DOES MAN HAVE A SOUL, AND WHAT IS HIS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE?
_What is man?_
_Who is man?_
_Would the absence of man cripple God?_
_What could an infinite God care for such a little speck?_
_Is not socialism the best religion there is?_
1. What is man?
We do not fully know "what" and "where" God is until we know what man
is, and how God and man are working through each other. Our knowledge of
God grows with our knowledge of man. We can understand neither without
knowing both. At every stage of the discussion our subject is made
complex by the intertwining of the human and the Divine. Hence, this
chapter--while introducing man--takes us deeper into the life of God.
Man does not have a soul. Neither does the sun set. Though we know
better, yet for convenience, we continue to speak of the sun as setting.
For the same reason we still say that man has a soul when we mean that
he is a soul. Soul is person, body is instrument. The instrument does
not have the person, the person has the instrument. The soul is the
child of God. How strangely, therefore, it would sound to ask: Does a
man have a child of God? The reverse question, however, is perfectly
fitting: Does a child of God have a body?
Man is a spirit, a soul, or a person. All men are alike in that which
constitutes them personalities, or self-conscious wills. It is in their
individuality that men differ. In the first place, some are more
developed than others; and then they have different tastes, different
knowledge, different temperaments, and different occupations. This
diversity of individuality clearly distinguishes one man from another,
and at the same time greatly enriches society.
Like his Father, man is _a loving intelligent will_. Like Him, too, he
is always silent and invisible, save as his instruments express his
thought and wish in time and space. So far, Father and child should be
defined in the same terms; for however they may differ in other
respects, they are alike in being self-conscious. If either is below
self-conscious will, he is something less than a person. Though man, as
we find him, is not always so very loving, nor so very intelligent, yet
that is what he is in his best estate. So far as we can understand, the
sinless man soul lifted to the infinite power would be the same as God.
This spiritual definition does not imply that either God or man exists,
or could exist, without form and outward expression.
2. Who is man?
We think of Man, the soul, as a child of God, or a god-child. Therefore,
he is worthy of his brother's highest esteem, and his Father's tenderest
affection. He is a very son of the infinite God; and all created
spirits, being his brothers, are members of one family. Again we say, "O
god-child, how wonderful you are, and what a pity it would be if you
failed to recognize your divinity, or allowed anything to drag you down
from your divine possibilities!" Man must know himself if he would
attain unto the goal of life.
Though man _is_ a soul, yet without the body he cannot so much as come
to self-consciousness. Just how or when a soul begins, we do not know;
but it does not appear until some time after the body is born. A
new-born babe can neither see, feel, nor hear, with any intelligent
meaning of the words. It will stare into the most glaring light without
intelligence enough to shut its eyes. It does not recognize objects for
some time, and when it does, misses the object for which it reaches. The
infant is likewise slow in distinguishing sounds or names. If the soul
exists when the body is born, it is only a latent personality which has
not yet come to self-realization. Personality is self-conscious will,
and this the child has not yet achieved.
Let us here consider the relation of a new-born _body_ to God and the
universe. God begins His creative activities in what the scientists call
stellar ether, where His energies combine and recombine in a more and
more complex world, until the solar system appears with planets in the
condition of our earth. After more combinations and recombinations, out
on the surface of all things His activities blossom in the finest bit of
organism, the sensitized thing which we call the human body. This body,
the flower of all God's activities in nature, requires all nature for
its support. Furthermore, the chemical energies constituting the body
itself are what God is thinking, and feeling, and doing. Strictly
speaking, it is His body, the first instrument in the whole order of
development, the only body on earth capable of articulate speech and
loving deed. If God did not continually will the body and all the
supporting energies of the universe, the body would cease to be. Before
the man soul appears at all, we have God's world culminating in what we
call the human body. When a man soul awakes, it is in God's own bosom,
in His own body. Man awakens in God's enfolding energies, and not
outside them; for outside of God he could not exist.
It is amusing to hear a little boy speak of his father's automobile as
"my car"; but it isn't his, even though the father is pleased to see the
little fellow spread himself in it and claim ownership. Yet it is his
too, in the sense that the father gladly shares it with him. And some
day when the child is too big to be a little boy, and too little to be a
big boy, he may take his father's car and run it into the ditch. But
even the wreck is his father's wreck. In the same way, if we live at all
it is in our Father's enfolding instrument. His body is ours because He
gladly shares it with us. However, if we do not use it in harmony with
His will, we wreck it in the ditch.
