THE PROVISION FOR THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN.
In speaking of the spiritual nature of man, reference is not had to a
side or faculty or power of himself, but to his real, essential life. Man
is a spirit. All faculties and powers exist for him as such. The hunger,
and the food provided for it, are to serve man as spirit. The social
element, and the power provided for it, are to serve him as spirit. The
intellect and truth, the will and right, the æsthetic sense and beauty,
are all to serve him as spirit. The correlate of man as spirit, on one
side of himself, we have seen to be the life of humanity—the correlate of
man as spirit, on the other side of himself, is the life of God. Man’s
spiritual nature is mediated to him on one side by the family, by the
school, by the institutions of the state, by the establishments of trade,
by the newspaper, by literature, by art, by history. Man’s spiritual
nature is mediated to him on the other side by love, embodied in the one
Mediator between God and man.
The mud-philosophy of Locke, and Hume, and Mill, and Spencer dissolves
spirit, because it dissolves the idea of a mind, an ego, or an external
world. If the mind can know nothing but a succession of things in time,
if nothing but a constant flow and flux of sensations; of course it
cannot know itself, only as a sensation in the perpetual procession
of sensations always passing by. But how is it possible for the mind
to know a succession of things in time, and a procession of things in
space, unless it is itself out of and apart from the succession and the
procession. One sensation, say of the self, in a flow of sensations,
could not know itself as a part of such a flow, without knowing itself
as related to a before and an after in the process. To know even a
procession of sensations, we must have a spirit that stands still and
does not pass on with the procession. The spirit, then, must be out
of time to know succession, and out of space to know procession, and
self-conscious, so as to distinguish itself from the succession and the
procession. The human spirit is something in the midst of time, yet
passes not with the tides of time. It is to the succession of things
ever passing through it, and to the procession of sensations ever
passing before it, like some mighty Teneriffe with its peak of Teyde in
the midst of the sea, pushing its proud head up 12,000 feet above the
sea, and contrasting with its ever changing waves, the immutability of
eternity. Man, as a spirit, is after God, the most universal of all
facts. He is illimitable in more ways than space, remaining when all the
events of time have passed, and with a nature dipping into the eternal
spirit of God. The respect in which man is made in the image of God,
is, that he is endowed with self-consciousness, and self-determination.
Self-consciousness and self-determination are the universal forms of
spiritual activity. Man, as a self-conscious and self-determining spirit,
is not independent. He must find his true self beyond himself. He is
dependent upon the absolute self-consciousness and self-determination of
God. He is the child of God, and as there cannot be an absolute without
a relative, he is the relativity of the absolute. God’s nature is the
ground of man’s nature, and in God he is mirrored to himself.
In God man lives and moves and has his being. In finding God, man finds
himself. In the revelation of God is the revelation of man. God is a
spirit and man is a spirit; but man, as a relative spirit, comes to
himself in God, the absolute spirit; as the life-germ of the acorn comes
to itself in the natural conditions of soil and sky which environ it.
I.
As man is essentially spirit, he can never come to unity, only as he
comes to it in himself as a spirit. As long as he abandons himself
to mere bread, or power, or knowledge, or law, or beauty, there is
contradiction. Not in any one of these can he find full-orbed life.
These all bring nutriment to him, as a spirit, from the several spheres
to which they are variously correlated. But provision is made not only
for the sides and faculties of himself, but for the essential nature
of himself. We have seen how hunger was met by bread, the needs of
the social nature by power, intellect by truth, will by law, and the
æsthetic sense by beauty; but here we come to life, and find that love,
timeless and illimitable love, alone corresponds to it. But love can only
find its embodiment and its expression in life. Therefore, love has taken
the form of life to meet the needs of man as a spirit.
We do not propose to discuss this subject dogmatically. The writer
believes in dogmatism; but in this work the attempt has been to treat
man, and the things provided for him, scientifically. We have taken
nothing for granted, and have intended to say nothing but what was
warranted by the facts. That man is a spirit, and related to an unseen
realm, is attested by the fact that all round this world temples and
mosques, and synagogues and churches lift themselves sublimely, or
modestly, to the sky. That there is something in man that seeks provision
from beyond the range of sense and sight, no one in his senses can deny.
