affected by the time-spirit. In Protestantism, the great developments
have been a modification of the creed, and a transfer of energy from the
winning of a future salvation to the working out of a present salvation
for the individual and for society. The creed has been changed, in
spirit more widely than in form, partly under the influence of reason and
partly through a reawakening of spiritual and humane feeling.
Schleiermacher interpreted Christianity as an emotional and ethical
experience, rather than a dogmatic system. In the English church, while
one refluent wave swept toward a dogmatic authority and ritualistic
splendor like that of Rome, on another side the effort to reconcile the
church with modern thought and fit it to modern society was carried
farther and farther by Coleridge, Arnold, Robertson, Maurice, Kingsley,
and Stanley; till the advance has met a sharp check at the point where
rejection of miracle involves a collision with the formularies of
worship. In America, a like advance has had the advantage of that more
elastic polity which allows to churches of the Congregational order an
easier change of creed and worship. The leaders have been, in the
Unitarian line, such as Channing, who purified Christianity of its
Calvinistic harshness and then of its Athanasian metaphysics; and Parker,
who took the great step to simple theism,--Christian in ethics and piety,
but purely naturalistic in theology. In the other great branch of the
New England church,--for in New England alone has America shown religious
originality,--Bushnell in a scholastic way, and Beecher with poetic and
popular power, resolved the dogmatic system into a supremacy in the
universe of love and holiness, embodied in a deity who became actually
incarnated as Christ. Phillips Brooks, exercising a spiritual power of
extraordinary purity and intensity, and so unspeculative that he felt no
difficulty in the formulae of the Episcopal church, taught a religion in
which Christ represents a sublimed and perfect humanity, a realized
ideal, the inspiration and helper of men who are his brothers.
In the Catholic church, two Popes stand as representative, Plus IX. and
Leo XIII. Under the first, the monarchic system of the church was made
complete, and the highest function of the Council, the definition of
religious truth, was assigned to the Pope. By Leo XIII. this autocracy
is administered in sympathy largely with modern ideas. The church allies
itself less with the temporal monarch than with the common people. It
throws much of its force into ethical channels. Its characteristic
interest is in education, temperance, social reform; and along with these
it still ministers publicly and privately to that communion with God in
which it places the foundation and secret of human life. Its limitations
are that it still claims not only to persuade but to rule--a useful
function toward some classes, but impossible toward other classes; that
its pretension to infallibility obliges it to misread history; and that
its foundation of dogma admits no frank and full reconciliation with
modern knowledge.
But to know the full mind and heart of our age, we must again take a
survey beyond the church walls. The emotional forces which have moved
the world have been largely in the direction of certain social
aspirations. The first was for Liberty--freedom from the tyranny of
king's and priests. It won its first great victory in America, where the
War of Independence and the making of the Constitution marked by a brave
struggle and a masterpiece of good sense the consummation of many years'
growth of an English shoot in virgin soil. England herself has followed
with more unequal steps to a similar result. In France, there was
volcanic explosion which convulsed Europe. The other Continental states
have variously followed, save Russia, which as yet lies impotent under
despotism. Following the substantial success of the effort for Liberty,
or blending with it, came the aspiration for a better Social Order. In
one phase, this worked toward the consolidation of nations on natural
lines of race and history, as in Germany and Italy. In America, the two
ideas of universal Freedom and national Union, conflicting for a while
with each other, blent at last and triumphed after a mighty struggle.
The supreme figure in that struggle was Abraham Lincoln; who in his
public capacity illustrated how the most complicated problems of
statesmanship find their best solution through good-will, resolution,
patience, and homely shrewdness; while in his own life he showed that a
man may rise above misfortune and melancholy, unaided by creed or church,
working only by absolute fidelity to the right as he sees the right, till
he renders to his fellows a supreme service and wins their unbounded love.
The aspiration for Social Order pauses not when it has won national unity
and harmony. The principle and the result of the existing industrial
system no longer content those who live under it. That system has been
stimulated by the enormous material acquisitions which have flowed from
invention. It has improved in some degree the condition of most members
of society, but with a marked inequality in the improvement, and at the
cost of the mutual hostility which unchecked competition involves, and
which is fruitful in moral mischief and material waste. The laborer has
gained in intelligence by the school and the newspaper; holding the vote,
he feels himself one of the masters of the state; sympathy draws him to
his own class. The scholar sees that the system of unchecked competition
is an outgrowth of conditions which are changing, and which ought to
change. The idealist longs for a society which shall effectually seek
the highest good of every member, and supplement the hunger for personal
advantage with satisfaction in the good of all. The toiler and the
idealist unite to seek a more generous and serviceable order in the
community, and the tendency is vaguely called Socialism. One conspicuous
exponent is Karl Marx, who, with his followers, would make the highly
centralized German state the starting-point for a still more
authoritative and minute regulation of the community, directed to the
equal material benefit of all its members. By a different road a degree
of fraternal organization is being attained, through voluntary
associations of workingmen, for mutual support as toward their employers,
or for independent production or distribution. All definite and dogmatic
schemes of social reform prove upon challenge to need adjustment and
modification, to fit the actual workings of a society already infinitely
complex. It is as the sentiment which for want of a better word we call
socialistic works along with that broad and candid study of fact which we
call scientific, and toward an ideal in which the material is but an
instrument of the spiritual,--that there is solid promise of advance.