God wakes His child to consciousness in His own body, by making all
kinds of impressions upon the sense organs. There are many rappings on
the door, and flashes of light through the windows until the soul wakes.
And when the soul becomes conscious, God may not cease beating upon the
instrument with myriad forces, lest His child fall asleep.
Some morning when a loved form bends over the infant body, the baby
smiles, and the soul begins to appear. That is a wonderful day when the
baby gives its first smile. Little by little the child becomes aware of
itself and of its mother. Should the baby be fortunate enough to have
two or three brothers and sisters, he will learn some day, when he is a
little older, that they all want the same thing at the same time. Then
he will be very conscious of _other wills_.
We know that other wills exist because they live in our enveloping
world, and constantly use it in a way that we approve or resent. If they
did not know and disturb our world, we should not be aware of them even
if they existed. We know that other wills exist because they sell us
coats that they have made, and cut down trees in our forests, and shape
them into things that have meaning for us and them. They modulate the
atmosphere in which we live, producing sounds that stand for objects
with which we are familiar. They learn our words and facial
expressions, and use them to make us feel happy or uncomfortable. Nature
is the common instrument of all wills.
As we cannot come to the consciousness of ourselves, nor of other wills,
except through the body and its environments, _neither can we develop
the soul without cultivating the physical instrument and that which
surrounds it_. There is always a corresponding development between soul
and body. As Browning says,
"We know not whether soul helps body more than body helps soul."
We simply know that soul and body develop together, and that if either
is injured the other is harmed. A physical change in our bodies takes
place with every thought. We cannot silently love without disturbing the
gray matter. We make paths through our nervous system with every thought
and deed. If we had a means of photographing all the muscular and
nervous conditions wrought in our bodies by our thoughts and actions,
they would correspond to every growth of spirit. The face becomes
beautiful with a beautiful soul, and the body becomes refined by every
improvement of the spirit.
I once shook hands with the great French organist, Guilmant. When I
clasped his hand I forgot everything else; the hand was so soft, and yet
so firm! All the inspiration and purpose of his soul had been registered
in his body. And what a hand it was! I shall never forget that touch. It
gave new meaning to Tennyson's beautiful line, "Oh for the touch of a
vanished hand!" Our looks, smiles, accents, and very gait become the
expression of the soul.
We once had a maid who came home in the dejected state following
intoxication. When I appeared she said:
"I has me faults the same as others, but me heart is all right." Now,
could her heart be right and her body wrong? Can we have a pure soul and
an unclean body? Can we have an honest heart and a pilfering hand?
Certainly not. For as the pure soul cleanses the body, so the degraded
body pollutes the soul. Soul and body must grow together,--and alike.
Sometimes we speak of a purely spiritual experience apart from all
physical excitability; but such a thing is impossible, because every
spiritual thought has its beautiful, physical accompaniment. The
physical may run riot, as with some musicians who are principally noise
and bluster; but the fact still remains that the most bilious and cold
philosopher enjoys his gentle nervous thrill.
All worthy education means the spiritualizing of the body. Both before
death, and after, the good man has a spiritual body. Not a spirit body,
but a spiritual, a refined and sensitive instrument of the spirit.
Throughout eternity man will be spiritualizing his body, or else
degrading it.
We soon outgrow our immediate bodies, and find it necessary to augment
them with all the forces of nature. These enlarged bodies must likewise
be spiritualized or they will pervert the soul,--as is proved by every
degraded form of institutional life.
The early man dimly realized that if he could get a larger hand, he
would be a greater man. So, augmenting his hand with a club, he achieved
a new growth in mind and character. Finding himself a greater man, he
tried once more to increase his hand. Next, finding a sharp stone with
which he could hack down small trees, he created a new mental and moral
demand for a still finer instrument of his spirit. Then, in turn, he
augmented his hand with bronze and iron until all great thundering mills
and all cunning tools appeared as the mighty hand of the human will.
This required an enormous soul growth in knowledge and character, and a
corresponding growth in social consciousness and self-consciousness. To
further our soul growth there is still a pressing demand for enlarged
instruments. So it must ever be an even race between soul growth and
hand growth.