This deep and fundamental and irrepressible need of man’s nature finds
its correlate in love. Speaking out of the depths of his life, it is an
everlasting call for sympathy, for reconciliation, for pardon, for peace.
Love gives sympathy, insures reconciliation, grants pardon, and secures
peace. But love can only come from the unseen and eternal in the form of
life. Let us see how the love expressed in the life and sacrifice and
death of Jesus Christ, as the embodiment of divine love, is set over
against the spiritual nature of man, as its correlate; as completely as
bread is set over against hunger, or the truth against the intellect, or
as beauty is set over against the æsthetic sense. We believe this is so
in the nature of things, and will finally be taught as truth, as absolute
and unfailing as the multiplication table. Men will come to it, after
a while, not only as a dogmatic doctrine taught by the churches, but
also as absolute doctrine, taught by the constitution and needs of human
nature. The time will come when to doubt this will not simply be to write
one’s self down as mean, but as mentally unbalanced. If Jesus Christ, as
love, is the correlate of the spiritual needs of the human race, then his
life is peculiar and unique. It cannot be classed with any other life.
It cannot be measured by any rule used to measure other things or other
lives. We propose to test this life by a principle said, by scientific
men, to have universal application in this time.
II.
The doctrine of the correlation, equivalence, persistence,
transmutability and indestructibility of force, or the conservation of
energy has had vast influence upon the thought and life of our time.
It has furnished a new opening through which to behold the nature of
things. It has given to men a new working hypothesis and richer views and
conceptions of the universe and its author.
The tremendous advancement made in the material civilization of the
present is due more to this than any other scientific doctrine or
principle. According to Professor Balfour Stewart, there are eight
forms of energy or force. The energy of visible motion, visible energy
of position, heat motion, molecular separation, atomic or chemical
separation, electrical separation, electricity in motion, and radiant
energy. Now taking this earth as a complete whole, containing within
itself all these forms of energy, and so isolated from the rest of the
universe as to receive nothing from it and to add nothing to it, then the
principle of the correlation of forces asserts that the sum of all these
forces is constant.
“This does not assert that each is constant in itself, or any other of
the forms of force enumerated, for in truth they are always changing
about into each other—now some visible energy being changed into heat
or electricity, and heat or electricity being changed back again into
visible energy; but it only means that the sum of all the energies taken
together is constant. There are eight variable quantities, and it is
only asserted that their sum is constant, not by any means that they are
constant themselves.”
For the purpose of elucidating our principle in the realm of nature, we
will consider it as it applies to some of the useful forces whose effects
we can measure and whose origin we can trace and determine.
There is the force of conserved fuel. Away back in the carboniferous
period of the world’s history, there grew immense forests, which in
succeeding ages were turned under the earth, and, in the process of the
years, were changed into coal and oil and gas. These have been treasured
for untold ages in the mountains and in the bowels of the earth. Now they
are brought forth by the applied intelligence of man, to turn his wheel,
draw his car, cook his food, propel his plow, and to light his home and
his street. The force in one ton of coal is capable of accomplishing more
work in a few hours than one man could in a lifetime. All this force, as
well as that contained in the growing forests of to-day, originated in
the sun.
There is the conserved force of food. This is found primarily in the
grass, the wheat, the rice, the fruit, which grow in our fields and
orchards. The lower animals feed on these, and through the process of
digestion and assimilation, they are transmuted into blood and bone and
muscle—thus furnishing man, who stands at the top and the end of the
creative process, with a more refined higher form of food. But whether
in the shape of grass, rice, wheat, or in the more refined form of
animal flesh, these various elements of food are only so much transmuted
sunshine. Before they ever adorned the surface of our fields, or moved
in the lowing herd over the meadow, they were held in solution in the
sunshine. The food, the fuel, and the animal life of our earth are all
traceable to the sun.