With these sentiments of Liberty and Social Order may be named what is
sometimes called Philanthropy, or in a broader way of speaking may be
named Humanity,--the unselfish passion for the good of others, the ardor
of service, to which early Christianity gave outlet in missions, and
which now throws itself into reform, education, amelioration in every
direction of human need.
More central to man than any social ideal is the personal ideal. For
society is but an aggregation of units; state, church, community, family,
have their aim and outcome in the individual man; they are serviceable
only as through them he becomes good and happy. What new interpretations
has this century seen of the personal ideal? They may partly be read in
a group of poets of the English-speaking people. Wordsworth, loyal to
the forms of the old Christianity, shows life as really sustained and
gladdened by simple duty and by the sacramental beauty of nature--one
giving the rule of conduct, the other disclosing the divinity of the
world. Tennyson gives in "In Memoriam" that interpretation of human life
which comes when love is sublimed by death. Browning shows the soul face
to face with the doubt, the denial, the dismay, which are added to the
foes of human peace in an age which has lost the old faith, and shows the
soul victorious over all by its own energy, constancy, and joy. In
Whittier, the dogmatic system of Christianity is transformed into a
spirit of fidelity, brotherhood, and tender trust. Emerson gives that
direct vision of divine reality, seen in nature, in humanity, in the
heart's innermost recesses, which is possible to a soul purified by moral
fidelity, reverent of natural law, and winged by holy desire.
These have been the prophets of hope and of victory. The dark message of
defeat and despair has also had its full expression. Satiety with
material good, disappointment of inward joy, the loss of the old objects
of adoration and trust, have inspired utterances in every key of gloom,
impotence, despondency verging toward suicide. Schopenhauer has
formulated a philosophy of pessimism, and through a host of the minor
story-tellers and versifiers runs the note of discouragement and
abandonment. The most dangerous alliance which besets man is that
between Sensuality and Unbelief, whispering together in his ear, "Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!" Sometimes unbelief is at the
widest remove from sensuality; it may go with pure devotion to truth and
thirst for goodness. There are pathetic and noble voices of seekers
after God, which when they do not gladden yet strengthen and purify, and
which catch at moments an exquisite tone of peace and joy. Such are
Clough and Matthew Arnold. We have one moralist of the Spencerian
school, George Eliot, who unites a strong ethical sense with a wonderful
reading of human nature. Her essential message, told again and again in
every book, is, "Life may be ruined by self-indulgence--beware!" If we
ask, "But may life be saved by fidelity?" her answer is uncertain. And
in her own life we read, with humbled eyes, the defect which marred the
note of triumph and deepened the note of warning.
If, again, as to the Personal Ideal, we revert to the basal elements of
character,--to the homely, every-day aspect,--to the life not only of the
cultivated few but of the mass of humanity,--the new perception has been
reached, that Work is the basis of all personal and social virtue. Toil,
said the old Scripture, is God's punishment for man's sin. Toil, says
the religious enthusiast, is a necessary incident of an existence whose
higher exercise lies in spiritual emotion reaching toward a future
Paradise. But toil, to modern eyes, is the root which binds man to his
native earth, and transmits all the sap which creates flowers and fruit.
Intelligent, arduous, thrifty toil is the mother of greatness. "Do the
next thing,--do the nearest duty,--labor rather than question,"--is the
most articulate note in Carlyle's stormy message. The old charity was to
give bread to the hungry; the new charity is to help the hungry to work
for their bread. A generation ago it seemed to American reformers that
the nation's problem would be solved if once the slaves were freed. They
were set free, and then it was seen that the whole question of their
future destiny was still to be met. Practical necessity, religious zeal,
political schemes, all played their part; but the best answer came
through the apostle Armstrong, "Character, wrought out through education
and labor." The inherited devotion of Christian missionaries caught the
light of personal experience and observation, and a man in whom heroic
temper blent with shrewdest wisdom laid the foundation of an education
transcending in its aims and results the whole traditional system of
school and university. It is an object-lesson of supreme significance.
That way lies the future education of our children,--character its aim,
nature its chief book, exercise of all the bodily and spiritual powers
its method.
Here, then, are the results of our century as they bear on man's higher
life. A religion through special revelation has been displaced by a
religion which faces all the facts of existence and bases itself on them.
