It is with good reason, that the very name of the priesthood, has become
odious to the modern mind. How has their fanaticism drenched the earth
with blood, how has their unbridled ambition sown seeds of discord
among the nations; how lamentable a commentary is the record of their
frailties upon the assumption of superior sanctity and God-given
authority. Yet it is not the priestly office, but its abuse, which has
proved of evil, nor has the time yet come, when the ministry of priests
can be safely dispensed with. There shall come a new Ideal to attract
men's reverence and a new service of the Infinite and a new priesthood
also to do its ministry. It is of this modern priesthood, I would speak.
Fear not that I am about to advocate a return to that system of
spiritual bondage, from which we have but just escaped. The priests to
whom we allude shall not be known by cassock or surplice. It is not
at the altar they shall serve, least of all shall they have dogmas to
communicate. They shall not be more than human, only if possible more
human. Priests have we of science, we name them so; men whose whole soul
is wrapped up in the pursuit of knowledge: priests of art, who dedicate
their lives to the service of the Beautiful, priests also of the Moral,
artists of the Good, sages in the science of Virtue, teachers of the
Ideal.
Let us consider for a moment, in order to illustrate our meaning, the
life of one such priest, whose fame has come down to us undimmed by the
corroding influence of time--the life of Socrates. He held no office, he
ministered at no shrine, yet he was in the true sense a priest. A plain
unpretentious man, content to live on coarse fare, inured to want,
homely in appearance, using homely language; nothing had he in
appearance to attract; yet the gay youths left their feasts and frolics
when he approached, and the busy market-place was hushed to listen
to the strange wisdom of his sayings; there was indeed a singular and
potent charm in this man's soul. He had a great need of righteousness,
wonderful, how he awakened the same need in the hearts of the Athenian
burghers of his day. He was the reverse of dogmatic. In comparison with
the vastness of the unknown, he was wont to say, all human knowledge
is little even to nothingness, he did not assume to know the truth, but
strove to assist men in finding truths for themselves. He had his own
enlightened views on questions of theology. But far from desiring to
convert others to his convictions, he rather sought to divert their
attention from those mysterious problems, in which men can never be
wise, problems that are no nearer their solution today, than they were
two thousand years ago. To those who questioned him concerning religion
he replied: Are ye then masters of the humanities, that ye seek to pry
into divine secrets? His father had been a fashioner of statues before
him, he was a fashioner of souls! This Socrates was condemned to suffer
death on the charge of atheism, and met his fate with the calmness of
the philosophic mind. If death, he said, is progress to untried spheres,
then welcome death! If it is sleep only, then also welcome death and its
deep repose. All the tokens of the priest were fulfilled in him. He was
true to himself and unbared to others the veiled truths of their own
higher nature. He was a loftier presence on earth, a living flame fed
from its own central being, a sun to which the world turned and was
thereby enlightened. We perceive then, that what we desire is not a new
thing. There has been this service of the Ideal from the earliest times.
Only a new plea would we urge for larger fidelity to that which the best
have striven for, and which under new conditions it will be the glory of
our age to approach more nearly.
The priest shall be a teacher of the "Ideal," but what is the Ideal and
how distinguish it from the Real. Regard the trees, behold their number,
the wondrous plenitude of their kinds.. There is the lithe and slender
pine, the mighty oak, the stately palm, the tender willow. Alike
yet most unlike. And who has ever seen the perfect tree! Observe the
expressive features of the human face. How many thousands of such faces
are born into the world each year and yet no two alike. By what fine
shades, what scarce perceptible curves, what delicate touches has
nature's chisel marked them each apart. Graceful forms and lovely faces
there are, yet perfect none. Now the Ideal is the perfection of the
Real. To find it we must go beyond the Realities. We study the nature of
the tree, of man. We note the suggestions of the various parts, complete
and produce them in utmost harmony, each perfect in itself, each serving
by its own perfection, the rounded symmetry of the whole. In the image
thus created we grasp the ideal form. Art with its genial enchantments,
creates such images and gives them permanence in pure types of immortal
significance. Art is idealism of form.
The intellect also, which looks out from behind the features, the
indwelling man, exhibits the same twofold aspect of the Real and Ideal.
Our real thoughts are incomplete and inadequate. We are led astray a
thousand times by false analogies, we are decoyed into the labyrinths
of fancy, we become the victims of impression, the toys of circumstance.
But deep down in the basic structure of the mind are true laws, unerring
guides. Logic expresses them, logic is the idealism of intellect.
And lastly we recognize the same distinction in the realm of feeling.
