith, even though he be only a little child.
To illustrate this he gives the beautiful parable
of the lost sheep (12-14).
How think ye? if any man have a hundred
sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he
not leave the ninety and nine, and go unto the
mountains, and seek that which goeth astray?
And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto
you, he rejoieeth over it more than over the ninety
and nine which have not gone astray.
Even so it is not the will of your Father who is
in heaven, that one of these little ones should
perish. Childlike trust is simply the love relations
between a child and his father and in emphasiz
ing it as an essential relation, also, of the Spir
itual Life, Jesus teaches the analogy of the two
life processes.
The human soul, in whose heart made fertile
by loving desire has fallen the germ of Spirit
ual Life, is born again and has entered into that
most intimate relationship, a child of God. This
is not a legalistic adoption, but it is a biologic
birth into a higher order of Life, by reason of
which he has entered into new and reciprocal
relations with his Spiritual Father: he must
love and trust his Father and the Father will
love him and care for him; even the hairs of
his head will be numbered; not one will fall
without the Heavenly Father knoweth; he will

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 45
be like the one lost lamb of the flock. And the
mutual love experience will not be imaginative,
but will be actual even if mystical.
In verses 15 to the end of the section Jesus
teaches that a forgiving spirit is also an essen
tial relation of the Spiritual Life.
And if thy brother sin against thee, go, show
him his fault between thee and him alone: if he
hear thee, thou has gained thy brother.
Again I say unto you that if two of you shall
agree on earth as touching anything that they
shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father
who is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together
in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Then came Peter and said to him, Lord, how oft
shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive
him ? until seven times ?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until
seven times; but, Until seventy times seven.
Jesus here teaches absolute forgiveness on the
part of one who is trying to live the Spiritual
Life. Verses 16, 17 and 18 are most certainly an
interpolation by some officious ecclesiastic of
tbe very early church, who was seeking to bol
ster up clerical authority. The language used
is far away from Jesus' habit of simple, epi
grammatic, good sense. These verses are for
mal, legalistic and mechanical.

46 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Verse 19 resumes Jesus' style and spirit.
Then follows in verses 23 to the end of the
section the parable of the unforgiving servant,
beginning Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened
unto a certain king, who would make a reckon
ing with his servants. ... So shall also my
heavenly Father do unto you, if you forgive not
every one his brother from your hearts.
Just as childlike love and trust is to be the
characteristic of the relation between God and
man in this higher life of the Spirit so a spirit
of forgiveness is to be the relation between
humans, whether they both be born of the Spirit
or whether only the one. How else could it be,
if love is to be the controlling principle ? Love
between God and man can exist only when
trust and faith and care are present, when
sympathetic care and trust and faith begin to
wane, then love dies. And also as between men,
if one is to love the neighbor as the self, there
can be no place for the strained relations of
unforgiveness. Love is essentially unifying
and harmonizing and all-inclusive, only a for
giving spirit can maintain the spirit of love
in a man, and the maintenance of that spirit,
Jesus here teaches, is an essential of the Spir
itual Life.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 47

Section Five, Matthew xxrv, xxv
This section of all Jesus' teachings is the
most involved and the hardest to understand,
but I think if we follow the clue we have in
Jesus' emphasis on the Spiritual Life we can
not go far astray.
Many scholars question whether these are
the actual words of Jesus, suggesting that the
prevailing apocalyptic thought of his day had
led the writers to read into his actual words
their own profoundly convinced ideas. Others
think that Jesus himself was influenced by the
current thinking of his day; still others think
that Jesus adapted his words to fit into their
waiting forms of thought, in order that he might
lead them the more easily to his own.
To me personally there are certain verses that
do not sound as one would expect Jesus to speak.
Such verses as 24:15, 21, 22, 29-31, have little
of the characteristics of Jesus' common thought
and speech. One has only to place them in
parallel columns with the rest of the chapter
to see the contrast. A good rule in seeking a
man's thought is to omit for the time being, the
parts in doubt and to see if the balance is more
intelligible and consistent. To me, omitting

48 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
these few verses clears up the thought amaz
ingly. The effect of it tends to lessen the argu
ment for a spectacular and visible second com
ing of the Messiah, and strengthens the feeling
that the "second coming" is to be accomplished
in the realm of the Spirit. This is far more
consistent with the balance of Jesus' teachings
on the subject, as we shall see. We all want
the truth, and confidence in our clue, (that
Jesus taught the reality of an independent Spir
itual Life,) we feel sure will lead us to it. On
this hypothesis, therefore we proceed to exam
ine this section.
The section is introduced by a reference to
the grandeur of the temple architecture, to
which Jesus replies that it will soon be entirely
destroyed. Chapter 24:3-14 form a unit of
thought. And as he sat on the mount of Olives, the
disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell
us, when shall these things be ? and what shall be
the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the
world ?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take
heed that no man lead you astray.
For many shall come in my name, saying, I
am the Christ; and shall lead many astray.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars :
see that ye be not troubled: for these things must
needs come to pass; but the end is not yet.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 49
In these and the following verses Jesus does
not give one the impression of prophesying for
the sake of the prophecy, so much as he does, that
he is using his extraordinary powers of fore
sight to prepare his disciples for the inevitable
trials incident to the separation of their form
of life from the worldly life of those about
them. The near approach of physical trials
will test their faith in him and his way of Love.
In this section Jesus teaches that the Spiritual
Life will come to some sort of climax in which
there will be an illumination or a revelation
of the Lord as the sovereign of the Spiritual
Realm. This will not come until some sort of
an "end," but as Jesus says: "He that endur-
eth to the end shall be saved."
Verse 14 says:
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached
in the whole world for a testimony unto all the
nations; and then shall the end come.
This verse has commonly been understood
to prophesy that a missionary propaganda must
go on until in a technical sense every nation
has had the opportunity to hear it. I think a
better interpretation of the verse is to think
of it in close connection with the foregoing,
"he that endureth to the end." It is the endur
ing patience of love to the limit, that is the true

50 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
missionary preaching of the Gospel; and that
must go on and on and on until all the nations
have been inoculated by its life and potency.
The "end" is not so much a fixed date for the
passing of an age that is too materialistic and
mechanical for tolerance, as it is the one by
one awakening of individuals to the fact that
they have transcended one realm of reality to
pass into another, a timeless life of the Spirit.
The emphasis falls on the faithful endurance,
the passing of material life measured by years,
the entrance into the immaterial life of the
Spirit where there is no time relation.
Verse 16 appears to be an effort of the editor
to tie Jesus' words back to the Old Testament
prophecies and can for the present be ignored.
With this out of the way, verses 17-27 are easily
understood as Jesus' instructions, made exceed
ingly earnest and emphatic by his insight into
the terrific strain that they are to pass through,
to live patiently, serenely, faithfully during
the period of endurance until entrance into the
promised Spiritual Life shall be accomplished.
To this end he says in verses 23-27 :
Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is
the Christ, or Here; believe it not.
For there shall arise false Christs, and false
phophets, and shall show great signs and wonders;
so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 51
Behold, I have told you beforehand.
If therefore they shall say unto you, Behold, he
is in the wilderness; go not forth; Behold he is
in the inner chambers; believe it not.
For as the lightning cometh forth from the east,
and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the
coming of the Son of man.
They are not to be disturbed, to be discour
aged by reports, they are simply to remain in
their places, living consistent lives of loving
service, until "the coming of the Son of man."
This is exceedingly important. How we would
like to ask Jesus himself: "what is the nature
of thy coming to be like?" Interpreted' by
verses 13-14 it points to the same crisis in the
life process, the transcending of the soul from
its material correspondence to the higher Spir
itual correspondence. It is a realization of
a fact already existent but now for the first
time realized, that Jesus is present, unseen by
physical eyes but now seen by inner light, face
to face.
Verses 29-30 are again discordant, exaggera
tions and quite unlike Jesus' simple, unstrained
utterances. In verses 32-51 Jesus goes into
more detail as to the suddenness of this appear
ing of the Son of man. He likens its approach
to the budding of the fig tree in spring, the
general signs of his appearing are evident and

52 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
conspicuous to those who are on the watch, but
again he warns them against any expectation
of exact information to be given in advance.
He says, verses 32-44:
Now from the fig tree learn her parable : when
her branch is now become tender, and putteth
forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh.
Even so ye also, when ye see all these things,
know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors.
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall
not pass away, till all these things be accom
plished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my
words shall not pass away.
But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not
even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but
the Father only.
And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the
coming of the Son of man.
The appearance is to be "in this generation,"
and yet it is not to be accomplished until "the
sky and earth shall pass away." It shall be as
the coming of the flood in the day of Noah. Its
realization shall be to individuals "two men in
the field, one is taken, the other left;" "two
women are grinding," one realizes the reality
of the Spiritual Life by becoming suddenly
conscious of Jesus' presence, the other is un
conscious. Jesus emphasizes again and again
its suddenness and surprisingness. It is like
the coming of a thief, the return of the Master.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 53
How can we harmonize all these seemingly in
consistent figures of speech? Let us hold fast
to our clue, the reality of a higher life of the
Spirit, whose realization is to come suddenly
after patient, faithful endurance to the point
of transition, when the soul awakes to conscious
ness of immaterial realities, immersed in which
he senses for the first time the Lord's presence
with certainty and with clarity. Again we must
remember that the time is no more in the Spir
itual Realm, and this generation, and the end
of the physical world, are as a day, or the pass
ing of a night. There is no deception in Jesus'
words, it is our inability to "visualize" Spirit
ual conceptions without a framework of time
and space, that is difficult, but if we are to
plumb the depths of Jesus' thought we must
school ourselves to so think. Does this vision
come in the midst of physical life or at its
close ? Who can say but those who experience
it? As Miss Herman writes in her valuable work,
The Meaning and Value of Mysticism: "To
the mystic the second coming of Christ is not
the coming of One who has been Absent, but
is the perfected manifestation and final unveil
ing of a Presence that has always been the in
spiration and comfort of the faithful soul."

54 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
In Chapter 25, Jesus continues to explain
the nature of the Spiritual Life and of his ap
pearing. In verses 1-13 he likens the Spiritual
Life and its essential fact the realization of the
Lord's presence to the ten virgins who watch
for the Bridegroom. In verses 14-30 he uses
the figure of a householder who divides his
property among his servants and goes away only
to return suddenly. In verses 31 to the end of
the Chapter, Jesus changes the emphasis from
the suddenness and unexpectedness of the reali
zation of his presence, to that wonderful pic
ture of the essentials of entrance into this Spir
itual Life.
But when the Son of man shall eome in his
glory and all the angels with him then shall he
sit on the throne of his glory.
And before him shall be gathered all the na
tions: and he shall separate them one from an
other, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from
the goats.
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand,
but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his
right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the founda
tion of the world.
For I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I
was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a
stranger, and ye took me in.

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 55
Naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye
visited me ; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying,
Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee?
or athirst, and gave thee drink?
And when saw we thee a stranger, and took
thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and
came unto thee ?
And the King shall answer and say unto them,
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto
one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did
it unto me.
Here is nothing whatever of a legalistic day
of judgment, and a trial under the forms of
jurisprudence. To be sure he uses the form of
thought his hearers are accustomed to, the tri
umphal entrance, the throne, the arraignment,
but quickly passes on to the new and true form
of thought he would have them remember. He
is the Good Shepherd separating the sheep from
the goats, not because of technical and legal
guilt, but because of their different natures,
one a sheep, the other a goat. One had made
love the rule of his life and by so doing had
changed his essential nature until he was fit
for that higher life process of the Spirit; the
other not having made love the rule of his life
was not fit.
The whole section is of one piece, the thought

56 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
is consistent from end to end. The Kingdom
of Heaven, is a higher life process of the Spirit
into which the soul that makes love its control
ling principle enters by a sudden transition of
life control, by reason of which the old physi
cal life in its environment of physical desires
and unsatisf actoriness of correspondence is sud
denly transcended and the soul awakens to a
realization of its fellowship with the Divine Life
in a higher and closer realm of Spiritual im
mediacy. Let us now make a review of the five sec
tions of Jesus' Sayings as recorded by Matthew.
One cannot do this without being convinced
that to Matthew at least the teachings of his
Lord had a definite and consistent structure.
Jesus had come to preach the Gospel of the
Kingdom, the Good News of a Cosmic Spiritual
Life. It was to be a life of blessedness, cre
ated by and controlled by its own Spiritual law
of love; to be the heritage of those who made
love the rule of life. It was not to bring its
rewarding happiness during the years of physi
cal life necessarily, in fact more probably there
would be conflict and estrangement and suffer
ing, but if the love control was held steadily to
the end, the blessedness would be experienced in
manifold measure. The essential for partici-

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 57
pation in this Cosmic Spiritual Life was that
desire for it be the supreme end of life, by
always seeking first to be obedient to its law
of love, in perfect trust that the necessary things
of the temporary physical life would be sup
plied. In the second section Jesus teaches that this
Spiritual Life is superior to physical life and
should dominate it, by sending out the Disciples
to spread the knowledge of it and faith in it
by demonstration. They are to exercise author
ity over sickness, and evil by its inherent super
iority; they are to go out as evangels of Love
to witness to its reality and characteristics and
nearness. The essential nature of the Spiritual
Life is its inner urge to self-expression by lov
ing service. Again Jesus warns those who are
considering its claims of its necessary antago
nism with the natural order, but encourages
them by his own faith in its superiority.
In the third section Jesus tries to make clear
the nature of this Cosmic Spiritual Life. By
many parables he describes it to be a Spiritual
rather than a material life-process. It is some
thing that is born, grows, unfolds and bears
fruit in the individual soul. This Spiritual
Life-process, although it is superior to the phys
ical life, must for a time develop in close re-

58 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
lation to it, but in the end there will be a sep
aration and end of the physical. In conversion
Jesus indicates that in some way he is con
cerned and vitally interested in this transcend
ence of the individual soul's center of gravity,
so to speak, from the physical plane into the
Spiritual. In section four Jesus reveals the essential
relations of this new Spiritual Life that are
to obtain between God and the human soul, and
between the redeemed soul and the unredeemed.
Between God and the soul there must be the
reciprocity of love; God the Spiritual Father
will have infinite love for his spiritual children
that will be shown in care, protection and the
affectionate interchange of mystic fellowship.
The soul now born of the Spirit must have such
a childlike faith and trust in her Heavenly
Father that nothing in mortal life should
weaken it. Then the soul that expects to live
in this higher life process of the Spirit must
always have and exercise a forgiving spirit
toward his fellows.
Love is essentially unifying, and harmoniz
ing, it draws together, not only God and the
soul, but all other souls, nothing must come be
tween. In section five Jesus foretells the final separ-

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 59
ation of the two life-processes. He warns hia
disciples of the inevitable friction and strife
and suffering incident to the transition; wars,
earthquakes, poverty, sickness, evil, he would
have us see and understand to be merely inci
dental in the cosmic struggle between the physi
cal and the spiritual for survival. They are
all to be endured and ignored as part of the to-
be-expected reaction. But to the one who
patiently keeps love the controlling rule of life
under whatever physical conditions may be
encountered, there will come suddenly and un
expectedly a climax, be it in this mortal life
or at its close, an awakening to realization of
the presence of the Lord of this Spiritual Life.
He that endures to this end shall enter into
the fullness of this higher and timeless Spir
itual immediacy.

MARK: THE WORKS OP JESUS
THE teachings of Jesus that have been
discussed in the previous section were
those collected by Matthew and are gen
erally known as "The Sayings of Jesus." They
record Matthew's understanding and remem
brance of Jesus' teachings.
We are now to examine Peter's remem
brances as recorded by Mark. As was ex
plained in the introduction, Mark apparently
made three copies at different times and for
different groups, which therefore differed some
what. The copy sent to the Roman Church,
and known as Canonical Mark, is the most
complete, although there are some passages that
are either in Matthew, or in Luke, or in both
that are not in Mark. If we come to these
we will refer to their source, but otherwise all
quotations in this section will be understood to
have been taken from the Gospel according to
Mark. As one would expect from Peter's nature his
remembrances of Jesus group themselves about
the common facts and occurrences of the day's
life and journey. He is concerned more with
60

THE WORKS OF JESUS 61
what Jesus did than with what he said, and we
will therefore in our study be led more to con
sider the significance of Jesus' words as they
are connected and interpreted by the acts he
did. And this is right because a man's teach
ings should always if possible be interpreted
by his acts. The Chinese Boxers claimed to
be invulnerable to weapons of war, but failing
to demonstrate, they lost the confidence of the
people. Jesus claimed that the laws of the
Spiritual Life were superior to natural laws
and he demonstrated it by performing what ap
peared to be miracles. He came to witness to
the Good News of a Spiritual Life and demon
strated the reality of such a life by exhibiting
the fruits of such a life, by his loving kindness
and goodness and power, to such an extent that
he won for himself the title, the Son of God.
He claimed that the Spiritual Life was death
less and eternal and he demonstrated it by hia
undoubted resurrection appearances.
It was not the newness or correctness of the
ethics that Jesus taught, that won him the al
legiance of the nations, but that men felt flow
ing from him a power that they considered to
be the power of God himself, and which Jesus
asserted was inherent in the Spiritual Life and
was available for all.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

To make this apparent our examination of
the remembrances of Peter as recorded by Mark
will now be directed (1:9-11).
And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus
came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized
of John in the Jordan. And straightway coming
up out of the water, he saw the heavens rent
asunder, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon
him: and a voice came out of the heavens, Thou
art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.
The incidences of the baptism of Jesus are
more fully described in the copy that went to
Alexandria, but all agree in this that Jesus'
conscious self-dedication to his ministry, when
he was about thirty years of age, was sealed
by a mystic vision and voice, that set him apart
from the very beginning as being radically dif
ferent from common mortals.
Then Mark records that under the stress of
his "call," he withdrew to the wilderness to
think it out. Again the details of this testing
in the wilderness are omitted in our text and
given more fully in both Matthew and Luke.
There we learn that Jesus was severely tempted
by the alternatives that presented themselves.
He was called to witness to the reality of the
Spiritual Life, that could be achieved and lived
only by making love the controlling principle.
He could see that this involved a denial of the

THE WORKS OF JESUS 63
conventional value and confidence placed on
physical success and assertion. He must choose
the one or the other, and he chose the Spiri
tual. On the one hand there was bread in
plenty, safety, and power; on the other hand,
physical uncertainty and hunger and danger
and humiliation, but he chose the Spiritual in
confident faith, because he knew that its Life
was higher than the natural life, its sustenance
direct from God, its power in the reserves of
Infinite Love.
It was not, however, until after the imprison
ment of John that Jesus began his public min
istry (1:14-15).
Now after John was delivered up, Jesus came
into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God, and say
ing, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the
gospel. Perhaps one of his earliest public utterances
was at his home synagogue in Capernaum where
at first he aroused wonder because of the grace
of his words, which changed to hate when they
realized its import; and they sought to throw
him over a cliff but he passed through them
unharmed exhibiting a strange power he had
all through life of disarming those who would
do him harm. Later on he told hia disciples

64 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
that Love would always be their best protection,
and yet at the end he died on the cross at the
hands of his enemies, and his disciples suffered
martyrdom because of their faith in him and
his way of Love.
One by one he gathered disciples about him
and they followed him from place to place, wit-
nessed the things he did, and heard his teach
ings, and asked him questions.
It was his habit to go off alone for prayer and
this he sometimes did late at night or very
early in the morning. Often when crowds
thronged him he would leave there and go else
where; he never appeared to seek intimate fel
lowship, until at the close of his short life he
grew to love his Disciples and the friends at
Bethany, and the women who followed him
from Galilee.
At Capernaum he healed a man with an un
clean spirit by the authority of his word. This
was the beginning of many miracles of heal
ing, one of which we shall describe later on.
At another time (2:1-12) he healed a man
sick with the palsy. This time he did it, the
record says, because he saw the faith of those
who brought him (2:5-11).
And Jesus seeing their faith saith unto the
sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins are forgiven.

THE WORKS OF JESUS 65
But there were certain of the scribes sitting
there, and reasoning in their hearts.
Why doth this man thus speak? he blas-
phemeth: who can forgive sins but one, even
God? And straightway Jesus, perceiving in his spirit
that they so reasoned within themselves, saith
unto them, Why reason ye these things in your
hearts? Which is easier, to say to the sick of the palsy,
Thy sins are forgiven, or to say, Arise, and take
up thy bed, and walk?
But that ye may know that the Son of man
hath authority on earth to forgive sins (he saith
to the sick of the palsy) .
I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and
go unto thy house.
And he arose, and straightway took up the bed,
and went forth before them all; insomuch that
they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying,
We never saw it on this fashion.
On this occasion Jesus exercised the right
of forgiving sin, and when his right Was chal
lenged he defended it by healing the man, in
dicating that there was some sort of connection
between sin and sickness. This connection is
made clear in the light of his many teachings
concerning the nature of the Spiritual Life.
It must be a life wholly controlled by love, sin
is contrary to the essential nature of love, it
nullifies a higher life of the Spirit, it is always
selfish, it is always katabolic where love is

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

anabolic. By this incident Jesus teaches that
here, at least, he was most concerned in the
sick man's spiritual health, and the healing
of the body was a consequence of the earlier
healing of the soul's disease (3:3-5).
And he saith unto the man that had his hand
withered, Stand forth.
And he saith unto them, Is it lawful on the
sabbath day to do good, or to do harm ? to save a
life, or to kill ? But they held their peace.
And when he had looked round about on them
with anger, being grieved at the hardening of
their heart, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth
thy hand. And he stretched it forth; and his
hand was restored.
In this case of healing the emphasis falls on
the kindness of the act. Jesus was grieved and
angry that they should be so hard hearted; he
knew that that spirit of all things would pre
vent them from transcending the natural life.
Jesus' conception of sin in general was not
that it was reprehensible in a legal sense ; if he
had so considered it he would have denounced
it in the same scathing words to "the woman
who was a sinner," to this sick man, as he did
to these hard-hearted Pharisees, and the hypo
critical heads of the synagogue. No, the dis
crimination which he always made had to do
with the relation of the sinful life to Love. Dr.

THE WORKS OF JESUS 67
Glover points out rightly that Jesus' denunci
ation of sin always fell on one of four kinds
of sin, namely: hardness of heart, hypocrisy,
evil desire, or indecision, all of which are dif
ferent forms of the absence of love and Jesus
denounces them because they block the way to
the higher Spiritual Life-process and not be
cause they are legally disobedience to Sovereign
authority. The greatest of all sins he asserts is
blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, an ineradical
disdain for the cosmic power of Redemptive
Love, as expressed for finite accommodation in
the self-hood of the Holy Spirit (3:28-29).
Verily I say unto you, all their sins shall be
forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blas
phemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme.
But whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy
Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an
eternal sin.
On one occasion Jesus' own mother and
brothers came to see him when he was sur
rounded by a multitude of people and Jesus took
advantage of the incident to make clear avowal
of the relative importance, of natural relation
ship and spiritual relationship (3:32-35).
And a multitude was sitting about him; and
they say unto him, Behold thy mother and thy
brethren without seek for thee.

68 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my
mother and my brethren?
And looking round on them that sat round him,
he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren !
For whosoever shall do the will of God the same
is my brother, and sister, and mother.
Natural kinship is an accident of reproduc
tion that may or may not prove to be congenial,
and when it does, is due to habit rather than
affinity. Jesus would have us understand that
those, who "do the will of God," that is, make
love the rule of life, are more truly of one fam
ily. They have the common Heavenly Father,
are one in spirit of life control and are one in
truest and closest immediacy. This is not a fig
ure of speech, a matter of similarity, agreement
of ideals ; it is, as Paul discerned, a mystic one
ness, "Ye are one body in Christ." John saw
it in the glorified church as the Bride of the
Risen Lord, and as all great mystics have rec
ognized, in tbe Unitive Life of the redeemed in
God. In 4 :26-29 Mark gives an additional parable
that very strikingly confirms the vital, unfold
ing nature of the Spiritual Life.
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a
man should cast seed upon the earth.
And should sleep and rise night and day, and
the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth
not how,

THE WORKS OF JESUS 69
The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the
blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he put-
teth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come.
In verses 4:37-40 Mark records the incident
of Jesus stilling the waves of the sea.
And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and
the waves beat into the boat, insomuch that the
boat was now filling.
And he himself was in the stern, asleep on the
cushion: and they awake him, and say unto him,
Teacher, carest thou not that we perish?
And he awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said
unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind
ceased, and there was a great calm.
And he said unto them, Why are ye fearful?
have ye not yet faith?
In this incident Jesus asserts and demon
strates power over natural forces. In healing
sickness he was dealing with pathologic con
ditions where thought conditions largely enter
and where it is possible to conceive that his
power was of the same kind, mentality acting
on mentality, although even there it does not
explain why his thought acting on their thought
should be instantly curative. But here there is
no such escape. Jesus by the authority of his
word stills the mechanical waves raised by the
storm. He asserts that the Spiritual Life of
which he is an heir has authority over the sea

70 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
as it conditions their safety. He proves that
he has access to Spiritual forces which are par
amount to natural forces. And then he shows,
by rebuking his disciples for lack of faith, that
they have the same access to power, the same
authority over natural forces, if they had faith
enough to exercise the right.
In the incident where he harmonized the dis
ordered psychic control of the Gerasene maniac,
Mark tells us that the first overture came
from the maniac, and yet, strange to say, his
prayer was not for healing, but was to be let
alone. There is present a complex of person
ality, a dual control which Jesus discerns and
corrects. This poor maniac in his natural life,
becomes, under the unifying control of Spirit
ual Love Vitality, a messenger of Life to his
countrymen (5^6-8).
And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and
worshipped him; and crying out with a loud voice,
he saith, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou
Son of the Most High God? I adjure thee by God,
torment me not.
For he said unto him, Come forth, thou unclean
spirit, out of the man.
In the incident mentioned in 5:25-34, vital
ity flowing from Jesus almost unconsciously
heals the woman who had an issue of blood for
twelve years.