In the same way, man developed soul and legs. It became necessary to
make swifter legs or suffer a dwarfing of his soul. Consequently, he
increased his speed with camels and horses; but even these became
inadequate for his soul's growth. Then ensued a race of soul and legs,
until to-day automobiles, steam cars, and every means of swift
locomotion are but the augmented legs of man. The growing man soul is
still in quest of swifter means of locomotion, and as these appear
society is changed to its very foundations. New trades, new mental
powers, new moral conditions confront him everywhere; and still he is
speeding up.
When man made for himself far-seeing eyes in the telescope, the heavens
opened; and what he saw in the heavens made for him a new earth. Then
making for himself a short-seeing eye in the microscope, he discovered
within and beneath things a new world, which in turn was a vast
commentary on the heavens above. Likewise it may be truthfully said that
soul and eyes have made an even race in their development. The same is
true of soul and ears. Said a great building contractor of Chicago
thirty-five years ago, "No man in the past ever dreamed of such a
business as we are conducting, for it would have been impossible without
the telephone." The telephone is but the enlargement of man's ears and
mouth. This contractor moved men and materials, at will, over a radius
of a hundred miles. Even the musical soul found a new incentive when the
mouth was enlarged by piano, pipe organ, and orchestra. Every
enlargement of the mouth calls for new musical skill in complex
technique, and in finer inspiration and fuller elaboration. In short,
every man soul is in quest of omnipresence. Living as he does in his
Father's enfolding energies, he can know himself, and grow himself, only
so far as he makes the instruments of his Father's will the instruments
of his own will. The man soul is in the process of taking on the whole
universe as his enlarged body. Two hundred pounds is quite large enough
for the little body which he ever carries, and cares for, but to be a
growing son of God he must progressively make the universe his augmented
body. At night he may lay off his big body and rest; but in the morning
he must put on his larger body, the universe, as he puts on his clothes
and his boots, and go forth to live and work with God, his Father.
3. Would the absence of man cripple God?
Yes, the absence of man would thoroughly cripple God. Without the
possibility of a family, God would just as well never have been. This is
not an unbecoming or irreverent remark, but a statement that is very
pleasing to God; it vindicates everything that is highest in His Holy
Nature. His wisdom, character, and love are all involved in His purpose
to have a family.
If we eliminate the thought of His family, what wisdom is there in
anything God has made? The production of coal is a wonderful display of
wisdom, love, and power; but apart from the thought of children who
would discover the coal and put it to all its marvelous uses, what
motive could there have been in such an act? God, as a solitary will in
the universe, never intended to mine coal, warm houses, cook food, or
fire engines. All the marvelous by-products of coal could have no value
or meaning apart from a complex society; but with a family in mind the
production of coal becomes a sacrament worthy of a God, and lays the
foundation of a kingdom, all glorious in wisdom, love, and power.
Iron, likewise, has a rational, moral, and social significance beyond
all power to express. Its uses, all the way from steel bridges and
engines to the hair springs of watches, suggest the imagination of a
mind infinite and loving. The human family never could have climbed to
glory except on an iron stair; but take away the family, and iron means
nothing.
The large part that wood has supplied in the development and happiness
of the race is beyond the imagination of any but an infinite mind. To
what infinite uses it has been and may yet be put, from the homeliest
utilities to organs and violins! Soft woods, hard woods, and precious
woods have entered into the very warp and woof of human life. Wood is a
miracle, robbed of its wonder because the gift is so lavish. Yet what
sense would there be in creating wood in all its varieties, with no one
to put it to any of its sacred uses? These same thoughts would equally
apply to all the precious metals.
Why should God create a chemical world unless He had chemists in mind?
What would it amount to if there were not those who could take nature
apart and recombine it to infinity for His glory and their happiness?
But there is no end to questions of this kind that might be asked
concerning God and His works. In short, a depopulated universe is robbed
of all its meaning and glory. Without a family, God would be reduced to
a child god playing with a toy world. And being alone, He could not so
much as complete His toy. At best the universe is but raw material until
His children have turned it into a finished product. When God and His
children begin turning nature into finished products the highest
creation is just begun. By transforming nature into a social
institution that reflects God's wisdom and love, common nature is
glorified. Without a family there is no sense in anything, and God
Himself would be without moral worth or meaning. To be sure, He could
get along without a few of us if we should utterly refuse to cooeperate
with Him; but without a loving family, God would be completely defeated.