There is the conserved force of flowing water. This turns the wheel,
spins the thread, gins the cotton, weaves the cloth, and grinds the corn.
All the force that water possesses for the performance of work, comes
from the sun. The warm rays of the sun, coming down on southern seas and
rivers, causes the waters thereof to evaporate, and then it is carried
on the wings of north-bound winds to a colder clime. There the diffused
waters gather themselves into clouds and fall in rain to flow down
the rivers, thus exchanging their energy of position, which they have
obtained from the sun, for the actual energy of the turning wheel.
There is also the conserved force of moving winds. By the aid of this
ships spread their sails, and pass from continent to continent with the
products of the earth. Again all the force the winds possess for the
accomplishment of work comes from the sun. The rays of the sun come
down with great intensity upon certain parts of the earth and heat the
atmosphere. Into these heated places come the winds from colder regions.
Thus currents and counter-currents are created. By putting the wheel
of the windmill into these currents this force is converted into the
ground wheat and the drawn water. Thus all the different forms of force
displayed in the growing forests, the waving harvest fields, the flying
birds, the lowing herds, the rushing railway train, the whir of the
spindle, the ring of the hammer, and the pulsating blood come directly
from the sun. The force, too, seen in all these physical, vegetable,
animal, commercial realms, is the exact equivalent of what was poured
into them from the sun. The earth contains no other force capital than
what was paid over to it by the sun. It has issued no currency of its
own, not even enough to run a watch, or to send the blood once around the
body, or even to transport a piece of bread to a starving man. All the
force our earth possesses is borrowed, and if we were to cease to borrow,
we would be bankrupt in a single day. We are to remember, too, that by
so much force as the sun has parted with to our earth, and to other
worlds which look to it for supplies, by so much has its own force been
decreased. If we knew how much force the sun had in the beginning, and
would subtract from this amount all that it has given away to the present
time, we might be able to form some estimate of its assets to-day.
We know not what the sun’s resources are. We know not by what methods
it has been replenishing its supplies of light and heat for ages past;
whether by chemical combination, meteoric impact, or condensation; we
only know by so much as it has in the ages past parted with, by so much
less force it has to-day. That it has been able to supply our world and
others like it, however, with heat and light and physical life for ages,
is not at all strange when we remember what an immense ball of fire the
sun is. It has a diameter of a million miles, in round numbers. Storms,
which travel across our world at the rate of sixty miles an hour, would
move across the surface of the sun at the rate of twenty thousand miles
an hour. The flames of a burning forest, which on our world would rise
one hundred feet in the air, on the sun would rise to the height of two
hundred thousand miles. The sun, too, has enough force on hand to supply
our earth and others with heat for untold ages yet to come, but unless
its supply is replenished, the time will come when it will be bankrupt
and nothing but a burnt out char in the heavens. This is so, because the
sun is the center of that great natural realm, the universal law of which
is the law of exclusiveness.
In accordance with this law what the sun has in the way of force the
other planets do not have, and what other planets obtain from the sun
that body has forever lost. This is only another name for the law of the
correlation of forces. This law applies not only to the force of the sun,
but to all forces on this earth which come from that body. What one
tree gathers into itself is at the expense of the general fund of force
which goes to make trees. What one bird takes into his body is at the
expense of all force which goes to make birds. What one man takes into
his physical frame is at the expense of the general fund of force which
goes to make human bodies. Whatever amount of force is contained in the
cloud, in conserved water to turn the wheel, or in conserved electricity
to carry the message, is at the expense of the general fund of force.
According to the doctrine of the correlation of forces, the rising up of
force in one place involves the subsidence of force in another place. The
amount rising up, too, is the exact equivalent of the amount subsiding.