THE WORKS OF JESUS 71
And a woman, who had an issue of blood twelve
years, And had suffered many things of many physi
cians, and had spent all that she had, and was
nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
Having heard the things concerning Jesus,
came in the crowd behind, and touched his
garment. For she said, if I touch but his garments, I shall
be made whole.
And straightway the fountain of her blood was
dried up; and she felt in her body that she was
healed of her plague.
And straightway Jesus, perceiving in himself
that the power proceeding from him had gone
forth, turned him about in the crowd, and said,
Who touched my garments?
And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the
multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who
touched me?
And he looked round about to see her that
had done this thing.
But the woman fearing and trembling, know
ing what had been done to her, came and fell
down before him, and told him all the truth.
And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of
thy plague.
Here Mark again notes that Jesus connects
the healing with the woman's faith. The em
phasis is not on the curative power of his rai
ment, but is on the faith of her act of reach
ing out to touch. One thinks of an infinite
reservoir of healing vitality that is accessible to

72 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
one of faith; and that faith may be held and
exercised by the recipient of the blessed heal
ing as in this case, or as in the case of the
maniac where it was Jesus' faith, or as in Jair-
us' case which follows this, in the faith of her
father (5:35-42).
While he yet spake, they come from the ruler
of the synagogue's house, saying, Thy daughter is
dead: why troublest thou the Teacher any
further? But Jesus, not heeding the word spoken, saith
unto the ruler of the synagogue, Fear not, only
believe. And he suffered no man to follow with him,
save Peter, and James, and John the brother of
James. And they come to the house of the ruler of the
synagogue; and he beholdeth a tumult, and many
weeping and wailing greatly.
And when he was entered in, he saith unto
them, Why make ye a tumult, and weep? the
child is not dead, but sleepeth.
And they laughed him to scorn. But he, having
put them all forth taketh the father of the child
and her mother and them that were with him, and
goeth in where the child was.
And taking the child by the hand he saith unto
her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted,
Damsel I say unto thee, Arise.
And straightway the damsel rose up, and
walked; for she was twelve years old. And they
were amazed straightway with a great amazement.
Here the power of faith as a Spiritual force

THE WORKS OF JESUS 73
is brought into action by the faith of the child's
father, but demonstrated by Jesus' intervention,
or if you please, his cooperation. The amaz
ing thing about this miracle is the assertion that
the child was already dead. This might have
been a mistake if it was the only case, but there
are a number of other cases where, also, there
were many witnesses, the raising of the son of
the widow of Nain, and of Simon. Here faith,
a Spiritual force comes in, not in a reviving
way to merely quicken or harmonize natural
conditions, but here exhibits its vitalizing
power, rekindles life where it was extinct. Does
this not teach, yes demonstrate, that life in its
material body is of itself Spiritual? That it
can exist with, or without a corporal body, that
the soul has a selfhood and identity that is in
dependent of its mortal envelope, that through
faith it can be set free, or can be reconfined?
These are not assertions, they are peerings into
that realm of immaterial Spiritual Life from
which Jesus said he had come, and from which
he had brought the Good News, that we through
faith might enter.
In 6:1-6 Mark refers to Jesus' return to his
own city and to the discussion among his
neighbors as to the source of his extraordinary
wisdom and power. They frankly cannot un-

74 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
derstand it and are inclined to doubt it, hence
Mark reports that Jesus could do very little of
a miraculous character, owing to their disbelief.
Their disbelief did not limit his faith, he only
marvelled at it, but it did weaken the faith of
others and he was able to heal only a few sick
people who still had faith enough, or who had
suffered enough, to claim his healing power.
This power of healing sickness through faith,
Jesus passed on to his Disciples, as we have al
ready seen, and they returned to him exulting
in their success in its demonstration, but Jesus
soberly checks them, saying, it is not something
to rejoice about, the thing of real importance is
not the relief of physical ills, but is the Spiritual
Life that you have entered and into which you
have led others, is your best cause of rejoicing.
He calls them apart, where in the solitude of
the hills, they can rest and recover their bal
ance and perspective. Here the multitudes find
them and Jesus feeds them, the motive being,
"He had compassion on them because they were
as sheep without a shepherd." The motive to
this extraordinary deed was simple kindness,
done for those who evidently he already knew
Would misunderstand him (6:34-37, 41-44).
And he came forth and saw a great multitude,
and he had compassion on them, because they were

THE WORKS OF JESUS 75
as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to
teach them many things.
And when the day was now far spent, his dis
ciples came unto him, and said, The place is desert,
and the day is now far spent;
Send them away, that they may go into the
country and villages round about and buy them
selves somewhat to eat.
But lie answered and said unto them, Give ye
them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we
go and buy two hundred shillings' worth of bread,
and give them to eat?
And he took the five loaves and the two fishes,
and looking up to the heaven, he blessed, and
break the loaves; and he gave to the disciples to
set before them; and the two fishes divided he
among them all.
And they all ate, and were filled.
And they took up broken pieces, twelve basket-
fuls, and also of the fishes.
And they that ate the loaves were five thousand
men. Here again is an exercise of power over nat
ural conditions, his compassion for these tired
and hungry people constrains him to draw on
(supernatural power to supply their physical
needs. There is no possibility of mistake, there
were witnesses by the thousand, "they ate and
were satisfied." We stand in amazement be
fore an exhibition of supernatural power like
this, but we can not, we dare not disbelieve.
And then to make the impression deeper in the

V6 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
minds of his disciples, on another occasion when
they questioned in their minds, he told them:
"The works I have done, ye can do ; and greater
works than these can ye do because I go unto
my Father." No explanation of it meets the
demands, except this: — the Spiritual Life and
its forces of Love and Faith are paramount over
natural forces and are accessible to human love
and faith, the use we make of it being limited
only by the poor, halting, shrinking measure
of our faith. In the darkness of that same
night Jesus sends his Disciples home across the
sea, but when they are tossed by the waves he
comes to them in sympathy and stills the storm,
but finds again the need of gently rebuking
their lack of faith.
So we, how often, in the face of continuing
miracles and cumulative evidence, still lack
faith. We go to war, because our faith is
stronger in natural force, than in the higher
powers of Spiritual Love and Faith. And the
storm we raise, with its clamor and terror, fills
our ears until we are deaf to his gentle, pa
thetic words of rebuke : "Oh thou of little faith,
wherefore didst thou doubt?"
And they forgot to take bread; and they had
not in the boat with them more than one loaf.
And he charged them, saying, Take heed,

THE WORKS OF JESUS 77
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the
leaven of Herod.
And they reasoned one with another, saying,
We have no bread.
And Jesus perceiving it saith unto them, Why
reason ye, because ye have no bread? do ye
not yet perceive, neither understand? have ye
your heart hardened?
Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear
ye not? and do ye not remember?
When I break the five loaves among the five
thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces
took ye up ? They say unto him, Twelve.
And when the seven among the four thousand,
how many basketfuls of broken pieces took ye up ?
And they say unto him, Seven.
And he said unto them, Do ye not yet under
stand? In verses 8:14-21, Jesus again rebukes his
Disciples for their lack of faith in being anx
ious about the shortage of physical bread on
one of their journeys.
In 8:34-38 there are significant teachings
concerning the relative value of the natural and
the Spiritual Life.
And he called unto him the multitudes with his
disciples, and said unto them, if any man would
come after me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it,
and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and
the gospel's shall save it.

78 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
For what doth it profit a man to gain the whole
world, and forfeit his life?
For what should a man give in exchange for
his life?
For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of
my words in this adulterous and sinful genera
tion, the Son of man also shall be ashamed of
him, when he cometh in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels.
Jesus had just been fortelling the near ap
proach of his death and resurrection when Peter
impulsively checked him. Jesus in his turn re
buked Peter and took advantage of the occasion
to enlighten his Disciples as to the comparative
value of the two life-processes. In the text the
same word, life, is used for both the natural,
mortal existence, and for the timeless Life of
the Spirit, but there is no mistaking his mean
ing: There is an antagonism between the ends
of the natural life and the ends of the Spiritual
Life. In the one case bodily or physical well
being and satisfaction is to be desired, in the
other case service and fellowship with God are
desirable; in the one case egoism is character
istic, in the other unselfishness is essential; in
the one case the current of life sets in, in the
other case it sets outward in service ; but always
there is antithesis. We cannot both desire phys
ical life, and Spiritual Life; one desire or the

THE WORKS OF JESUS 79
other must dominate, and the sharper the divis
ion is made the more clearly will the results of
the choice be manifested (9 :2-7).
And after six days Jesus taketh with him
Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth them
up into a high mountain apart by themselves : and
he was transfigured before them,
And his garments became glistering, exceed
ingly white, so as no fuller on earth can whiten
them; And there appeared unto them Elijah with
Moses : and they were talking with Jesus.
And Peter answereth and saith to Jesus, Rabbi,
it is good for us to be here : and let us make three
tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and
one for Elijah.
For he knew not what to answer, for they
became sore afraid.
And there came a cloud overshadowing them:
and there came a voice out of the cloud, This is
my beloved Son: hear ye him.
Here is recorded another of Jesus' mystical
experiences. It shows very plainly the reality
of the Spiritual Life, and shows it to be a re
ality in the most substantial form. It was no
mere volitional control by spiritual ideals, but
it was the breaking into physical manifestations
of immaterial Spiritual reality. It was not an
isolated experience that could be explained un
der the general laws of hallucination and
dreams; it was not an individual experience

80 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
that was vouched for by a single witness and
he the one who experienced it, it was a collec
tive experience that has been described and
vouched for by two who were present. And
the whole long history of mystical experience
furnishes hundreds of witnesses, who vouch for
the same phenomena in their own lives.
Miss Herman in her careful study of Mystic
ism says that the validity of visions rests in
their rationality and their life enhancing qual
ity. She says: "They are of value to us only
in as far as we can trace the genesis of great
illuminating, purifying and fructifying forces,
which we see wrought out into the life and
teachings of the mystics. It is their assimi
lation of the visionary "elements" that matters,
the play of their consecrated reason upon what
was given them in a flash of transcendent, sym
bolical intuition; their practical realization of
it in fruitful contemplation and redemptive
service." The value of these rare visions lies
not in the fact of seeing, but in the proof and
illumination of the unseen reality, and far more
than we think, we live and are influenced by
these rare and illusive flashes of heavenly glory.
The world would be poor, indeed, without the
vision of the annunciation, the angels of Bethle-

THE WORKS OF JESUS 81
hem, the voice on Jordan's bank, and the trans
cendent glory of the transfiguration.
Mark 9 : 14-2 9 describes the healing of the
epileptic boy (9:22-27).
And oft-times it hath cast him both into the
fire and into the waters, to destroy him: but if
thou canst do anything, have compassion on us,
and help us.
And Jesus said unto him, If thou canst! All
things are possible to him that believeth.
Straightway the father of the child cried out,
and said, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.
And when Jesus saw that a multitude came run
ning together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, say
ing unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I com
mand thee, come out of him, and enter no more
into him.
And having cried out, and torn him much, he
came out: and the boy became as one dead; inso
much that the more part said, He is dead.
But Jesus took him by the hand, and raised him
up; and he arose.
In this case of healing the faith element is
especially prominent. The Disciples were un
able to heal, as Jesus explained, by their insuf
ficiency of faith. The father believed in Jesus'
kindness of heart and cried out, "If thou canst
do anything, have compassion on us, and help
us," but Jesus replied almost in the slang of
our streets, "It's not up to me, it's up to you;
all things are possible to him who believes."

82 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
And the father accepted the challenge and hum
bly said, "I believe, help thou mine unbelief."
Is it any wonder that the child, sick as he was,
was healed after that heart-gripping confession
of a father's love and desire?
In 10:17-31 Mark records the incident of
the rich young nobleman who came to Jesus
with a half hearted desire to follow him
(10:20-31). And he said unto him, Teacher, all these things
have I observed from my youth.
And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and
said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go, sell
whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come,
follow me.
But his countenance fell at the saying, and he
went away sorrowful: for he was one that had
great possessions.
And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto
his disciples, How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God.
And the disciples were amazed at his words.
But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them,
Children, how hard is it for them that trust in
riches to enter into the kingdom of God. It is
easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
God. And they were astonished exceedingly, saying
unto him, Then whe can be saved?
Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is

THE WORKS OF JESUS 83
impossible, but not with God: for all things are
possible with God.
Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left
all, and have followed thee.
Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, There is no
man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters,
or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my
sake, and for the gospel's sake.
But he shall receive a hundredfold now in this
time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and
mothers, and children, and lands, with persecu
tions ; and in the world to come eternal life.
But many that are first shall be last; and the
last first.
Here Jesus very wisely set before this attrac
tive youth, and his disciples and the insidious
danger lurking in the possession of or desira
for wealth. The teaching is very clear and
convincing, if we remember the independent
reality of the Spiritual Life, and its antithesis
to the physical life. The urge of the physical
life is toward possession, accumulation, and in
dulgence, the possession of wealth is the indi
cation of "success," the urge of the Spiritual
Life is toward kindness, goodness, and unsel
fishness ; the possession of wealth, the desire for
it, the trust in it, all tend to self indulgence
and away from a love control of life and there
fore in Spiritual value indicate "failure."
One may triumph over its urge and trend, by

84 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
a strong effort and grateful appreciation for
its benefits, and a purpose to use it only for
good purposes and in his spirit, but even then
wealth is an insidious danger, and to most men
and women it is better, far better, to use it in
wise and kindly ways of loving self-expression,
even to the extent of reducing the principal, and
perhaps exhausting it. Only those who have
wealth and a wife and children, appreciate how
hard a thing it is to do. Many a rich man who
has read these words of Jesus, and knew in his
heart of hearts that Jesus was right, has acknowl
edged its fairness as a test of a man's real de
sire for that perfect experience of the Spiritual
Life. No wonder, when the young man hesi
tated under the strain of the test, that Jesus
loved him. And no wonder that Jesus could
promise to those who did meet this supreme
test, "in the world to come eternal life." One
of the reasons, perhaps, in our rich and com
fortable age that men like to think of the King
dom of God as an ideal society, is because with
that idea one can still hold on to his wealth
provided he uses some of it in charity. But if
the Kingdom of God means Spiritual Life, then
Jesus is right by his test, "One thing then lack
est : go sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:

THE WORKS OF JESUS 85
and come, follow me." Then and then only
is the center of gravity in a safe place, then
and then only is this rock of stumbling removed
from the path, then and then only is the way
of loving sympathy open and free.
In the verses 10 :35-45 Jesus again refers to
something akin to this, namely, to whom in the
Spiritual Life shall belong the places of honor
(10:42-42). And Jesus called them to him, and saith unto
them, Ye know that they who are accounted to
rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and
their great ones exercise authority over them.
But it is not so among you: but whosoever
would become great among you, shall be your
minister; And whosoever would be first among you, shall
be servant of all.
For the Son of man also came not to be min
istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life
a ransom for many,
Here as clearly as anywhere else in all his
teachings Jesus shows the true relations of the
Spiritual Life to consist in a loving desire to
serve, not by gifts of money, or from places of
authority, service that is easy and cheap, but
in humble unselfish service that is prompted
alone by Love, and paid in the costly coin of
Faith.

86 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
In 10:46-52 there is an account of the heal
ing of a blind beggar, and again Mark records
that an essential element was faith, and this
time faith in the blind man himself. Here as
elsewhere, faith appears to be not merely a men
tal state, but is the actual appropriation of faith
itself, as a creative, formative force, spiritual in
its nature, but operative in a material realm,
and able to correct physical defects, instantly
and without the slow process of natural cellu
lar interchange and metabolism. Faith is the
power by which the Spiritual demonstrates its
authority over the natural (11:22-25).
And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have
faith in God.
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say
unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast
into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but
shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass;
he shall have it.
Therefore I say unto you, All things whatso
ever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive
them, and ye shall have them.
And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if
ye have aught against any one ; that your Father
also who is in heaven may forgive you your
trespasses. In these verses Jesus teaches that the power
of faith is a general one and is not limited to
healing. He asserts that any prayer of faith

THE WORKS OF JESUS 87
for definite objects, if sincere, and without
wavering, will be answered. His words are
without equivocation. If a man desires wealth
and in faith works toward that goal, without a
doubt he will see wealth, but it may bring lean
ness to his soul. If a man desires to be a mu
sician, or an artist and has faith, things will
work together to gratify his wish, objectively
he will become skillful, subjectively his facul
ties will be sharpened and made sensitive.
Faith Healing, Christian Science, New
Thought, Faith Missions, Faith Orphanages, all
testify to the creative and constructive power
of faith. Great engineering feats, national sys
tems of economics, are all based on a kind of
faith. The German military machine is the product
of a national faith. "Now faith is the substance
of things hoped for." It is objectifying that
which one desires, and of course as Love is the
highest form of desire, faith will "work" best
in connection with Love. It is only when faith
has a love foundation and a love goal that it
works unhampered. It is only when faith
serves love that it is working harmoniously with
the cosmic currents of Redemptive Love, and
can show its highest efficiency. It is when
faith is hampered by an unforgiving spirit that

88 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
it fails. Love and faith must go hand in hand
if we would work the miracles which Jesus
said we might.
There are a number of references, of which
12:1-12 is one, in which Jesus covertly rebukes
the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in hindering
rather than helping men into the Spiritual Life.
This passage also refers to Jesus' immunity to
their hate and attacks.
In verses 12:18-27 he answers questions
about the marriage relation in the Spiritual
Life (12:24-27).
Jesus said unto them, Is it not for this cause
that ye err, that ye know not the scriptures, nor
the power of God ?
For when they shall rise from the dead, they
neither marry, nor are given in marriage ; but are
as angels in heaven.
But as touching the dead, that they are raised;
have ye not read in the book of Moses, in the place
concerning the Bush, how God spake unto him,
saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ?
He is not the God of the dead, but of the living:
ye do greatly err.
He appears to teach here that the marriage
relation, connected as it is with natural repro
duction, is therefore absent in the Spiritual
Realm. One is left to infer that the natural
life is the only source of existence in the Spir-

THE WORKS OF JESUS 89
itual Life. The whole question of the origin
of natural life, of questions like transmigration,
and reincarnation, are left untouched. The one
thing Jesus teaches about life is that there are
two distinct life processes : the natural or physi
cal, and the Spiritual ; that the soul of a human
is independent of its physical body ; that under
certain conditions the human soul may trans
cend the natural life-process and enter into the
higher life-process of the Spirit: and that the
soul may for a time have correspondence in both
life-processes, unless it is perhaps one life-proc
ess under different modes.
The certain conditions that determine this
transcendence of the soul from the lower to the
higher life-process, Jesus teaches, have to do
with whether a man is willing or not willing
to make love the rule of his life (12:28-34).
And one of the scribes came, and heard them
questioning together, and knowing that he had
answered them well, asked him, What command
ment is the first of all ?
Jesus answered, the first is, Hear, 0 Israel; The
Lord our God, the Lord is One :
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and with all thy strength.
The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. There is none other commandment
greater than these.

90 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth,
Teacher, thou hast well said that he is one, and
there is none other but he:
And to love him with all the heart, and with
all the understanding, and with all the strength,
and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more
than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
And when Jesus saw that he answered dis
creetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from
the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst
ask him any question.
This is so marvelously simple and yet so ex
ceedingly difficult to do that, as Jesus said, the
Spiritual Life is like a testing formula, a nar
row gate, by the broad highway of natural life.
Mark devotes some space to the closing scenes
of Jesus' earthly life, but his account is in purely
narrative form and as we shall have occasion
to refer to other and fuller accounts of the
events later on we will omit their consideration
here. In closing this section we will quote hia
account of the great commission (16:15-18).
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the
world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be con
demned. And these signs shall accompany them that
believe: in my name shall they cast out demons;
they shall speak with new tongues;
They shall take up serpents, and if they drink

THE WORKS OF JESUS 91
any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them;
they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
recover. In Matthew's account of the sending out of
the twelve, we noted that it was a general com
mission to all believers in the Spiritual Life.
Here is the confirmation: all disciples are to
give love continuing self-expression; in that
service they are to move forward until its leav
ening influence has permeated all the world and
cast its seed of the Spiritual Life among all
nations. In this service they are to busy them
selves in all manner of loving ministration ; and
in that service of love they shall have power
from the Spiritual Realm, they will be given
gifts of speech and wisdom, they will be pro
tected from harm, they will have the sympa
thetic presence of the risen Lord, until their
time of earthly service is ended, and all of which
is possible and consistent if Jesus' conception of
an independent Life of the Spirit is true, and
is not possible or even reasonable, if his con
ception of the Spiritual Life is not true.

LUKE: REMINISCENCES OF JESUS
BY JOANNA
IN the quotations we made from Matthew,
we studied the teachings of Jesus from
Matthew's point of view. In the quota
tions we made from Mark we studied the life
of Jesus as it illustrated his teachings as seen
from Peter's point of view. In this section we
are to study the teachings of Jesus as seen from
a woman's point of view.
Scholars are generally united in finding back
of Luke's Gospel three characteristic sources.
1. A Markian source, which we believe to have
been the copy of Peter's reminiscences made
and left by Mark at Caesarea. 2. A collection
of Sayings of Jesus which was the one made
by Matthew, or a very similar collection made
by some one else. 3. An account, that has very
marked characteristics, which is found in three
sections of Luke, namely : The Nativity" Sec
tion, (Chapters I, II) ; The Travel Section,
(Chapters IX :51 -XVIII :14) and the Post-
resurrection Section (XXIII :54-XXIV: 53).
These characteristics are linguistic peculiarities,
a Jewish-Christian point of view, acquaintance
92

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 93
especially with Judea, rather than Galilee, sym
pathy with Samaria, intimately acquainted
with Herod's court, one who accompanied Jesus
on his last journey from Galilee, one who had
personal knowledge of the resurrection appear
ances, and, finally, undoubtedly a woman. All
of these demands are fully met if we consider
Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's Steward,
the author. Luke refers to her by name, twice
in this connection and indirectly twice more.
She of all the women who accompanied Jesus
had the necessary birth, education and stand
ing. Section One, Luke i, ii
We note first of all that these reminiscences
have been passed from woman to woman, and
the differences between it and the parallel ac
count in Matthew is only the natural difference
that would be seen in accounts of childhood the
one emanating from the mother's memory, and
the other from the father's. We can easily im
agine the mother of our Lord surrounded in
the Upper Room by those other women who
had loved our Lord, had followed him, and had
ministered to his wants. How natural for her
to have unburdened her heart of the things long

94 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
cherished in memory and now for the first time
revealing their profound significance.
In 1 :26-38 we have an account of Mary's in
effable vision of the Annunciation:
Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was
sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named
Nazareth, To a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was
Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's
name was Mary.
And he came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou
that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee.
But she was greatly troubled at the saying,
and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this might be.
And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary:
for thou hast found favor with God.
And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb,
and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name
JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of
the Most High : and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David:
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for
ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
And Mary said unto the angel, How shall this
be, seeing I know not a man?
And the angel answered and said unto her, The
Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power
of the Most High shall overshadow thee: where
fore also the holy thing which is begotten shall
be called the Son of God.
And behold, Elisabeth thy kinswoman, she also
hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is
the sixth month with her that was called barren.

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 95
For no word from God shall be void of power.
And Mary said, Behold, the handmaid of the
Lord : be it unto me according to thy word. And
the angel departed from her.
Then follows the intimate details of the birth
of our Lord, seen and remembered only as a
woman would apprise them (39-45) ; (2:4-19).
And Mary arose in these days and went into the
hill country with haste, into a city of Judah;
And entered into the house of Zacharias and
saluted Elisabeth.
And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the
salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb ;
and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit;
And she lifted up her voice with a loud cry and
said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb.
And whence is this to me that the mother of
my Lord should come unto me?
For behold, when the voice of thy salutation
came into mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb
for joy.
And blessed is she that believed ; for there shall
be a fulfilment of the things which have been
spoken to her from the Lord.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of
the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, to the city of
David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was
of the house and family of David;
To enrol himself with Mary, who was betrothed
to him, being great with child.
And it came to pass, while they were there, the
days were fulfilled that she should be delivered.

96 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
And she brought forth her first born son; and
she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid
him in a manger, because there was no room for
them in the inn.
And there were shepherds in the same country
abiding in the field, and keeping watch by night
over their flock.
And an angel of the Lord stood by them, and
the glory of the Lord shone round about them:
and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Be not afraid;
for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy
which shall be to all the people:
For there is born to you this day in the city
of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.
And this is the sign unto you: Ye shall find a
babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in
a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multi
tude of the heavenly host praising God, and
saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will toward men.
And it came to pass, when the angels went away
from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to
another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem,
and see this thing that is come to pass, which
the Lord hath made known unto us.
And they came with haste, and found both
Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the
manger. And when they saw it, they made known con
cerning the saying which was spoken to them
about this child.
And all that heard it wondered at the things
which were spoken unto them by the shepherds.

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 97
But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering
them in her heart.
We have quoted these verses at length partly
for their charm and beauty which suggest, as
a woman's narrative always suggests, rather
than logically proves, and partly because the
writer has no desire to escape the difficult im
plications if their suggestion is correct.
These verses clearly suggest that Jesus was
born not by the natural processes of procrea
tion but by a direct and unique interposition of
the Holy Spirit ; that supernatural appearances
and attestations accompanied his birth; and
that in a very emphatic sense Jesus was differ
ent from other human beings in his origin.
If we are obsessed with the arrogant claims
of natural science that life is only possible on
the natural plane and according to its infallible
laws, all this is imaginary and a legend. But
can we dismiss it so lightly? Is life on this
natural plane, in a material and temporal en
vironment, the only life process ? Are we who
believe in the independent Teality of a Spiritual
Life deceived, or are they who are content with
what science claims mistaken? The writer
makes no apology for believing that we stand
on the threshold of another world. He accepts
without hesitation and without quibble, Jesus'

98 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
own words, as spoken to Nicodemus (John 3 :11-
13):
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that
we do know, and bear witness to that which we
have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I
told you earthly things and ye believe not, how
shall ye believe if I tell you spiritual things? And
no one hath ascended into heaven, but he that
hath descended out of heaven, even the Son of
Man, who is in heaven.
Laboratory methods and discursive logic
based on sensual concepts can not be relied upon
and are in fact, impertinent when offered in
denial of the reality of an immaterial Life of
the Spirit. Woman's intuition, the visions of
the great mystics, are more to be relied upon
in the premises. Saul's vision was convincing
to him; Thomas actual placing his fingers in
the nail prints and the riven side convinced him ;
the women's vision of the angels convinced
them; and Jesus said (John 20:29):
Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed:
blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have
believed. In speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus insists that
he had a right ot testify because "he hath de
scended out of the Spiritual Realm."
If, as a reality, there is a higher life of the
Spirit — which this whole book is designed to

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 99
show to be reasonable — then there is not only
nothing impossible in the virgin birth of Jesus,
but it is almost a necessity. Redemptive Love
as an eternal self-expression of God's essential
nature, calls for just such a breaking through
of the walls that shut in evolution on the natu
ral and physical plane, if humanity is ever to
know that Infinite Love, has prepared a way
for the soul, who is ready for it, to take one
step nearer to that perfect experience of mutual
and responsive love, which "God has prepared
for those who love Him," and which the whole
trend of natural evolution appears to indicate.
Why should we be surprised that something
wonderful happened to Mary the mother of
our Lord ? In our heart of hearts do we not all
believe that wonderful things would happen to
any one who had the same spiritual vision and
yearnings and purity of religious desire that
Mary had? Jesus is divine not because he ex
hibits a life control and wisdom that is ideal,
but because he shows marks of a higher Spirit
ual ancestry than other men can show. Jesus
is divine because from him flow currents of
Divine Life "that shall save his people from
their sins," that is, shall remove the natural
inhibitions to a higher Spiritual Life, and shall
generate in them his more perfect Life. "In

100 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Him was Life and that Life was the light of
men."
The writer feels deeply that if we are to as
cribe Divinity in any real sense to our Lord
we must hold to his exceptional birth. If we
give that up, however much we may persuade
ourselves to the contrary, we give up the major
part of our evidence of that Divinity. These
women's intuition of truth can be trusted, and
must be trusted, if we sincerely desire to gain
a knowledge of the deeper truth concerning
our Lord. Their testimony is to the fact that
supernatural phenomena accompanied the birth
of our Lord, and as we shall later see, accom
panied his death and resurrection.
This need not necessarily contradict science;
it may appear to contradict some scientific
statements that have the rank of authority, but
which may be set aside in the light of further
study and examination. The reality of a Spir
itual Life and the nature and action of spiritual
forces are too recently a subject of scholarly
study for science to be too dogmatic. The great
scientists of today are far less so than a genera
tion ago. It is not at all unlikely that in the
near future the teachings of Jesus may be ac
cepted as "scientific," and when they are, the
peculiar facts connected with his birth and life

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 101
and death will fall into their natural places
and be accepted without question. Everything
depends on the reality of such a Realm of the
Spirit and its relation to the material universe.
Science at present labels the testimony of these
women as pure imagination. Be that as it may,
if it frees humanity from the shackles of a
physical environment and its clutch of death,
and opens for him the way for a greater free
dom, a finer experience, and the thrill of a
higher Life, it ought to be true, it is true !
Section Two, Ltjke ix:51-xviii:14
This long section is devoted to an account of
the last journey of Jesus and his disciples to
Jerusalem. It is a succession of most beauti
ful word pictures.
The personality of Jesus stands out in brighter
and more contrasting colors than elsewhere; he
is more kind and loving, more intensely in
dignant with the sham and hypocrisy of the
Pharisees, more tender toward women and
children, more keen and convincing in his re
plies, more "human" in his strength as well as
in his affection. This section is not concerned
so much with the deeper aspects of Jesus' teach
ings as was Matthew ; here they are more ethi^

102 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
cal and human, and less "universal," perhaps.
The parables given refer to the detail problems
of life and more remotely to the Kingdom in
its larger sense. And yet this is not always so,
for in a number of cases the direct application is
to the Spiritual Life in its cosmic sense. In
fact this account by Joanna is so much alike
to those given by the other writers that one is
tempted to exclaim repeatedly, 'How like Jesus
that sounds.' Some of the best and most char
acteristic teachings of Jesus are here given, pic
tures so perfectly drawn that one can never for
get. The Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son,
the Rich Man who built the larger barns, Poor
Lazarus, and the Publican's prayer. One is
tempted to mention every one so uniformly good
are they, but space forbids. This must be noted,
however, that although the many incidents and
sayings are here more human and simple and,
in a measure, different from those recorded by
Matthew and Mark, yet nevertheless they all
have the same deep application to a higher
Spiritual Life. Only one must not search in
this woman's narrative for a man's didactic
habit of thought and mental appreciation of
another's words. Here one finds the fair pic
ture with its suggestion only of deeper truth
(9:57-62).

