The Religion of Humanity has numbered among its adherents, in part or
in whole, several celebrated persons in this country, such as Richard
Congreve, Dr. Bridges, Professor Beesley, Cotter Morison, George Eliot.
But at present it has no more eloquent and earnest advocate than Mr.
Frederic Harrison, who, in _The Creed of a Layman_, and several other
recent volumes, has passionately proclaimed its principles. For more
than fifty years he has been its apostle: 'every other aim or
occupation has been subsidiary and instrumental to this.'[8] It {111}
is true that in some points he has retained his independence, and while
those outside accuse him of fanaticism, some of his fellow-believers
suspect him of heresy.[9] But he himself is assured that in the
worship of Humanity he has obtained the solution of his doubts[10] and
the satisfaction of his spirit, and on his gravestone or his urn he
would have inscribed the words, _He found peace_.[11] There is much
that is marvellously elevated in thought as well as exquisite in
expression, profoundly devout as well as brilliantly argued, in the
narrative of his progress towards his present position. But when his
vehement statements are carefully examined, it will almost inevitably
be seen that all that is good and sensible in them is an unconscious
reproduction of Christianity. His negations disappear: the
affirmations which he makes are those which the Church has always {112}
maintained. The faith of his childhood permeates and strengthens and
beautifies the creed which he adopted in his maturer years. The unity
of mankind, the memory of the departed, the necessity of living for
others, these are no novelties in Christianity. It is in Christ that
they have specially been brought to light, in Him that they find their
highest ratification, without Him they remain unfulfilled, with Him
they attain to consistency and power.
The Great Being, Humanity, is only an abstraction.[12] 'There is no
such thing in reality,' Principal Caird reminds us, 'as an animal which
is no particular animal, a plant which is no particular plant, a man or
humanity which is no individual man. It is only a fiction of the
observer's mind.' There is logical force as well as humorous
illustration in the contention of Dean Page Roberts, that there is no
more a humanity apart {113} from individual men and women than there is
a great being apart from all individual dogs, which we may call
Caninity, or a transcendent Durham ox, apart from individual oxen,
which may be named Bovinity.'[13] Nor does the geniality of Mr.
Chesterton render his argument the less telling: 'It is evidently
impossible to worship Humanity, just as it is impossible to worship the
Savile Club: both are excellent institutions to which we may happen to
belong. But we perceive clearly that the Savile Club did not make the
stars and does not fill the universe. And it is surely unreasonable to
attack the doctrine of the Trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism,
and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in
one God, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the
substance.'[14]
Can it be doubted that the Great Being, {114} the sum of human beings,
is less conceivable, less worthy of worship than the Great Being, the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?[15] Can it be doubted that
the claim of Humanity to worship is less credible if we exclude the
Perfect Man, Christ Jesus, from our view? Can it be doubted that the
Positivist motto, 'Live for others,' gains a force and a meaning
unapproached elsewhere from the Life and Death of Him Who said, 'The
Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give
His Life a ransom for many?' Humanity knit together in One, purified
from every stain, glorious and adorable, is a lofty and inspiring idea,
but nowhere has it been disclosed save in the Man Christ Jesus, the
Word made Flesh, the Brightness of the Father's glory and the Express
Image of His Person.
{115}
V
Dr. Richard Congreve owns that much of the Religion of Humanity exists
already in the Christian Faith, but, in one respect, he asserts that
the Religion of Humanity can claim to be entirely original. 'We
accept, so have all men. We obey, so have all men. We venerate, so
have some in past ages, or in other countries. We add but one other
term, we love.'[16] That is what distinguishes this new religion and
proves its superiority to the old: its votaries have attained this new
principle and mode of life: they love one another. The boldness of the
claim may stagger us. We turn over the pages of the New Testament. We
see that Love is the fulfilling of the Law; is the end of the
commandment; is the sum of the Law and the Prophets; is placed at the
very summit of Christian graces; is the bond of perfectness; {116} is
manifested in a Life and a Death which, after nineteen centuries,
remain without a parallel. We recall the touching legend that in his
old age the Apostle S. John was daily carried into the assembly of the
Ephesian Christians, simply repeating to them, over and over, the
words, 'Love one another. This is our Lord's command, fulfil this and
nothing else is needed.' We recall that in early centuries the
sympathy and helpfulness by which Christians of all ranks and races
were united called forth from heathen spectators the amazed and
respectful exclamation, 'See how these Christians love one another!'
Recalling these things, we cannot but be startled that, in the
nineteenth century of the Christian era, a teacher should, with any
expectation of being believed, have ventured to affirm that the great
discovery which it has been reserved for the present day to make is
that of loving one another. Ignorance of Christianity,
misrepresentation {117} of Christianity, we may well call it: ignorance
inconceivable, misrepresentation inconceivable: and yet, as we consider
the state of Christendom, do we not see what palliates the ignorance
and the misrepresentation? Have we not reason to confess that, if the
commandment be not new, universal obedience to it would be new indeed?
May the calm assurance that love is foreign to Christianity not startle
us into the conviction that we have forgotten what, according to our
Lord's own declaration, the chief feature of Christianity ought to be?
'By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love
one to another.'