He "So loved the world," and with equal propriety it might be said He so
needed the world, "that He gave His only begotten Son."
Before God's family arrived He was simply getting ready to do the
supreme thing. But with His children about Him, loving and alert, the
meaning of all things from the beginning commences to appear, and the
glorious end is dimly discerned. No greater travesty on the nature of
God could be conceived than that which makes Him independent of His
children. And to think that God's desire for mere adoration is His chief
need of man is but slightly less a travesty. God yearns for the love and
adoration of His children, and with no less desire, He calls upon them
to help Him carry forward His work of creation. Love without work and
achievement is first insipid, and then stale. God can no more fulfill
Himself without children than men can fulfill themselves without Him. If
God's highest works fail Him, then God Himself has failed.
The permanent absence of children would stultify God's reason and
character by rendering useless all that He is and all that He has made.
4. What could an infinite God care for such a little speck?
It would be interesting to know who originated this question, for he
should wear the badge of his own ignorance. In his mind, the little
"speck" probably signified the human body. But as we have already seen,
that is not man; it is only his instrument. And besides, man may
progressively augment his little body, causing it to articulate with the
whole body of nature. Moreover, the human body is primarily God's, the
flower of all His works in the vast unfolding universe. Does God care
for these myriad blossoms of his universe? One might as well ask, "What
could a horticulturist care for the little blossoms on his apple trees?"
Let the insects sting them, or the frosts bite them, he has big _trees_
to absorb his attention!
Unless God's world could blossom into myriad, delicate forms, as homes
for man souls, the universe would be as useless as a barren apple tree.
The little flower is not something apart, its production taxes the
entire strength and purpose of the tree. Neither is the human body
something apart, its production taxes the entire strength and purpose of
the universe. As the flower is the tree's glory and promise of fruit, so
the human body is nature's glory and promise of souls.
If, however, the "speck" refers to the real man, the spirit, then the
question is equally foolish. An intelligent will is neither a "speck,"
nor something spread out like ether. Furthermore, that which can be so
deeply impressed by the vastness of the universe is not insignificant in
itself. A mastodon would not be overwhelmed by the vastness of the
universe. Neither is the great universe overwhelmed by a sense of its
own magnitude. In his sense of awe, the foolish man who asked the
question transcends the great universe itself. To be overwhelmed with
our inability to know the universe is partly knowing it, or else we
should not be so completely overwhelmed. That is not insignificant which
can measure the distance to the stars, and weigh the planets, and mark
out the shape and size of their orbits. That is not insignificant which
can discover the very elements of which the sun is composed. Man's
primary body may be relatively small, but it is so highly organized that
he can augment it until his instrument reaches the stars. Though the sun
is approximately ninety-three million miles from our earth, yet the
intelligent mind of man discovered helium in the sun before he
discovered it upon the earth. This feat of His child must have given the
Father keen delight.
Man's body is potentially as great as the universe because, being so
delicately organized, it can articulate with the world elements to the
farthest sun that twinkles in the blue.
The Luther Burbanks are revealing our supremacy over the vegetable
kingdom. The animal kingdom is known to be equally plastic under our
shaping hand; for juggling with animal life is one of man's pastimes.
By using pressure, he has taken a single cell life and divided it into
twins. He has taken two separate cells and formed them into a giant.
Taking off the head and tail of some lower forms of life, he has made
the head grow where the tail was, and vice versa.
No one mind can find time to learn of all the wonders achieved by the
human family in the realms of nature and of social well-being. A simple
statement of man's achievements in the twenty or thirty allied sciences
is more thrilling than all the romances ever written. Man's power for
good or evil is stupendous and overwhelming. It is in the realm of human
life that God Himself will be victorious, or else defeated. All creation
will fail if man fails. I here speak of man in the sense of God's
children, wherever they may be in the universe. The people on this earth
might fail without bringing universal disaster; but if God's children
throughout the universe should fail Him, then all is lost. If God did
not "care for" His children, it would be the same as not caring for
Himself, since all His aims and purposes culminate in His family. God
has crowned man with glory and honor, by putting all things under his
feet.
