POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS FAITH
I close this book with a statement of the political principles
which I think define the duty of the American people in the
near future, and from which I hope the Republic will not depart
until time shall be no more; and of the simple religious faith
in which I was bred, and to which I now hold.
They cannot to my mind be separated. One will be found in
some resolutions offered in the Senate December 20, 1899.
The other in what I said on taking the chair at the National
Unitarian Conference, at Washington, in October 1899.
"Mr. Hoar submitted the following resolution:
"WHEREAS the American people and the several States in the
Union have in times past, at important periods in their history,
especially when declaring their Independence, establishing
their Constitutions, or undertaking new and great responsibilities,
seen fit to declare the purposes for which the Nation or State
was founded and the important objects the people intend to
pursue in their political action; and
"WHEREAS the close of a great war, the liberation by the
United States of the people of Cuba and Porto Rico in the
Western Hemisphere and of the Philippine Islands in the far
East, and the reduction of those peoples to a condition of
practical dependence upon the United States, constitute an
occasion which makes such a declaration proper; Therefore,
be it
_"Resolved,_ That this Republic adheres to the doctrines
which were in the past set forth in the Declaration of Independence
and in its National and State constitutions.
_"Resolved,_ That the purpose of its existence and the objects
to which its political action ought to be directed are the
ennobling of humanity, the raising from the dust its humblest
and coarsest members, and the enabling of persons coming lawfully
under its power or influence to live in freedom and in honor
under governments in whose forms they are to have a share
in determining and in whose administration they have an equal
voice. Its most important and pressing obligations are:
"First. To solve the difficult problem presented by the
presence of different races on our own soil with equal Constitutional
rights; to make the Negro safe in his home, secure in his
vote, equal in his opportunity for education and employment,
and to bring the Indian to a civilization and culture in accordance
with his need and capacity.
"Second. To enable great cities to govern themselves in
freedom, in honor, and in purity.
"Third. To make the ballot box as pure as a sacramental
vessel, and the election return as perfect in accord with
the law and the truth as a judgment of the Supreme Court.
"Fourth. To banish illiteracy and ignorance from the land.
"Fifth. To secure for every workman and for every working
woman wages enough to support a life of comfort and an old
age of leisure and quiet, as befits those who have an equal
share in a self-governing State.
"Sixth. To grow and expand over the continent and over the
islands of the sea just so fast, and no faster, as we can
bring into equality and self-government under our Constitution
peoples and races who will share these ideals and help to
make them realities.
"Seventh. To set a peaceful example of freedom which mankind
will be glad to follow, but never to force even freedom upon
unwilling nations at the point of the bayonet or at the cannon's
mouth.
"Eighth. To abstain from interfering with the freedom and
just rights of other nations or peoples, and to remember
that the liberty to do right necessarily involves the liberty
to do wrong; and that the American people has no right to
take from any other people the birthright of freedom because
of a fear that they will do wrong with it."
SPEECH ON TAKING THE CHAIR AT THE NATIONAL UNITARIAN
CONFERENCE, IN WASHINGTON, OCTOBER, 1899
"The part assigned to me, in the printed plan of our proceedings,
is the delightful duty of bidding you welcome. But you find
a welcome from each other in the glance of the eye, in the
pressure of the hand, in the glad tone of the voice, better
than any that can be put into formal words.
From hand to hand the greeting goes;
From eye to eye the signals run;
From heart to heart to bright hope glows;
The seekers of the light are one.
Every Unitarian, man and woman, every lover of God or His
Son, every one who in loving his fellow-men loves God and
His Son, even without knowing it, is welcome in this company.
"We are sometimes told, as if it were a reproach, that we
cannot define Unitarianism. For myself, I thank God that
it is not to be defined. To define is to bound, to enclose, to
set limit. The great things of the universe are not to be
defined. You cannot define a human soul. You cannot define
the intellect. You cannot define immortality or eternity.
You cannot define God.
"I think, also, that the things we are to be glad of and to
be proud of and are to be thankful for are not those things
that separate us from the great body of Christians or the
great body of believers in God and in righteousness, but in
the things that unite us with them. No Five Points, no Athanasian
Creed, no Thirty-nine Articles, separate the men and women
of our way of thinking from humanity or from Divinity.
"But still, although we do not define Unitarianism, we know
our own when we see them. There are men and women who like
to be called by our name. There are men and women for whom
Faith, Hope, and Charity forever abide; to whom Judea's news
are still glad tidings; who believe that one day Jesus Christ
came to this earth, bearing a Divine message and giving a
Divine example. There are women who bear their own sorrows
of life by soothing the sorrows of others; youths who, when
Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' reply, "I can'; and old men
to whom the experience of life has taught the same brave lesson;
examples of the patriotism that will give its life for its
country when in the right, and the patriotism that will make
itself of no reputation, if need be, to save its country from
being in the wrong.
"They do not comprehend the metaphysics of a Trinal Unity,
nor how it is just that innocence should be punished, that
guilt may go free. They do not attribute any magic virtue
to the laying on of hands; nor do they believe that the traces
of an evil life in the soul can be washed out by the sprinkling
of a few drops of water, however pure, or by baptism in any
blood, however innocent, in the hour of death. But they do
understand the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, and they
know and they love and they practise the great virtues which
the Apostle tells us are to abide.