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 103
And as they went on the way, a certain man
said unto him, I will follow thee whithersoever
thou goest.
And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes,
and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the
Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
And he said unto another, Follow me. But he
said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my
father. But he said unto him, Leave the dead to bury
their own dead; but go thou and publish abroad
the kingdom of God.
And another also said, I will follow thee, Lord;
but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are
at my house.
But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put
his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit
Cor the kingdom of God.
Little is said here of a higher cosmic Life, and
yet in every line, almost, there is the background
of such a Life of the Spirit, that makes this
life a homeless wandering, a land of dead bury
ing their dead, an adventure so serious that one
starting, but hesitating and looking back, is un
worthy of it.
In verses (10:1-16) there is the sending out
of the Seventy with instructions similar to those
given to the Twelve, ending also with the same
sympathetic anxiety for their welfare. They
are to preach the Good News of a Spiritual
Life by witnessing to a life of loving, unselfish

104 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
service. They are to move forward, leaving
blessings only behind them. Whether good
meets them, or evil, their only message or re
buke is to be the solemn warning: "The Spirit
ual Life is come nigh you."
Days after when the Seventy returned re
joicing with the result of their mission, Jesus
warns them not to rejoice because of the works
they were able to do, but for the wonderful
Life of the Spirit into which they had entered.
Then Joanna quotes one of the short prayers of
our Lord in which he gives thanks that these
mysteries of the Spiritual Life are made clear
to the unlearned who desire, rather than to the
wise and learned who are scornful.
In verses 27-37 Joanna repeats the reply of
Jesus to the honest lawyer, that love is the only
basis of eternal life, but adds the wonderful
parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate how
love for one's neighbor should operate. The
motto over the gate to the Spiritual Life is,
"Loving Kindness," but few there be that find
the gateway.
Then in verses 38-42 Joanna records Jesus'
visit to the home at Bethany. One can almost
hear Martha's self complacent chatter about,
"how busy she is with the housework," but
Jesus' praise is for Mary's affection. Entrance

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 105
into the Spiritual Life is by love and not by
being fussily busy, or efficient, with "things."
In verses 11 :1-13 Joanna gives her memory
of Jesus' teaching concerning the Lord's prayer.
She records that Jesus explained his teaching
about prayer by the parable of the borrowed
loaves (5-13).
And he said unto them, Which of you shall
have a friend, and shall go unto him at mid
night, and say to him, Friend, lend me three
loaves ;
For a friend of mine is come to me from a
journey, and having nothing to set before him;
And he from within shall answer and say,
Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my
children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and
give thee?
I say unto you, Though he will not rise and
give him because he is his friend, yet because
of his importunity he will arise and give him
as many as he needeth.
And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given
you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall
be opened unto you.
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he
that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it
shall be opened.
And of which of you that is a father shall his
son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a
fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent?
The essential of this parable is that loving
persistence is an element of effective prayer.

106 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Answers to prayer are not given lightly, there
must be earnest desire if Spiritual forces are
to dominate physical conditions, but if the
requisite desire, which is faith grounded in
love, is present the answer to prayer is certain,
and, in its highest reach, is Spiritual Life.
If ye then, being naturally selfish know how
to give good gifts to your children, how much
more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask him?
In a discussion about the source of his power
to cast out demons, Jesus says (11:20-22).
But if I by the finger of God cast out demons,
then is the kingdom of God come upon you.
When the strong man fully armed guardeth his
own court, his goods are in peace :
But when a stronger than he shall come upon
him, and overcome him, he taketh from him his
whole armor wherein he trusted, and divideth
his spoils.
In this Jesus asserts the supremacy of the
Spiritual over the physical, and claims dis
tinctly that his acts of healing are a demon
stration of that supremacy.
A good instance of the underlying spiritu
ality of all Jesus' teachings is seen in Joanna's
account of the feast at the Pharisee's house
(37-43). Here Jesus turns the little surface

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 107
things of custom to illustrate the depths of the
Spiritual Life.
Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to dine
with him : and he went in, and sat down to meat.
And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled
that he had not first bathed himself before dinner.
And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye the
Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the
platter but your inward part is full of extortion
and wickedness.
Ye foolish ones, did not he that made the out
side make the inside also?
But give for alms those things which are
within ; and behold, all things are clean unto you.
But woe unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint
and rue and every herb, and pass over justice and
the love of God : but these ought ye to have done,
and not to leave the other undone.
Woe unto you Pharisees! for ye love the chief
seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in
the marketplaces.
The Spiritual Life is not a matter of wash
ing of hands and the tithing of mint and rue,
but is grounded in subconscious charity, jus
tice, love of God, humility, and sincerity.
Verses 45-53 are a good illustration of the
virility of Jesus, who did not hesitate to de
nounce in the most scathing terms the hypoc
risy of the Pharisees, even when it endangered
his life.
In verses 12 :1-12 Joanna shows in vivid con-

108 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
trast the two sides of Jesus' nature, its strength,
virility, and self-confidence, on the one hand;
its tenderness, appreciation, thoughtfulness, and
helpfulness, on the other (4-9).
And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid
of them that kill the body, and after that have no
more that they can do.
But I will warn you whom ye shall fear: Fear
him, who after he hath killed hath power to cast
into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
Are not five sparrows sold for two pence? and
not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God.
But the very hairs of your head are all num
bered. Fear not: ye are of more value than
many sparrows.
And I say unto you, Every one who shall con
fess me before men, him shall the Son of man
also confess before the angels of God:
But he that denieth me in the presence of men
shall be denied in the presence of the angels of
God. Underneath these verses are a most extreme
claim to authority. Jesus, to have uttered them
in truth, must have been the Son of God ! Who
is he otherwise to offer the choice of death in
hell and recognition before the throne of God!
And yet what alternative is he offering, but
the extinction that inevitably follows the life
cycle on the physical plane, made hideous by the
consciousness of stupid refusal to accept the
better, and the open way to the supernal im-

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 109
mediacies of the Spiritual Life and its ascent
to God.
In the long and beautiful section following
(13-48) Jesus shows the relative unimportance
of earthly interests and cares when compared
with the interests of the Spiritual Life. He
illustrates it with the parable of the Rich Man
building the bigger barns, and encourages them
to watchful waiting for the manifestation of
this higher Life by the parables of the Faith
ful Servant.
In verses 49-52 Jesus foretells the difficulties
of his mission and the divisions it will compel.
I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what
do I desire, if it is already kindled ?
But I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and
how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
Think ye that I am come to give peace in the
earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
For there shall be from henceforth five in one
house divided, three against two, and two against
three. Jesus' way of Love into a higher Life is not
to be a cause of strife, but it will be the occa
sion of strife. Love and selfishness are incom
patible; physical assertion and loving kindness
are mutally antagonistic ; one or the other must
dominate and Jesus taught men that Love was
supreme and, while division would mark the be-

110 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
ginning of the test of supremacy, Love, if
patiently maintained would in the end be tri
umphant. To the question as to whether few or many
would be saved Jesus replied, 13:23-30, that
the gateway is narrow, and sooner or later the
door would be shut. The test will be fitness
to enter the Spiritual Life-process, and not ac
quaintance, privilege, or caste. He teaches that
it calls for desire so keen that if necessary a
man must choose it in preference to loyalty to
earthly father or mother, or even to his own
physical life (14:26).
If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his
own father, and mother, and wife, and children,
and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple.
In the long section 14:1-35 Joanna records
various teachings in which Jesus likens the
Spiritual Life to a feast — all tending to show
that the Spiritual Life is a cosmic process that
is open to all human beings, but that only a few
value the invitation sufficiently to make the ef
fort to accept and to meet the conditions of en
trance. In a beautiful sentence Jesus voices
his sorrow over this common lack of desire to
heed this Good News of a better Life
(13:34-35).

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 111
0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the
prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto
her! how often would I have gathered thy chil
dren together, even as a hen gathereth her own
brood under her wings, and ye would not !
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate:
and I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until
ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the Lord.
In the fifteenth chapter Joanna gives the
three remarkable parables of the one lost sheep
out of a hundred, the one lost piece of silver
out of ten, the one lost son out of two, to show
how inexpressibly precious Jesus held the one
soul who desires life but has gone astray. Here
is no heartless condemnation for sin in a legal
sense, as an affront to God's holiness and sov
ereignty; here is pictured a father's forgiving
love for a wayward son. Here is suggested that
so long as a soul desires that which is spiritual
and good, in God's grace there has been pro
vided a way of entrance into it, and more than
this, not only is there provided a way of en
trance, in some mystic sense, "there is joy in
the presence of the angels of God," over one
sinner that finds it. They that succeed in find
ing the narrow gateway of Life are so few, that
when one, out of his many tribulations, finds it,
his final success is proof that he has kept the

112 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
 \ 
faith, "has loved much," and is therefore
worthy of Love. It could not be otherwise,
if love is of the essence of the Spiritual Life,
because it is of the nature of Love to be recip
rocal ; "We love because he first loved."
The parable of the Spiritual Life given in
17:20-21 is one of the most important and
illuminating in all Jesus' teachings.
And being asked by the Pharisees, when the
Kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and
said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observa
tion: neither shall they say, Lo, here; or, There!
for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.
This verse alone forbids any understanding
of the meaning of the Kingdom of God that
would make it a Church, a community of be
lievers, "a nascent commonwealth," an ideal
society, or the Kingship of God. It can only
mean, the cosmic Spiritual Life, that reveals
itself within the soul of a twice-born man by
his experience of its fellowship.
This consciousness of its reality shall come
suddenly, automatically, as one by one, they
meet the conditions for its vital reaction. Each
must prove the measure of his desire for it by
"the things he suffers." He must not seek it
from place to place, he must only in loving
patience watch for it and wait for it. But and

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 113
if, "he endures to the end" its perfect realiza
tion will be his and the beatific vision of the
coming of the Son of Man shall be his reward
(18:10-14). Two men went up into the temple to pray; the
one a Pharisee and the other a publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with him
self, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest
of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even
as this publican.
I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all
that I get.
But the publican, standing afar off, would not
lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote
his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me
a sinner.
I say unto you, This man went down to his
house justified rather than the other: for every
one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; but
he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
And who shall be prepared for this higher
Life of the Spirit ? "He that humbleth himself
shall be thus exalted."

Section Theee: Luke xxni:54-xxrv:53
In this section Joanna makes record in most
beautiful language and restraint of those early
resurrection appearances with which she was
intimately connected (24:1-7).

114 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn,
they came unto the tomb, bringing the spices
which they had prepared.
And they found the stone rolled away from the
tomb. And they entered in, and found not the body
of the Lord Jesus.
And it came to pass, while they were perplexed
thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in
dazzling apparel:
And as they were affrighted and bowed down
their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why
seek ye the living among the dead?
He is not here, but is risen : remember how he
spake unto you, when he was yet in Galilee,
Saying that the Son of man must be delivered
up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified,
and the third day rise again.
Then we quote Jesus' words to the two dis
ciples on the road to Emmaus (25-31).
And he said unto them, 0 foolish men, and
slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets
have spoken!
Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these
things, and to enter into his glory?
And beginning from Moses and from all the
prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scrip
tures the things concerning himself.
And they drew nigh unto the village, whither
they were going: and he made as though he
would go further.
And they constrained him, saying, Abide with
us; for it is toward evening, and the day is now
far spent. And he went in to abide with them.

REMINISCENCES OF JESUS 115
And it came to pass, when he had sat down
with them to meat, he took the bread and blessed;
and breaking it he gave to them.
And their eyes were opened, and they knew
him; and he vanished out of their sight.
Also Jesus' first appearance to the disciples
gathered together (36-39).
And as they spake these things, he himself stood
in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace
be unto you.
But they were terrified and affrighted, and
supposed that they beheld a spirit.
And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled?
and wherefore do questionings arise in your
heart ?
See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh
and bones, as ye behold me having.
And the final appearance to those gathered
near Bethany (50-51).
And he led them out until they were over
against Bethany : and he lifted up his hands, and
blessed them.
And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he
parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.
It is not our purpose to enter into an extend
ed study of these resurrection appearances, to
list, examine, and weigh them. These evi
dences have to do with phenomena of the Spir
itual Life as it reveals itself in the limited area

116 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
of time and space, for our assurance. Jesus
himself evidently looked upon them as trivial,
in a way, but suffers them in a spirit of kind
ness when he sees how helpless and discouraged
his friends are without him. Again we must
remember to look at these appearances, not so
much as physical proofs to convince doubting
intellects, as suggestive visions to enhance faith,
and therefore Life. They are not much to be
talked about and scrutinized and dissected,
rather they are to be put away in the secret
chambers of one's memory to be treasured and
guarded and held sacred. Sometimes I think
that it must have been harder for Jesus to re
appear, after once ascending to his glory, than
it was to come the first time, it reveals new
depths of his Divine Love. God forbid that we
should question so precious a favor. Rather
may we humbly show our appreciation of it by
a deeper faith, in the Spiritual Life which it
illumines, a more serene joy in our hope for
its fellowship, a more questioning devotion to
its demonstration, in the few short years that
remain to us of this earthly life.
Joanna, then, like Matthew and Mark records
the almost exclusive emphasis that Jesus places
in his teachings to the conception of an inde
pendent Life of the Spirit.

JOHN: INTERPRETATION OF JESUS'
TEACHINGS.
THE historicity of John's Gospel has been
the subject of much scholarly study,
the result of which may be broadly
stated as follows. John the beloved Dis
ciple, lived to a great age, surrounded by
disciples of his own and busied by faithful
testimony and explanations of the teachings
of his Lord. Early references and tradi
tion all unite in saying that he committed
these teachings to writing which has come down
to us as the Gospel according to John. This
early tradition however has not been generally
accepted by later scholars. They generally
unite in thinking that the Gospel which bears
his name was probably written by some gifted
disciple of John, the latter part of the first
century or the early part of the second. The
reasons for this judgment are found in the in
dications of the book itself. Its emphasis on
ecclesiastism and ceremonialism indicate that
the problems of church government had passed
to an advanced stage. The selection and ar
rangement of material indicate a purpose to
117

118 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
supplement and explain the facts and teaching
of our Lord as though they were well known
and accepted but now needed interpretation.
The orderly arrangement of the book with
its stated topic: "But these are written that ye
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God ; and that believing ye may have life in
his name," all go to show a development of the
life of the Christian community and of doctrine
about Jesus, that could only have obtained after
the lapse of many years, and probably after the
death of John.
On the other hand the unity of the book in
dicates a single authorship. But even if it was
written by a disciple of John and after his
death, which is possible, it reflects so closely
and faithfully the views and memory of John's
personal experience that it is fully as reliable
a record of John's teachings, as Mark's Gospel
is of Peter's teachings. The one fact, then,
that is to be remembered in the use we are
to make of it, is this : It is an interpretation of
Jesus' life and teaching rather than a history.
Remembering this its value is very great for
our purpose as well as for devotional use. It
answers the question that comes to us all sooner
or later, what did John think about Jesus?
John who was nearer Jesus' own age, his own

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 119
cousin, who entered more closely by tempera
ment and affection into intimacy with him than
any one else, what did he think of Jesus ? This
Gospel according to John is the reply, and while
we recognize the possibility of another writer,
we shall still refer to it as John's.
We all believe that Love is the best interpre
ter of another's thought; love senses without
asking clumsy questions, love feels, love knows,
First we note that John assumes a general
acceptance of Jesus' teachings and authority
on the part of those to whom he is speaking,
only he recognizes that they have only begun
to understand the depths of the truth that Jesus
came to reveal. He sets out to make clear a
deeper view of Jesus and of the Spiritual Life
which he came to reveal, than the disciples of
his day gave evidence of possessing. He tries
to support, to supplement, to add to the teach
ings with which they are already familiar. He
omits and selects his material with the two-fold
end in view: to prove that Jesus is the Son of
God, and that faith in him gives entrance to
the Spiritual Life.
In the previous sections we have seen that
Jesus made slight claim to Sonship of God
himself. He emphasized the Spiritual Life,
and sorrowed over men's blindness to its near-

120 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
ness and pitied their lost estate. In infinite
kindness of heart he sought to win humanity
to recognition of it and desire for it.
John's love saw beneath Jesus' sorrow and
kindness its root in his Sonship of God, which
Jesus was too modest himself to press, but for
whose recognition by his disciples he longed.
In Jesus he saw God's surpassing love for hu
manity: "For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be
lieveth on him should not perish, but have eter
nal life." The entrance of humanity into this
eternal Spiritual Life, John discerned as the
goal of God's creative and redemptive Love.
He used the Greek word Logos which was a
familiar word in early Alexandrian philosophy,
to express this divine relationship. This word
Logos we translate to mean "word:" an artic
ulated expression of an idea. The Greeks used
it to express the Divine idea in emanating and
creative agency. So John introduces his Gospel
by saying (1:1-18):
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him; and with
out him was not anything made that hath been
made.

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 121
In him was life; and the life was the light of
men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the
darkness apprehended it not.
There came a man, sent from God, whose name
was John.
The same came for witness of the light, that all
might believe through him.
He was not the light, but came that he might
bear witness of the light.
There was the true light, even the light which
lighteth every man, coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made
through him, and the world knew him not.
He came unto his own and they that were his
own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he
the right to become children of God, even to
them that believe on his name:
Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among
us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the
only begotten from the Father), full of grace and
truth. John beareth witness of him, and crieth, saying,
This was he of whom I said, He that cometh
after me is become before me: for he was
before me:
For of his fulness we all received, and grace
for grace.
For the law was given through Moses; grace
and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath declared him.

122 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Before a word can be given articulate ex
pression it is a thought, therefore in the begin
ning Logos existed as a thought in the mind of
God: a thought that was determined by his na
ture and called for expression. John tells us
that God is love, therefore the form which this
Logos took in the mind of God must have been
in the form of a Love-Purpose.
There are two things which are characteris
tic of Love; first, an innate desire for self-ex
pression ; and, second, an innate desire for a re
sponse. John tells us that Logos was a self-
expression of God and was the agency for God's
self-expression in creation. Creation took two
forms, a material universe of which man came
to be the highest expression, and an immater
ial Spiritual Life. "This Logos was Life and
this Life was the light of men." That is, the
urge in creation that brought man to his re
flective self-consciousness was this Logos, and
the urge that now draws him back in respon
sive love to God, is also this same Logos, and,
remember, this Logos was God's own self-ex
pression. Not all men respond to this spiritual
urge, this religious instinct, but some do and
they become children of God, entering uncon
sciously into the immaterial Spiritual Life.
In the fullness of time this "Logos became

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 123
flesh and dwelt among us" and, as the only be
gotten Son of God, is alone capable of declar
ing Him and His Love. Hitherto this Logos
in the redemptive purpose of God has been urg
ing humanity upward toward God from the
darkness, as a cosmic urge, but now made mani
fest in Jesus, he openly brings the Good News
of this Spiritual Life, in which redeemed
humanity may see and experience God and, also
express their grateful response to the Love of
God who made them and has redeemed them.
And not only does this self-expression of God'a
Love-nature now manifest in the flesh for our
accommodation, as Jesus, bring the Good News
of a Spiritual Life, but he is still the Logos,
God's Love-Thought in Spiritual form, urging
man upward to a transcending of the physical
life, to participate in the higher Spiritual Life,
and, those who in faith trust him and are obedi
ent to his way of Love, he vitalizes to be born
again, this time not of the flesh but of the
Spirit. To the defense of this proposition John
selects his material, interprets it, and explains
it, to the end that "ye may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believ
ing ye may have life."
His first witness is the prophetic John the

124 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Baptist, who seeing Jesus in the crowd that
came to his baptism, said: "Behold the Lamb
of God, tbat taketh away the sin of the world !"
And when on the morrow he is persuaded to
baptise him, he sees the confirmation of his
presentment, in the mystic dove descending out
of heaven and alighting upon Jesus. With this
assurance he asserts that Jesus is the Son of
God. John here makes no mention of the voice
that is spoken of in Mark 1 :10. This omission,
would be more significant if John was not in
the habit of omitting pertinent incidents with
which we know he was familiar. He also omits
the Temptation, the Transfiguration and the
Eucharist, with all of which, having the Mark-
ian Records before him, he must have been fam
iliar and which as far as we can see would have
strengthened his argument.
His next witnesses are the disciples who fol
low Jesus at the suggestion of John the Baptist
(1:45-50). Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him,
We have found him of whom Moses in the law,
and the prophets, wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the
son of Joseph.
And Nathanael said unto him, Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto
him, Come and see.
Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 125
of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is
no guile!
Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest
thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him,
Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under
the fig tree, I saw thee.
Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, thou art the
Son of God; thou art King of Israel.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I
said unto thee, I saw thee underneath the fig
tree, believest thou ? thou shalt see greater things
than these.
Another witness is Nicodemus, a ruler of the
Jews (3:1-12).
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
The same came unto him by night, and said to
him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God; for no one can do these signs that
thou doest, except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be
born when he is old? can he enter a second time
into his mother's womb, and be born ?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be
born anew.
The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hear-

126 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
est the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one
that is born of the Spirit.
Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How
can these things be?
Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou
the teacher of Israel, and understandest not these
things ?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that
which we know, and bear witness of that which
we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
If I told you earthly things and ye believe
not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly
things ?
Just where the words of Jesus end and the
interpretation of John begins it is difficult to
say, but probably it is at the close of verse 12.
Up to that point the characteristics of Jesus
are evident, and examining his words we get
valuable information as to Jesus' meaning of
the words, "The Kingdom of God." It is sig
nificant in the first place that John here unites
with Matthew, Mark and Joanna in placing the
highest importance on Jesus' key words, the
Kingdom of God. What do they mean is the
first question that John tries to clear up.
Jesus' words are clear and definite. The King
dom of God is a higher Life-process, into which
the redeemed soul enters by a new birth, this
time to be born of the Spirit. Jesus claims

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 127
to speak with authority. What that authority
is we shall now examine (3:13-21).
And no one hath ascended into the heaven,
but he that descended out of the heaven, even the
Son of Man, who is in the heaven.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wild
erness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ;
That whosoever believeth may in him have
eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on
him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God sent not the Son into the world to
judge the world; but that the world should be
saved through him.
He that believeth on him is not judged: He
that believeth not hath been judged already
because he hath not believed on the name of the
only begotten Son of God.
And this is the judgment, that the light is
come into the world, and men loved the darkness
rather than the light; for their works were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light
and cometh not to the light, lest his works should
be reproved.
But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light,
that his works may be made manifest, that they
have been wrought in God.
It it hard to say in verse 13 whether John is
speaking or Jesus. It is more than probable
that Jesus said something that at least gave
John the suggestion for his phrasing. Tho
foundation of Jesus' authority, it is asserted in

128 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

verse 13, is the alleged fact that Jesus in a
unique sense, as the Son of Man, has entree, to
comei and go, in the Spiritual Life. And no
one hath ascended into the Spiritual Life, but
he that descended out of the Spiritual Life, even
the Son of Man." This fully agrees with the
many teachings of Jesus as to "the coming (or
appearing) of the Son of Man."
The reference to the judgment is not a legal
istic judgment against disobedience, but is a
cosmic unfitness, established by test. It is
only those who do "the truth," who welcome
the Spiritual urge, who shall be saved, that is,
who shall transcend the limited natural life
and enter the timeless Life of the Spirit.
Verses 22-30 repeat John the Baptist's de
nial of preference before Jesus, and then verses
31-36 for a summary of this particular argu
ment: that Jesus is the Son of God, and faith
in him is the test for entrance into the timeless
Spiritual Life.
The next exhibit is the conversation with the
woman of Samaria. It has two parts. The
first part (4:13-14) teaches the independent
reality of the Spiritual Life, i.e.. it has its own
sustenance, apart from that which the natural
life requires.

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 129
Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one
that drinketh of this water shall thirst again :
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him shall never thirst; but the water
that I shall give him shall become in him a well
of water springing up unto eternal life.
The second part (20-26) makes plain the
nature of this Spiritual Life sustenance and its
source in true Spiritual worship, to be loving
adoration of God the Father.
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and
ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men
ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the
hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor
in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.
Ye worship that which ye know not: we wor
ship that which we know; for salvation is from
the Jews.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the
true worshippers shall worship the Father in
spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek
to be his worshippers.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must
worship in spirit and truth.
The woman saith unto him, I know that
Messiah cometh (he that is called Christ) : when
he is come, he will declare unto us all things.
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee
am he.
In verse 24, "God is a Spirit and they that
worship him must worship in spirit and truth,"

130 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
John asserts the true nature of God's personal
ity to be, not anthropomorphic, but Spiritual,
and thus identifies the Divine Life, not with
the material realm of nature, but with the im
material Spiritual Life, into whose correspon
dence redeemed men, sustained by the water of
Life that he shall give, shall enter to partici
pate in the perfect experience of unity with
the Divine.
In verse 26 Jesus identifies himself in an
unmistakable fashion with the Messiah; and
in verses 31-38, where the disciples urge Jesus
to partake of physical food, he teaches them
that Spiritual food is of more consequence, and
of that he has just partaken in his kindly serv
ice to the woman of Samaria. He teaches
them that of this kind of Spiritual food the
fields are white to the harvest.
In the incident of healing the sick man at
the pool of Bethesda and the subsequent con
versation, Jesus makes clear assertion of his
equality with God (5:19-47). We will quote
only verses 19-24.
Jesus therefore answered and said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father
doing : for what things soever he doeth, these the
Son also doeth in like manner.
For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 131
him all things that himself doeth: and greater
works than these will he show him, that ye may
marvel. For as the Father raiseth the dead and giveth
them life, even so the Son also giveth life to
whom, he will.
For neither doth the Father judge any man,
but he hath given all judgment unto the Son:
That all may honor the Son, even as they honor
the Father. He that honoreth not the Son
honoreth not the Father that sent him.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth
my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath
eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but
hath passed out of death into life.
The purpose of this long conversation is, that
the Father has committed to the Son the min
istration of this Spiritual Life, and they are
to participate in it who have faith in Jesus.
John credits Jesus with asserting that his
claims are endorsed by the old prophets, by John
the Baptist, by the works he has done, and
lastly by God himself, if they were capable of
receiving his testimony. Jesus does not regret
their unwillingness to receive his teachings for
his own sake as he does for their sake. "Ye
will not come to me, that ye may have Life."
Participation in this higher Life-process of
the Spirit is, therefore, to John the essential
thing in mind and heart of Jesus.
The next passage of interest to us is the Sixth

132 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Chapter, the feeding of the five thousand. We
have already referred to this in Mark's account
but will refer to it here also. A comparison of
the two accounts will indicate somewhat the
difference in the methods of narration. John's
account follows closely the facts, but naturally
enlarges on the conversations about it that were
held the next day (6 :27-35).
Work not for the food which perisheth, but for
the food which abideth unto eternal life, which
the Son of man shall give unto you : for him the
Father, even God, hath sealed.
They said therefore unto him, What must we
do, that we may work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the
work of God, that ye believe on him whom he
hath sent.
They said therefore unto him, What then doest
thou for a sign, that we may see, and believe
thee? what workest thou?
Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness;
as it is written. He gave them bread out of
heaven to eat.
Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, It was not Moses that gave you the
bread out of heaven: but my Father giveth you
the true bread out of heaven.
For the bread of God is that which cometh
down out of heaven, and giveth life unto the
world. They said therefore unto him, Lord, evermore
give us this bread.
Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life:

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 133
he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he
that believeth on me shall never thirst.
We here give only a part of the record; all
is important and should be read, but this .which
is given is sufficient to show that in this in
stance also, Jesus' teaching has to do primarily
with this Spiritual Life, this time its support in
himself as the Bread of Life. He distinguishes
between manna, a physical food, and "the true
bread out of heaven," a Spiritual food. Those
that ate manna, in due course, died, but, he
asserts that "this true bread of God which com
eth down out of the Spiritual Realm, giveth
Life unto the world" (47-51) :
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth
hath eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness,
and they died.
This is the bread which cometh down out of
heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
I am the living bread which came down out
of heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall
live for ever: yea, and the bread which I will
give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
This spiritual bread is not a mere figure of
speech. Jesus would not emphasize it as he
does, neither would John interpret it at such
length except as it embodied essential truth and

134 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
reality. Spiritual Life requires spiritual food ;
the Spiritual Life is a correspondence of Love.
Physical life involves a transformation of en
ergy that is supplied by physical elements of
lower origin sacrificed for the needs of a higher.
Spiritual Life on the contrary is an inter
change of Love : the higher giving itself for the
needs of the lower. "God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth on him should not perish but should
have eternal Life." This giving was not a
single sacrificial act to pay a legal debt, a
substitution for punishment, and example of
highest potency, it is a continuing self-expres
sion of the Divine Love, "that ye might have
eternal Life." Jesus, the Divine incarnation,
the sacrificial life and death of the Son of Love,
was the continuing bread sent down from the
Spiritual Life for the Life of the world. Here
again John interprets the incident to prove his
one thesis: that Jesus was the Son of God, and
in him was Spiritual Life for those who be
lieved. John follows with an explanation of Jesua'
words as the basis for the sacrament of the
Eucharist, and, when many of his disciples,
becoming confused by the involved symbolism,
are about to leave him, he seeks to restrain