The world is as ignorant of man as it is of God; and the prevailing idea
of either is a caricature.
It is doubtful whether a self-conscious moral will could be awakened
outside of a body, or inside of one if it were less highly organized
than the human body. The higher animals share our sensations of pain and
pleasure, but it is extremely doubtful whether any of them share in our
self-conscious, moral purposes. Possibly a soul _must_ appear in any
such highly organized form of God's energies as a human body, and
_cannot_ appear where the organization of His energies falls short of
this high standard. If we believe the body to be the integration of
God's own energies it would not be strange if the body proved to be the
incipient soul. We have not yet sounded the depths of God's creative
wisdom either in the soul or the body; we only know that soul and body
are bound together, and that God's highest achievement and deepest
interest center in them. How infinitely precious in the sight of God are
His children, the crown and glory of all His wisdom, love, and power!
5. Is not socialism the best religion there is?
When socialism means the Kingdom of God, it is the best religion
conceivable. And it is a pity that either religion or socialism should
ever mean anything less than the Kingdom of God; for when they drop
below that standard, the one is spurious religion while the other is
counterfeit socialism; the former discarding society, and the latter
eliminating God, both alike become a menace.
Last summer in Madison Square, New York, I listened to a socialist who
was ridiculing the very idea of God. Exhorting his listeners to have a
little sense, he advised them to get rid of God, priests, ministers,
churches, and King Capital. He said:
"You have but one life to live, and it is short; if ever you get
anything, you must get it now."
This type of socialism is a scourge, a pest, a bubonic plague.
Nevertheless we would not minimize the crime of withholding from men
their rights in this life.
Another socialist speaking at a park in my own city said:
"In the past, the capitalist has taken it all, leaving the working man
only enough for the food necessary to do his work,--and not always that.
But we do not blame him, he had a right to take it because he could;--we
should have done the same if we had been in his place. That is what life
means; 'the race is to the swift, and the battle to the strong.' Only
the fittest have a right to live. But our turn is soon coming when we
shall be able to take it all,--and we will."
Now, whoever teaches a theory like that, or acts upon it, is a cancer in
the social body. It makes no difference whether or not he is a church
member, whether business man, or laborer; such a man is a malignant
growth in the body of humanity.
It is just because socialism means anything from the religion of Jesus
to this putrid stuff, that the average well-meaning person is cautious
about identifying himself with any movement bearing the name of
socialism. Yet any religion that stands aloof from social well-being is
doomed,--as it ought to be. No man can love God while hating his
brother; and whether he loves his brother is proved more by his actions
than by his words. To love our brother, as we shall see, is enlightened
selfishness as well as altruism.
"God in the soul" has been rather a popular definition of religion. To
many minds this definition conveys a rich and ample meaning. To others
it conveys gross error, for religious hysteria is often thought to be
God in the soul. A mere psychic state, a religious opiate, a mental
disease, may be so interpreted. It is a question whether any definition
of religion is safe. A description of religion is far preferable to a
definition, and has the advantage of being an easier task. When we
identify religion with the Kingdom of God, we have a perfectly clear
idea. _The Kingdom of God is a loving, intelligent family organised
around the Father's good-will, living in the universe as His home, using
the forces of nature as the instruments of His will, and making all
things vocal with His wisdom, love, and power._
This is true religion; this is a desirable socialism; this is right
life. For such an end God, man, and the enveloping powers of nature
exist. Any loss of this vision, any lack of warmth or enthusiasm for its
realization, spells degeneration. Such a state of mind means the
perversion of nature, the engendering of rebellion in the Kingdom of
God, and the making of prodigals. Religious experience does not mean
just any kind of comfortable, private feeling, but a conscious love for
the family of God, and conscious interest in the work that God and His
children are trying to accomplish _in the midst of nature's forces_.
Religious experience means an active desire to brighten the great world
home, and to gladden the great world family. The idea is so simple that
a child can understand it; and a child's heart may glow with happiness
while helping to brighten the world. To take one's place in the family
of God as a member, loving, and beloved, is something infinitely better
than cold ethics. Character that does not root itself in friendship is
poor character; it bears not the fruit of righteousness, love, and joy.
