CONCLUSION
+A personal word.+--The task which has occupied the greater part of my
winter resting time has now been accomplished, as far as opportunity
affords. What has been said in these pages is no more than an outline
statement of the teaching which has been given from the City Temple
pulpit ever since I came into it. There is not a single thought in
this book with which my own people are not already quite familiar, and
chapter and verse for it can be produced from my published sermons
which have been appearing week by week for years past in the _Christian
Commonwealth_ and other periodicals. If space had permitted, I should
like to have said much more, for necessarily many phases of the subject
have had to be left untouched; it has only been possible to deal with
those of fundamental importance. For example, I should like to have
included some examination of the great question of Miracles, the place
of Prayer in Christian experience, and the value and significance of
Biblical Criticism. But as it has not been possible to do this I must
add a word or two to indicate my position in regard to these matters.
+Miracle.+--It seems probable that before long we shall see a
rehabilitation of belief in the credibility of certain kinds of
miracle, and that this rehabilitation will proceed from the side of
psychical science. Already there are signs that this rehabilitation is
on the way. The power of mind over matter is being recognised for
therapeutic purposes, for instance, in a way hitherto undreamed of, and
is receiving a large and increasing measure of attention from the
medical profession. This appears to me to throw a considerable amount
of light upon the healing ministry of Jesus, which, as the late
Professor A. B. Bruce has pointed out, rests upon as good historical
ground as the best-accredited parts of the teaching. Given a time and
a mental atmosphere in which men expected miracles of this sort, and
given a personality of such wonderful magnetic force as that of Jesus,
such miracles would be sure to happen. That they did not happen apart
from such conditions is evident from such hints as the statement that,
"He could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief." There
are other kinds of miracle recorded in scripture which are not so
easily credible, but I am not always prepared to brush them aside as
mere childish fancies. As a rule it will be found that they belong to
the poetry of religious experience, and that some valuable truth is
contained in this particular form of statement. To this order belong
the accounts about the horses and chariots of fire on the hillside
round about Elisha, the whirlwind in which Elijah ascended to heaven,
and Jesus walking on the sea. These accounts are forms in which the
oriental imagination is, even to-day, wont to clothe truths too great
for prosaic statement; they are poetry, not history, and the western
mind ought to make allowance for the fact. Sometimes we can discern in
scripture records of an event, which to the stolid western imagination
seems utterly incredible, a genuine historical truth. Such, for
instance, are the passage of the Red Sea--a stirring and dramatic
incident, thoroughly well told--and Joshua commanding the sun and moon
to stand still. In the latter case we have two lines of poetry from a
book which has been lost, and a comparison with similar poetry in
almost any literature gives us a clew to its meaning. The poet
represents the old warrior as declaring in magnificent style that the
sun of Israel shall not go down, and that day and night shall be alike
to him until her enemies are discomfited. Any reader with a shred of
sympathetic imagination ought to be able to feel the force of the
sentiment which provoked this utterance without either accepting or
rejecting it as a literal statement of fact; the best things which have
been written in the books of the world are seldom literal and exact
statements of fact. It has been well pointed out that myth and legend
are truer than history, for they take us to the inside of things,
whereas history only shows us the outside.
+Prayer.+--Prayer is a vital necessity to religious experience, and
without it no religious experience has ever existed or ever can. It is
not primarily petition but communion with God. Our intercourse with
our friends does not chiefly consist in asking them for things! But
when communion does become petition, there is a real place for it as
well as for the answer to such prayer. It is not too much to say that
no true prayer has ever gone without its answer. This is quite
consistent with the assertion that prayer does not change God; it only
affords Him opportunity. It is impossible to improve on what God
already desires for us before we pray, but upon our prayer depends the
realisation of that desire. Everything that the soul can possibly need
is present beforehand in the eternal reality, and the prayer of faith
is like going into a treasure-house and bringing forth from what is
contained therein all that the soul needs day by day. Prayer,
therefore, cannot be too definite, but it should be as unselfish as the
worshipper can make it in order that the highest can operate in
response. The same law holds good in this as in all other activities
of the soul; selfishness draws away from the source of life, whereas
love is instantly at one with infinity. I question whether many people
realise the enormous value of definite and systematic prayer; it is the
secret of all spiritual power. Everything that we can possibly want is
waiting for us in the bounty of God, and what we have to do is to go
and take it. "Believe that ye have received them and ye shall have
them."
+The Bible and the young.+--One thing that urgently needs to be done
for the young people in our Sunday-schools and various Christian
societies all over the world is to issue a series of well-written
popular manuals presenting in succinct form the best results of
Biblical Criticism. The way the Bible is taught to young people at
present is most regrettable, for in after years it leads them to doubt
and distrust the very foundations of Christianity. If the teachers
only had a little more intelligent acquaintance with the sources of the
scriptures, this danger would be avoided and the Bible would become a
far more interesting and helpful book both to young and old. At
present it is interpreted by many people in a way which is an insult to
the intelligence and harmful to the moral sense. Will anyone seriously
maintain that the trickeries of Jacob and the butcheries following the
Israelitish invasion of Canaan, not to speak of the obscenities which
are to be found in so many parts of the Old Testament, are healthy
reading for children or a mark of divine inspiration? Is it not time
we adopted the more excellent way of facing the truth about the Bible
records and presenting what is valuable in such a way as to help and
not to hinder the growth of a true knowledge of the relations of God
and man?
In conclusion, let me say emphatically that no one but myself is
responsible for a single word in this book. Among the many wild and
unjust criticisms which have been published concerning my views, none
is wider of the mark than that I have borrowed from this man or that in
my statement of them. I am not conscious of owing a scintilla of my
theology to any living man. In so far as it coincides with anyone
else's views I am thankful, for it shows that the same eternal Spirit
of Truth is speaking to others than myself. But I hope I may be
permitted to say with due humility that in thinking out my position, "I
conferred not with flesh and blood." Perhaps some people will maintain
that this makes my teaching all the worse, but if so I cannot help it.
It can hardly be denied that in its main bearing, to say no more, it is
seen to be rising spontaneously in every part of the civilised world.
Again, no thinker can ever succeed in completely closing the circle of
his system of thought, and I cannot claim to be an exception. But I
trust it will be seen that what is contained in this book is at least a
self-consistent whole: every arc of the circle implies every other. It
only remains to reiterate my conviction that the movement represented
by the New Theology is only incidentally theological at all; it is
primarily a moral and spiritual movement. It is one symptom of a great
religious awakening which in the end will re-inspire civilisation with
a living faith in God and the spiritual meaning of life. If what I am
trying to do can contribute in any way toward this grand result, I
shall be humbly thankful to the Giver of all good.