When a rock falls from a church steeple the earth rises as much to meet
the rock, in proportion to its mass, as the rock falls to meet the earth,
in proportion to its mass. When a man shoots a rifle ball from a gun, as
much force goes back against his shoulder as goes out through the muzzle
of the gun. What the gun lacks in velocity it makes up in mass, and what
the ball lacks in mass it makes up in velocity. When a pine tree is cut
down and split into small pieces and put into an engine, just the same
amount of heat is gathered from it that was garnered from the sun in the
fifty years of its growth. This heat is also converted into an equivalent
of steam, and this steam into an equivalent amount of mechanical motion.
The sunshine, the pine tree, the heat, the steam, the mechanical
motion, are only different forms of the same thing. Scientists of the
materialistic school claim that this law holds good not only in the realm
of the natural world, but in the mental and moral, as well. Prof. Thomas
H. Huxley said, in a celebrated address in this country once, that a
speech was only so much transmuted mutton. According to Prof. Alexander
Bain, there are five chief powers, or forces in nature: one mechanical or
molar, the momentum of moving matter; the others, molecular, are embodied
in the molecules, also supposed in motion—these are light, heat, chemical
force, electricity. One member of vital energies, the nerve force, allied
to electricity, fully deserves to rank in the correlation. According to
this same distinguished authority, mind is only a refined and sublimated
form of physical force. In this view the great poems, paintings, and
literature of the world would be only so much transmuted sunshine—a
higher form of the same force we see manifested in the flying railway
train. In the one case the solidified sunshine contained in the coal is
transmuted through the furnace of the engine into mechanical motion; in
the other, the heat contained in food is transmuted through the human
brain into literature and art. Perhaps it might not be at wide variance
from the truth to assume that the force, mental or otherwise, expended
by men who spend their lives under the dominion of the natural law of
exclusiveness, may be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine of
the correlation of forces. Even mind, when earthly and low, is subject to
the bearing of the law of sin and death, which is the scriptural name for
the law of exclusiveness.
III.
It might be plausibly contended that the religious movement of the
prophet Mohammed could be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine
of the correlation of forces. It is to be remembered that the personality
of Mohammed is no more the equivalent of the vast movement which
has existed and exists to-day under his name, than the acorn is the
quantitative equivalent of the immense oak tree which has grown from it.
The acorn, plus all the oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other
forces of sky and earth which it caught and organized, is the equivalent
of the oak tree. The soil and the sky contain oaks in solution. Through
acorns these are precipitated into trees.
The mental, political, and social atmosphere of Turkey contained the
Mohammedan movement in solution before Mohammed was born. Through him it
was precipitated into Koran, mosque, prayer, and worship.
Mohammed relied for success upon the methods with which men ordinarily
succeed. He appealed to men’s love of fame, of pleasure, of conquest, of
power, of riches. He simply organized the latent aspirations, and hopes,
and fears of his countrymen into a great kingdom, essentially secular
and sensual.
In accordance with the principle of the correlation of forces, it might
be possible to account for the success of Buddha, Confucius, Cæsar,
and Bonaparte. What we wish now, is to apply this doctrine, which the
materialists claim is capable of measuring everything, from an atom to
Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” to the life and work of Christ. Granting, as we
must, that all physical force may be estimated by it, and even that the
work and thought of men, in so far as they live under the natural law of
selfishness or exclusiveness, may be estimated by it.
What we desire to inquire is, if the life and work of Christ form no
exception to its operation, as ordinarily regarded. Can we, in accordance
with this principle, account for the life and influence of Christ on the
assumption that he was only a man? Has no more force issued from the
person of Christ than subsided when only a man named Jesus was crucified?
We have seen how the forms of physical force in the shape of fuel, food,
moving waters, and winds may be traced directly to the sun. Let us
also consider some of the forms of spiritual force which are traceable
directly to the life of Christ, and inquire if they may be accounted for
as the force which comes from the sun may be, by the principle of the
convertibility of force.
IV.