Our debt of friendship to all men is no less binding than our financial
obligations. Friendship is the great power for good in the world. "I
have called you friends, and such you are." And because they were
friends, Jesus revealed to His disciples all the secrets of His soul,
and threw over them the spell of His life. By interweaving their lives
in some great purpose, or by promoting a common enterprise, friends lift
each other into the finest vision. Simple, hearty, and unfeigned
friendship for God and men, is religion pure and undefiled. A wise man
does not defer friendship until he is perfect, but seeks friendship
first to learn what perfection is, that through friendship he may
receive strength to be perfect.
The new truths clearly manifest concerning God, man, and nature cause a
new heaven to dawn, and a new hell to yawn. Heaven is brighter, and hell
is hotter, than we had been thinking. The relation that exists between
God, man, and the universe makes it perfectly plain that God does not go
ahead of His children to make either heaven or hell. There _is_ no
heaven on either side the grave, except that which is made by the
cooeperation of God and His children. Though there are plenty of heavenly
sites in the universe, yet the building of a Holy City is never begun
until some of God's children have arrived on the scene. They who
organize around the good will of God build a heaven in time and place;
out of God's energies in which they live, they make a beautiful home.
Heaven is doubtless a place as well as a state, for souls that are in a
right state will make a right place in which to live. More than likely
there are many heavens in the universe. In my city heaven may be on one
floor and hell on another, while the character of the third floor is
uncertain. Souls cannot live outside of God's enfolding energies, and
therefore they cannot avoid making either heaven or hell out of His
infinite powers. Citizens of the Kingdom, under the guiding wisdom of
God, make heaven. Those who refuse citizenship, preferring their own
way, make hell; but they make it out of the same mighty forces of which
heaven is made.
The idea that God, independent of His children, made a pretty place
called heaven, and an ugly place called hell, in order that He might put
good little people in the one, and push naughty little people off into
the other, is the idea of a fool's heaven and a fool's hell;--the facts
are much more glorious and awful. There will be just as good a heaven as
the Kingdom of God builds, and no better. Likewise there will be just as
bad a hell as God's disloyal sons make, and no worse. No dream can
picture the paradise that God may make in this universe with the help
of His good children. And the hell that His rebellious sons may create
is something appalling. Since heaven or hell is simply the shape we give
to God's enfolding energies, all of us are unavoidably engaged in
constructing the one or the other, and we have been so engaged every
moment since our conscious life began. No one dare think that all his
work is heaven-building. Altogether, through vice or greed, we have
managed to produce of late the hottest Gehenna ever witnessed on earth.
It has taken longer to make this sad condition than most of us realize;
and many who little suspect their responsibility and guilt have been
active agents in creating the fires of war and other fires in which
there has been of late so much writhing and gnashing of teeth. And at
the moment of the world's greatest anguish, there were those who were
trying to get rich out of the state of sorrow into which they had helped
to plunge humanity. I refer to all profiteers and crooked dealers,
whether they were laborers or capitalists; to those who were willing
that additional hundreds of thousands of our boys should go down into
the lake of fire, if only they could fill their coffers. These were the
devils who stood round the boiling caldron with their flesh hooks, to
tear the flesh of innocent boys if they rose to the surface of the
boiling liquid. Some of these flesh-hook devils, having refined manners,
posed as gentlemen. Others were lewd fellows of various sorts. But the
flames which they fed were not hot enough for them. They were getting
ready for a fire that will burn much deeper, and they will be sure to
find it.
During the war, many found their faith in God staggering before a
perdition created by human beings. But their faith should not have been
unsettled, because this war was as sure to follow the way the world was
living as the wheels of the cart are certain to follow the tread of the
ox. Some had the blindness and audacity to blame God for what we have
done. God gave us the raw material with which to build a heaven, and we
constructed a hell. Through His many prophets and seers God told us what
we were doing, but we would not believe Him. Thinking ourselves wise we
became fools, and turned His good gifts into instruments of torture. The
majority of the people, believing that they could get along without
giving much heed to God, took His limitless gifts and made a grand
holiday instead of a Holy Day, and then rode in automobiles and yachts
to their doom. When a world is bad enough to make war, it needs war.
