BOSTON, _June 7, 1899_.
Editor's Table.
_AN OLD-FASHIONED MORAL._
Voltaire's Candide is not a book that can be recommended for general
reading; yet it contains perhaps as good a moral as could easily be
found in a wide range of books aiming more distinctly at edification.
The hero, after many vicissitudes and copious experience of the
deceitfulness of riches and the miseries of an ill-regulated life,
made the blessed discovery that peace and health and independence were
to be obtained by the industrious cultivation of a small piece of
ground. He had a friend called Martin who associated himself with him
in his agricultural labors, but who had rather a fine talent for
discussing abstract questions. Candide would listen to him for a
while, but never allowed him to get very far without breaking in with
the observation, "Mais surtout il faut cultiver notre jardin" ("But
above everything else we must cultivate our garden"). Here was safety,
here was balm for painful recollections, here was about the best that
the world had it in its power to give; and Candide, chastised by
misfortune, wanted to stick to that.
This is an age of copious and unending discussion of social and
political problems. Discussion is well in its way; but perhaps the
problems would not be so acute if there was less discussion and more
cultivating of gardens. It may indeed be said, with no small degree of
plausibility, that the greed to be rich, the unwillingness, so to
speak, to cultivate a garden which only promises a moderate reward, is
at the bottom of a large part of our troubles. Wisdom cries aloud and
tells the world that happiness is not to be found in riches; but the
cry is little heeded. The whole lesson of higher education is that
happiness springs from within and not from without; but thousands take
what they can of the higher education while declining the lesson.
Science unlocks a world of beauty and wonder, and offers to the mind a
constant succession of interesting subjects of contemplation; but
thousands again ask nothing of science except to show them the way to
wealth. Precisely similar in a multitude of cases is the demand made
of art and literature. It is well-nigh a century since Wordsworth
lamented the decay of "plain living and high thinking." Have the
succeeding years brought any improvement in this respect? It is much
to be feared they have not. Wealth is, if possible, more than ever the
ideal of society, and plain living is terribly at a discount.
We believe, however, that in the deliberate choice of plain living by
an influential portion of society there lies a greater potency of
social reform than in all the schemes of socialistic reconstruction.
The most hurtful thing in the world to-day is the false glamour of
wealth. It is against this evil influence that we want an
insurrection, not against capital as such. Weaken the fascination of
wealth, and, in the same degree that you do so, you increase the moral
responsibility of those who are its possessors. The luxury of the
present age has run to a dangerous extreme. Advice in such a matter
may seem idle, but the discovery that Candide made is one that the
world at large must make some day. True happiness is the natural
accompaniment of honest industry and moderate living. Such conditions
make high thinking possible, and give a savor to all enjoyments.
There have been times when men, to save their souls, would go forth
into the wilderness or the desert. Such sacrifices are not needed in
the present day; there is a very respectable measure of salvation to
be won in cultivating a garden.
_THE TROUBLES OF ORTHODOXY._
The thought of the age has now reached a point of development at which
it has become almost impossible for any man of trained intellect to
say that he receives on authority pure and simple any statement which
admits or should admit of direct verification--for example, any
statement dealing with matters of a historical or scientific
character. This, if we mistake not, is the true secret of the troubles
over doctrinal questions which have lately broken out in more than one
division of the Christian Church. It is not so much that there has
been a revolt against doctrines as such, as that a need is felt by
thinking and cultivated men to seek for higher grounds of belief than
those hitherto deemed sufficient. This has led to a certain
generalization of belief, if we may so call it, which to less
cultivated minds looks almost like an abandonment of the most
essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Such a view of the matter,
however, we hold to be entirely erroneous. The men we are thinking
of--and Dr. Briggs and Bishop Potter may be taken as conspicuous
examples--have the interests of religion and of their fellow-men at
heart. They do not wish to force upon others a mode of looking at
religious questions for which they are not prepared; but, for their
own part, they find it necessary to restate the articles of their
religious faith in terms which do not absolutely conflict with the
principles of reason. This rectification of terms is imposed in part
by the conditions of thought in the modern world, but to an equal
extent at least by what may be called an inward expansion of the
doctrines themselves. Who that holds any truth, scientific or other,
does not feel impelled to seek for it continually a wider
interpretation and application? Not otherwise is it, we hold, with
religious doctrines; they have their own law of growth and
development, and he who would arrest the process condemns them to
atrophy and decay.
It is charged against both the scholars we have mentioned that they
speak of the Bible as literature, and say that in determining its
meaning we must keep in view the same class of considerations which
would guide us in dealing with other literary monuments. There is
nothing in this which need alarm any thoughtful person. It would be
doing less than justice to the Bible to deny that many parts of it are
literature of a very high order; and it would be doing less than
justice to our own intellects to deny that the conception of the Bible
as literature is a great help to its correct interpretation. Religion,
in the view of such men as we have mentioned, does not depend upon the
meaning given to a text or the acceptance or rejection of any specific
statement of fact. There is nothing specially "religious" in believing
that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul, or that the
adventures of Jonah were precisely as described in the book that bears
his name. Grant that the organ of religious apprehension is faith, yet
each age must settle for itself the question as to what is the proper
scope of faith and what of reason. In the present day reason can deal
with many things which at one time were thought to be entirely within
the domain of faith, and it would be rash to say that the frontier has
even yet received its final rectification. If we rightly understand
the position of Dr. Briggs and Bishop Potter, they hold that religion
is essentially an attitude of mind and heart, a seeing of the
invisible, an instinctive recognition of a supreme moral authority, a
sense that every human being is called to nothing less than holiness
of life. They reverence the Scriptures because in them, as in no other
body of writings in the world, the realities of religion are both
expressed and implied. They do not demand of the Bible perfect
agreement with either scientific or historic truth; they are content
if they find in it the spiritual basis of human life, a scheme of
thought that links the individual human being with an infinite origin
and an infinite destiny. From their standpoint the value of the Bible
for the highest moral purposes would in no way be increased if every
word in it which touches on scientific or historical questions had the
seal of all the academies in the Old World and the New.
It is not a difficult thing, nor does it require much wisdom, to harry
a man whose independent thinking and moral earnestness have forced him
to take a different attitude toward some great question from that
which is adopted by the multitude. It is easy to present his views in
an invidious light, but a more useful task would be to show that all
that is essential and precious in religious belief can exist as well
in a philosophical as in a popular form. With such a thesis it may not
be quite so easy to "score," but it is a pity when the standards of
the reporters' room invade the desk of the literary or theological
editor. It is upon such men as we have mentioned, men of competent
scholarship and earnest spirit, that the task is laid of purifying and
liberating the religious consciousness of the age; and we do not
hesitate to say that when, from the vantage height of modern
knowledge, they affirm with deep conviction the indestructibleness of
the religious sentiment and the everlasting reality of its object,
they render a service which, from a religious point of view, can not
be overestimated.
Scientific Literature.