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 135
them by the words : "It is the spirit that giveth
Life; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words
(which include all expression of his life and
loving purpose) which I have spoken with you,
they are Spirit, they are Life."
In chapter eight John represents Jesus aa
claiming special relation to God, which involves
dispute and argument and which for our pur
pose we may pass over.
In chapter nine John gives the incident of
Jesus giving sight to the blind man and the
ensuing conversation about sin and its relations.
In it Jesus speaks as follows (9:35-38) :
Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and
finding him, he said, Dost thou believe on the Son
of God?,
He answered and said, And who is he, Lord,
that I may believe on him ?
Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him,
and he it is that speaketh with thee.
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he wor
shipped him.
Here, if John is quoting Jesus' exact words,
Jesus explicitly claims to be the Son of God
and it is by the power and authority vested in
him because of it that he heals the man born
blind, and forgives sin.
In chapter ten we have the parable of the
Good Shepherd (10:10-11):

136 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The thief cometh not, but that he may steal,
and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have
life, and may have it abundantly.
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd
layeth down his life for the sheep.
Here Jesus makes explicit claims to being
the source of this higher Spiritual Life, and
the endorsement of the claim which he offers,
is his willingness to lay down his life for their
sake. Here again Love, sacrificial, redemptive
Love, is seen to be of the essence of the Spiritual
Life (17-18) :
Therefore doth the Father love me, because
I lay down my life, that I may take it again.
No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it
down of myself. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it up again. This com
mandment received I from my Father.
In these words Jesus refers to his pre-exist-
ence in the Spiritual Life as the Logos of God;
this life of glory he laid down voluntarily as a
self-expression of his Love-nature, in order
that he might take it again as the first fruit
of the redeemed host which his redeeming Love
had saved from natural death and raised into
the timeless fellowship of the Spiritual Life.
In the thirtieth verse Jesus plainly asserts,
"I and the Father are one." This is true, if
the previous assertions that he is the Son of

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 137
man, that he is the Messiah, that he is the
Logos, are true. The logic of John's presenta
tion is without flaw. God, God's nature of
Love, His Love-Thought, His thought (or Lo
gos) expressing itself as redemptive Love in a
creative urge, at first revealing itself in man
as spiritual instinct, and then in flesh as Jesus.
All are different names for God in his various
modes of self-expression.
In chapter eleven John gives his account of
the raising of Lazarus. In it he represents
Jesus as contrasting the life of the physical
body that perishes and decays, and the timeless,
immaterial life of the soul. He delays his help
after he hears of Lazarus' sickness in order to
make the incident more impressive. In verse 4
he openly claims that the whole thing is ar
ranged to add glory to himself as the Son of
God. "This sickness is not unto death, but for
the glory of God, that the Son of God may be
glorified thereby." In tender sympathy he does
all he can to alleviate the sorrow of the bereaved
sisters and then calls back the dead to life.
The restoring of Lazarus to life is not like the
resurrection of Jesus. In Lazarus' case life
simply reanimated the once abandoned body;
in Jesus' case it was a transcendence of one

138 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
life process to enter into full correspondence
with a higher Spiritual Life process.
In chapter twelve John uses the incidents of
Mary anointing Jesus, the Triumphal entrance
into Jerusalem, and the Enquiry of the Greeks
to prove the same two things : that Jesus is the
Son of God, and that in him is Life.
In chapter thirteen we come to the Last Sup
per to which John gives so much attention. It
opens with Jesus' humility in washing the Dis
ciples' feet and his entreaty to them to be like
minded, to make loving service their rule of
life. Then came the exclusion of Judas, and
these words (13:31-35):
When therefore he was gone out, Jesus saith,
Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is
glorified in him;
And God shall glorify him in himself, and
straightway shall he glorify him.
Little children, yet a little while I am with
you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the
Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I
say unto you.
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye
love one another; even as I have loved you, that
ye also love one another. By this shall all men
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one
to another.
Here, as so many places in John's account,
Jesus claims a unity of himself with God. He

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 139
foretells his near departure, represents it as
marking the completion of a task that has been
gloriously accomplished. Then he gives his
Disciples a "new" commandment, that they
love one another, even as Jesus has loved them,
and says that it is by this love which they are
to have for each other, that the world is to
know that they are his disciples. Love is to
be the characterizing mark of the Spiritual
Life. Then in chapter fourteen John again repre
sents Jesus as distinctly claiming to be one with
God, and claiming their faith on that basis.
"Let not your heart be troubled: (ye) believe
in God, believe also in me." Then, true to his
plan, John immediately follows it with Jesus'
assertion of a higher life of the Spirit.
In my Father's house are many mansions; if it
were not so I would have told you; I go to pre
pare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a
place for you, I come again, and will receive you
unto myself; that where I am there ye may
be also.
In verses 6-14 this theme is developed:
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the
truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the
Father, but by me.
If ye had known me, ye would have known my

140 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Father also: from henceforth ye know him, and
have seen him.
Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the
Father, and it sufiiceth us.
Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long
time with you, &nd dost thou not know me, Philip ?
he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how
sayest thou, Show us the Father ?
Believest thou not that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me ? the words that I say unto
you I speak not from myself: but the Father abid
ing in me doeth his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father, and the
Father in me: or else believe me for the very
works' sake.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and
greater works than these shall he do; because I
go unto the Father.
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that
will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will
I do. Jesus' oneness with the Father, and himself
the Way, the Truth, and the Life! No one
cometh unto the Father (i.e., into the fellow
ship with Him of the Spiritual Life) but by
me. (Verses 15-28.)
If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter, that he may be with you
for ever,

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 141
Even the Spirit of truth: whom the world can
not receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither
knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with
you, and shall be in you.
I will not leave you desolate : I come unto you.
Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth me
no more; but ye behold me: because I live, ye
shall live also.
In that day ye shall know that I am in my
Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me : and he that loveth
me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love
him, and will manifest myself unto him.
Judas (not Iscariot) saith unto him, Lord, what
is come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself
unto us, and not unto the world?
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man
love me, he will keep my word: and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him, and
make our abode with him.
He that loveth me not keepeth not my words:
and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the
Father's who sent me.
These things have I spoken unto you, while
yet abiding with you.
But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name, he shall teach
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all
that I said unto you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto
you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be
fearful. I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved

142 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the
Father: for the Father is greater than I.
Here Jesus foretells the coming of the Holy
Spirit. This is not a new idea, but it is a more
explicit statement of it. According to this pas
sage the Holy Spirit is a self-expression of
God's Love for his Spiritual children in a form
designed to be their Advocator, Guide, and
Comforter. In this new life of the Spirit,
even in the midst of the old life of the body,
they are to be in such intimacies of fellowship
that they will be conscious of His presence
where the world will be unconscious of it. Here
again a Love control of life is the Way of Life.
Then follows in chapters fifteen, sixteen,
and seventeen extended words of exhortation
and prayer of the last supper. Throughout
them all the two-fold purpose of the Gospel is
kept strictly in mind, to prove that Jesus is
the Son of God, that believing in Him they
have Life, and this Life is in immediate fel
lowship with the Father, with himself as the
Son of God, and with the Holy Spirit.
I am no more in the world, and these are in
the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father keep
them in thy name, which thou hast given me,
that they may be one, even as we are ... I
have given them thy word: and the world hated
them, because they are not of the world, even as

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 143
I am not of the world. I pray not that thou
shouldst take them from the world, but that thou
shouldest keep them from the evil ... I made
known unto them thy name, and will make it
known; that the love wherewith thou lovedest
me may be in them, and I in them.
Then follows John's account of the arrest
of Jesus, the hearing before the High Priests,
and the trial before Pilate. The only part
of this which is important for our study is
the conversation with Pilate in 18 :33-38.
Pilate therefore entered again into the
Praetorium, and called Jesus, and said unto him,
Art thou the King of the Jews?
Jesus answered, Sayest thou this of thyself, or
did others tell it thee concerning me?
Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own
nation and the chief priests delivered thee unto
me: what hast thou done?
Jesus answered My kingdom is not of this
world: if my kingdom were of this world, then
would my servants fight, that I should not be de
livered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not
from hence.
Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a
king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I
am a king. To this end have I been born, and to
this end am I come into the world, that I should
bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is
of the truth heareth my voice.
Pilate said unto him, What is truth? And
when he had said this, he went out again unto
the Jews, and saith unto them, I find no crime
in him.

144 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
In the light of all that we have thus far seen
of his teaching we must give this a cosmic
meaning. His Kingdom as we have seen refers
to the Spiritual Life, and obviously, therefore,
is not of this natural order. He came into this
world to witness, not so much to truth intel
lectually considered, as to reality. This ma
terial universe is transient and changing and
to that extent an illusion; the Spiritual Life
alone is real and abiding and to that Jesua
came to bear witness : "That those who believed
in him should have life."
John's account of Jesus' death and burial
is carefully stated and free from all exaggera
tion or interpretation. Concerning the resur
rection he describes his own visit to the tomb
with Peter and records his own conviction that
Jesus had actually risen from the dead.
Then he records Mary's vision of the risen
Lord, noting carefully that at first she did not
recognize him, and then saying of Jesus:
"Touch me not ; for I am not yet ascended into
the Father; but go unto the brethren, and say
to them, I ascend unto my Father and your
Father, and my God and your God." Then
he records the appearance of Jesus to the dis
ciples, and later his appearance to the disciples
when Thomas was present. In these two ap-

INTERPRETATION OF TEACHINGS 145
pearances he ia described as passing through
closed doors, appearing and disappearing sud
denly. This chapter has an ending as though
it was the end of the Gospel. The twenty-first
chapter describes the Galilee appearance of
the Lord to the five disciples after some weeks
had elapsed and they in apparent discourage
ment had gone back to their fishing. In all
these appearances John testifies with great
carefulness. Jesus appears and disappears sud
denly, they do not recognize him at once, they
stand in awe of him. He says, "I am not an
apparition, see, I have flesh and bones." He
invites Thomas to feel of him, to be sure of
the wound prints, he eats food before them, and
yet we are convinced that Jesus' resurrection
is different from that of Lazarus, and the others
whom Jesus raised from the dead. With them
it was a simple resumption of the natural func
tions, but with Jesus it is a different Life
in a new Spiritual body. Jesus was, indeed,
risen from the dead and become alive for ever
more. To prove this beyond all dispute ap
peared to be the object of Jesus' resurrection
appearances, and thereby to prove the reality
of the Spiritual Life as independent of the
natural realm and its laws of change and decay.
Here was a wandering peasant teacher, si\

146 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
visionary idealist, who was put to death by the
Roman authorities as a menace to the peace
of their inconspicuous province, leaving behind
him a handful of scattered and discouraged fol
lowers. Something happened which was testi
fied to by many eye witnesses ; immediately hia
followers became changed men ; they were bold,
unafraid, and full of confident ideas, and
energy. They went everywhere preaching. In
a century their teachings had penetrated the
Roman Empire, and ever since the whole cur
rent of the world's events has been conditioned
by' this Galilean's vision. We seldom notice
this evidence of a risen Christ in this country,
but in China, her greatest statesman wrote in
his diary, "How is it that this Christianity
makes poor and lowly people bold and un
afraid?"

SUMMARY
COMPARING the statements of Matthew,
Mark, Joanna, and John, concerning
the teachings of Jesus, we note that
they all agree in placing the first emphasis on ,
his exposition of Jh^JSiigiioffit^'GTjdr^rf'we '
are to obtain a clear and complete idea of hia
system of thought as a whole, we must from the
very first understand what he meant by that
phrase. First of all we must keep in mind Jesus'
habit of speaking in parables and his own de
fense for so doing. These words, the Kingdom
of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, form a
parable in themselves; ¦Jb.eir meaning does not
lie on the surface. Jesus designedly clothed
his thought in figures, and gives the reason
why he did so, namely, that his words may
be a test of Life, Matthew 13:10-23. Whether
his teachings are to be understood in their
deeper implications, or not to be understood, he
teaches, will all depend on the receptive con
dition of the human heart, whether it be hard
from sin and selfishness, or thin and sterile
because of, intellectual pride, or crowded with
147

148 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
other interests, or whether it is receptive, and
fertile and desirous.
To those who honestly desire to know, not
simply the meaning of words, but the hidden
meaning of his ministry, that they may obey
his will, that in obeying they may enter into
the fellowship of his Life, to all such the
meaning of the idea, "The Kingdom of God"
| reveals cosmic depths. It is a new Life hid
\ with Christ in God ; it is a new and closer cor
respondence of our spirit with the Father of
Spirits; it is an inner life of our spirit, free
from the trammels of matter and the illusions
of sense, in the higher immediacy of a cosmic
Spiritual Life. The many, many side lights
on its nature which Jesus shed shows it to
be some larger conception than a mere unity
of ethical relations here on earth and among
men. Social and ethical definitions are too nar
row and temporal for a term that calls for
biologic vitality and cosmic meaning. Its very
parabolic form calls for something of deeper
significance than a unity of those who recog
nize the Kingship of God, even though that be
made elastic enough to cover all who have gone
and all who are yet to come.
To be in full accord with the teachings of
Jesus the marks of its unity must be looked for,

SUMMARY 149

not in a harmony with ethical ideals or con
ventions, but in an emotional trust so profound
as to justify the use of such phrases as, "to
lose this life," and "to be born again." If
we are to enter into "the mysteries of the King
dom," our conception of it must include those
profoundest of ideas, transcendence, spiritual
immediacy, eternal life; and all these ideas
come to the mind most readily when we use
the words, the Spiritual Life.
The central thought, therefore, in all Jesus'
teachings and testimony is the reality and nature
of this cosmic Spiritual Life, on the border of
which he sees mankind standing but uncon
scious of its nearness, and unaware that, if
they would, they might enter. These sources,
all unite also, in representing Jesus as being
deeply concerned that mankind should become
aware of it, and of the Way of entrance into
it through love and faith and goodness. They
also agree in representing Jesus as claiming to
stand in some unique relation to God, and, be
cause of that, to be in an exclusive sense the
mediator of this higher Life of the Spirit. All
these sources agree that Jesus takes the exist
ence of God for granted, but teaches that his
Sovereignty is based in his loving Fatherhood,
a fact which they will more fully understand

150 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
as they enter into the experience and fellow
ship of the Spiritual Life.
We can say, therefore, that in all these orig
inal records of Jesus' life and teachings he is
most concerned with teaching the reality and
nature of an over-world of Spirit and its cosmic
Spiritual Life; of man's relation to it; and
of the Way of entrance into it through love
and faith.
Matthew, Mark, and Joanna say little about
Jesus' self-testimony as to his mystic oneness
with the Father. In Matthew there are four
references, 10:32; 13:41; 24:27; 37; omitting
two others that are doubtful. These all refer
to the exaltation and authority of the Son of
Man. In Mark there are two references to
mystic voices acclaiming his Sonship and
authority; 1:9-11; 9:1-8. There are three ref
erences to his own claims to Divine authority,
2:10; 8:38; 14:62. There are two references
to recognition of his Sonship by demons. There
is one reference (14:61) where the High Priest
asks him if he is the Son of the Blessed, and
Jesus replies,"I am." Joanna records the angel's
testimony as to the unborn Messiah, that he
shall be called the Son of God, and (2:11) she
records the angels' song, "For there is born
... a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." In

SUMMARY 151

24 :27-44 she records Jesus' identifying himself
with the Messiah of the old prophets. Sum
ming up these references we may say that they
all agree in teaching that Jesus holds some
unique place of authority and relation to God
in mediating this higher Cosmic Life.
In John's Gospel we note two or three things.
In recording events and facts John is excep
tionally careful and exact, agreeing closely with
the other writers, but in recording conversa
tions and teachings, he is more extended,
explanatory and interpretive. Just how much
of that which is recorded are Jesus' own words,
which John actually heard and, because he un
derstood better than the others, remembered
more perfectly, and how much of it is an inter
pretation and paraphrasing by John, it is hard
to say. Matthew, Mark, and Joanna write in
representing Jesus as teaching that a love con
trol of life was the essential of entrance into
the spiritual Life, while John emphasizes faith
in Jesus as the essential. This is not neces
sarily contradictory, because the margin be
tween love and faith is almost nil and John saw
Jesus, as the Son of God, to be Love expressed
in human form. In Matthew, Mark, and
Joanna, there is far less mystic claim in
Jesua' teachings, and, while this is true, there

152 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
is enough to furnish ample ground for just
such interpretation as John supplies. No one
charges John with perverting the meaning of
Jesus' teachings; all scholars alike give him
credit for the discrimination and discernment of
his interpretation. Dr. Glover, in his book, "The
Jesus of History," declines to use the Gospel
of John as a safe source, but at the same time
asserts that the Gospel of John is the most val
uable book for Christian devotion ever written.
There is something queer in saving that a book
is safe for devotion, but unsafe for intellectual
Btudy, but it illustrates the homage which sin
cere minds pay to the insight of John.
John's purpose in writing the Gospel is
clearly stated: to prove that Jesus is the Son
of God, and to prove that those who believe
in him might have Life. It has been asserted
that John proved his second point but not his
first. In presenting faith in Jesus as the es
sential for entrance into this higher life process
of the Spirit, he is most certainly in full agree
ment with the other sources. And in claiming
that Jesus held some exclusive place of media
torial authority as the Messiah, he is also in
full agreement with all the other writers. The
question seems to reduce itself as to what John
meant by "the Son of God." Of course, Son-

SUMMARY 153

ship of God is a relation that must forever
remain obscure to finite minds, even if it be
true. The heart can understand a relation
which the mind cannot define. The devotional
faith of the church for two thousand years has
accepted with little question the essential Sonship
of Jesus, but for the same two thousand years all
effort of councils and philosophers to define the
metaphysical relations of the Trinity, have only
served to precipitate disputes and wrangling
and hatred, and to postpone for millennials the
realization of essential faith in Jesus which
must ever evidence itself in loving relations.
Jesus promised that after his death the Holy
Spirit would more perfectly reveal him to the
disciples. This revelation has come in part,
beyond all dispute, through John, and the whole
history of the Christian church has shown that
John's view of the relation existing between
God and Jesus satisfies the highest mystical and
devotional consciousness. Those who doubt and
question his Sonship do so on intellectual and
"scientific" grounds, rather than on the exper
iential grounds where Jesus based his claims,
and where he taught men that the test should
be made. It is those who do his will, that keep
his commandments, that endure, that believe in
the sense of trust, that shall know of the teach-

154 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
ing whether it be true or not. It is as men
believe in him in the sense of emotional trust
and volitional obedience to the law of love
which he incarnates, that they are made fit to
enter this higher life-process of the Spirit, and
that without regard to any intellectual hypoth
esis as to the theistic relations of the Trinity.
The test it to be one of character: is it worldly
and selfish, or is it unselfish, spiritual, loving
and sincere?
This on the surface does not concern itself,
as we have said, with intellectual opinions
about the Sonship of Jesus, and yet in a deeper
sense it does. Our faith must be grounded on
rational foundations. That does not mean neces
sarily on discursive logic. It means that the
whole man must be reasonably satisfied'that he
is cherishing the truth and of that the heart is
often the best and ultimate judge.
An intellectual conviction alone is inert, it
does not effect the necessary renewal of the
deep sources of life. A loving sense of grat
itude makes the heart fertile and then the
thought of Jesus, as the Son of God, and a per
sonal Saviour, falls like good seed on good
ground and springs up unto eternal life.
In this deeper sense that our faith must be
rational we must ever seek for some satisfying

SUMMARY 155

interpretation of Jesus' authority. Does not
John furnish this, in his interpretation of Jesus
as the Logos made flesh for our accommoda
tion? This Logos he represents to be God's
self-expression of his Love-nature in creative
and redemptive activity. If in this sense Jesus
is the Logos then he bears to God the essential
relation 'which we term as Sonship.
We have seen that according to the teachings
of Jesus if any man is to become fit for the
Spiritual Life he must undergo such a radical
renewal of the subconscious control of his life,
such a reversal of life currents as is indicated
by a change from selfishness to loving unsel
fishness, that it will require, will it not, some
such provision of a Divine Saviour, as John
represents Jesus to be, as the Son of God, for
its adequate vitalization and energization.
We may not be able to prove it by the steps
of logic, but we are not free to relinquish it.
We may still hold it in faith, as human, im
pulsive Peter held it, and for which he received
the Lord's approbation, "To whom else can we
go? Thou alone hast the words of Eternal
Life. We believe that thou art the Messiah,
the Son of God."
In conclusion, then, we may say, that by
the Kingdom of God, Jesus teaches the reality

156 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
jof a cosmic and independent Spiritual Life into
which men may aspire to enter through a loving
faith in him as incarnating its law of Love.
Such a Spiritual Life calls for a cosmic urge
which we find supplied in John's conception of
the Logos, as being God himself expressing his
essential nature of Love in an aeon-long process
of becoming. Jesus is the incarnation of the
Logos, and by his life and teaching reveals the
reality and the nearness of the Spiritual Life,
points out the way of entrance into it through
faith in himself and a love control of life, and
urges men everywhere to make the great ad
venture, which it is necessary for them to make,
if they are ever to participate in the intimacies
of its fellowship, and then he vitalizes them for
its experience.
Is this independent Spiritual Life whose
characteristic is its law of Love, and the pos
sibility of man entering into its correspondence,
a tenable proposition in the light of the best
modern thought ? This question we shall try to
answer in the chapters which follow.

II
OSBORN: THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

"Far back beyond the earliest records of
animal life thus far revealed to us, brute con
sciousness and instinct were achieved. The
long geologic periods have borne fruit in the
comparatively recent attainment of self-con
sciousness and reason. The measureless ages
which stretch out into the future will see the
development of race consciousness and love.
The type of the new variety of the human
species was presented to us nineteen hundred
years ago. The supremacy of this new
variety will be gradually accomplished, just as
every new group of organisms came into its
own by processes of growth. Exactly the same
principles of evolutionary law which controlled
the changes of the past will determine those of
the present and the future.
"To-morrow, as yesterday, the fittest will
survive in the struggle for existence. But
whereas in the past selfishness was the measure
of fitness, in the future survival value will be
determined by breadth and depth of love.''
K. F. Mather.
Parables from Palaeontology Atlantic Monthly, July, 1918.

THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF
LIFE*
Db. Henby F. Osbobn
MODERN scientific study of the prob
lem of the origin and nature of life,
at first engaged the attention of
physiologists and naturalists who were most
concerned with form and habits. The study
has more and more widened out to engage the
attention of biologists and paleontologists, but
they also were concerned primarily with form
and matter. Of late, however, the study has
been taken up by physicists and bio-chemists,
until to-day the physicochemical aspects of the
problem are taking the larger share of expert
attention. One of the latest and most scholarly books
on the subject is by Dr. H. F. Osborn, entitled:
"The Origin and Evolution of Life." This study
transfers the emphasis entirely from the field
of form and habits to the physicochemical field
of energy. In hia Introduction, Dr. Osborn
•Chas. Scribner & Co., New York, 1917.
159

160 OSBORN

says that the Law of Evolution is now gen
erally accepted, but that agreement on the
cause, or causes, of evolution is as far away as
ever, and that all hope of discovering it by
a study of the organisms themselves must be
given up. This has therefore forced a trans
fer of attention from the organisms to the cells
and the energy complexes therein involved. He
writes: "At the beginning form is nothing, energy
is everything. Energy appears to be the
chief end of life — the first efforts of life work
toward the capture of energy, the storage of
energy, the release of energy. The earliest
adaptations we know of are designed for tlie
capture and storage of energy. ... In
searching among these earlier episodes of life
in its origin we discover four complexes of
energy are successively added and combined,
. . . namely: Inorganic environment: the
energy content of the sun, the earth, the
water, and the air; Organism: the energy of
the individual, developing and changing the
cells and tissues of the body, including that
part of the germ which enters every cell;
Heredity Germ: the energy of the heredity
substance (heredity chromatin) concentrated
in the reproductive cells of continuous and
successive generations as well as in all the
cells and tissues of the organisms; and Life
Environment: beginning with the monads
and algae and ascending in a developing scale
of plants and animals."

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 161

This ascent toward ever more complex cor
respondence was made gradually but by short
stages. Of these Dr. Osborn mentions:
1. The aggregation of certain chemicals un
der certain heat conditions.
2. The appearance of a new form of mutual
attraction which grouped these chem
ical life elements into a self-perpetu
ating unity.
3. This grouping occurred in a favorable
gelatinous or colloidal state.
4. The appearance of various "chemical
messengers," or catalyzers that pro
vided a necessary bio-chemical co-ordi
nation and correlation.
5. The rudiments of competition and natural
selection, (which involves some rudi
mentary form of psychic action).
Then Dr. Osborn mentions, as a result, the
successive appearance of:
1. Single cells and groups of cells deriving
energy from inorganic elements j bac
teria.
2. Multiple cells or groups with the clear dis
tinction between protoplasm and chro
matin.