To the untutored caprice, the overmastering impulse, in brief to the
realism of the passions is opposed the law of right feeling, which
ethics expresses. Ethics is the idealism of character. We call this last
the capital revelation of man's nature. The moral law is not derivative,
it can not be proven, it can not be denied. It is the root from which
springs every virtue, every grace, all wisdom and all achievement. An
attempt has indeed been made to base morality upon a certain commonplace
utility, but true morality scorns your sad utilities. That is useful,
which serves an object besides itself, while morality is itself an end,
and needs and admits no sanction save its own excellency. As it delights
the man of science to expand his judgment in ever wider and wider
generalizations, as the larger thought is ever the truer thought, so is
there an exquisite pleasure and an unspeakable reward in expanding the
narrow consciousness of self in the unselfish, and the larger emotion
is ever the nobler emotion. We speak of the moral Ideal, as The IDEAL,
because it expresses the central idea of human life,# the purpose of our
existence on earth. To expound and illustrate its bearings on our daily
duties, our joys, our griefs and our aspirations, is the scope and limit
of the priestly office.
The moral ideal would embrace the whole of life. Before it nothing is
petty or indifferent, it touches the veriest trifles and turns them into
shining gold. We are royal by virtue of it, and like the kings in the
fairy tale, we may never lay aside our crowns. It tells us, that nothing
shall be for its uses only, but all things shall take their tone and
quality from the central idea.
When we build a house, it shall not be for its uses only. We shall have
kitchens and drawing rooms and libraries and pictures and flowers, if
possible. But the house, with all its comforts and luxuries, is mere
framework, and our words and doings construct the true, the spiritual
home. When we sit down to table, it shall not be for the use of the
food and the flavor of the wine only, but morality should preside at the
feast and lend it grace and dignity. Morality does not mope in corners,
is not sour nor gloomy. It loves genial fellowship, loves to convert
our meanest wants into golden occasions for joy and sympathy and happy
communion. Manners too are the offspring of character. We do not rate
highly the dry and cheerless conventionalisms of etiquette, but in
their origin, they were the fruit of truth, and love. The rules of good
breeding may be reduced to two; self-possession and deference. As when
a public speaker loses his self-control, his own uncertainty is quickly
communicated to his audience, and he forfeits his influence over his
hearers; so the same cause produces the same effect in every lesser
audience that gathers in our parlors. Society says to you: If I shall
trust you, you must begin by trusting yourself. The man of the world
will enter the palace of the prince and the cottage of the peasant with
the same equipoise of manner. If he respects himself, there is no
reason why he should stand abashed. Self-possession is essentially
self-respect. Deference, too, is a primary condition of all courtesy.
It teaches us to concede to others whatever we claim for ourselves; it
leads us instinctively to avoid loudness, and self-complacency. It is
expressed not only in the polished phrase, but in mien, attitude, every
movement. Self-possession and deference of manner are both the outgrowth
of moral qualities, the one depending on the consciousness of personal
worth, the other inspired by an unselfish regard for the well-being of
others. From these two it were possible to deduce the rules of a
new 'Chesterfield,' which should be free from all the conceit and
affectation of the old. Unfortunately, manners are no longer the natural
outpouring of heart-goodness. Men attire themselves in politeness as
they do in rich apparel; they may be as rude as they please, the year
round, they know they can be fine on occasion. Moreover in the home
circle, where the forms of courtesy are quite indispensable to prevent
undue friction; to send the light of grace and poetry into a world of
little cares; to fill the atmosphere of our daily surroundings as
with the fragrance of a pervading perfume; they are yet most commonly
neglected. The word manners has the same meaning as morals. When we
shall have better morals, we shall have truer and sweeter manners.
The Ideal which thus seeks to interpenetrate the most ordinary affairs
of private life, stands out also in the market place, in the forum, in
the halls of legislation, and setting aside the merely useful, exhorts
men to return to permanent values. That is the ideal view of politics
which teaches us to hold the idea of country superior to the utilities
of party, to exact worthiness of the public servants, to place the
common good above sectional animosities and jealousies. That is the
ideal view of commerce, which impels the merchant, while seeking
prosperity by legitimate means, to put conscience into his wares and
dealings and to keep ever in sight the larger purposes of human
life. That is the ideal view of the professions, which leads their
representatives to subordinate the claims of ambition and material gain
to the enduring interests of science, justice, and of all the great
trusts that are confided to their keeping. And he therefore shall be
called a priest of the Ideal, who by precept and example will divert us
from the absorbing pursuit of the realities and make plain to us that
the real is transitory, while in the pursuit of the Ideal alone we can
find lasting happiness. For the realities are constantly disconcerting
us in our search for the better. They are so powerful, so insistent; we
think them every thing until we have proved their attractions and find
them nothing. We have that only which we are. But the common judgment
holds to the reverse; we are only what we have. And so the turbulent
crowd plunges madly into the race--for acres, for equipage, for
well-stocked larders, for office, for fame. Good things are these, as
scales on the ladder of life, but life is somewhat more than acres and
equipage and office and fame. Seldom indeed do we truly live. Often are
we but shadows of other lives. We affect the fashions not only in dress
but also in thought and opinion. We are good or bad, as public opinion
bids us. The state is ruined, the church is corrupted, and the world's
giddy masquerade rushes heedlessly on. Give me one who will think Having
and Seeming less than Being; who will be content to be himself and a
law unto himself and in him I will revere the ideal man. Before him the
shams and mockeries of existence shall sink away. He will look into his
own soul and tell you the oracles he has read there, and you will hear
and behold your own heart. He will plant the sign of the Eternal on a
high standard and call unto a people that strays in the wilderness to
look up to that and be saved. The old and the young will he instruct,
and they shall love him, for his words will be an articulate cry to the
dumb voices in their own breasts. This is the be-all and end-all of his
mission,--to make them acquainted with themselves. Do you know he will
say, what a power is in you, what a light is hidden in the deep recesses
of your nature. Artists are ye all to whom your own soul is given to
mold it into beauty. Happy, happy indeed if you seek no other reward
but the artist's joy in his work and know that to be your glory and your
recompense.