Man has found new clews to read the story of his past, and new ways to
mould his present and future. The old ethical ideals have been
reaffirmed, broadened, purified. The task of building personal life and
of ordering society has been set before man in fresh clearness, under
heavy penalties for failure and heart-filling rewards for success. It is
seen that the humble path of moral obedience issues in celestial heights
of spiritual vision. Out of the noblest use of the Here and Now springs
the assurance of a Hereafter and the sense of a present eternity. The
way to the Highest is open, inviting, commanding. The simplest may
enter, and the strongest must give his full strength to the quest.
II
THE IDEAL OF TO-DAY
The way of the highest life is clear and certain. Its first and last
precept is fidelity to the best we know. Its constant process is that
fidelity wins moral growth and spiritual vision.
All attempts to demonstrate the nature and attributes of God, all
effort to prove by argument that the universe is administered by
righteousness and benevolence, are aside from the main road. The real
task for man is to order his own life, as an individual and in society.
To do that, he needs to understand his own life as a practical matter;
he needs to study the procedure of the world in which he stands; he
needs to rally every force of knowledge, resolution, sympathy,
reverence, aspiration, upon this high business of personal and social
living. As he achieves such life, there develop in him the faculties
which read sublime meanings in the universe of which he is a part. As
he becomes divine, he finds divinity everywhere.
The heart of religion is joy, peace, energy, support under suffering,
inward harmony, true relation with fellow creatures, grateful sense of
the past, full fruition of the present, glad out-reach to a beckoning
future. The way to that life is wholly independent of doubtful
argumentation. It lies simply in a whole-hearted conformity to what
are known beyond all question as the worthy aims, the just
requirements, the righteous laws.
Let us consider somewhat at large the unfolding of this philosophy of
life. Let us seek to sympathetically interpret the deepest, most
significant working of the human spirit in our time.
Is it not the distinctive note of the thoughtful and honest mind of
to-day, as compared with a like mind some centuries ago, that it
contemplates more directly the actual procedure of the universe, is
less concerned with supernatural personages and transactions, and more
attentive to what has happened and is happening in this mundane sphere?
The piety of our ancestors contemplated the justice and mercy of God as
manifested in the counsels of eternity,--his righteous condemnation of
the wicked, and the love-inspired sacrifice of Christ. The philosophy
of our ancestors was largely an attempt to map out a world-scheme from
man's inner consciousness. The modern thinker, whether he calls
himself Christian or not, is inclined to make his essay toward the
Supreme Power by way of the observed workings of the universe. And
certain general impressions which he thus receives we may distinguish.
That aspect of things which now engages us with the fascination of a
new and vast discovery is what we term "Evolution." Its spectacle, on
the one hand, prompts a sure and soaring hope. In the sum of things we
see a movement upward and still upward,--from unorganized to organized
matter, from unconscious to sentient existence, from beast to man, from
savage to saint,--and who can say to what height in the coming ages?
But on the other hand we see that thus far at least the progress of the
favored is at deadly cost to the losers. And we see that parallel with
the ascending white line of humanity runs an ascending black line,--the
bad man of civilization is in some ways worse than the bad man of
savagery. And this complexity of good and evil is recognized at a time
when a higher sensibility has made the old familiar pain and sin of
humanity seem more than ever intolerable.
Yet the spectacle of creation and of the world, as we see and know it,
makes upon us an impression far beyond that of mere perplexity or
dismay. It produces a sentiment which we may best call _awe_. All the
great aspects of nature wake in us this reverential emotion. A
familiar instance is the effect upon us of the starry heavens. The
Psalmist thrilled at that sight,--how much more deeply are we moved,
knowing what we know of the vastness and the order! Some like effect
on us has the unfolding revelation of the whole process of nature. "I
think the thoughts of God after him," said Kepler. Let any man study
in some clear exposition the development of the human race from the
animal; and the wonder of the process, the unity of design, the
unforeseen goals reached one by one, the irresistible impression that
the harmony which man's little faculties can discern is but a fraction
of some sublimer harmony,--these emotions have in them a surpassing
power to humble, purify, and exalt the spirit.