162 OSBORN

3. Chlorophyle with its power of deriving
energy from sunlight; algae and plant
life.
4. The development of agencies for inter
action and co-ordination within and
among the germ cells, by reason of
which character formation became he
reditary.
5. Cells capable of deriving energy from that
stored by bacterial and plant life; pro
tozoa, metazoa, and animal life gener-
ally.
Even in the lowest orders in what is known
as the sub-psychic stage of animal life there is
evidence of the beginning of consciousness,
choice, memory, habit. These in turn control
adaptive radiation and selection, and indirectly
are creative of new form and function.
Animals are an advance over plant life by
reason of freedom of motion, access to more
varied sources of energy, and "a certain con
scious aspect of behaviour."
All living organisms are made up of innu
merable cells, each a complex of energy, each
having its own characteristics, but controlled
and co-ordinated by chemical catalyzers and
"messengers." These germ cells are made up

THE ORIGIN OF LD7E 163
of protoplasm with a nucleus of heredity chro
matin. These germ cells are exceedingly plastic and
quickly change to meet new conditions, while
the heredity chromatin, hidden away in the
nucleus is exceedingly stable and changes only
gradually by unknown causes during long con
tinued selection.
The secret of life is locked up in the mech
anism of these germ cells and to search their
secret we must follow two parallel trails,
namely :
"First the rise, differentiation, and
change of function in bodily charac
ters"; and second, "The rise and decline
of potentialities, predispositions, and other
germinal characters of the heredity chro
matin." The important question has to do with this
wonderful but slow process of the evolution of
the heredity chromatin. Is it the result of the
multitudinous changes and survival of the body
cells? Or is the chromatin itself continually
experimenting and from these experiments se
lecting and guiding the organisms into adaptive
and purposive lines?
Dr. Osborn calls attention to three phases

164 OSBORN

involved in adaptive character, namely: the
origin, the more or less rapid acceleration or
retardation, and the co-ordination and co-oper
ation of character form and character func
tion; and then concludes:
"That continuity and law in chromatin
evolution prevails over the evidence either of
fortuity or of sudden leaps and mutations,
that in the genesis of many characters there
is a slow and prolonged rectigradation or
direct evolution of chromatin toward adaptive
ends." "Through researches on heredity each of
these characters and character complexes is
now believed to have a corresponding physico-
chemical determiner or group of determiners
in the germ chromatin, the chromatin exist
ing not as a miniature but as an individual
potential." "As we have repeatedly stated, these
changes proceed according to some unknown
laws. The only vista which we enjoy at pres
ent of a possible future explanation of the
causes of character origin, character velocity,
and character co-operation is through chemi
cal catalysis, ... in other words, that
the chemical accelerators, balancers, and re-
tarders of bodily cell development also affect
the germ."
"The chromatin as the potential energy of
form and function is at once the most con
servative and the most progressive center of
physico-chemical evolution; it records the
bodily forms of past adaptations, it meets the

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 165
emergencies of the present through the
adaptability to new conditions which it im
parts to the organism throughout every living
cell; it is continuously giving rise to new
characters and functions,"
According to Dr. Osborn, if we could ade
quately examine the almost inconceivably phys
icochemical complexity of these germs cells, we
could discover the cause of evolution. Why
in the long, long history of evolution, contin
uing through a hundred million years, perhaps,
should there be only evidence of an orderly
advance toward ever more complex types, but
always better adapted to a larger correspon
dence, and never a step backward %
Why, for instance, should Reptilia during
nine million years evolve eighteen great orders,
thirteen of which became extinct; and then
during the next three million years the remain
ing five orders show only a retarding evolution,
while during those same three million years
Mammalia has evolved a multitude of orders
and species in rapid succession, with man for
its crowning achievement?
All of these facts are described in Dr. Os-
born's book, in an intensely interesting manner,
but of the causes he is frank to admit hia
inability to answer. He only claims that in

166 OSBORN

an energy conception of life we have a new
and very promising starting point for further
exploration. Too great praise cannot be given to scientists
for their honesty and patience in proving that
there has existed a more or less complete chain
of living beings from monad up to man. They
have not only proven the larger chain, but also
have supplied many of the minute details of
the transformation, and to do this they have
been obliged to patiently examine the geologic
remains of a hundred million years !
But to no purpose as far as supplying a
cause for the orderly evolution.
Now the Physicochemist has begun the study
of germ cells and their heredity chromatin,
those minute specks that only the most power
ful microscopes can barely reveal, and yet are
supposed to contain billions of ions of various
kinds in characteristic proportions, whose inter
change of electric charges hide the cause of
heredity of character and form and perhaps
the cause of life itself.
This cause Dr. Osborn confesses is, up to
the present, unknown. Whether it is according
to some unknown law or by some fortuitous
chance is as yet unproven. Dr. Osborn be
lieves it will be found to be according to some

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 167
now unknown but physicochemical law. He
writes: "So far as law is concerned, we observe
that the evolution of life forms is like that
of the stars: their origin and evolution as
revealed through paleontology go to prove
that Aristotle was essentially right when he
said that 'Nature produces those things
which, being continually moved by a certain
principle contained within themselves, arrive
at a certain end.' What this internal mov
ing principle is, remains to be discovered. We
may first exclude the possibility that it acts
either through supernatural or teleologic in
terposition through an externally creative
power. Although its visible results are in a
high degree purposeful, we may also exclude
as unscientific the vitalistic theory of an en-
telechy or any other form of internal per
fecting agency distinct from known or un
known physico-chemical energies."
In this does not Dr. Osborn come very near
to being dogmatic? Does he not show a prej
udice against a certain class of unknown but
possible causes? He has but to consider the
"action, reaction, and interaction" of his own
free movements to note that he is largely
directed and controlled by certain psychic fac
tors of intellect and desire. Some have even
enunciated it as a law that we only act in
accordance with the predominant desire, and

168 OSBORN

Dr. Osborn himself has pointed out that these
psychic agencies were operative in the earliest
forms of life.
Now some of these psychic factors are clearly
spiritual, as for instance, disinterested and self-
sacrificing love, or faith in the face of physical
proof to the contrary. If these spiritual forces
condition our free acts, may they not also in
some cosmic form register in the infinitely small
reactions of the heredity chromatin and be the
attractive force which Dr. Osborn places at the
very beginning of the necessities for organic
life and which made of the various chemical
life elements fortunatelybrought together under
suitable conditions of moisture and heat, not
simply another chemical compound but a living
unity? May not these spiritual forces be the
"psychic factors" of desire and choice that Dr.
Osborn found apparent even at the very begin
ning of animal life that insured adaptation and
survival? May not these spiritual forces be
the creative principle that, as we have seen,
has steadily urged on these life unities to more
and more harmonious correlations and co-opera
tion by means of the chemical messengers,
catalyzers, enzymes and other determiners that
Dr. Osborn has made so prominent a part of
his energy conception of the orderly develop-

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 169
ment of living organisms ? May not these uni
fying spiritual forces be the cause of the "rise,
and decline of potentialities, predispositions,
and other germinal characters of the heredity
chromatin itself" ?
Now looking forward, may not these same
spiritual forces, having been found to be im
plicit in the evolution of life from its very
beginning to its crowning achievement in man,
may they not be the creative principle, still act
ing in man, but now in a more spiritual environ
ment, that is destined to guide him into a higher
life process of the spirit? Jesus taught men
to expect this, and John interpreted his teach
ings to make it clear, when he wrote: "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made through Him ;
and without Him was not anything made that
hath been made." And again he wrote: "For
God so loved the worlds that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him
should not perish, but should have eternal life."
Later in this book we shall see that, from a
philosophical point of view, love, in a cosmic
sense, is the only universally all-inclusive, uni
fying, and harmonizing principle there is ; that
it is of the essential nature of God; and that

170 OSBORN

it reveals itself in a two-fold process of self-
expression in creation in more and more com
plex forms, until in self-conscious and reflective
man we see the beginnings of a second phase
that points to a process of redemption that
appears to be lifting man into a closer adap
tation to a spiritual environment, wherein he
may enter more intimately and immediately
into a perfect experience.
But be that as it may, the latest word of
science, then, is this: that within the energy
complex of the heredity chromatin there is
acting some unknown causal principle that
prompts and controls the evolution of character
form and character function toward some pur
posive end. Natural scientists from Lamarck
and Darwin to Weismann, Mendel and de Vries
have all labored to uncover this causal principle
and all have developed some phase of truth
but not the whole truth.
The hypothesis of Henri Bergson, that there
is an "elan vital," a vital urge, that has al
ways been conditioning the cosmos in a process
of "creative evolution," is the only explanation
that is receiving an increasing measure of accep
tance and of that we shall now speak.

HI
BERGSON: ELAN VITAL

BERGSON: THE ELAN VITAL
INTRODUCTION
IN order to show how closely the thought of
Jesus comes to the best thought, quota
tions are made from three of the best
modern scholars. First will follow quotations
from the writings of Henri Bergson, than whom
no thinker in modern times has more pro
foundly and more widely influenced the think
ing of the highest scholarship. M. Bergson is
no one-sided thinker but takes rank as a mathe
matician, as a scientist, and as a philosopher.
It is his erudition that first challenges atten
tion and then the reasonableness and clarity of
his presentations. His writings affect one as
though by them a door in a hitherto blank
wall was thrown open, through which one can
see, as though for the first time, a wide new
vista, inviting one to venture into new and
attractive fields of thought. In fact, herein lies
the great danger of writing about M. Bergson's
thought. The distant vista that so captures
one's attention tempts one to describe it, and
doing so to give one's own description the au-
173

174 BERGSON

thority of Bergson, forgetting that M. Bergson
only opens the door and makes no attempt to
state the philosophical implications of his study.
Many of M. Bergson's best thoughts are given
in the course of criticism of historic thought
to make plain his interpretations. For instance
his epochal distinctions between intellect, in
tuition, and instinct are drawn out in the
course of his criticism of the philosophy of pure
ideas and its autocracy of logic, from Grecian
philosophy down the long history of European
thought to the time of Darwin and Spencer.
He shows clearly that a philosophy of pure
ideas and one of scientific rationalism alike
lead to determinism ; the first by positing fixity
to immaterial ideas and forms that they claim
have been from the beginning in the Absolute;
and the second by positing a fixity of action
in so called laws, and the immutability of
matter and force. The cause of this error M.
Bergson finds in the past reliance of scholars
upon the intellect and its laws of discursive
logic as the sole avenue to truth. M. Bergson
shows that the mind is only capable of handling
"solids," facts, concepts, laws, etc., and that the
intellect can function only as it cuts off units
of experience, of observations, of time, and to
handle them as though reality was a succession

THE ELAN VITAL 175
of fixed facts, as though all creation was an
infinite cinematograph film.
M. Bergson points out that life is in no
sense fixed or solid even in the slightest degree,
that it is duration simply, an eternal flux of
becoming the energy for this eternal change
being found in what he calls "elan vital." He
points out that fortunately man has an intuitive
faculty by reason of which he has another and
different avenue of approach to truth and
reality, namely, by immersing himself sympa
thetically into the very depths of the current
of life, "To think after the fashion that one
loves." This intuitive faculty he is careful to
assert is not so well developed in man as is
the intellect and apprehends truth because of
its very nature only dimly and quickly, but
being an independent sourer of knowledge and
touching reality directly, is of inestimable value
when used along with the mind to mutually
check up conclusions as to life and reality.
This mutual action of intellect and intuition
reveals life and all creation as a vast flow of
change and becoming. One cannot predict
what will be, because all one can know is just
what is passing at the present instant — and
what one can learn from memory of that which
has passed. One can only guess at what may

176 BERGSON

happen next, as environment sharply conditions
the future direction of the current and as the
intellect is itself one of the results of the flux,
the future alone can provide the forms of
thought by which we shall be able to appre
ciate and describe it.
QUOTATIONS FROM "CREATIVE EVO
LUTION," BY HENRI BERGSON*
"I mean an internal push that has carried life,
by more and more complex forms, to higher and
higher destinies."
"If, on the contrary, evolution is a creation
unceasingly renewed, it creates as it goes on, not
only the forms of life, but the ideas that will
enable the intellect to understand it, the terms
which will serve to express it."
"The unity of life is to be found solely in the
impetus that pushes it along the road; the harm
ony is to be found not in front but in the behind,
... In communicating itself, the impetus splits
up more and more."
"Before the evolution of life, on the contrary,
the portals of the future remain wide open. It
is a creation that goes on forever in virtue
of its initial movement. This movement consti
tutes the unity of the organized world, and is a
prolific unity, of an infinite richness, superior to
any that the intellect could dream of, for the in
tellect is only one of its aspects or products."
"God thus defined, has nothing of the already
•New York, Henry Holt & Co.

THE ELAN VITAL 177
made ; he is unceasing life, action, freedom. Cre
ation so conceived is not a mystery; we experience
it in ourselves when we act freely."
"So that all life, action and vitality, seems
in its essence like an effort to accumulate energy
and then to let it flow into flexible channels,
changeable in shape, at the end of which it will
accomplish infinitely varied kinds of work. That
is what the vital impulse, passing through matter
would fain do all at once. It would succeed no
doubt if its power were unlimited . . . But the
impulse is finite, and it has been given once for
all. It cannot overcome all obstacles."
"I see in the whole evolution of life on our
planet an effort of this essentially creative force to
arrive, by traversing matter, at something which
is only realized in man, and in man only im
perfectly." In modern thought there have been four
main explanations of evolutionary change, as
seen in life. The oldest posited a plan that
existed from the beginning, everything that is,
is the realization in time of a plan or form
that existed from the beginning in the mind of
the Creator.
The second was offered by Lamarek and held
that change and variation was the result of long
continued use or exercise, and involved a belief
in the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
The third was held by Darwin and Spencer
who denied that acquired characteristics could

178 BERGSON

be inherited. They held a doctrine of natural
selection, that is, individuals, having by acci
dent or use, acquired characteristics which
proved to be disadvantageous in the struggle
for existence were generally killed off and those
only survived whose characteristics proved to be
advantageous, and these by natural selection
were passed on. There were many variations
of this held by different later scholars, the most
notable being the inclusion of the psychic factor
of desire as profoundly conditioning variation
and selection, that made the doctrine more
acceptable to Christians. In its original form
it made existence a complex of interaction of
natural forces and chance, with no necessary
demand for an intelligent first cause or contin
uing support.
The fourth explanation of variation is the
one offered by M. Bergson which has largely
displaced all the others by including some
features of all. Bergson postulates first of
all a vital impulse acting in a material environ
ment which follows no prearranged plan but
ever seeks an outlet for its creative energy. In
its progress it must reckon with its material
environment and with all the selective forces of
nature and mind. Life as conditioned by its
environment seeks adjustment to it; this crea-

THE ELAN VITAL 179

tive impulse directs the development of the or
ganism in that direction. M. Bergson's sug
gested explanation supplying as it does an
energy for the change, i.e., the immediate cause,
hints at some, although possibly unknowable
purpose, and thus by the very steadiness of
its directive action hints at an underlying
purpose that satisfies the theological demands
of the first explanation. Likewise it permits
the inheritance of acquired characteristics that
Lamarck demanded, and it provides amply for
the interplay of selection that Darwin held to
be so important.
The direction of this vital impulse is contin
ually dividing as it meets the opposition of its
material environment. Inert matter that makes
up environment is in no sense the cause of
change but is something that the vital impulse
must reckon with. Particular environment will
explain the sinuosities of change, but not the
general direction or cause of the movement, that
lies in the vital impulse itself.
Only the elemental tendencies continue to
evolve; myriads of unimportant developments
are sidetracked, so to speak, only to languish
and die; only those developments that prove to
be on the main line, many as the main lines
may appear to be, travel on toward some future

180 BERGSON

unknown goal. In the plant kingdom, carbon
fixing plants survive where others die; in the
animal kingdom — with the passing of the ear
lier carboniferous ages — Reptilia perish, while
Mammalia survive. Even as the bees and ants
with best developed instinct have survived
among the insects.
Man, of all creation, is best fitted to survive
because in him the faculties of intuition and
intelligence have best kept open the channels
for the further action of this creative impulse.
He alone has faculties that fit him for further
development in the main lines of vital evolu
tion. Here M. Bergson, like the good scientist that
he is, rests his case and declines to advance
into the field of metaphysics and religion. To
him the future of man is hidden in unknow
able darkness of the uncreated. But even thus
far M. Bergson has thrown a flood of light on
the method and field of the action of creation.
To M. Bergson we owe the profoundest grati
tude for opening up this sublime vista, whose
margin fades as we move onward. What a
vision of becoming, of unfolding, striving,
changing, where the word of power is not law
but freedom and richer life! What fullness of
meaning it gives to life's ever changing exper-

THE ELAN VITAL 181
ience ! What a relief from the crushing weight
of nature's grim determination and religion's
predestination! Life's flux seems filled with
struggle and suffering but in spite of it we
feel underneath "the everlasting arms," and
know that the future is ours if we are patient
to the end. M. Bergson goes with us only to
the gateway of Life, but surely it is the gate
way to a richer Life. The best we know in
man is his spiritual vision and if the vital
impulse is to urge man on to something beyond
a physical excellence, it must be in the direction
of a more perfect spiritual correspondence. Is
there now a spiritual realm in which this vital
impulse can more freely function? According
to a universally accepted rule of biology, par
ticular organs are developed by correspondence
with an appropriate environment. That is, if
an animal has fins it can be asserted that an
aqueous environment exists in which such a
development could have taken place. There
fore, if we see in man spiritual development
of faith, patience, goodness and self-sacrifice,
taking place under the action of this vital im
pulse, we may assert that there is, as a reality,
such a realm of Spirit. M. Bergson denies
that we have ground for this assertion, but
what do you think?

IV
EUCKEN: THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

EUCKEN: THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
INTRODUCTION
M BERGSON has brought the history
of evolution under the vital im
pulse acting on an inert material
environment to its crowning achievement in
man, with all his faculties of intuition, and
reflective intellect, but sees his future hidden
in the impenetrable darkness of the uncreated
and unknowable future. But as we pointed
out, he has opened a door through which we
can see an alluring vista and other thinkers
less hampered by the logic of their system have
already adventured, and the greatest of these
scholars is Rudolf Eucken, whose teachings we
shall now follow.
But before we take up in detail Eucken's
philosophy of the Spiritual Life, let us glance
for a moment at what we see already achieved
in man as it relates to a scientific consideration
of his place in creation.
First of all we note that his powers of intel
lect have given him enormous authority over
his environment. He can make tools for his
185

186 EUCKEN

defense against his enemies, be they other
humans, wild animals, or the hostile facts of
pestilence, famine, or natural law in any of its
katabolic manifestations. Then his intellect
gives him the great power of organization, of
manufacture, of utilization, of accumulation
and storage, by reason of which he satisfies the
phases of the one great law of his human na
ture, namely, self-defense, self-assertion, and
self-indulgence. But there is also another development in his
life that has resulted in quite a contrary way.
The development of the intellect enabling him
to look at things from the outside has developed
not only a consciousness of his own self, and its
imperious needs and likes and passions of a
physical nature, but it has developed alongside
of it a consciousness of the "not self," of other
men, of society, of family, of the state, of hu
manity and of all creation in general, and there
has dawned upon his mind the troublesome
questions of their rights, their happiness, and
their welfare. This has quickened in his mind
a conflict of judgment whether the interests of
self are to be considered as paramount to the in
terests of others, of society in particular groups,
or at large. This conflict of judgment has de-

THE SPIRITUAL LD7E 187
veloped ideas of moral judgment, of moral
responsibility, and of closer intimacies.
Little by little he has become conscious of the
fact that within him there is going on a conflict
between forces that are working for different
ends; that it is not merely a question of
whether a certain act will give him physical
satisfaction, but will it also entail hardship or
injustice to someone else, or more remotely to
society in general, is it to be preferred, or will it
be wiser to forego the immediate satisfaction for'
the larger good, or more remote happiness, that
will follow.
Alongside of the intellect with its immense
power of evaluating advantages and disadvan
tages of a physical nature, as we have seen,
has also been developing a faculty of intuition,
which functions very differently from the intel
lect. As M. Bergson so' convincingly shows, the
intellect can only handle "solids," concepts,
facts, laws, moments, etc., things that can be
weighed and counted, while the intuition has a
strange faculty of sensing the immaterial flow
of life, the spiritual flux of life, of love and
faith, not only within the self, but the soul cur
rents of others, and even of the larger ever
changing over-soul of places, peoples, times and
of creation itself. This intuition has little by

188 EUCKEN

little shown man, "after the fashion in whieh
one loves," that there are facts of right and
wrong, goodness and truth, kindness and wick
edness. Little by little man has come to a
conviction that this conflict going on within him
is not a discussion between wise and wiser, but
is a conflict of directive forces for the control
of his personality.
The problem of human life calls for an ex
planation of the conflict that appears to be
going on within the human soul between the
selective forces that are working for the pres
ervation and assertion of the natural life, and
selective forces that are working for the estab
lishment of a different and higher type of life,
namely, of a Spiritual life.
In scientific terms man has come to a point
of mutation, in his evolutionary development,
where the roads divide. On the one hand if
man chooses the road that leads to physical
superiority, he will arrive at what Nietzsche,
Bernhardi, and the whole German school of
scientific rationalism so much prize — the super
man. To them as Bismarck said: "Selfishness
is the only safe ground for the foundation of
a state." But this whole sad, awful catastrophe
of world war, with its reversion to barbarism
and cruelty and foolish waste, show all too

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 189
clearly that this choice leads only to inhibitions
that slowly and surely prove the error of the
choice. Not along the line of selfishness and
the merely physical excellence of mind and
body does the further advance of the race lie.
But is the road that leads to excessive phys
ical development the only road that evolution
can take? Rudolf Eucken raises the question,
"Is there not more in man, and more to be
made out of him than has been or can be ac
complished in a purely material and natural
environment ?" To the affirmation of this possi
bility he devotes his thought.
First of all he recognizes that in man there
is a dawning sensitiveness to truth, goodness,
and disinterested, unselfish love, that differen
tiates him from the beast, and seems to indi
cate a different kind of an environment. In
fact, he does not hesitate to say, proves the
reality of a Spiritual Life as distinct from and
independent of nature. He detects the begin
ning of this new type of Life in man's power
of self -directed thought ; in itself it is a product
of nature, but by reason of it he lifts himself
above nature, to a position of reflective self-
consciousness, where he can consider things
outside of himself and their relation to himself.

190 EUCKEN

This will be made plain in the quotations which
follow.
QUOTATIONS FROM
LIFE'S BASIS AND LIFE'S IDEAL*
By Rudolf Etjckejst
"There cannot be the least doubt that we belong
to nature: it cannot but be recognized that it
penetrates deep into the life of the soul, and to
a marked extent impresses its own form upon that
life; the boundary therefore is not between man
and nature, but within the soul of man itself.
But whether nature is able to claim the whole life
of the soul, or whether at some point there does
not arise an insuperable opposition to such a claim,
is another question. Even the most zealous cham
pion of the claims of nature cannot deny that man
achieves something distinctive: we not only be
long to nature, we also have knowledge of the
fact; and this knowledge is in itself sufficient
to show that we are more than nature."
"There must be a unity of some kind ruling
within us; but the mechanism of nature can
never produce such a unity. A transcendence of
nature therefore is already accomplished in the
process of thought, even when it only represents
nature, only displays it to our consciousness."
"Thought cannot possibly be satisfied with the
state of things as are presented; it desires to
illuminate, penetrate, and comprehend it; it asks
"Whence?" and "Why?"— it insists that events
* London: A. & C. Black.

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 191
must have a meaning and be rational. And from
this point of view it feels the mere actuality of
nature which excites no opposition within its own
sphere — to be a painful limitation and constraint,
something dark and meaningless. To thought,
a life which is swayed by blind natural impulse
must be inadequate, indeed intolerable."
"In the movement of nature everything indivi
dual is sacrificed, and there seems to be nothing
to which this sacrifice brings results which are
experienced as a good . . . Thought, in transform
ing this condition of things into an experience —
that is, in making us conscious of it — at the same
time makes it impossible for man to accept it as
final. Since it makes us more conscious of the
limitations of this state of life, thought demon
strates — and that through this very consciousness
of its limitations itself — that our whole existence
is not exhausted by that individualism and de
tachment, but that there is a tendency of some
sort within us which strives towards the unity
of the whole."
"This feeling of the lack of reality and depth
in the life of nature will become the keener in
proportion to the degree of independence thought
evolves. For the more thought finds its own basis
in itself, the more will it treat nature as an
appearance, the more clearly will it recognise that
sense, with all its obviousness and palpability,
does not guarantee the possession of truth; for
truth comes to us only through thought. In
thought, therefore, the world of nature loses its
immediacy and becomes a realm of appearances
and phantoms."
"A consideration of all the facts leads us to
the result that a life consisting solely of nature

192 EUCKEN

and intelligence involves an intolerable incon
sistency; form and content are sharply separated
from each other; thought is strong enough to
disturb the sense of satisfaction with nature, but
is too weak to construct a new world in opposi
tion to it."
"If the union of nature and intelligence pro
duces so much confusion, we are inevitably led
to ask whether man does not possess in himself
more than thought; whether thought is not based
upon a deeper and a more comprehensive life,
from which it derives its power. It is not neces
sary that such a life should be manifest to us in
all its completeness ; we shall also be compelled to
acknowledge it as a fact even if in the first place
it has to struggle up in face of opposition; how
ever, in its development it must show distinctive
contents and powers which could not be the work
of a subjective reflection."
"So far as man belongs to nature, his conduct
is determined solely by the impulse to self-pres
ervation; every movement must either directly
or indirectly tend to the welfare of the indivi
dual . . . Within the limits of nature we can
certainly concern ourselves with something which
is only indirectly useful to us; but we can never
be concerned with anything which is devoid of
all use to ourselves; we cannot take such a direct
interest in the welfare of others as will tend to our
own disadvantage. If experience gives evidence
of such an activity and such an interest, in so
doing it demonstrates a transcendence of nature.
Now, experience does give such evidence, and indeed
with irresistible clearness . . . However much in
the majority of cases self-interest may preponder
ate, we cannot dispute the possibility of this acting

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 193
in direct and conscious opposition to his own in
terest; of his subordinating and sacrificing him
self; and of his doing this "not grudgingly nor of
necessity," but willingly and gladly ; of his feel
ing this subordination to be not a negation and
a limitation, but affirmation and an expansion of
his life. All who strive for some essential re
newal and elevation of human life base their hope
and trust upon such a disposition. A renewal and
an elevation of life involve far too much toil,
conflict, and danger; they demand a renunciation
and a sacrifice far too great for them to be com
mended to us by consideration of our own welfare,
or for them to dispense with the necessity of
counting upon an unselfish submission, a sincere
sympathy, a genuine love . . . Yet the love in
which the union with others is sought only in
order to advance one's own interests, and the love
whieh finds in this union a release from the limit
ations of the natural ego and gains a new life,
remain distinct."
"How much real love and genuine sympathy
the experience of humanity shows is a question
in itself. Even as possibilities of our being, as
matters of thought which occupy our attention,
and as tasks and problems, they give evidence of
a development of our life beyond the limits of
nature." "From this something is evolved which is in
dependent not only of the choice but also of the
interests of mere man : a kingdom of truth, a world
of thought transcending all human subjectivity
is formed. Thus we see something grow up within
the human sphere which leads man beyond him
self, and which is valid not merely for him but
even in opposition to him."

194 EUCKEN

"In everything life seeks a deeper basis; an
inwardness wins an independence of the environ
ment and exercises on the environment a trans
forming power."
"It is from the inner presence of a determining
and moulding process of life that thought itself
first obtains a characteristic form, and is able tp
impress it upon things, and so subject them to
itself. A spiritual self-preservation of this kind
is fundamentally different from all physical self-
preservation : for the former, it is not a matter
of the self asserting its place in the co-existence of
things, but of becoming an independent inward
nature, and of establishing a distinctive whole of
life. The exact significance of spiritual self-pres
ervation is for the present obscure enough; but
whatever it may be, derives its power from within
and not from contact with the environment."
"In this experience it is implicitly assumed that
the distinction of good and evil has its source
neither in the preferences of the human individ
ual nor in those of the human society; but that
in this antithesis a new order, that is present only
to the inner nature, is revealed."
"It gave to the man amid all his doubts and
agitations the certainty of being something unique,
something indispensable; at the same time
it lifted him into an invisible world, and enabled
him to understand his own life as an end, com
plete in itself. How different this is from the
struggle for existence, for the preservation of
physical life, and how clearly a new life, another
kind of reality, arises in these movements: . . .
The movements towards a spiritual individuality
may be begun in the most simple conditions; and
it is not to be estimated according to the decree

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 195
of its achievement. For, where world stands
against world, everything depends upon the de
cision with regard to the fundamental principle,
and this may be made at any point. The mere
possibility of making such a decision testifies here
irrefutably to a reality : the reality of a new order
of things."
"The conclusion we are led to is that a new
Life distinct from that of nature arises in our
soul." "But what is this new reality and this whole to
which the course of the movement trends? The
more we reflect over the question the more strongly
we feel that it is a direction rather than a con
clusion that is offered to us in this matter; some
thing higher, something inward and so on to
evolve, but what is embedded in the inward and
in what this supremacy is based is at present not
apparent . . . The chief impulse of the Spiritual
Life is that it wills to liberate us from the merely
human; to give us a share in the life of the
whole." "This contradiction cannot be overcome other
wise than by our recognizing and acknowledging
in the Spiritual Life a universal life, which trans
cends man, is shared by him, and raises him to
itself. That this transition brings with it a
change in the appearance of life and of the world
as a whole, and that as a result our striving is
brought under entirely different conditions."
"Man cannot produce Spiritual Life of his own
capacity: a Spiritual world must impart itself to
him and raise him to itself."
"Such a whole of life is offered only by the
Spiritual Life, which, transcending man, is also
immanent in him. Of course this cannot be taken

196 EUCKEN

possession of immediately at the beginning of the
journey of life ; but it is held up to us as an aim,
and we can only gradually approach it. But how
could it operate within us thus, if our life had
not some kind of participation in it from the be
ginning; if our life were not in some way based in
the Spiritual Life, and in progressive activity only
developed the Spiritual that is in it?"
"From all the facts we have considered we see
that, with the attainment of independence by the
Spiritual Life, there emerges a distinctive kind of
being which everywhere exerts its activity, holds
up a new aim, and desires a transformation; life
is for the first time placed on a firm foundation,
and taken possession of in the deepest source of
its movement."
"A contact, indeed a union, must therefore be
established between the independent Spiritual
world — which in some way must be operative in
us — and the activity of our own which struggles
upward; and, through the gain of such a contact,
that world must be led to more complete organi
sation; that which strives upward made secure,
unified, and advanced . . . The Spiritual Life is
not the product of a gradual development from the
life of nature, but has an independent origin, and
evolves new powers and standards: new begin
nings must, therefore, be recognizable in us if
the Spiritual Life is to become our life ... An
infinite self-conscious and self-determining life
must not only include man within itself; it
must become his own life, his true self."
"Love is primarily not a subjective emotion,
but an expansion and a deepening of life, through
Life setting itself in the other, taking the other
up into itself; and in this movement life itself

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 197

becomes greater, more comprehensive and noble.
Love is not a mere relation of given individuals,
but a development and a growing in communion,
and elevation and an animation of the original
condition. And this movement of love has no
limits; it has all infinity for its development; it
extends beyond the relation to persons to the re
lation to things ; for things also reveal their inner
most being only to a disposition of love: again,
the striving after truth in science and art can
not succeed without love, and an animation that
proceeds from it, without inwardly becoming one
with the object."
"This increasing spiritualization of human life
never becomes a sure possession that calls for no
toil; ever anew it demands our attention and act
ivity; it has continually to be won anew as a
whole. As soon as the tension slackens, the world
of experience with its appeal to sense prepon
derates, and it soon appears to be man's sole
world, one which cannot tolerate anything beyond
itself. For the spiritualization of human life a
longing rooted in the whole being is primarily
necessary." "From the point of view of the Spiritual Life,
the chief thing in religions will be the kind of
Life they reveal; what they make of the life-
process; how through the relation to an absolute
life they evolve the life-process to a higher stage.
Only so far as they express this life-process and
not in themselves, are the doctrines and practices
of religion of value."
"And so there remains the possibility of life
being raised to something positive ; and in this the
main thing is not intellectual enlightenment, but
radical moral renewal, an elevation into a world
of love, grace, and reverence."