It is well, that there should be priests appointed to bear such messages
to us from time to time as we rest from our toil; to bring us face
to face with the inner life. But there are special occasions in these
passing years of ours, when the ideal bearings of life come home to us
with peculiar force and when we require the priest to be their proper
interpreter.
Marriage is one of them. We often hear it said that marriage is a mere
legal compact. The state, it is true, has a vital interest in protecting
the purity of the conjugal relation and may prescribe certain forms to
which its citizens are bound to conform. But has the meaning of the new
bond been indeed fully expressed, when the magistrate in the court room
has pronounced the young man and the maiden to be now husband and wife?
Among the ancient Hebrews youths and young girls were wont to meet
on the Day of Atonement, the most solemn day of the year, the day of
purification from sin, to cement their affections and plight their
troth. For marriage itself was esteemed an act of purification. Marriage
is the foundation of all morality. Its celebration does not end with the
wedding day: it is a constant celebration, a perpetual intermarrying of
two souls while life lasts.
Not the state only, but humanity also, that ideal state of which we are
all citizens, has an interest in the contract. A new sanctuary is to be
reared sacred to the ineffable mysteries of the home-life; in the home
with all the tender and holy associations that cluster about it let it
be dedicated. The supreme festival of humanity is marriage. There shall
be music and joy and a white-robed bride with myrtle wreath; and solemn
words to express the solemn meanings of the act.
At the grave also is the office of the priest, When some dear friend has
been taken from us, when the whole earth seems empty for the loss
of one and the pillars of existence seem broken, he shall say to the
grieving heart: Arise, be strong. He shall bid your brooding sorrow
pause. He shall speak of larger duties, which they you mourn have left
you, as their legacy. Larger duties: this is his medicine. You are not
free, you poor and sadly stricken friends to stand aside in idle woe,
but you shall make for the departed a memorial in your lives and assume
their half completed tasks. So the loss, though loss it be, will purify
you, and vim and vigor be found in the consolations of the Ideal. We
trust that we have used the term priest in no narrow restricted sense.
It is not the hierarchies of the past or the present of whom we have
spoken. The priest is not superior to his fellow men, nor has he access
to those transcendental regions which are closed to others. His power
is in this, that he speaks what all feel. And he shall be counted an
acceptable teacher, then only, when the slumbering echoes within you
waken to the music that moves and masters him.
There have been those, whose lives were molded on such a pattern among
the clergy at all times, and it is this circumstance, that has attracted
the reverence of mankind to the priestly office.
Noble men were they whose love burst through the cramping fetters of
their creeds, apostles of liberty, missionaries of humanity.
But there is one other trait necessary to complete the picture. The
priest of the Ideal must have the gift of tongues and kingly words to
utter kingly thoughts. In the philosophy of Alexandria it was held, that
before the world was, the word was, and the word created a universe out
of chaos and the word was divine. With that heaven-born energy must he
be filled, and with a breath of that creative speech must he inspire.
No tawdry eloquence be his, no glittering gift of phrase or fantasy, but
words of the soul's own language, words of the pith and core of truth.
The image of the Ideal priest which I have attempted to draw is itself
an ideal image, nowhere realized, never to be fully attained. But it
is to it that the priests of the new age will strive to come near and
nearer, and that will be their pride and their happiness, if they can
become in this sense friends and helpers of their kind.
In the eyes of the dogmatist they are strangers out of a strange land of
thought. If you ask them for their pass word, it is freedom, if you ask
for their creed, it is boundless. The multitude seeking to compress
the infinite within the narrow limits of the senses, must needs have
tangible shapes to lay hands on, names if nothing better. But the Ideal
in the highest is void of form and its name unutterable. We will ascend
on the wings of the morning, we will let ourselves down to the uttermost
depths of the sea, and know it there. But chiefly within ourselves shall
we seek it, in ourselves is its shrine. The time will come when single
men shall no more be needed to do its ministry, when in the brotherhood
and sisterhood of mankind all shall be priests and priestesses one to
another, for all their life shall be a song of praise to the highest,
and their whole being shall be consecrated and glorified in the immortal
service of deathless Ideals.