There is the conserved spiritual force of Christian literature. This is
stored up in the Bibles of the world, in commentaries upon its text, in
expositions of its principles, in books illustrating its meaning. If all
the Bibles of the world, books written about the Bible—in favor of it or
against it—and all the books which have been inspired by some truth or
precept taught in the Bible, and all the books which owe their existence
directly or indirectly to the Bible, were burned up, Christendom would
be well-nigh without literature. All Bibles and all books and literature
which have grown out of the Bible owe their existence directly to Christ.
They have come as straight from him as the coal in the mountain has
come from the sun. Much force has been expended in the writing of all
these books and in printing them, binding them, circulating them. They
represent millions of dollars, ages of painful, patient thought. Into
them a marvelous amount of force has lifted itself—physical force, money
force, thought force. We are to find its equivalent. All the force that
has arisen in Christian literature has subsided at some point, and the
amount that subsided is the exact equivalent of that which has arisen. It
must be remembered, too, that distinctly Christian literature has not
made its way in the world, as have the writings of Homer and Plato, by
their affinity with man’s fancy. The wonderful interest which has ever
centered around the Bible is totally different in kind and degree from
that which centers around the works of Shakspere. Whatever there is of
literary merit, of philosophic thought, or of poetic depth in the Bible
is incidental.
There is the conserved spiritual force of Christian art. The masterpieces
in painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and architecture are Christian.
The inspiration which produced Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Handel’s
“Messiah,” Powers’ “Eve,” and St. Peter’s at Rome, has all come from
Christ. In the conception and production of these an immense amount of
the most subtle, refined force has been expended.
There is the conserved force of Christian money. This has taken the form
of church buildings, buildings for education, for orphans, for the sick,
for the wretched and the poor. There is not a great city in the world
to-day without a Christian church edifice. They are the expressions of
a great force, of which we are seeking to find the equivalent. They owe
their existence directly to the person of Christ. The millions of money
which have been spent in their erection have been because of love to
him. They are as directly related to him as the oak tree is to the sun.
If all these churches were burned down to-day, men would begin at once
the erection of better ones to take their places. The conserved force of
Christian money, then, which tends to lift itself into church edifices,
is not exhausted in those which already stand upon the earth; but just as
much as has lifted itself into brick and marble, and window, and dome,
and pinnacle is ready to take the same forms if the necessity for them
were laid upon the Christian world.
There is the conserved force of Christian home life. The force here
referred to is not manifest in the life itself, but in the form which
family life has taken in the Christian world. There is hardly a home
in Christendom to-day, but has been formed directly or indirectly with
reference to Christ. Into those places where character is formed, where
revolutions are started, where Wesleys and Gladstones are developed,
where eternal issues pend, Christ has come quietly and silently to
regulate, to dominate and control. To thus influence, regulate, and
vitally touch homes, to thus determine their form, appointment, and
character, requires a great deal of force.
There is the conserved force implied in the inception and perpetuation
of the Christian Calendar. Infidels, materialists, and atheists, in
dating their letters, pay tribute to the character of Christ in the fact
that they recognize he has ushered in a new era. Christ has claimed and
held through nearly two thousand years one day out of every week to be
devoted to his service. The day upon which he was born is celebrated in
the hearts of men and in the arts of men. To change the world’s calendar,
to inaugurate and make permanent a new date, to impel the world to set
apart a day for his worship, to furnish the world with new festivals and
holidays, has required, certainly, a vast amount of force. This we are to
trace and determine, and we are also to find its equivalent.
There is the conserved Christian force implied in the fact that Christ
has won the hearts of men. To win the disinterested love of one man takes
much force, more than most men have. To win the love of a state takes
more. But to win and to hold, through the perturbations and revolutions
of kingdoms and republics, the undying love of the best and purest men
on earth requires an infinite amount of force. This point in Christ’s
character greatly impressed the first Napoleon. Said he, “I know men.
Christ is not a man. I have seen the time when I could inspire thousands
to die for me, but it took the inspiration of my presence and the power
of my word. Since I am away from men, a prisoner on Helena, no one will
die for me. Christ, on the other hand, has been away from the world
nearly two thousand years, and yet there are millions who would die for
him. I tell you, Christ is not a man. I know men.”