198 EUCKEN

QUOTATIONS FROM
THE TRUTH OF RELIGION*
By Rudolf Eucken
THE problem of winning a place in this
new Spiritual Life is the field of Re
ligion. To this Professor Eucken
gives a great deal of attention and has presented
the results of his study in one of his latest and
greatest books — The Truth of Religion.
He says:
"Religion is able to attain a secure position and
an effective influence only when it is founded
upon the whole of life and not upon a particular
so-called faculty of the soul, be it intellect, feel
ing, or will."
"It becomes evident that a universal life — a
cosmic depth — is imbedded in the Spiritual Life.
... If, therefore, all genuine Spiritual Life is
the effect of a Higher Power, Religion is em
bedded in it."
With this in mind Professor Eucken divides
Religion into two divisions : Universal Religion
and Characteristic Religion.
In the first he groups all those deep under
lying phenomena of the spirit such as the dual-
* London: Williams and Norgate.

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 199
ism of human life, the rival claims of nature
and spirit; the progressive autonomy of the
Spiritual Life as seen in the emancipation of
life from the small self and its personal inter
ests; the overcoming of the inner antithesis;
the winning of a consciousness of oneness with
the whole.
With this in detail goes the aspiration for
infinity, for freedom, for eternity, for fellow
ship, and for perfection, all of which is common
to all times and all people in varying degree.
On the other hand characteristic religion is
the particular form that this Universal Religion
takes among different people and different
times. In all this Professor Eucken is concerned
not so much with the source, the basis, the goal
of the Spiritual Life in its cosmic and meta
physical sense, as with the conservation of the
Spiritual Life in humanity, and it is with the
cosmic character of the Spiritual Life that we
are at present most concerned, and for this
we are now to turn to the studies of another
philosopher. But before we pass, one more
quotation from Professor Eucken's Truth of
Religion can well claim our attention. How
inspiring it is, and how characteristic of the
wonderful man I

200 EUCKEN

"The Spiritual Life which attains full clear
ness in religion constantly remains in difficult
opposition to the environing world, and an over
coming of this opposition is not to be found in
the ordinary capacity of man. This opposition
must and will move and stir ever anew, heart
and hand will ever strike out new doubts. The
decision lies finally in the question whether for
man the external world or a spring of Life within
himself is the main fact, whether the center of
gravity of reality is found without or within. It
is a struggle for the governing center of life."
And in this struggle:
"There can nothing be held out for man in the
painful entanglements of his own soul and his
seeming abiding helplessness when face to face
with the problem of his own being but what
religion offers as a trust upon an Infinite Love
which unreservedly awakens a new life in him
and lifts him beyond the range of conflict."

TUCKWELL: PERFECT
EXPERIENCE

TUCKWELL: PERFECT
EXPERIENCE
INTRODUCTION
PROFESSORS Osborn and Bergson led
us the long journey upward of strictly
natural evolution. In man's physical
iand intellectual superiority he seemed to have
arrived at a termmus. But Professor Eucken
meets us with the suggestion that what might
appear to be a terminus of the natural life is
really a junction point from whence it is pos
sible for the soul to begin a new journey, and
under his guidance we passed another long
etage of our conscious life's course into the
higher realm of the Spirit. In the natural life
we found ourselves in a material environment
of time and space, being developed out of inert
material by the action of a Vital Impulse into
self-conscious thinking, feeling, acting, human
beings. In the Spiritual Life, however, we
found ourselves elevated above time and space
into a new kind of environment of Spirit.
Here the old conception of externality, or sub
ject and object, are absent, and environment

204 TUCKWELL

instead of being hostile and material and exter
nal and static, is friendly and immaterial and
immediate. There is no longer occasion for the intellect
to gather sense concepts and arrange them for
self defense and aggression, because the soul
feels intuitively its oneness with the whole, not
as "a dewdrop slips into the ocean," but rather
as a hand takes its assigned place among the
organs of the physical body, so the finite self
wins a place in the over-soul of the whole, and
the place is not one of bondage and confine
ment but is a place of freedom and fellowship
and fruition.
In fact, Professor Eucken shows us that one
is almost too free! That it is only by earnest
and steady and patient thought, desire, and
action that one may hold one's place in this
Life of the Spirit. Not by any means that it
is impossible, but only that the soul still re
maining in a natural environment and subject
to its urge to self interest, must ever face this
rivalry of nature and Spirit. He is free to
elect his allegiance, but one or the other must
be dominant.
Professor Eucken can go with us no farther.
Neither he, nor Professor Osborn, nor Profes
sor Bergson by the limits of their subjects can

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 205
give us an answer to those more remote ques
tions that now crowd for answer. What is
this Vital Impulse? This Spiritual Life?
Whence does it come? Whither does it lead?
What is its essential nature ? Why in the natu
ral life does the current of life appear to be
forever setting from without inward, toward
one in objective ways of defense, assertion,
accumulation, privilege, and indulgence ? Why
in the Spiritual Life does the same current
of life appear to have reversed its flow and be
now apparently setting from within outward —
in creative service of love, faith, hope, goodness,
and truth? Long, long ago Laotzu said, "My
words have a clue, my actions have an under
lying principle. It is because men do not know
the clue that they do not understand me."
It is this clue that we want to detect and
follow back to its source and onward to its
goal — if we can. For this let us now follow
the lead of Dr. John H. Tuckwell, an English
scholar.

206 TUCKWELL

SYNOPSES OF RELIGION AND
REALITY*
By John H. Tuckwell

H

E calls his work, a Study in the Phi
losophy of Mysticism, and says:
"By philosophic mysticism is here
meant that whole attitude of mind towards re
ligion which results from a discovery of its
rational basis and justification where it reaches its
highest development in the experience of the
genuine Mystic."
He first seeks to detect the essential nature
of religious experience, and finds it cannot be
found in any particular doctrine or form of
worship. Even the doctrine of God is not only
held in widely varying forms but some relig
ions, Buddhism, for example, deny the person
ality of God altogether. Nevertheless he says:
"Just as we can trace one and the same Vital
Impulse through all the infinitely varied forms
it assumes from amoeba up to man, so may we
hope to be able, also, to discover and to trace an
identical religious impulse, one principle operative
throughout, to be detected under the crude and
ofttimes repulsive forms of savage worship through
*New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 207
all the intermediate varieties of faith and prac
tice, up to the exalted experiences in which the
higher religions issue."
"Not then in any particular creed or cult, nor
in any one specific emotion or other mental state,
is this essence to be found, but in some deeper
cosmic whole, or primal being present and oper
ative throughout."
"The principle or essence of religion lies deep
in the foundation of our being, in those trans-
marginal regions or subliminal depths the exist
ence of which our psychologists are pretty unani
mous now in admitting. Positively it has its
roots in some sense of the divine within us. And
by divine we may understand to be meant, in the
higher ranges of religious experience at least,
that which is perfect, absolute, everlasting."
"This worship of powers higher than himself
from a sense of need is thus the essential feature
of religion. In all religious experience there is
the same immediate impulse in human life to rise
above its feebleness, finitude, incompleteness; in
other words, to maintain, to realize, to complete
itself. The highest forms which this effort to rise
beyond the limitations of our finite life takes is
seen in the yearning of the most advanced religi
ous minds for the Perfect, the Absolute, the Eter
nal; to experience it, to be one with it, and, as
we shall see, to express and to reveal it."
Dr. Tuckwell then guards us from consid
ering this so-called religious instinct as some
thing added on to man's faculties ; or a super
natural communication of divine knowledge.
He writes:

208 TUCKWELL

"On the contrary, the religious life connects
itself directly with life's universal striving, a
striving toward fulfilment, completeness and per
fection. For it should be borne in mind that
there is a struggle of life itself, of life as a whole ;
and this struggle is by no means exhausted, its
final goal is far from being attained, when approx
imately perfect adjustment of the organism to
its environment is achieved. Rather, as we shall
presently see, is the effort of life directed towards
a goal that transcends infinitely such successful
adjustment to merely external conditions. For,
passing onward and inward and upward, it as
sumes in man the form of desire and struggle for
perfection as inner harmony of being, that is, after
self-consistency or self-fulfilment. To express the
same thing in other words, life from its very com
mencement has aimed to complete itself in an
experience of spiritual or absolute Perfection."
"Religious experience, then, if we would rightly
understand its true function in human life, cannot
and must not be dissociated from the rest of ex
perience. It does not mark an absolute break in
life's development, but is in direct and continuous
line with the general upward movement and
"urge" of life from the time of its first appearance
on the planet until now. Religion, then, has not
only been continuous throughout all its own evolu
tionary stages, but is itself in unbroken contin
uity with the striving of life as a whole to as
cend, with what Professor Bergson has termed
elan vital, and is, indeed, its highest fulfilment.
Religion so regarded presents itself as an ad
vanced form of that general movement towards
completeness or perfection, which a deeper study
shows to be a universal characteristic of life."

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 209
"It is in this profound, this mysterious elan
that the real secret of life's evolution lies."
Then Dr. Tuckwell gives attention to the
question whether this law of life is purely blind
urge toward variation in general or whether
there can be detected in the history of evolution
any tendency that would suggest purpose. He
says: "Are variations, then, ever of such a charac
ter as to suggest an effort to produce new species;
and not merely new species, but species of a higher
order? In other words does life seem to aim at
a more extensive adjustment to an ever widening
environment both in space and time, and with
this wider range to become more complex and
yet more harmonious? That is, does it aim at
some sort of completeness or perfection? Now
the answer to this question which we receive
from recent biology is, we may say with con
fidence, in the affirmative."
Dr. Tuckwell points in proof of this to the
now commonly accepted theories of mutations,
Mandelism, and inhibitions, as proving conclu
sively that back of the natural law of life there
is direction and purpose. Environment may
condition, life alone struggles, selects, chooses,
and adapts, in an effort to arrive at some sort
of completeness. It is not like the action of
mechanical or chemical principles, not blind and

210 TUCKWELL

meaningless activity, but is a movement in a
determined direction, by a process in the realm
of ends. Religion connects itself with this pro
found law of life and is carrying forward its
purpose to some far off end.
Dr. Tuckwell then proceeds to consider the
question of conservation of the advances that
are made in evolution and the part that is
played by religion in heredity. First of all
he says that our search should not be limited
to physical phenomena, because we have already
proven that this law of life is purposive, there
fore we must look to analogous facts for light on
this, that is, to similar occurrences in our own
physical life. He writes:
"Therefore in seeking to interpret such an as
cending series we must begin where the meaning
is clearest, best known, and most definite. Now life
is what is technically known as an anabolic proc
ess, or a process of up-building; and this implies
action contrary to mechanical laws ; that is, action
that does not follow the line of least resistance.
Again such a process implies also direction in the
sense of end or aim. In both these respects then,
it stands in direct contrast to the indifference and
inertia of lifeless matter. We must, therefore, in
our effort to interpret life, seek our principle
where purposive direction is clear, definite, intel
ligible. Now of such purposive guidance or direc
tion we have immediate experience necessarily
only in our own conscious volition or conative

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 211
activity, and consequently in this our own self
determination, we discover the norm by which
to interpret that directive or teleological activity
which is the universal distinctive feature of life
high or low."
In studying our own volitional activities he
finds a psychical and physical unity that in
cludes both physical and psychical phenomena,
not only in individual life but in the race life
as well. There is a racial consciousness where
racial memory is stored. Any study of heredity
involves memory, a psychical phenomenon.
Life is "anabolic" that is, directive — a process
toward an end. It reacts on its environment
to secure adjustment, this not once but often,
memory comes in to conserve experience which
results in habit, and finally in structure. He
redity is the habit of a race and results first
in structure and later in function. Applying
this to religious consciousness there must be
some harmony between the law of life and the
universe; some sort of vitalistic theory is
needed to account for this upward progress of
heredity. The direction cannot come from the
environment, it must come from the law. It
is this vital principle that is creative, and this
vital principle must be the absolute Perfection
already immanent within seking to unfold

212 TUCKWELL

itself. The quest for the Perfect which we
have already seen to be the essence of religion
is here seen to be also the goal of all life's
evolution. Dr. Tuckwell writes:
"It is the vital principle and not evolution then
that is creative. It is to the nature of this prin
ciple that we must look for our interpretation of
the fact of evolution. And as we trace life's ascent
to its highest development in man, its invincible
law is discerned ever more and more clearly to
have throughout profound transcendental and
metaphysical implications; and in the highest reli
gious consciousness, particularly in what is known
as mysticism, we see it unfold into an experience
which casts an interpretative light over the whole
evolutionary process . . . Absolute Perfection
which in the long run science and philosophy have
to admit to be implicit and active everywhere, as
the one only real ground and goal of life's whole
evolution." "And now, finally, as regards religious evolu
tion we may conclude that it is in this immediate
impulse or movement toward completeness, in this
quest for the Perfect, which however is necessarily
implicit within it, that its essential nature really
consists ... In religion we see human nature
striving by these means to rise superior to itself,
its finitude, to all the discords and discrepancies
by which it feels it is inwardly and outwardly
beset. At its highest stages, however, religion
is able to discover the insufficiency of all concepts
to grasp in its fullness the perfection of the Real
ity it seeks, and in like manner that ritual forms

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 213
are inadequate and superfluous. At this point
religion enters upon what is known as the con
templative or mystic stage, where the finite ego
seeks to ascend to those heights of experience,
where it may immediately apprehend within itself
that Perfect Reality, which is at the same time
the final goal of all life's effort."
"And so it is by the light thus thrown back on
the whole evolutionary process from such exalted
consciousness that we must interpret the elan
vital, which without such irradiation would be a
movement without significance, a struggle and
effort with no final goal. Having come thus far,
however, the task now devolves upon us to discover
and define, so far as we may, what is the nature
of that Perfect Life or Experience which we have
said is the final goal of the religious quest."
NATURE OF PERFECT EXPERIENCE
Dr. Tuckwell first defines Perfection and the
Perfect Experience as being synonymous with
what in philosophy is known as the Absolute.
What is the nature of this Perfection that we
have already found to be implicit in the Vital
Impulse from the beginning? The result of
his study is to find it to be an all-inclusive,
harmonious, and immediate experience. Dr.
Tuckwell first excludes thought, saying:
"Thought is thus a movement out of finitude
toward perfection. Thought, reason, and all log
ical process, is an effort of the finite to grasp ex-

214 TUCKWELL

ternally or ideally that Perfection which it can
only inadequately apprehend immediately or from
within. The Absolute Perfection cannot, there
fore accurately be represented as fundamentally
ideal or conceptional, or as of the nature of a
logical thought process, but rather as a perfect
immediacy revealing itself creatively in the finite,
and somehow including all finite existence within
itself and including it harmoniously. How this
is so and how we approach a solution of the
enigma of creation in the creative activity of the
highest human genius, will appear as we proceed.
At present we conclude that the ultimate nature
of the absolute Perfection must be regarded as an
entirely harmonious, all-inclusive, immediate ex
perience." In a further elaboration of this Perfect
Experience he distinguishes between One and
Many, between self and not self, but asserts
that if there is such a thing as an all-inclusive,
harmonious experience, the One must include
the many as a unity, not as a collection or
related series; there must be present some one
active unifying principle operative in each and
all, in such a manner as to constitute a unity,
and revealing itself and its nature in the many,
that is, the Perfect Experience must be implicit
in each and all of the myriad many. The
secret, of Perfect Experience must rest not in
the nature of the series, but rather in the nature
of the unifying and implicit principle, and

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 215
again Dr. Tuckwell looks for the answer within
our own conscious experience and finds the
analogy in our consciousness of self unity amid
the many organs that go to make up our self
hood and amid the manifold changes of life.
He writes:
"And so we find our own self-consciousness an
actual, concrete, living type of the one in the
many as the basis and starting point of all our
other knowledge of reality. In what is termed
the self, we have our one ever-present and im
mediate experience of it. We have and can have
no other direct acquaintance with it, and we need
no other. It is the adequate and sole source and
ground of all our knowledge, mediate or intui
tive." "The ground of the Universal, the Ultimate
Reality, if it is to be conceived of as unity at
all, not only may be, but must be conceived of as
a Perfect or Absolute Self."
On the unity and reality, then, of this per
sonal self he bases his further study of the
nature of the Perfect Experience.
"Each of us is, then, a self with a nature.
But further, it is also a nature that develops.
All our activities, all our experiences, all the
ohanges we pass through as we grow from infancy
to manhood, and through manhood to old age and
death, are expressions or revelations of our nature.
. . . The self, (then, is an active developing
principle; and the whole course of its development

216 TUCKWELL

constitutes a process wherein it reveals or realizes
its nature. Such is the self as we discover it by
reflection on our own self -consciousness." "This
conception of a unitary self with its nature, which
we thus get from reflection upon our own ex
perience supplies us with the key, the only, but
we believe, a sufficient key, to the interpretation
of life everywhere and as a whole. . . . This
active principle we call a self with its nature, and
the whole developmental process is process of self
realization or self revelation."
"What we call its nature is the special law or
developmental impulse it has inherited from its
ancestors. It is, as we have seen, race memory
repeating in the organism a well remembered
story. But this naturally suggests once more the
question, 'is there anything we legitimately may
call a racial self corresponding to what we know
as the unitary subject in the case of the individ
ual?' and to this question, what we know of the
nature of the self through our direct experience
helps us to an answer."
"We do not, so we hold, pass directly from our
private and individual experience to that of the
Absolute as such, but ascend through various
stages of evermore inclusive race experience be
fore attaining the culmination of all conscious
ness in the direct experience of the Absolute's
own perfection. But first or last the Absolute is
there waiting for us. Either immediately we
pass through the gate of our individual con
sciousness into a wider life or after passing
through a series of intermediate consciousness,
sooner or later we reach a stage where the finite
finds exit from all limitations, whether in its own

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 217
experience or in that of the race, by direct en
trance into the Life of the Perfect."
"The Absolute Self will, of course, possess a
nature, but it will be a nature eternal and un-
derived. And it will be an essential feature of
its nature to manifest itself, and the whole
cosmic process will be its self -revelation. Such a
Self, with its perfect underived nature, seems,
then, demanded as a metaphysical necessity if
we are to have a rational explanation of the
evolutionary process. And such a Self, we main
tain, the universe, when most profoundly re
garded, actually discloses."
"A Perfect Experience is, then, an all-inclusive,
completely harmonious, immediate Experience,
. . . And further, it is of its essence to dis
close that nature like genius in innumerable and
infinitely varied self -revealing activities; and the
whole evolutionary process is but a progressive
manifestation under finite forms and conditions of
the nature of this Perfect Self."
"This Perfect Self, that reveals the unity and
harmony of its nature more or less clearly in
all the laws and uniformities of the external
universe, as also in all the categories of our
understanding, and in all the noblest, aesthetic,
moral, and religious aspirations of our hearts, in
what relation are we to regard it as standing to
our finite selves or egos?"
Then follows a long consideration of the
possible questions that may be raised to such
a conclusion. Among these may be mentioned
in passing, What is the relation between our

218 TUCKWELL

finite selves and this Infinite Self? To this
he answers:
"I, that am the same self that I was and have
been all my life long, through all the vicissitudes
of my experience, am one, literally and truly, one
with the Perfect Self, in and through and by
reason of that personal identity of which each
one of us has as direct and intuitive cognizance."
"God or the Absolute can include me or dwell
in me only because fundamentally one with me,
and consequently the human mind, with its
religious experience attains the highest develop
ment in the mystic or cosmic consciousness, not
merely its union, but its essential oneness with
God." The next question is in regard to the per
sonality of the Absolute. To this he replies:
Strictly speaking, No, but adds:
"The Perfect Experience must, therefore, be con
ceived of as the experience of an Absolute Self,
and as Absolute, such a self must be regarded
as Supra-personal. . . . We do not, however,
mean by saying this to deny the possible existence
of some finite personal God such as Wm. James
pleads for, and such as is the object of thought
in current popular theology. Such a being may
exist for aught we know, in and through whom
the Absolute may worthily reveal something of
itself." In this connection one naturally thinks of
the Jehovah of Israel, and Jesus.

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 219
Still another question is the problem of sin
and suffering ; and another is : Is the nature of
the Perfect Self to eternally express itself, to
be interpreted as an imperfection, a lack ? Still
another question is this: Does not this view of
the evolutionary process still being incomplete,
imply that something of the nature of the
Absolute is still unexpressed ? In reply to this
Dr. Tuckwell replies:
"It is, as we have said, of the very essence
of genius never to cease to express itself, since
such self-expression is an element of its perfec
tion. However beautifully or completely the im
mediate experience of perfection may have al
ready embodied and revealed its nature, yet there
still remains the demand for news forms in endless
succession and variety. . . . Thus, then, we
may think of the Absolute as ever self-revealed
and yet ever self-revealing, the music of the
universe never began and never ends."
Dr. Tuckwell next examines the functioning
of the human faculty of self -directed thought
as a guide to the nature of Perfect Experience.
He writes:
"We hope to show that the Perfect Life or
Perfect Being is not simply an imaginative object
constructed by contemplative thought for the pur
pose of emotional satisfaction, but is, on the
contrary, the essential, eternal fact of the
universe itself, the one ultimate and supreme

220 TUCKWELL

Reality, ... by carefully examining our ra
tional nature, we shall enquire what Reason has
to disclose regarding the ultimate nature of
Reality." "Philosophic thought ... is just
one form of mental activity whereby the finite
self transcends its finitude and proclaims its kin
ship, nay its oneness with the Eternal and Abso
lute." In considering human reason he finds certain
characteristic demands for its proper function
ing. First of all, truth must be consistent.
Again, every judgment is a submisson to
reality. "From Reason, then, we can definitely say that
the Absolute rejects the inconsistent and unhar-
monious." "In this manner, then does the intellect justify
the heart in its quest of Absolute Perfection, The
Absolute posited, to so speak, by religion as the
object of its quest, is found to be identical in
nature with the Absolute as revealed by the intel
lect in its criterion of truth. For both the heart
and mind the Absolute is One, is all-inclusive, is
a perfectly harmonious experience, and is real.
We are justified in taking another step also. The
principle of consistency, which, we have now
seen, must be regarded as the final criterion of all
that claims truth and reality, the demand for
which is nothing less than the functioning of the
Absolute in all rational thought, compels us to
regard the Absolute as ultimately Spirit, and
therefore as a Self."

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 221
In conclusion Dr. Tuckwell says from reason
we may assert that this self-pervading and su-
perior-to-relations Perfect Experience is the
very opposite of that which is mechanical and
material; that it is the sole and perfect reali
zation of Spirit and outside of Spirit there is
not and cannot be any reality, and the more
anything is spiritual the more is it real.
Quoting Prof. Ladd approvingly, he says:
"Only an Absolute Self whose essential and un
changing characteristics are those of a rational
and free Spirit, can fulfil the required conditions."
Religion then is no vain quest, our rational
faculties have proved an actual presence of
Perfect Spirit. Having ascertained that the
real goal of the soul's striving is the Perfect,
Dr. Tuckwell raises the question: "Can we ex
perience the Perfect ?" and "If so, will the soul
lose its identity by being absorbed into the Per
fect, or will it be an experience in which the
finite ego while retaining its selfhood, yet
nevertheless, possesses in feeling and vision the
real and true Perfect Experience?" He seeks
the answer to these questions by an examina
tion if the nature of self as revealed in
the functioning of introspection and memory.
First as to whether in order to experience this

222 TUCKWELL

we must be the Perfect he finds that in what
ever we experience, heat, cold, sweetness, fear,
hope, there are two sides, the sensation and what
we think about the sensation. It is a feeling
that is also felt, or owned. Our ego while
experiencing immediately, also transcends the
experience by being aware of it. It is not an
unattached feeling, it is my feeling and yet it
must not be confused with me; the ego is at
the same time both subject and object.
Dr. Tuckwell writes:
"There is this original, essential activity
present in all experience, which consists in the
positing by the ego of itself as object, to itself as
subject, while remaining one with itself. . . .
The ego principle is there in concrete form, dimly
or clearly, active from the first. In more de
veloped form it becomes the clear and definite
fact of self consciousness in man. In this, what
has been called the second stage of consciousness,
the ego can deliberately turn in on itself, look
at itself, reflect upon itself, and so know itself,
praise or blame itself, and feel satisfaction or
compunction and remorse as the case may be.
In these expressions the term self denotes the ego
regarded as its own object. It is, indeed, this
duality or polarity of the ego in consciousness, by
reason of which a man can oppose himself to him
self, that makes it possible for him to be tempted
and to resist temptation ; in short, that makes him
a developed moral and rational being."
"And when we say, 'I myself,' we do not mean

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 223
any single feeling; nor any series of psychical
events or facts; nor any 'whole of feeling with
internal differences;' nor any slowly changing
'feeling mass,' nor a bare abstract identity. We
mean a universal, active, cognitive principle, non-
temporal, present as subject owner or agent in all
its changing states and activities, but never exist
ing in abstraction or isolation. No immediate
feeling without a subject; no subject without im
mediate feeling. Such is the nature of all
experience." Next Dr. Tuckwell examines the function of
memory. Psychology has and can have no sat
isfactory explanation of memory because there
is in it something transcendental and psychol
ogy denies the transcendental. There is in mem
ory an element of permanency, we must posit
a permanent ego, and if we do there is no need
of recalling or restating. Time in itself is not
real, it is only a form of the ego's manifold
experience in its eternal unfolding.
"On the contrary the order and context of my
past experience is rightly to be regarded as stiU
retained in me, but not temporally. But if the
I, the self, the transcendental ego, is not a mere
flux of temporal experience, but essentially an
eternal identity that appears or manifests itself
in time, then it is not difficult to see that its past
is and must be owned by it still. For whatever
experience once qualifies this eternal transcen
dental ego must necessarily be conceived of as also
eternal, it stiU exists however much it may ha

224 TUCKWELL

modified by subsequent events; . . . The past,
then, is my experience still, I own it still, though
in a now temporal fashion; and, therefore, I do
not, in a literal sense, need to recall or reinstate
or reproduce it, or to have some present idea in my
mind to represent it, because I have it still; it is
in truth an integral part of my very being, it is I
myself so qualified." "We conclude then, that the
ego is transcendental. It is not in time ; still less
is it time itself or a mere stream of temporal
consciousness." Now from this permanent finite ego as re
vealed in the functioning of introspection and
memory, may we by analogy conclude that the
Perfect Self is also Permanent and Transcen
dental? Dr. Tuckwell quotes from the Greel
philosopher Heraclitus as saying:
"There is nothing abiding, either in the world
or in its constitution taken as a whole. Not only
individual things, but also the Universe as a
whole, are involved in perpetual ceaseless revolu
tion; all flows, and nothing abides. We cannot
say of things that they are ; they become only, and
pass away in the ever changing play of move
ment of the Universe. That, then, which abides,
and deserves the name of deity, is not a thing, and
not a substance, or matter, but is motion, the cos
mic process, becoming itself."
This is approved by M. Bergson as a fair
statement of the Philosophy of Change, and
he develops it literally and logically to its end.

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 225
And yet Heraelitus like Laotzu and unlike
Osborn and Bergson,
"recognizes in a somewhat vague sort of way,
that within the everlasting flow there was present
a hidden formative harmony, a divine directing
law, a wisdom operative as an efficient force, an
imperial and universal reason."
"The truth will thus lie in the statement that
the Eternal appears in time, the changeless in the
changing. Without the Eternal Reality there
can be no temporary flux or appearance; but on
the other hand, without the temporal flux, with
out appearance, there could be no Eternal Reality.
The Absolute it will be remembered ... is
ever self -revealed and self-revealing. It is of its
very essence to appear in time."
This is all involved, he writes, when we as
sert "I remember, I had this experience. I
am the man to-day who had this experience
yesterday." "( There is ) in the self a transcendental
principle, an identity that, in its ultimate meta
physical truth, must be interpreted as a finite
form or appearance of the Absolute Ego." "And
so, too, for the same reason nothing new can
ever be added on to you from outside you; nor is
any experience of yours absolutely new, something
that in no sense existed before you had it. It was
implicit in you from the first, in the sense that
it was amongst the possibilities of your nature;
and what in you was thus implicit becomes in
the course of your life history explicit in all the

22® /TUCKWELL

details of your varied experiences. And through
these experiences of yours, but necessarily under
finite conditions and limitations, the Absolute
Spirit itself immanent in you, also finds some
degree of expression."
"Your sensation of blue is the exfoliation of
some element in your complex nature, though
called forth by external reality . . . and
yet though the sensation arises from within you it
is not self -induced or self -originated ; but its emer
gence as well as its character is determined by
reality coming to you as though from outside you
and meeting with response from within you, i. e.
from your nature. These so-called external condi
tions, then, regulate the sensation's appearance,
but the sensation itself comes from within, and
remains within the ego, as its expression of it
self, in response to this particular external appeal.
Tour sensations of whatever kind in this way
reveal you as far as they go; they reveal your
nature, i. e. they reveal a certain capacity in you
for these special responses under these special
conditions."