"I think there can be found in this country no sectarianism
so narrow, so hide-bound, so dogma-clad, that it would like
to blot out from the history of the country what the men of
our faith have contributed to it. On the first roll of this
Washington parish will be found close together the names of
John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams. John Quincy Adams
had learned from his father and mother the liberal Christian
faith he transmitted to his illustrious son. If we would
blot out Unitarianism from the history of the country, we
must erase the names of many famous statesmen, many famous
philanthropists, many great reformers, many great orators,
many famous soldiers, from its annals, and nearly all of our
great poets from its literature.
"I could exhaust not only the time I have a right to take,
but I could fill a week if I were to recall their names and
tell the story of their lives. Still less could I speak
adequately of the men and women who, in almost every neighborhood
throughout the country, have found in this Unitarian faith
of ours a stimulant to brave and noble lives and a sufficient
comfort and support in the hour of a brave death. As I stand
here on this occasion, my heart is full of one memory,--of
one who loved our Unitarian faith with the whole fervor of
his soul, who in his glorious prime, possessing everything
which could make life happy and precious, the love of wife
and children and friends, the joy of professional success,
the favor of his fellow-citizens, the fulness of health, the
consciousness of high talent, heard the voice of the Lord
speaking from the fever-haunted hospital and the tropical
swamp, and the evening dews and damps, saying, 'Where is the
messenger that will take his life in his hand, that I may
send him to carry health to my stricken soldiers and sailors?'
When the Lord said, 'Whom shall I send?' he answered, 'Here
am I: send me.'*
[Footnote]
* Sherman Hoar, who after a brilliant public and professional career,
gave his life to his country by exposure in caring for the sick soldiers
of the Spanish war.
[End of Footnote]
"The difference between Christian sects, like the difference
between individual Christians, is not so much in the matter
of belief or disbelief of portions of the doctrine of the Scripture
as in the matter of _emphasis._ It is a special quality
and characteristic of Unitarianism that Unitarians everywhere
lay special emphasis upon the virtue of Hope. It was said
of Cromwell by his secretary that hope shone in him like a
fiery pillar when it had gone out in every other.
"There are two great texts in the Scripture in whose sublime
phrases are contained the germs of all religion, whether
natural or revealed. They lay hold on two eternities. One
relates to Deity in his solitude--'Before Abraham was, I
am.' The other is for the future. It sums up the whole
duty and the whole destiny of man: 'And now abideth Faith,
Hope, and Charity,--these three.' If Faith, Hope, and Charity
abide, then Humanity abides. Faith is for beings without
the certainty of omniscience. Hope is for beings without
the strength of omnipotence. And Charity, as the apostle
describes it, affects the relations of beings limited and
imperfect to one another.
"Why is it that this Christian virtue of Hope is placed as
the central figure of the sublime group who are to accompany
the children of God through their unending life? It is because
without it Faith would be impossible and Charity would be
wasted.
"Hope is that attribute of the soul which believes in the
final triumph of righteousness. It has no place in a theology
which believes in the final perdition of the larger number
of mankind. Mighty Jonathan Edwards,--the only genius since
Dante akin to Dante,--could you not see that, if your world
exist where there is no hope and where there is no love, there
can be no faith? Who can trust the promise of a God who has
created a Universe and peopled it with fiends? The Apostle
of your doleful gospel must preach quite another Evangel:
And now abideth Hate, and now abideth Wrath, and now abideth
Despair, and now abideth Woe unutterable. With Hope, as we
have defined it,--namely, the confident expectation of the
final triumph of righteousness,--we are but a little lower
than the angels; without it we are but a kind of vermin.
"The literature of free countries is full of cheer: the story
ends happily. The fiction of despotic countries is hopeless.
People of free countries will not tolerate a fiction which
teaches that in the end evil is triumphant and virtue is
wretched. Want of hope means either distrust of God or a
belief in the essential baseness of man or both. It teaches
men to be base. It makes a country base. A world wherein
there is no hope is a world where there is no virtue. The
contrast between the teacher of hope and the teacher of despair
is to be found in the pessimism of Carlyle and the serene
cheerfulness of Emerson. Granting to the genius of Carlyle
everything that is claimed for it, I believe that his chief
title hereafter to respect as a moral teacher will be found
in Emerson's certificate.
"But I must not detain you any longer from the business which
waits for this convention. It is the last time that I shall
enjoy the great privilege and honor of occupying this chair.
"Perhaps I may be pardoned, as I have said something of the
religious faith of my fellow Unitarians, if I declare my
own, which I believe is theirs also. I have no faith in fatalism,
in destiny, in blind force. I believe in God, the living
God, in the American people, a free and brave people, who
do not bow the neck or bend the knee to any other, and who
desire no other to bow the neck or bend the knee to them.
I believe that the God who created this world has ordained
that his children may work out their own salvation and that
his nations may work out their own salvation by obedience
to his laws without any dictation or coercion from any other.
I believe that liberty, good government, free institutions,
cannot be given by any one people to any other, but must
be wrought out for each by itself, slowly, painfully, in the
process of years or centuries, as the oak adds ring to ring.
I believe that a Republic is greater than an Empire. I believe
that the moral law and the Golden Rule are for nations as
well as for individuals. I believe in George Washington,
not in Napoleon Bonaparte; in the Whigs of the Revolutionary
day, not in the Tories; the Chatham, Burke, and Sam Adams,
not in Dr. Johnson or Lord North. I believe that the North
Star, abiding in its place, is a greater influence in the
Universe than any comet or meteor. I believe that the United
States when President McKinley was inaugurated was a greater
world power than Rome in the height of her glory or even England
with her 400,000,000 vassals. I believe, finally, whatever
clouds may darken the horizon, that the world is growing better,
that to-day is better than yesterday, and to-morrow will be
better than to-day."