Though I had three sons between my heart and Germany's steel, yet I
realized that America had to be hurt for her own salvation, for the
salvation of Germany, for the safety of the world, and for the utter
destruction of the German intriguers. If the people of the allied
nations, however, had been shaping the instruments of their spirits into
clean bodies, happy homes, honest business, and good governments, and
all of these into the Kingdom of God on earth, Prussia could not have
dreamed her dream of world dominance, nor would she have dared to throw
down the gauntlet before the world. But seeing our weakness, she scorned
our threats. Being under tutorship to the god of power, in spite of her
vices, which were equal to those of other nations, Prussia became
shrewder and stronger than the nations that were too largely feasting
under a bacchanalian god, or softly enjoying themselves under a Santa
Claus deity, or were piling up unrighteous gains under no god, or under
one that was capable of wicked favoritism. It was clear to the prophets
of the Most High that something was due,--and it came. Bad as war is,
that state of society which makes war possible is even worse. When
society grows its body into a monster, the corrective influence of hell,
in some form, is the last hope. This does not, however, exonerate
Germany from the crime of launching a ruthless war to gratify her lust
for world domination. God surely could not help it, since the human
family shaped its body as it did against light and conscience; but if
there were no retribution for sin and ignorance He would lose His family
utterly. Hell inevitably came when the tools were forged and the devils
were trained; but God neither forged the tools nor trained the devils.
I am advocating no moral prudery, nor religious bigotry. Neither do I
wish to imply that heaven has not been built up side by side with hell
during the last fifty years,--for it has. Those who have profited
intellectually and spiritually by the revelations of modern learning,
and by the new influx of power, and by the new social opportunities,
have made the last fifty years the grandest in human history. Of these
noble sons and daughters it should be said: their growth in the
knowledge of God, their success in the discovery of man, their
achievements in wresting from nature its deepest secrets, their grasp on
the meaning of God's Kingdom, their accomplishments in the practical
launching of everything pertaining to a new era and a finer world order
have made this the golden age for all who have seen the vision and
shared in the work. Yet over against this kingdom of light and love,
there has grown up a kingdom of darkness and hate. These two kingdoms
have grown up side by side in every civilized country. And finally the
kingdom of darkness embroiled all the nations in a deadly conflict.
Seeing all, and feeling all, God was the greatest sufferer in the awful
carnage of the contending armies. "In Him we live, and move, and have
our being;" and therefore armies live, and fight their battles in God.
They fight their battles with God's own powers, and make gaping wounds
in His own body. And yet, some will ask, "Where was God?" Not only was
He in the thick of the fight, but the thick of the fight was in His
beautiful, enfolding energies. We shall make heaven out of the selfsame
energies when we are done making hell out of them. And then, as now, God
will be in our midst; but He will be in our midst as a joyous, and not a
suffering God.
It would have been a pity if this war had ended before the nations
opened their eyes to the higher purposes of God for future civilization,
or before their consciences had been cleansed for the work of advancing
the Kingdom. God will come to our help with mighty power when we come to
His help with mighty obedience. General Sherman said, "War is hell."
This has generally been taken to mean that war is as terrible as hell;
but it is more than that, it is hell literally, _because hell is never
anything but war_. If there were no war of any kind there would be no
hell. This is equally true either side the grave. If there were no
individuals in the universe to oppose God's will and so misuse His
enfolding energies as to harm one another, hell would cease to be. The
beginning of hell is very pleasurable, and that is why men begin it. But
it always grows more and more terrible until it becomes a lake of fire.
It is worse than brimstone, because men have found hotter materials to
use. It is curtains of fire, poisonous gases, shrapnel, bombs, machine
guns, and mud mixed with blood.
War begins in selfish desire, and continues in the misuse of God's good
gifts. Intensified desire diverts to its own use that which does not
belong to it; and becoming powerful, arrogant, and oppressive, it brews
hell without knowing it. Thinking that it knows all, it refuses
instruction. To the perverted mind, imprisoned in a distorted body,
Jesus looks weak, while God seems a myth, or mere brute force. Finally
hell breaks loose in all its fury.