In all of this both space and time are but
modes of this finite ego's experience. In space
the experiences are co-existent, in time they are
strung along. To illustrate this Dr. Tuckwell
uses the illustration of a musical composition.
The musician has within himself a deep experi
ence of harmony, that is not objective to him
but is a part of his nature, and with it comes
a desire to express it. The only thing he can do

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 227
is to write it down in notes and execute it on
suitable instruments; it is an exfoliation of
his own nature. Now the reverse of the opera
tion is this, a music loving soul hears and
follows the successive notes as they awaken in
his soul corresponding emotions of harmony;
his soul in turn unfolds under the inspiration
of the self-expression of the first. The mu
sician passed from the one to the many; the
hearer passed from the many to the one. There
is a difference between his creative self-expres
sion and your appreciation, but in spite of their
difference they are close kin, or you could not
appreciate. In conclusion Dr. Tuckwell writes:
"In the first place, we have found that every
experience is also experienced; and by that is
meant that it is owned by, or in other words,
qualifies some subject. Then, secondly, we found
that this subject is the unchanging aspect of
consciousness, the aspect, that is to say, which
remains one and the same amid our varying
states and activities. . . . And we found,
moreover, that all our conceptions of such a sub
ject were derived from our own direct and intui
tive experience of personal identity. This was our
second main conclusion. Our third was that the
self or subject was not an abstract unity, that
merely stood in contrast with its manifold appear
ances, but a concrete unity, the one in the many,
a self with a nature. This nature, we said, ex-

228 TUCKWELL

foliated into all the rich and varied details of its
experience, thus revealing itself in what we call
its evolution or history."
The origin and destiny of finite souls next
occupies the attention of Dr. Tuckwell.
"In all life, there must be," he writes, "some
fundamental duality, some ultimate internal dis
tinction, some primary affirmation and nega
tion within the unitary being of the Absolute
Self, otherwse there would be nothing to include,
nothing for it to experience. . . . Some in
ternal fundamental distinction is thus necessary
not only to the perfection but to the very being
of the Absolute. Such we take to be the nature
of Reality, not only as required by consistent
thought, but equally as given in concrete ex
perience." "An unmanifested or unrevealed unity would
be a pure abstraction; and so, as we remarked in
a previous chapter, God or the Absolute Being,
must be conceived of as ever self-revealed and
ever self -revealing; and this eternal self -deter
mining activity is of the essence of its perfec
tion." "The Absolute, we have said, must be thought
of as a Self, and it is of the nature of a Self to be
concrete, to be creative, to express the quality of
its being in manifold functions and activities.
Negation, then, or determination, is not necessarily
evil. The essence of evil is not that it is negative.
But determination or finitude becomes evil in the
finite ego only when it is allowed to negate, to
hinder, or to suppress a deeper, a more inclusive
and harmonious affirmation. It is not needful,

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 229
therefore, to the perfection of the Absolute that
we as finite selves should cease to exist, or to be
reabsorbed into the divine essence."
"Thus identity, finitude, exclusiveness, unique
ness, and impenetrability are essential features
of what we call a self, and constitute it a separate
center of interest, not to be broken down or in
vaded from without. And so the uniqueness and
relative independence that mark each self are as
essential features of it as is its identity amidst its
changes." "If, then, the above description of the self be
correct each self must be regarded as a spectator
of the universe from a point of view no other
ever has occupied or ever can occupy. . . .
Though it is beyond question that finite selves
do stand to each other in this relation of ex
ternality and exclusiveness, nevertheless, this is
not to be taken, as we have already observed,
to rule out the possibility of their inclusion in a
larger experience, for each finite self as a form,
under negative or limiting conditions, of the
Absolute." But how can the Absolute differentiate itself
into myriads of finite selves? Examining our
own natures we find,
"There is the self of ambition, the self of
avarice, the self of fatherhood or motherhood, .
. . and there are a score of others. No human
ego exists that has not within him at each moment
a great number of these emotional centers, every
one of which is, or is capable of being, as we have
said, a sort of subordinate self; and yet all are
included within the one principle of identity we

230 TUCKWELL

each denote when we use the pronoun I. Here,
then, in concrete experience we have as a matter
of fact, even the finite ego, by a sort of an in
herent, creative activity, differentiating itself to
a certain extent into many minor, inclusive selves,
without thereby breaking up the basio unity.
May we not well ask whether this is to be taken
as throwing no light whatever on the ultimate
mystery of the universe, namely how this one
Absolute, all-inclusive, immediate experience or
self also exfoliates into all the variety of count
less centers of experience, or finite selves, without
thereby incurring the disruption of the unity?"
"We know, we resist, we conquer, we control
ourselves continually; and by resisting, control
ling and subordinating these minor selves we rise
in the scale of being. And yet with all this
complex development our fundamental unity or
identity is neither broken up nor destroyed."
"In us and through us the creative genius of
the Absolute is always more or less at work dis
closing its nature, but in the minds of the highest
order of genius we approach nearest to a true
knowledge of the nature and creative activity
of the Absolute which religion names God."
Thus we see the origin of finite centers of
consciousness and their appearances in the flux
of time, in the eternal self-expression of the
Perfect Life.
Next Dr. Tuckwell seeks for light on their
final destiny. While actual proof is of course
not to be expected he finds after examining the
foremost scientists that immortality of the soul

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 231
is not at all impossible. Next he examines
the highest mystical geniuses, and finds that
they commonly assert that they have actually
entered into such a timeless experience of the
Perfect. Also the whole evolutionary process palpably
presupposes such an outcome.

"We conclude, therefore, on the ground of the
intrinsic rationality of the evolutionary process
itself, taking it as a whole, that the ultimate
goal of the law of life is not the extinction of all
finite selves by their reabsorption into the In
finite, but is immortality; immortality, if not for
all, then at least for the most developed. The
negative as well as the positive aspect of finite
experience is, we hold, necessarily deepened and
strengthened as evolution advances, both toward
the material world, and toward other finite selves ;
each element or aspect needing and at the same
time supporting the other. They are correlative,
equally essential to Life and its development."
"And here it should be observed that immortal
life is not the same thing as mere continuance
of existence in time. Immortality has special
reference to the transcendental and eternal aspect
of experience as contrasted with the temporal, the
apparent, the changing, the phenomenal. . . .
Yet survival of bodily death is not what we mean
strictly speaking by immortality, at least in the
present connection. It is quite possible to con
ceive of the mind as surviving bodily dissolution,
without having attained the experience of what

232 TUCKWELL

we mean by eternal or immortal life. What then
do we mean by immortality?"
"One view regards each finite center as eternal,
that it does not begin to exist, but only to appear
in time. No self cr ego ever actually began to be ;
each is the eternal differentiation of the absolute.
In this case consciousness of immortality would
only be, as we saw, the attainment of the
knowledge by direct experience of its true nature
on the part of the finite ego; not the acquire
ment of a new quality as the result of effort and
discipline. The process of the self's evolution
would thus be an upward movement of knowledge
and immediate experience toward a true and com
plete realization of what it eternally and es
sentially is. . . . The second possible view
of immortality is that which regards it as the
result of the soul's development in time, what in
biology would be termed an acquired character
istic, the ripe fruit of Life's upward struggle
when it attains its culmination, that is to say,
when it attains to a transcendental and immediate
experience of the Absolute's perfection. . . .
These two apparently divergent beliefs may be
harmonized if we suppose on the one hand that
the ego or self, though in reality an eternal
differentiation of the Absolute only appearing, not
beginning to exist in time, yet on the other hand
that its experience or intuitive consciousness of
this its true nature is the result of its temporal
evolution through struggle and discipline,"
Then Dr. Tuckwell distinguishes three pos
sible types of stimulation for immediate exper
ience. The first, external; the second, a com-

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 233
bination of external and internal; and third
is of purely emotional origin.
"To the last category belong, in our judgment,
all our higher emotions represented by what we
call our religious, our aesthetic and our intellect
ual interests. ... A true psychology would,
we believe, report that the very highest im
mediacies are almost, if not completely, free from
the element of sentiency."
"What, then, we contend for is, that the high
est immediacies, at any rate, are in their own
intrinsic and real nature free from the alloy of
sense in so far as that they are not organically
stimulated. The pure gold of emotion has, so to
speak, been freed from all its sensational dross.
And consequently, no matter what their lowly
evolutionary origin may have been, such im
mediacies are so distinct, and some of them are
of an order and value so high, that those who
fully experience them may be said to have passed
a 'distinct degree' in evolution and are worthy
to be marked off as what science would term
'mutation' in relation to all lower forms of ex
perience. . . . Such an experience, we main
tain, is not sentient, is not organically stimulated,
and in those who do thus enter into direct and
immediate experience of divine Perfection, tha
goal or climax of the evolutionary process has
so far been reached, and so to speak justified.
With the attainment of this goal they would
necessarily acquire the consciousness and the as
surance of their immortality."
Dr. Tuckwell then asserts that immortality
should be considered as an attribute, or qual-

234 TUCKWELL

ity at least, of these higher orders of imme
diacy. Immortality is conditioned by two
main factors, first, the negative factors of
uniqueness and exclusiveness ; and second, emo
tional unity and harmony of experience.
"Immortality, if it be an attribute of the finite
at all, is so only of those finite unique centers
which have, besides their particularity, attained
to complete unity and harmony of experience."
"Only on the basis of an immediate experience
that is eternal, perfect, and all-inclusive, in other
words, of some divine immediacy, could the finite
center gain complete assurance of its immortality.
Thus to unify, if we can, on the basis of some
immediate and direct apprehension of the divine
perfection would seem imperative; for it is to
unify on the basis of that which is unconditioned
and uncontrolled by the chances and changes of
the natural world and our own evanescent bodily
organisms. . . . Such an achievement by the
finite self would signify that it had become a
unique and permanent organ for the expression
of the Perfect Immediacy in its own proper
character as all-inclusive harmony. . . . This,
if such a goal be obtainable (and this we are to
discuss next) would indeed be a worthy termina
tion to the long agony of the evolutionary process,
the true home and rest in eternal activity which
constitutes the only conceivable peace of aspiring
souls."

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 235

CAN THE FINITE TRANSCEND
ITSELF?
The natural question to ask at this stage is,
can the finite as finite directly experience the
perfection of the Absolute? In other words,
can the finite transcend itself ? Dr. Tuckwell
replies, "Now in seeking an answer to this question it is
essential to bear in mind that Reality's creative
activity has a duality of aspects, which may be
termed respectively the OBVERSE and the RE
VERSE. The self transcendency of the finite in its
evolutionary progress from one-celled organisms
to man is Reality's creative activity regarded on
its reverse side. The obverse side is the same
activity regarded as the Absolute's self-expression,
or the revelation of its nature by self-determina
tion. . . . and just as the Infinite reveals
itself in the finite without thereby ceasing to be
Infinite, so also, on the other hand does the finite
indefinitely transcend itself without thereby ceas
ing to be finite."
Scientists naturally look only at the reverse
or man's side, but philosophy, poetry, and re
ligion contemplate the obverse or Godward side.
Religion certainly aims at such an experience,
"To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.'
Now, is it possible or rational ?

236 TUCKWELL

"Life, then, is always conscious, and all con
sciousness, so far as we know, appears in finite
centers which we have termed selves. However
faint or confused the consciousness may sometimes
be, as for example when falling into or awaken
ing from sleep. . . . We always mean by
these terms self, soul or spirit to indicate finite
centers of conscious interest."
"Seeing that all organic forms, when meta
physically considered must be taken to be appear
ances of the Absolute, should we not naturally
expect that the fundamental character of the
Absolute would, in some measure at least, be
discoverable even in the humblest among them?
For let us not forget that if Reality be present
at all in any organism, it is wholly there; there,
albeit implicitly, in its complete and undivided
existence as Absolute Perfection."
"For, let us remember, that, according to what
we take to be the true view of the Absolute, it is
not static, but essentially active and creative. .
. . But now in the light thrown back on the
whole process by the nature of the Ultimate
Reality as revealed in the functioning of Reason,
as also in the aspirations and experiences of the
highest religion, we can interpret, in a manner
eminently satisfactory, the meaning of the whole
law of life, and can discover the final goal of all
its undoubted upward movements. ... It
will be also recollected that we discovered Per
fection to be no more abstract ideal, but the im
mediate experience of an Absolute or Divine Self.
. . . Surely then we are warranted in saying
that even in the primitive forms of life there is so
far already disclosed the nature of that Absolute,
to experience whose perfection is the real and

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 237
ultimate aim of all life's strivings. The whole
evolutionary process thus starts with a rudimen
tary self, and can only end with a self which has
attained the blessedness of an immediate ex
perience of Absolute Perfection. And that Abso
lute Perfection, again, is also a Self, an all-
inclusive and harmonious self. The whole process
may be summed up as the ever advancing revela
tion or exfoliation of this Perfect Self . . .
and it was the presence of the Infinite in the very
earliest cells that determined the evolution of life
and still controls and guides it towards its
destined end in man. . . . The presence,
then, of the Absolute implicitly, that is under con
ditions and limitations, yet in its own proper
character in each cell or finite center, is the
ground and explanation of the self transcendency
of the finite ; and as we have said, is the only key
to the evolutionary process."
Again the universal presence of desire in all
finite life, is a presumptive proof that ulti
mately the desire will be satisfied.
"There is no form of finite life without a sense
of want, without desire. And desire is essentially
active, is essentially an effort to be and to ex
perience what at present it is not. It is thus a
seeking for Reality because it is at present only
imperfectly real. But on the other hand it could
not desire what was already foreign to itself and
quite outside it; the impulse is from within and
is a sign that what it seeks is already implicitly
there. So that we may say with truth that all
feeling, all thought, all conation, all desire, all
psychical activity of whatever sort, is possible

238 TUCKWELL

to finite experience only by reason of the presence
within it implicitly in all its perfection of a larger
all-embracing Life, which philosophy recognizes
as the undivided Absolute itself."
Then Dr. Tuckwell summarizes the obverse,
or Godward aspect of this divine human rela
tion, and likens it to the productive activity of
a great artist as suggested by Bruno,
"God, or the Absolute Spirit is the true inner
formative power of the universe, its active, spirit
ual, creative Force or Soul Matter is eternal; it
constitutes a negative resisting yet receptive
element or medium in relation to which the
active positive creative power can act and reveal
itself. But both positive and negative elements
are contained within the fundamental unity of
the Absolute's perfect being. ... In the
universe the ideal principle or formative power,
Bruno says, 'is present from the beginning, in
spiring the first minutest atom of the structure
with the power of the perfect Whole that is to
be.' Thus the universe contains in itself the
principle of its own being ; and even the least and
most insignificant of finite things presupposes by
its very existence the presence and activity within
it of that which is to be realized; and so this
first principle is at once the beginning and the end
of all." Still quoting Bruno's thought, he con
tinues, "There is no external compulsion on him
and therefore he is free; and yet the universe
arises of necessity out of the Perfection of the
divine nature of which it is the expression; since
of that Perfection creative activity is an essential
element."

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 239
"Now the work of all great artists is the ex
pression, not strictly speaking of thought, but
rather of an immediate feeling of beauty or
perfection; and so the Absolute or Perfect Artist
must be conceived of as a Self whose all-inclusive
perfection consists in the activity within him of
a perfectly harmonious, immediate, and creative
experience, of the nature of what we term
emotion, an immediate experience that is per
petually exfoliating into all the universes of time
and space. . . . Thought or reason pervades
the emotion as an essential constituent, as a con
trolling and creative activity, giving the emotion
its elevation and distinctive value. Again in such
a view of the relation of the Absolute Spirit to
the world, evil necessarily, is no longer an entity
or power external or hostile to God, and there
fore something to be defeated and destroyed.
... On the contrary, rather is it a discrepant
element within the being and nature of the
Absolute, and existing there to be overcome, not,
however, by being destroyed, but by being trans
muted, by being made contributory to a higher
harmony like discords in music, and so converted
into a medium for the fuller disclosure of the
Absolute's Perfection."
"In the Vedanta, God is ever in Creation renew
ing his ancient rapture. Creation, it says is a
poem written in infinite bliss. It is, accordingly,
this conception of the Absolute's life and nature
which Mr. Edward Carpenter brings to his ex
position of the inner and profounder significance
of biological facts. The ego, the self, of each cell
is for him implicitly the whole undivided Abso
lute ; and the process of evolution from the begin
ning to end is the exfoliation of the Absolute

240 TUCKWELL

Self under conditions of time and space, in other
words Creation is a work of art. But here again
the question naturally arises; — Why, if the Abso
lute be thus immanent with all his fullness within
each of all the numerous hosts of finite centers
or selves in nature, do they not all go on to per
fection? . . . Life seems to reach in count
less directions what science terms 'fixity of type,'
as though it had endeavored by various ways to
reach its end, but finding no thoroughfare, had
been forced to try other routes. ... It is
sufficient to say at this point that each for so long
as it exists is needed, that not one is excluded from
exercising some function in relation to the great
whole. Further from this we may not be able to
go at present, and with becoming humility may
confess our ignorance."
"Nothing in the evolution of life is more
surprising, nothing more indicative of an im
manent intent, conation of purpose, than the
transition that has taken place from the unicellu
lar to the 'colonial' forms known as metazo, with
the accompanying emergence of a higher and
more inclusive self. The single cells still retain
their distinct identity, but are included somehow
within the larger life of this higher self, and ex
ercise their respective functions in its interests.
. . . There is no contradiction, no impossibility,
in one self becoming many selves, or having many
selves affiliated to it. And so in the case of the
Great Self of the universe, it also may differen
tiate itself into countless selves, aspects, or modes,
and this may be the condition of its more perfect
self expression. It this be granted then each self
MUST BE potentially the whole. ... Mr.
Carpenter thus concludes that there is one all em-

PERFECT EXPERIENCE" 241
bracing Spirit or Self, and that every finite self,
even to the ego of the microscopic cell, is identical
with, is, in truth, the Perfect Self; it is the
Perfect Self only in finite form and under finite
conditions." Dr. Tuckwell then considers the question
from the reverse or human side. He begins
by referring to the difference between knowl
edge about a thing and the thing itself.
"Sensations, the forms of space and time, the
causal relation, and all other categories implicated
in the construction of the object of knowledge,
are contributed by the self, they are the self's
mode of responding to reality's external appeal.
No doubt external reality has a nature, a
structure, a life of its own. But our knowledge
of it is not absolute, is not of "the thing itself."
"Our past experience, our own personal and
private experience, predisposes our mind as
regards its future modes of apprehending objec
tive reality. The simplest observation of things
involves antecedent mental conditions or pre
dispositions, which we indicate by saying we do
or we do not know what to look for."
"There is manifestly, then, a tendency of the
self in reacting on the manifold of sense to reduce
it to the unity of its own nature, i. e., to apper-
ceive the many as one."
"The universe then might appropriately be com
pared to an infinitely grand orchestral perform
ance, the creative genius of which is God, and the
finite self a listener and performer in one. The
evolutionary process in which he plays his part

TUCKWELL

may be said to be an education also, a progressive
discipline, by which the finite is trained to an
appreciation of the genius of the Absolute. The
goal, the mystic goal, religion strives after, will
thus be the attainment of this power of appreci
ation, the ability to enter by immediate experi
ence into the joy or rapture of the creative genius
of the Absolute Perfection. The first steps in this
direction are represented by the processes we have
just described. We already transcend, as we have
seen the discreteness of the sense manifold in vari
ous ways by these immediate and apparently simple
feelings, under which the discrete are syntheti
cally apprehended and reduced to the unity of self.
. . . The same principle of apprehending a mani
fold content of consciousness in the immediacy of
an apparently simple feeling is, for example, still
further illustrated in what we call our instincts
or intuitions . . . We may in such a case be cor
rectly said to apprehend a rational process under
the form of immediate experience . . . Let us not
forget that there is a real or genetic logic, as well
as the purely discursive logic of the logician; and
that it is this real or genetic logic that is imma
nent in all true feelings and makes them true, and
by reason of which they are capable of being ex
foliated into rational processes of thought or into
rational conduct in practical life."
"It is by means of these supreme divine experi
ences that the self enjoys immediate sense of union,
or rather of identity, with that Absolute Life,
which exfoliates its perfection into all the
manifold universes of infinite time and space.
It is to these high immediacies, these pure exalted
emotions, indeed, that all noble art and poetry,
as well as religion seek to rise . . . Indeed

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 243
the whole cosmos may with truth be defined
as the exfoliation of a divine passion supremely
rational. But as to the possibility of our
entrance as finite selves into so great an ex
perience we have now further to inquire. The
self, we have pointed out, transcends itself in
idea; all finite experiences, everywhere and
always, transcend themselves ideally, become ra
tional in numberless ways; but we equally tran
scend our finitude through immediate feeling ; and
it is this latter form of self -transcendency, as con
trasted with the transcendency of ideality or
thought that we will now proceed still further to
trace." "Nevertheless, we are not separate independ
ent creations, for biology and psychology alike
assert the continuity of life and experience. What
we can do, without infringing upon their individ
uality or losing our own, is to appropriate the
accumulated result of ancestral experiences. We
can, and do, apprehend them in the form of im
mediate feelings impulses, conative tendencies, by
what we call our temperament, disposition, or
emotional character . . . We are continually
open to emotional influxes from the deeper levels,
where the past is all stored and living still; and
these so called subliminal up-rushes are, some of
them at all events, race-feelings, race-memories,
race-immediacies." "For let us not forget that the human self, hav
ing implicit within it the fullness of the undi
vided Absolute Perfection, of necessity yearns and
strives after a fuller and more inclusive life than
is possible to it in its apparent isolation and sep-
arateness from nature and from its fellows of the
human and animal world." "And just through

244 TUCKWELL

these emotional uprisings from profounder levels
man does in fact succeed in transcending the limits
of his individualism, and in a very true sense be
comes in immediate feeling inclusive of the race to
which he belongs. This, then, is the real function
of religion; it is man's conscious effort to tran
scend himself, to escape his finitudes, to become
one with a larger Life than his own."
"If it is possible then for the individual in this
manner to enter into the life of the race without
being the race, there is surely nothing contra-
dicatory, nothing absurd or impossible, in the
supposition that a profounder and more inclusive
immediate experience may yet be in store for it."
"According, then, to this interpretation of reli
gious experience, all these race emotions so rich,
varied and vast, and extending back through such
countless millions of years, and that now well up
in the finite center of a single human self, are
evidences that there is a direct connection of the
self with the larger life of the race. But. there
are evidences also of the possibility of our trans
cending even these race experiences and of enter
ing into immediate and direct communion with
that still larger and diviner Life whence the uni
verse itself flows. All these enlargements of the
self through race experience are but preparatory
expansions, propaedeutic to an experience yet more
exalted. These various racial experiences, as we
have already intimated, differ in quality and
value; that is to say in the degree and extent of
their inclusiveness and rationality. The objec
tive test of their worth is to be found in their
capacity for rational exfoliation into both
thought and conduct, and thus they constitute
the steps of that sanctuary wherein at last, the

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 245
evolutionary process having so far reached its
goal, the heart of man enters the highest experi
ence of all, known as the mystic union with God.
Here at least the strands of thought and feeling
unite and become one in a higher immediacy, the
distinction of subject and object is overcome;
creed and cult are alike transcended, as also the
adoration of any external divinity or divine in
carnation; the finite self rises to the rapture of
immediate experience of Absolute Perfection, yet
without the extinction of its uniqueness or its
finitude. To use the fine expression of Plotinus,
'It is the flight of the alone to the Alone,' the in
effable blessedness of the self's direct vision of
God." "But now we have reached another order of con
sciousness than is common to man. At present
there are comparatively but a few of the race
whose spirits have found wings strong enough to
bear them to heights so lofty. Indeed the newly
recognized biological principle of 'Mutation' may
with truth be said hereto find so far its last and
highest exemplification. Yet what the few have
obtained is, we may hope, the forecast and the
promise of what will be the experience of the race
as a whole before the story of the human species
on this planet is complete."

246 TUCKWELL

THE MYSTIC'S CLAIM TO PERFECT
EXPERIENCE
Dr. Tuckwell now asserts for the mystic :
"That his claim to have experience of Absolute
Perfection while still retaining his limitations as
a finite being, has in it nothing impossible ; noth
ing contradictory; but that on the contrary, such
experience is the fitting completion, the one and
only rational justification and appropriate crown,
of the whole evolutionary process. The elan vital
has reached here a goal which, as we said, throws
its illuminating light on the whole movement,
revealing its metaphysical basis, and thus render
ing it intelligible."
"For we are here dealing with an experience
so vast, indeed, of illimitable range and signifi
cance; we are seeking to explore those regions of
the mind that belong to the transcendental and
eternal order. Within the mystic consciousness
itself, consequently, there are possibilities of in
definite development and inhaustible variety.
From the fount of this experience the great
thinkers, artists, poets, and saints of all ages; of
all nations, and of all religions, have drawn their
insiprations . . . and experience which constitutes
the final goal of life's whole evolution, and one
which, consequently, has been reached at present
by but comparatively few of the members of the
race. If, therefore, one has never had some meas
ure of mystic experience himself, necessarily the

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 247
most exact and detailed description must fail to
give him more than an indefinite conception of it."
Then Dr. Tuckwell notes from the recorded
experiences of the great mystics certain char
acteristics that are common. First, he notes
the comparative suddenness of its appearance.
"At a certain stage the perceptual conscious
ness of the mere animal becomes transmuted into
the rational reflective self-consciousness of man.
And this mutation, if we may believe Professor
Metchnikoff, took place almost if not quite sud
denly. And the view we offer regarding mystic
ism is, that we witness in it another mutation,
that new and higher type of experience again
emerges, and the rational self-consciousness of
ordinary humanity becomes transmuted into the
universal or cosmic consciousness of the mystic,
characterized by an intense sense of the identity
of God. . . . The suddenness of St. Paul's
conversion is beyond question. That it presented,
too, a distinct mutation in consciousness his letters
leave us no doubt."
"If any man be in Christ," Paul writes, "he is
a new creature; old things have passed away;
behold they are become new."
"We conclude, then, that in the mystic experi
ence we witness the highest mutation life or
consciousness has yet undergone in the course of
its evolution, but that this does not mean any
thing totally new added on to his attainments of
the past. Rather is mysticism the somewhat
sudden emergence into full daylight splendor of
an experience, the dawn of which had long begun
to break in human consciousness. ... It is

248 TUCKWELL

thus a direct transition of consciousness from the
finite to the Infinite, from the phenomenal to the
Noumenal, from the temporal to the Eternal."
Then he notes that it almost invariably de
mands solitude and the absence of the usual
forms or means of worship. And again he
notes that it is usually accompanied with great
intellectual illumination and intuition.
Real intuition it should be borne in mind,
always has an element of thought or knowledge
in it as well as feeling. . . . It is a union
of the strands of thought and feeling ... we
might define it as knowledge in and through im
mediate feeling. ... In this unity of com
prehension, consciousness attains its completest, its
most direct, and its final apprehension of what
Reality is and means . . . and in the light
of this mystic experience, all things are seen in
the transfiguring light of their transcendental
unity." "God," says Tauler, "is the End of all unity, and
in turn all diversities are united and become one
in the One Only Being. . . . Therefore go and
carry thereto all the diversities, which are so
great and so incomprehensible, that all may be
made one in the Oneness of his Being."
The next feature of the mystic's vision is
its universality and all-inclusiveness.
"Mysticism, we then said, is essentially and dis
tinctively an immediate experience of Perfection,
and by Perfection we meant the completely har
monious experience of an All-embracing Self.