V.
It would be impossible to recount all the institutions, books,
civilizations, laws, discoveries, inventions, homes and hearts, into
which the force of Christ’s life has for the past nineteen hundred
years been lifting itself. As the sun expresses itself in the meadow,
and lifts itself into the trees of the forests, so Christ has been
embodying himself in the institutions, homes, and thoughts of men. The
scientists say all force can be accounted for. When force has risen up
at one point it has subsided at another: the amount rising up being
the exact equivalent of that subsiding. Upon this principle we are
seeking to account for all this force that, coming from Christ, has
expressed itself in the domestic, social, political, and ecclesiastical
institutions of men. More has risen than can be computed by human
arithmetic, or compassed by human imagination, or comprehended by human
thought. Where did it come from? Where did it subside? At what point
did it disappear to rise again in such overwhelming volume, and such
sweeping and far-reaching influence? We go back through eighteen hundred
years. We are standing in Jerusalem. We hear conflicting reports of a
strange, daring young man. At length he is pointed out to us. There is
nothing remarkable about his appearance. He is a Jew. He was born among
the poor. He is not noted for culture. He has no social position. He has
no money. He has no political power or prestige. He has no army at his
command. He has no philosophical system. He is connected with no academy.
He is only thirty-three years old. His words are contained in no books.
They are simply in the memory of his disciples. He is misunderstood. His
own disciples do not know what to make of him. Finally he is arrested,
and tried, and condemned, and crucified. He dies between two thieves,
scorned, scoffed, buffeted, and friendless. Keep in mind the principle
we are considering. All force can be measured. No more force rises up
than subsides. Action and reaction are equal. We are seeking to account,
in accordance with this principle, for the vast amount of force Christ
has poured into the institutions and thoughts of humanity. Is this young
man’s life, seemingly so insignificant and weak, the exact equivalent
of all the churches, schools, colleges, arts, literature, homes,
governments, sacrifice, heroism, good works, martyrdom, patience, love,
and hope that have by general consent resulted from his existence in the
world? If so, was he only a man? Multiply thirty-three years by poverty,
toil, contempt, sorrow, and crucifixion, and you have one product.
Multiply nineteen hundred years by millions of churches, schools, and
homes; by millions of books, paintings, and poems; by social position,
wealth, and power; by success, triumph, and conquest; by love, mercy,
and truth; by a hold upon humanity unequaled, and by an influence on
home and thought unrivaled, and you have another product. The question
is: does one of these products seem to be the equivalent of the other?
Does not the outcome surpass by an infinite degree the income? Is not
the evolution out of all proportion to the involution? Has not a great
deal more force risen up than seemingly subsided? Is there not much more
power seemingly on this side the Cross than there was on the other?
Manifestly and clearly Christ’s life and work cannot be accounted for by
the principle of the correlation of forces.
Mohammed’s success and disciples we can understand. He succeeded by the
ordinary methods by which men succeed. He appealed to men’s love of
fame, conquest, wealth, power, pleasure. He offered men, as a reward for
their fealty to him, a great earthly kingdom, and such a heaven beyond
the grave as would regale the senses, please the fancy, and gratify the
appetites. He simply organized and applied the latent earthly forces
already existing in his countrymen. His success is in line with that
of Cæsar and Bonaparte. The kingdom which he proposed to establish was
merely an earthly, sensual kingdom. His methods were carnal, the motives
to which he appealed were sensual, and the hopes which he inspired were
carnal. Christ, on the other hand, condemned men’s love of conquest,
power, fame, riches, and pleasure. He made the conditions of discipleship
to consist in the denial of self and in the relinquishment of all
earthly hopes, gratifications, and prospects. “If you find your life in
my kingdom,” said he, “you must lose it in this.” He proposed to build
up a kingdom as wide as the world, and as lasting as eternity, without
adopting a single method or utilizing any of the means ordinarily relied
on for success. Not only did he propose a new kingdom, but to populate it
with new men, motives, hopes, conceptions, and opinions. Hence, to come
into his kingdom, men were to be made over. They were to die to self, to
the world, to pleasure. So Christ’s work and influence in the world not
only forms an exception to the principle of the correlation of forces,
but here we have an unparalleled amount of force rising up when, to all
human appearances, none subsided at all.