The most pathetic thing in this whole affair is that the good have to go
to hell with the bad,--at least in this life. But it was ever so. Jesus
truly "descended into hell," only it was before He died. The same is
true of God and all His good sons. There is no other way to save the
situation. Gehenna, as well as heaven, begins _here_ and _now_. It may
be that the rebellious sons of God have created a worse hell on the
other side of the grave, but if they have, it is exactly the same in
kind as that which they have made here. Every immoral and painful
condition in the universe is wrought in God. God was as closely related
to the recent war as a man is related to the abscess on his finger; and
He is so related to all hells, in all worlds. For hell is never anything
but a painful disturbance wrought in God's body by the sons whom He has
enfolded in His bosom. And since there are so many discordant and
vicious elements throughout all the world, it is to be hoped that the
nations are being purged by the awful fires through which they are
passing.
Has the earth had its last war? That is not at all likely. There is
plenty of discord in society even now that the main war is over. Many
wrongs must be righted and many problems solved or terror will break out
somewhere. Human society and human institutions have grown about as
large and complex as is possible, unless they can be dominated by a
larger ideal and a more Christlike spirit. While I sympathize with all
the hopes and aspirations of the noble men and women of our day for a
more peaceful earth, yet I do so only on the condition that men will
learn to know and obey the truth. Nothing should be left undone that
will hasten the day of righteousness and peace.
God has two hands with which He is trying to save the world. The one is
a crucified hand, and the other is a great steel hand. The crucified
hand, which is the pledge of forgiveness and good will, is both
logically and chronologically first. For nearly two thousand years God
has been extending this hand. Millions have accepted it and lived; but
many more have refused it, preferring the strife of the world. It is
perfectly plain that society will not be saved by this means alone.
Without minimizing the worth of the crucified hand, or withdrawing it,
God is at last employing a hand of steel, as vast as the machinery of
the world, and identical with it. God is placing His great steel fingers
around men and drawing them together. No longer may men live apart, for
under this new pressure nothing has value in isolation. Capital has no
value without labor, neither has labor any value without capital; and
these may no longer work successfully together without uplifting the
weak nations of the earth. The masses and classes can no longer escape
each other. Bound together by bands of steel, they may do one of two
things--kill each other or love one another. There is no third
alternative. I have faith that when men see themselves in the grip of
the steel hand, they will choose the better alternative and, by clasping
God's crucified hand, become brothers. As things have been going, scores
of peoples on our little earth have lived in darkness and under the
hand of awful oppression; they could have suffered and rotted for
millenniums without the prosperous nations knowing or caring. At last,
however, we know, and our own salvation now clearly rests on our caring.
The articulate body of humanity has become as great as the nations of
the earth, and that body is made up of the infinite energies of God. We
now have the privilege of making this mighty body express more fully
than ever before the thought and love of God, or else we shall be
compelled to shape it into the most gigantic monster that ever stalked
forth to do the foul deeds of hell. Were there a legion of leering and
jeering devils, plotting evil against our earth, the comprehending mind
could hear them say, "We wish for no more awful instruments of torture
than these energies of the Infinite with which His children clothe
themselves. Only let us lead them to fall out by the way, and they will
damn each other by smiting with the infinite powers of their God."
Men,--individuals and nations!--do we see it, do we know the simple
rudiments of life, is it not clearly manifest that we must strive for
the Christ life or socially commit suicide and murder?
Men have made such great mental and material growth that unlimited power
is placed at their disposal. That fact makes this the greatest day in
human history. I have already said that the man soul is in quest of
omnipresence by progressively making the universe the instrument of his
will. The hour has struck for his supreme effort in that direction;
though simply creeping in the past, he may now run if only he will obey
the divine law. However, if he will not obey, the hour for
disintegration has arrived; and once more nations and empires must burn
to the ground, and upon the ashes of the conflagration, the noble
"remnant" must again begin to rebuild slowly and painfully the temple of
God on earth.
If our old men are dreaming dreams, and our young men are seeing
visions, let them come forth in this crisis. But thank God, they are
coming! Millions are coming! We believe there will be enough to save the
day. And what a day it will be if, after all this dreadful upheaval, we
can reconstruct the world on such broad principles of righteousness and
love that the race shall start upon a new era of peace and good will! We
must not on account of ignorance or selfishness throw away this golden
opportunity.
Get ye up upon the mountains, O Israel, O Church of God, and look for
the day!