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 249
And just as we may and do enter by immediate
experience into the life of the race, just as we
have inherited numerous race immediacies with
out thereby including all the details of ancestral
history in our own; so it is perfectly conceivable,
without contradiction, that the finite self may also
apprehend in immediate experience the perfect
all-inclusive life, the creative joy of the Absolute;
and this without incurring the dissolution of its
individuality." "This sense of universal possession is clearly ex
pressed by St. Paul in that splendid burst of
mystic feeling where he says to the Corinthians:
'Wherefore let no man glory in men. For all
things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things
present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye
are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' "
"For the perfection of God which the mystic
directly experiences, being thus an all-embracing
unity which is essentially love, is for that reason
an active, reconciling principle, a principle that
includes all things within itself, but so includes
them that all discords are overcome and nothing
permitted ultimately to mar its perfect harmony."
Still another aspect of this experience of the
Perfect is its activity and creativeness.
"The Absolute Self is no mere abstract unity or
identity, but a concrete, self -revealing or creative
power. And so it happens that the mystic,
directly experiencing as he does this divine Per
fection in its own proper character as The Perfect,
necessarily participates in its creative activity.
The finite self, having attained to a consciousness

250 TUCKWELL

of its identity, though finite, with the Absolute or
Perfect Self, knows itself to be an organ for the
expression of that Perfection of which it has thus
attained to an immediate experience. Hence the
mystic, however apparently passive and receptive
he may be in his quiet moments of contemplative
joy, sooner or later discovers the inevitable ac-
tivistic tendency of the experience, which at
length asserts itself. As in the case of all true
genius, the experience, he finds, demands some
form of expression or embodiment. Life, all life,
is essentially active, essentially creative, and
never more so than when it reaches the highest
stages of its development. Creative activity,
then, is integral to the mystic experience."
"He does not now labor to create perfection,
but to express, to reveal it. To him his activity
is ... a progressive discovery and disclosure
of a Perfection that is now and ever has been
eternally real. ... To the vision of the mystic
there is no chaotic universe waiting for riim to
set it right. Whatever of mystery there may yet
remain in the evil and error of the world, at least
their chief bitterness is gone for him when he
views them as a part of the great whole; their
apparent absoluteness vanishes and they become
purely relative ; they are seen to be but materials
for the expression of that eternal harmony to
which his inner ear has now become attuned. The
clouds of fear, of doubt, of uncertainty, and even
of despair, that were often round about him, lift
from off his soul when to his deeper insight it is
revealed, that he is not here to help a finite, de
veloping god make a choatic universe perfct, but
rather to render himself in his own special time
and place in the universe an ever more efficient

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 251
medium for the expression of a Perfection, which
he has already discerned to be eternally real."
Another characteristic feature of a genuine
mystic experience, when it is true to its inmost
nature, is its demand for independence and
freedom. In our study of biology we saw that
in the life of the higher organisms that they
did not skip and omit the earlier stages of the
life of their species, but rather lived it over
rapidly in their earlier years of childhood and
youth. So the mystic in childhood learns to
conform to the experience of all primitive life ;
then in youth, with the increase of self-con
sciousness, he is prompted to assert himself,
to live over again the animal life of struggle and
survival ; and then in maturity, if he grows at
all into the higher life of the spirit, he must
learn to lose himself, and he must learn to do
it freely and gladly, not of compulsion by out
ward authority, but of his own inner nature.
"In the third stage of his development a higher
level is attained namely the cosmic or universal.
The finite self now discovers that it has an infinite
aspect, that it is in its ultimate nature, one with
the Absolute as Perfect Life, and now a new ethio
is demanded."
It is no longer to be self-assertion but self-
sacrifice !

TUCKWELL

"It means that we are to sink the interests of
our private, separate, finite selves into the life
of the Infinite within us ... to become an
expression of the Perfect Self which has become
incarnate in you and of which you are hence
forth to be a special and unique revelation."
"Such limitations being natural are however,
not really restraints, but only such limitations
as are necessary if there is to be any expression
or exfoliation at all. And so if thought has on
its part imperial rights of its own, if to be valid
it must be free, so it is also with the divine experi
ence of genuine mysticism. It is essential to its
fundamental nature that it escapes the limita
tions of outward authority."
And finally the soul, if it is to rise to par
ticipation in the experience of the Perfect Life,
must not be arbitrary or capricious or wayward.
"The test of its reality is not, it is true its con
formity to any external standard imposed upon
it by the authority of custom or tradition, but that
to which we have more than once referred,
namely, its capacity for some form of rational or
harmonious exfoliation. Its test is the test of all
real art, and in fact, of all real life. Life, we
might, with exact metaphysical truth affirm, to
be real only in so far as it is rational and it
becomes more rational as it becomes more real.
. . . Upon these words we venture to remark
that perhaps the most exact definition of the
Absolute or of Perfect Experience would be that
it is a sublime passion supremely rational. Now
it is into direct experience of this supremely
rational, creative passion of the Absolute that

PERFECT EXPERIENCE 253
the mystic aspires to enter. And, therefore, the
logic that is the test of the validity of his rapture
is internal, genetic, concrete. ... In the
same sense the fundamental rationality of the
universe itself is implicit, active and controlling,
in that sublime passion or rapture of the mystic;
in which, as he tells us, he experiences his oneness
with God. If this metaphysical interpretation of
mysticism be correct, ... if the finite ego
be in truth the Absolute Self, acting and reveal
ing itself under conditions of time and space, then
to say that the perfection of the Absolute seeks
unimpeded expression, within of course the neces
sary limits of these conditions, is but to say that
it acts in accordance with its true nature; and
the demand for autonomy, for internal freedom,
is seen to be an essential element in the mystic
experience itself, and no merely rebellious,
anarchic, self-assertive claim on the part of the
finite ego. For without such autonomous activity
its harmonious exfoliation or expression would
be impossible."
"Mysticism, then, genuine mysticism, is no
bare, ecstatic, religious emotion stripped of ration
ality, if indeed there could be such a thing; nor
does it, strictly speaking, transcend reason.
Rather is it, let us repeat once more, a sublime,
rational immediacy in which the elements of
thought and feeling, after having diverged and
been distinguished in our reflective self-conscious
mind, meet and harmoniously blend once more."
"This sense of the all-inclusiveness of his true
self finds utterance in the mystic's affirmation of
his fundamental faith, namely, that God is Love.
To the mystic this is a self-evident truth. The
outflowing of his own heart towards created

254 TUCKWELL
things is to him the surest evidence that he is one
with God. For what is Love but an essentially
all-inclusive, harmonious principle, a principle,
therefore, essentially divine? Love, indeed, is to
the heart what reason is to the mind; each is
seeking in his own way to overcome discrepancies;
and both witness to the controlling activityi
within the finite of the one Ultimate Reality re
vealing its true nature as the all-inclusive and
harmonious experience. To the most penetrating
mystic intuition, therefore, to say that the uni
verse is rational is exactly the same thing as to
say that God is Love."

VI
LOVE IN CREATION AND
REDEMPTION

Love not the world neither the things that
are in the world. If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. For all
that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and
the lust of the eyes and the vain glory of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world. And
the world passeth away, and the lust thereof:
but he that doeth the will of God abideth for
ever. I John 2:15-17.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is
of God; and every one that loveth is begotten
of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein
was the love of God manifested in us, that
God hath sent his only begotten Son into the
world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:7-9.
And the witness is this, that God gave unto
us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath the life; he that
hath not the Son of God hath not the life.
I John 5:11-12.

LOVE IN CREATION AND
REDEMPTION
DO the teachings of these modern schol
ars confirm the teachings of Jesus?
In our quotations from Dr. Osborn,
we noted the unsatisfied need for some causal
principle to explain the Law of Evolution.
No one has so clarified the world's concep
tion of the evolutionary process as M. Bergson.
He recognizes the presence of incessant change
in all nature and finds as its cause an universal
urge, that he speaks of as the Elan Vital.
This, as we saw by the quotations from his
writings, is ever seeking new outlets for its cre
ative activity. M. Bergson admits no evidence
that will permit one to foretell its future expres
sion. We can study the past and see what
order it has followed, but may not use that for
an assertion concerning the future. Only one
thing is certain and that is its freedom to go
wherever it can break through.
While M. Bergson asserts that there is
nothing in the past that sufficiently warrants
him to prophesy as to the future or to charac-
257

258 LOVE IN CREATION 
terize its moral quality, other scholars do not
share his feeling of hesitancy. They see, and
think they see clearly, a definite progress in
nature toward a definite end. This definiteness
is seen in the universal movement from the
simple to the complex in an apparent effort to
secure a harmonious balance with an ever
changing and widening environment. They see
as M. Bergson sees, that it has apparently
reached its highest development in self-con
scious man, and that, but for one thing, its
future course would lie in an endless movement
in the advance of man toward a super-type.
The one thing that indicates that this line of
advance does not follow the material course
toward the super-type is the presence of Spir
itual phenomena in the soul of men. These
indicate that man has come to a place of muta
tion where, from now on, if man is to make
any substantial gains, it must be made along
the Spiritual line and not along the physical.
A study of this opposition in the soul of man
reveals it to be an opposition between the in
terests of the physical self -life and the interests
of a newly discovered relation to the whole,
which awakens aspirations for a more intimate
fellowship with the whole. The forces that are
drawing in that direction are seen to be Spir*

AND REDEMPTION 259

itual in nature. They are the forces of love,
faith, goodness, and sincerity, and as the soul
yields itself increasingly to them she finds an
increasing correspondence with Spiritual real
ity, that bears all the marks of Life.
With this discovery in mind, one looks back
over the whole process of creation and is sur
prised to see how good it all appears. While
everywhere is seen disorder, brutality, evil, sick
ness, injustice, yet with the sense of relation to
the whole, the whole long process is seen to be
in a large sense "working together for good."
There is seen to be so large an element of
advancement in the movement as a whole, an
ever changing from disorder to order, brutality
to consideration, evil to good, sickness to health,
ignorance to enlightenment, materialism to
spirituality, that one increasingly feels that the
process itself is good, that its driving force, or
urge, is, on the whole, good.
But in less general ways we see the inter
action of laws all tending in a harmonious way
to be working toward some high purpose only
partly revealed in man. The laws of chemism
with their niceties of balance between electrons
and between atoms; the secret of heredity in
chromatin that works toward adaption and sur
vival ; the laws of crystallography which event-

LOVE IN CREATION

uate in such marvelously beautiful forms; the
rhythm of the myriad modes of vibration as
evidenced in electricity, light, heat, sound and
music; the marvels of color formation; all
of these suggest purpose, and purpose of a
harmonizing, unifying character. When we
consider the moral value of our own psychic
functioning we instinctively interpret them
in terms of Spiritual purpose. Why should
we do less with the phenomena about us?
Why should we interpret nature as a
purely energy complex, a mechanical evolu
tion? Or why, with M. Bergson, should we
interpret it in a half-way fashion of free
vitality but without moral purpose ? Surely if
back of our own trivial acts we try to put
plan and purpose, then back of the Self that
made us, there can be no less of plan and pur
pose. And if in our highest acts of volition,
we try to control purpose by Love, surely the
Source of all things will not have a lesser prin
ciple of supreme authority. Spiritual forces
are not simple ideals that have value for cul
ture and physical advancement, rather are they
realities that evidence the inherent Love-nature
of the process, and therefore of the source of the
process in the nature of God.
John saw this self-expression of the nature

AND REDEMPTION 261
of God as the Logos, energizing from the very
beginning the one long process of creation until
it emerged in the person of Jesus, who became
the mediator for that still higher experience of
the human soul in the Spiritual Life. And to
John the Logos was very good. "And Logos
became flesh and dwelt among us (and we be
held his glory, glory as of the only begotten of
the Father), full of grace and truth."
"O God, did you know,
When you moulded men out of clay,
Urging them up and up
Through endless circles of change,
Travail and turmoil and death,
Many would curse you down
Many would live all gray,
With their faces flat as a mask ?
But there would be some, O God,
Crying to you each night,
'I am so glad! so glad!
I am so rich and gay !
How shall I thank you, God ?'
...... Oh, I am so happy ! My eyes
Are troubled with tears.
Did you know,
O God, they would be like this,

262 LOVE IN CREATION
Your ancient beautiful things?
Are there more? Are there more-^
out there?
O God, are there always more?" Mrs. Gifford.
Before Jesus the current ran outward, aa
M. Bergson has so truly discerned, in infinite
variety of expression, that seems to haye cul
minated in some sense in man. John reveals
the fact that the whole age-long process was con
ceived in Love, carried along by Love, and had
for its end the redemption of, and a new life
for man, the consummation of which became the
mission of Jesus. Thereafter the current is
setting in toward God, in loving self-surrender
and fraternal service. It is in the now appar
ent Love-character of the combined processes
that we see that every stage of the process has
been energized in Love, that Redemptive Love
has ever been creation's vital urge.
Rudolf Eucken, while not technically to be
called a scientist, has by the nature of his de
partment been obliged to keep constantly posted
as to the trend of scientific thought and it is
from the inability of science to answer his most
serious questions that he bases his strongest
argument for the reality of a Spiritual Lifa

AND REDEMPTION 263
He starts with the assertion that that which
knows and interprets the facts of science is
an immaterial, mental quality. That is, a rion-
eensuous power has to operate before the physical
world can be known at all, in other words, am
inner subject stands over against an outer phys
ical object. Prof. Eucken enlarges on the im
material nature of this thought action of the
human spirit, and then concludes that we are
obliged to ascribe reality, and a different kind
of reality, to the quality that does the thinking
from the quality of the object thought about.
Therefore, natural science itself, in a way,
can be said to prove the reality of something
more than the material objects it handles. It has
been Prof. Eucken's task to gather up what we
can know about this other thought world, its
nature, its emotions, its life and its substance,
and to trace as far as he can its character and
destiny. All this he sums up in his conception of
the Spiritual Life. As we have said, he found in
it characteristics in excess of those found in
nature, and of entirely novel kind. This is in-
portant because in its "moreness" lies its right
to be called a higher life. It is in the range of
these extra qualities, that science can not clas
sify, that all the advance in civilization, art,
the higher flights of science itself, and in

264 LOVE IN CREATION
ethical and religious thought and character,
find their source; and, moreover, they function
in a realm apart from time and space. To
Eucken natural life and Spiritual Life stand
in sharp contradistinction.
There is within it a new type of life, the
beginnings of a new order of existence. This
alters immediately one's whole evaluation of
nature. The natural universe is no longer the
whole of reality, it has become only a passing
mode, if you please, only a step, in a process
which is now seen to pass infinitely beyond it.
In another sense, however, it takes on a deeper
meaning and value, as we see in it the origin of
those high attributes of the soul: mind and
spirit, with their ideals and desires. But the
center of gravity is shifted from the plane of
physical perception to the higher plane of men
tal and spiritual immediacies; the natural life
remains but it must take a second place.
The deepest aspect of reality is now seen to
be within the soul itself. But all this will not
be easily recognized or admitted. The new life
must explore and demonstrate its richer, more
harmonious, and more satisfying corresponden
cies. This demonstration Prof. Eucken finds in the
essential Love-nature of the Spiritual Life. To

AND REDEMPTION 265
grasp this idea of Love, he says, and to pene
trate into its nature, is to solve all the problems
of life and death. Love he asserts, is the
highest spiritual synthesis conceivable ; Infinite
Love is of the very essence of God.
Thus we can see that Prof. Eucken's concep
tion of a Spiritual Life is in perfect accord
with Jesus' conception of the Kingdom of God ;
and in the credit which he pays to the whole
natural process as leading up to the emergency
of this higher Life, he is one with M. Bergson,
as far as the latter goes ; and, finally, in showing
Love to be of the "substance" of the Spiritual
Life and even of God himself, he is at one with
Dr. Tuckwell.
Dr. Tuckwell shows that religion is an effort
to secure a sympathetic relation to God, and
the urge to it is not something added on to
life at this stage, but is a manifestation of the
eternal and general urge that has been seen in
all of nature. M. Bergson saw it as a vital
urge in all creation. Prof. Eucken saw it as
the impulse which lifted man out of the narrow-
nsss of the purely natural and placed him into
relation with a whole, and then vitalized him
to go forward in a higher Life of the Spirit.
Now Dr. Tuckwell finds in man's spiritual
nature another manifestation of the same per-

266 LOVE LN CREATION
sistent urge, now more clearly seen to be di
rected in an effort to secure completeness, per-
f ectness of experience.
This perfectness of experience, or experience
of the Perfect, must rest at last, he affirms, in
the nature of some unifying and implicit prin
ciple. He seeks to find the nature of this uni
fying and implicit principle by an examination
of our own soul-unity. He finds we are a
synthesis of many organs, faculties, ideals and
desires all united harmoniously in one self,
which in its best moments and highest function
ing is controlled by a single principle, that of
Love. By analogy, therefore, Dr. Tuckwell
finds, that the unifying principle of all Life to
be Love, radiating outward from God in a cos
mic impulse that is creative, formative, and
self -expressive ; and then, by the Infinite Desire
of Absolute Love, drawing his creatures when
they are able to respond inward to an experience
of the Divine Perfectness. The individuality
of the many not absorbed, but unified and har
monized in the all-inclusive heart of the Eternal
One. Redemptive Love, therefore, again is seen
to be creation's Vital Urge.
Any idea of God to be acceptable and ra
tional must possess an harmonious synthesis of
infinite attributes. There is only one principle,

AND REDEMPTION 267
or attribute, that approaches such harmonious
and unified universality and that is Redemp
tive Love. It is not by accident or without
thought that it was said of old, God is Love.
Common men of to-day give it general assent;
and scholars in more precise philosophic terms,
echo the same thought when they say, God is
Absolute. There can be but one Absolute and that ia
Love, for Love alone is universal, harmonious,
unifying, and all-inclusive. Love includes all
else, rationality, goodness, infinitude, vitality,
in perfect synthesis. Love alone is creative,
formative, dynamic, vital. Love, by its very
nature, must be self-expressive and desirous.
In its cosmic aspect it is an infinite closed
circuit in which the current goes outward in
self-expressive and creative activity, only to be
drawn inward in grateful, yielding affection
and devotion. It is a current that is never
compelling, never prohibitory, but is ever urg
ing, drawing, winning, in infinite self-sacrifice,
and patience, and persistence, and goodness.
This is not mere imagination, we have but to
examine our own psychic and soul life to know
what Love is, how it urges us to nobler self-
expression, to creative exertion, to unselfish
service; and hoWj we yearn for a return of

268 LOVE IN CREATION
loving affection and devotion. Can any more
of God in his Infinitude be revealed to us than
we can already see in our own selves in free
action, in miniature?
In ourselves we see self, idea, desire, volition,
expression, and without, not-self. Naturally we
desire harmony with the surrounding "not-
self"; to secure this harmony continuously we
are moved to self defence, self assertion, and in
dulgence. By experience we find that such a
course of action does not always bring har
mony ; we are conscious of something within us
that is unsatisfied. When we are seeking satis
faction for ourselves we note very often that the
"not-self" is unsatisfied. It makes us think,
and then reflect, and then we become conscious
of a relation to the whole. This consciousness
of our relation to the whole brings us into cor
respondence with a new environment of Spir
itual influences whose "ends" do not harmonize
with the "ends" of our physical desires. We
become conscious of a conflict that is going on
within us between selective forces that are work
ing for the preservation and assertion of the
natural life, and forces that are working for
the realization of a Spiritual Life. Where is
to be found some principle that will harmonize,
or unify, these opposing desires ?

AND REDEMPTION 269
Jesus reply is this: "Thou shalt love the
Lord, thy God with all thy heart, mind and
strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." "Seek first the Spiritual Life and
its law of Love, and all things necessary for
the physical life will be forthcoming." Jesus'
teachings are explicit and consistent: There is,
as an independent reality, a higher Life of the
Spirit. Jesus saw men standing on the border
line of this new Life all unconscious of its
nearness. He knew that the Way of entrance
into it was open and free, if men could only
be brought to make Love the controlling prin
ciple of life. Jesus knew that this would be
no easy task for men to do. It meant opposing
the natural tendencies of the physical life, it
meant often going contrary to conventional and
social customs and demands, it meant, in its
extremest form, a laying down of the physical
life that they might take on the Spiritual.
But in the face of these difficulties he called
men everywhere to its adventure and placed
himself at their side, to share with them his
own serene confidence and unshaken faith, that
together in brotherly faith and love and service
they might win its victorious experience.
John in his Gospel interpreted the teachings
of Jesus to show that his mediatorial power was

270 LOVE IN CREATION
essential to man's success in the adventure. It
was essential because man could not transcend
his own nature unaided, and no aid was suf
ficient that did not originate at the source of
the higher Life itself. Jesus fulfilled these
conditions, because of his unique relationship to
God. This relation John taught, is of the
nature of Sonship, "not created but begotten in
eternity." "In the Logos was Life and the
Life was the Light of Men." Here we see God
whose essential nature is Love, self-expressing
himself as the Logos which became the source
and norm and driving power of an age-long
process, that culminated in the incarnation of
its Love-nature in Jesus, who in his turn be
came the vitalizing source and norm of a new
life-process, the Spiritual Life. The old, or
natural life-process, was characterized by a di
visive effect, an endless expression of the one
into the many, the simple into the complex, the
self into the manifold not-self, that through
variation and struggle there might be survival
and advancement.
The new dispensation as mediated by Jesua
reversed the process to a synthesis, a gathering
the many into the One, harmonizing, unifying,
simplifying, reuniting, "that they may all be
one, aa we are One."

AND REDEMPTION 271
The nature of God being Love, its expression
even in the first life-process of the natural realm
was a form of Love, a giving of the Divine
Self for the inarticulate not-self of creation.
And being Love, it was also redemptive in its
action, so that little by little, stage by stage,
it lifted creation from chaos to order, from
matter to life, from single cells to colony, from
colony to organ, from organ to function, to
perception, to conception, to reflection, until
rational and emotional self-conscious humanity
was ready to understand and appreciate their
relation to the Whole; their dependence on the
goodness of God; and, lastly, their sensitiveness
to God's infinite desire for a response of love
and faith.
Jesus came in this "fullness of time" to show
men how to make this . response that Love de
mands, to an Infinite God, and how, by so
doing, they may enter into the immediacies of
a Spiritual Life and therein to know the richer
and more perfect experience of Redemptive
Love. "And as many as received him, to them
gave he the right to become children of God,
even to them that believe on his name."
They were born again, not of the flesh, but
of the Spirit, and in their turn demonstrated
the reality and the vitality of the Spiritual

272 LOVE LN CREATION
Life by themselves becoming loving, unselfish,
and centers of Spiritual influence and vitality.
The Divinity of our Lord is not to be proven by
the steps of discursive logic. It is to be known,
if the soul ever comes to know it at all, by the
one way of loving faith and childlike trust in
Jesus as the Son of God; and by making for
his dear sake the effort that it will be necessary
to make if one is ever to succeed in making the
Spiritual law of Love his subconscious control.
To our shame be it said, the tendency of
modern scholarship has been to deny and to
exclude mystical and supernatural elements of
thought. It has been a ghastly blunder that has
culminated in a world war! Men can not re
linquish a belief in the essential "personality"
of God and the "divinity" of Jesus and to bring
themselves to see God only as the absolute, as
creative power, or principle, without disaster.
There can be no hope for transcending the nat
ural life of self-assertion by any formulas of
idealism, or will-to-live. There is no way for
the soul unaided to transcend itself. Unaided
it must see life's mortal cycle quickly run, and
with it, for him, the whole evolutionary prog
ress will have been in vain. There is but one
way of Life, and faith in Jesus as the Son of

AND REDEMPTION 273
God is that one way. "No man cometh unto
the Father, but by me."
Many of our theological leaders have studied
in Germany and have come back to places of
commanding influence only to use their great
power to undermine faith in this essential
ground for faith.
German theological scholars from Baur to
Ritschl under the guise of historical and liter
ary criticism have designedly planned to shatter
simple faith in Jesus as the Son of God, and in
his supernatural power, and in his mystical re
lation to God, and to the human soul. They
ignored the clear shining light that the func
tioning of their own free human spirits threw
on the whole evolutionary process, and sought
its goal in some blind interaction of physical
laws, or, what is but little better, in some evolv
ing ideal of super-man or super-society. They
reduced all religious experience to subjective
phenomena on the natural plane and elided
Jesus entirely from any supernatural agency in
physical and human affairs. They exalted the
intellectual attitude of viewing things from the
outside, they sought only for that command of
things and ideas that would strengthen their
will-to-power. They looked with scornful pride
on mystical ideals of love and fellowship as

274 LOVE LN CREATION
being weakening and childish, to be excluded at
all costs.
It was to the intellectual pride of the Phara-
saical religious leaders of his own day that
Jesus could not restrain his most bitter denun
ciation. You hypocrites! he cried. That re
fuse to enter the Spiritual Life yourselves and
then slam the door shut in the face of those
who are seeking the way of Life through faith.
Only the past week a minister of my own
denomination said to me, "Why, can you stand
up in the pulpit and honestly say that you
think that Jesus was in any way different from
other men ?" That man had drunk deep at the
well of German scholarship and its poison had
gone to his head, as it has gone to the head of
many another. How much better is my mem
ory of the saintly Professor Bissel, himself no
ordinary Hebrew scholar, who was regularly
at the Open Hearth Gospel Mission and not
ashamed to kneel at the side of a moral wreck
and persuade him to faith in Jesua as the Son
of God.
Jesus gave us the clue to Life in his own
loving and unselfish life, as well as in his par
able of the Kingdom of God. He is to-day as
he was in Paul's day, "the power of God unto
salvation to everyone who believes." "Whoso-

AND REDEMPTION 275
ever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me and of
my words, in this faithless and sinful generation,
of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed,
when he cometh in the glory of the Father, with
the holy angels."
Man's superiority lies in his psychic and
spiritual nature, whose highest development is
seen in his appreciation of disinterested- love;
the further extension of cosmic progress will
therefore, in all probability, lie along that line,
in some new unfolding, some richer correspon
dence of his inner life. It cannot come from an
intellectual apprizement of an abstract prin
ciple, by placing oneself on the outside; it can
only come about by increasing the intimacies of
the Soul's fellowship with God. As God is In
finite Selfhood and man a finite creature the
closer correspondence must be effected by some
mediatorial agency such as Jesus claimed to be,
and such as John interpreted Jesus to be, as
the Christ, the Son of God.
But if this truth falls on the human heart
in its naturally selfish and indifferent hardness
it withers and dies. The heart must be made
mellow and fertile and responsive before the
word of God can find a welcome. This mellow
ing and fertilizing of the natural heart for its
new birth of the Spirit can only be effected by

276 LOVE IN CREATION
Borne profound experience that will condition
the very subconscious depths of the souL Such
an experience comes to humanity in his unsuc
cessful striving for a better and more satisfying
life, and when in the extremities of that striv
ing he becomes conscious that Jesus is at his
side with sympathy and adequate help, and
recognizes that his help is offered in perfect
love and entirely forgetful of the long history
of his selfish and ungrateful past, then and not
until then is that human soul ready for the
gift of eternal Life. Then and not until then
is he ready for full possession of the rich herit
age that has come to him from the age-long
cosmic movement, and is ready to realize not
only for himself but for his race its unimagin
able riches of fellowship.
There are two fundamental desires of our
human nature: the one is to know about life,
the other is to live, to experience life. In
these days when earnest people are giving so
large a place to the intellectual evaluation of
life and its problems, and when it happens
to be the custom to deprecate mystical and
transcendental elements of thought in an honest
effort to look at life in a so-called "rational"
way, it is well to remember, that in order to do
so, one must place himself aloof from its ex-

AND REDEMPTION 277
perience, and, in so doing, to deny himself to
that extent, that which is of most value after
all, namely, immediate experience.
To experience life at its best and highest is
of far more value than to think about it, even
if one thinks correctly. It is good to cherish
spiritual ideals for their character formation
value, but how much better it is to have faith
in a Spiritual Life where these ideals may be
immediately and eternally experienced as high
est Reality.
Jesus' call is to such a higher experience of
Life through faith in Love. We have seen that
it is not irrational, on the contrary it sheds
light on the very best thought of our day. It
places intellectual thought in its right relation
and proportion to experience. His call is to
know in order to love, and faith in him and in
his message brings one not into a position of
aloofness and isolation, but places one at the
heart, where knowledge about life and experi
ence of life are one. Jesus' call is to a freer,
more abundant life because it is less diversified,
less antagonistic, less remote, less illusive. His
call is to a Life that is more unified, more
friendly, more immediately real, because it is
a Life whose essence is Redemptive Love. To

278 LOVE LN CREATION
the immediacies of its harmonious, all-inclusive
Unity he calls us.
John 17:19-26:
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
Neither for these only do I pray, but for them
also that believe on me through their word,
That they may all be one; even as thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be
in us: that the world may believe that thou
didst send me.
And the glory which thou hast given me I have
given unto them; that they may be one, even as
we are one;
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
perfected into one ; that the world may know that
thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou
lovedst me.
Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast
given me be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for
thou lovedst me before the foundation of the
world. 0 righteous Father, the world knew thee not,
but I knew thee; and these knew that thou didst
send me;
And I made known unto them thy name, and
will make it known; that the love wherewith
thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them.

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