VI.
A poor young carpenter dies. He goes down in ignominy. Amid the jeers
and contempt of the multitude, he goes down into the grave. But from
that moment, commotion begins. Forgiveness of sin in the name of Christ
is preached; disciples are won; books are written; civilizations are
touched; movements are inaugurated; persecutions, bloody and relentless,
are waged. The fires of hate are kindled; storms from all round the
social, political, and religious sky gather, and howl, and empty their
fury upon the new movement. Nothing impedes it; fire cannot hinder it;
persecution intensifies it; death does not alarm it. Now, we submit, does
not such a movement, starting from such a source, and moving out with
such vigor, and becoming intenser and deeper as it is extended, form a
remarkable and singular exception to the principle we are considering?
Is there any rule among men by which it may be estimated and classified
and labeled? Can any human, or logical, or philosophical formula or
principle measure the multiform and widely diversified facts in this
case? Does it not form an exception to all rules and human methods of
measurements? Do we not augment the difficulties of accounting for the
work of Christ by minifying him, and calling him a mere man? Is not the
easier way to account for Christ’s work, to accord to him all that he
claims for himself and all that his disciples claimed for him. He said,
“All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.” If we accept this as
true, we can account for his work. But in this view, we will see that
his life was divine and one with the Father of us all. Then we will see
that he was the Son of God, the Word made flesh, the incarnation of the
divine mind and wisdom and power. It is impossible to account for the
life and work of Christ by the principles with which physical force and
merely human force and thought are measured. The sun is the center of the
system of nature, a system destined to end. Any system, the center of
which is gradually losing its force, cannot last. Christ is the center of
a spiritual system totally different from the system of nature. By all
the force the sun parts with to the worlds about it, by so much less has
it. It is gradually losing itself, to find itself no more forever. Christ
is pouring his force into the system of which he is the center, but by
such a process he is not losing his force, but increasing it. By losing
himself he finds himself. The universal law of the system of which he is
the center, is the law of communion. The force he gives away comes back
to him augmented by the personality of all who partake of it. Instead of
becoming poorer by giving, he becomes richer. This great truth St. Paul
saw when he said: “All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to
come, all are yours, and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”
VII.
One life has appeared among men, then, that was all love. Jesus Christ
is the only original, absolutely unselfish life that has been lived on
earth. The saints have found the secret, and strength, and inspiration of
their unselfishness and love in him. The love which matches and meets the
illimitable nature of the human spirit is embodied in a life that cannot
be measured by the ordinary rules and standards of men. The object of
which hunger is the subject, is bread; the object of which intellect is
the subject, is truth; the object of which will is the subject, is law;
the object of which the æsthetic sense is the subject, is beauty; the
object of which the spiritual nature is the subject, is Jesus Christ. The
spirit of man which has for its correlate in time, the race, has for its
correlate in eternity, the life of one in which is summed up all power,
all truth, all law, all beauty, and all love. As the embodiment of love
the human spirit finds in Christ the climate and the conditions exactly
adapted to its own realization. The plan and pattern, the invisible
framework and ideal of every man’s life is Christian. To be an oak is to
be a perfect acorn, to be an apple is to be a complete flower, to be a
Christian is to be a complete man.
_IMMORTALITY._
“How does the rivulet find its way?
How does the floweret know its day
And open its cup to catch the ray?
“I see the germ to the sunlight reach,
And the nestling knows the old bird’s speech.
I do not know who is there to teach.
“I see the hare through the thicket glide,
And the stars through the trackless spaces ride.
I do not see who is there to guide.
“He is eyes for all, who is eyes for the mole,
See motion goes to the rightful goal.
O God! I can trust for the human soul.”