The modern mind addresses itself to the highest reality through the
actualities of existence, and of those actualities one most significant
phase is the procedure and laws of nature. But there is another and
more impressive aspect: it is the inner life of humanity; it is man's
own conscious existence, with its struggles, victories, defeats, its
agonies and raptures, its mirth, its play, its sweetness and
bitterness. This to us is the realm of real existence. In this we are
at home. The march of the planets, the evolution of a world, the whole
process of nature, is like the view from a window; and, gazing upon it,
sits feeling, thinking, aspiring man. His consciousness is environed
and conditioned by the surrounding world, but is utterly unexplained by
it, wholly untranslatable in its terms. Definite and precise is the
language of mathematics, of chemistry, of physical procedure. Mystery
of mysteries is the human spirit,--mystery of mysteries and holy of
holies. A new sense of the sacredness of human life has been born in
this later age. It is our most precious acquisition. Better could we
have waited for modern science than for modern humanity. Better could
we spare the telegraph and the steam-engine and anaesthesia than that
quickened sense of the value of man as man which inspires the deepest
political and social movements of to-day. In all sober minds, in all
lofty effort,--whatever there may be of despair of God or hopelessness
of a personal future,--we see a profound recognition of the solemnity
and sacredness of human existence. Through the sad pages of George
Eliot, through Emerson's exultant psalm, through the reformer's battle,
the socialist's scheme, runs this golden link,--the value of simple
humanity.
This, then, we may say is the characteristic attitude of the man of
to-day,--before the processes of nature, awe and reverence; before the
life of humanity, sympathy and tenderness.
But now rises a heart-moving question. The dearest article of
religious faith has been a Divine Power, governing the universe and
holding to man an intimate relation involving issues of supreme
significance to humanity. At this point modern thought falters. The
long-familiar expression of that belief is the assertion of a personal,
providential, all-just, and all-loving God. What reason have men
assigned to themselves for belief in such a God, while confronted all
the time by the fearful spectacle of a world in which sin and misery
perpetually mingle with goodness and happiness? What has been the
resource of the Christian intellect against that mystery of evil which
baffled the questioner in the book of Job, and drove Lucretius to
virtual atheism, and left Marcus Aurelius in doubt whether there be
gods or not? The resource of the Christian thinker has been his belief
that Jesus Christ was God incarnate. Here was a soul which was sinless
and holy, which loved sinners so as to die for them; and this was God
himself. That belief has been the foundation of Christian theology.
It left the mysteries of earth's sorrow and sin unexplained; but it
offered the assurance, under a most living figure, that the author and
final disposer of the whole was one whose nature was love itself.
When it ceases to be believed that Jesus was God, the corner-stone of
this whole structure of belief, as an intellectual conception, is gone.
The void is concealed for a while by intermediate theories,--that Jesus
was a kind of inferior deity, that he was at least a supernatural
messenger. Frankly say that he was a man only, and we have really
given up that intellectual ground of confidence in a God on which for
many centuries men have stood. And, in that involuntary and most
regretful surrender, and in the first impression following it, that the
only discernible order is a mechanical order, with no room for worship,
no hope of immortality, lies the tragedy of the thinking world to-day.
For a multitude of minds, God is eclipsed, and the earth lies in
shadow. In shadow, but not in despair. For still there is
"The prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming of things to come."
Slowly emerges a new conception. In the lowest depth of his spirit man
has found that, in Robertson's words, "it is better to be true than to
be false, better to be pure than to be sensual, better to be brave than
to be a coward." By that sure and simple creed man lives through his
darkest day. When the tree seems dead, that root lives. And presently
there grows from it a nobler tree.
The turning-point from the old thought to the new is this: We see that
the imperative task set to every man is not to understand the universe
plan, but to live his own life successfully. It will quite suffice for
most of us if we can each one do justice to the possibilities of his
own existence. Those possibilities are something more than breathing
and eating, sleeping and waking, toil and rest. Among his
possibilities each man hopes are included contentment, joy, peace. At
least there must be possible for him some right conformity to the
conditions in which he is placed, some noble and spiritual
satisfaction, some imparting of good to his fellow creatures. There is
for him some best way of life, which it is his business to find and to
follow.
And as he finds and follows it,--as he fills out the best possibilities
of his own being,--so he must come into the truest relation possible
for him with this whole mysterious frame of things we call the
universe. As he is himself at his best, so he will get the best, the
widest, the truest impression of the whole in which he is a part.
This, then, is the rational and hopeful way of addressing the supreme
problem,--the problem, for the individual and for mankind, of a
happiness and a success which shall be rooted in the true nature of
things and the real order of the universe. We are not to start with
any supposed comprehension of the general plan, whether as revealed by
miracle or thought out by wise men. We are simply to live our own
lives according to the best knowledge we have, the highest examples we
know, the most satisfying results of our own experience. And, with
whatever discipline and enrichment this process of right living may
bring us, we are to hold our whole natures open, attentive, percipient
to the world about us, and accept whatever shall disclose itself.
The two processes--right living and clear vision--blend constantly and
intimately. We may distinguish them in our thoughts, but there is
constant interplay between life and sight.
The business of living,--how infinitely complex it is, how endlessly
laborious, yet how simple and how sure! Its central principle, we may
say, is the right fitting of one's self to his surroundings. Modern
science has learned that for every creature the condition of success is
adaptation to its environment. We may use that way of speaking to
express the prime necessity of man. His environment is a vast
complexity of material, social, and spiritual realities.