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diff --git a/16076-8.txt b/16076-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..403384e --- /dev/null +++ b/16076-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6687 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Preaching and Paganism, by Albert Parker Fitch + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Preaching and Paganism + +Author: Albert Parker Fitch + +Release Date: June 16, 2005 [EBook #16076] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PREACHING AND PAGANISM *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, William Flis, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +PREACHING AND PAGANISM + + +BY + +ALBERT PARKER FITCH + +PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGION IN AMHERST COLLEGE + + +WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +THE COLLEGE COURSE AND THE PREPARATION FOR LIFE + +CAN THE CHURCH SURVIVE IN THE CHANGING ORDER? + + +PUBLISHED ON THE FOUNDATION ESTABLISHED IN MEMORY OF JAMES WESLEY +COOPER OF THE CLASS OF 1865, YALE COLLEGE + +THE FORTY-SIXTH SERIES OF THE LYMAN BEECHER LECTURESHIP ON PREACHING +IN YALE UNIVERSITY + + +NEW HAVEN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXX + +COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS + +FIRST PUBLISHED, 1920 + + + + +THE JAMES WESLEY COOPER MEMORIAL PUBLICATION FUND + + +The present volume is the fourth work published by the Yale University +Press on the James Wesley Cooper Memorial Publication Fund. This +Foundation was established March 30, 1918, by a gift to Yale +University from Mrs. Ellen H. Cooper in memory of her husband, Rev. +James Wesley Cooper, D.D., who died in New York City, March 16, 1916. +Dr. Cooper was a member of the Class of 1865, Yale College, and for +twenty-five years pastor of the South Congregational Church of New +Britain, Connecticut. For thirty years he was a corporate member of +the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and from 1885 +until the time of his death was a Fellow of Yale University, serving +on the Corporation as one of the Successors of the Original Trustees. + + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + + +PREFACE + + +The chief, perhaps the only, commendation of these chapters is that +they pretend to no final solution of the problem which they discuss. +How to assert the eternal and objective reality of that Presence, the +consciousness of Whom is alike the beginning and the end, the motive +and the reward, of the religious experience, is not altogether clear +in an age that, for over two centuries, has more and more rejected the +transcendental ideas of the human understanding. Yet the consequences +of that rejection, in the increasing individualism of conduct which +has kept pace with the growing subjectivism of thought, are now +sufficiently apparent and the present plight of our civilization +is already leading its more characteristic members, the political +scientists and the economists, to reëxamine and reappraise the +concepts upon which it is founded. It is a similar attempt to +scrutinize and evaluate the significant aspects of the interdependent +thought and conduct of our day from the standpoint of religion which +is here attempted. Its sole and modest purpose is to endeavor to +restore some neglected emphases, to recall to spiritually minded men +and women certain half-forgotten values in the religious experience +and to add such observations regarding them as may, by good fortune, +contribute something to that future reconciling of the thought +currents and value judgments of our day to these central and precious +facts of the religious life. + +Many men and minds have contributed to these pages. Such sources of +suggestion and insight have been indicated wherever they could be +identified. In especial I must record my grateful sense of obligation +to Professor Irving Babbitt's _Rousseau and Romanticism_. The chapter +on Naturalism owes much to its brilliant and provocative discussions. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + Preface 11 + + I. The Learner, the Doer and the Seer 15 + + II. The Children of Zion and the Sons of Greece 40 + + III. Eating, Drinking and Being Merry 72 + + IV. The Unmeasured Gulf 102 + + V. Grace, Knowledge, Virtue 131 + + VI. The Almighty and Everlasting God 157 + + VII. Worship as the Chief Approach to Transcendence 184 + + VIII. Worship and the Discipline of Doctrine 209 + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +THE LEARNER, THE DOER AND THE SEER + + +The first difficulty which confronts the incumbent of the Lyman +Beecher Foundation, after he has accepted the appalling fact that he +must hitch his modest wagon, not merely to a star, but rather to an +entire constellation, is the delimitation of his subject. There are +many inquiries, none of them without significance, with which he might +appropriately concern himself. For not only is the profession of the +Christian ministry a many-sided one, but scales of value change +and emphases shift, within the calling itself, with our changing +civilization. The mediaeval world brought forth, out of its need, the +robed and mitered ecclesiastic; a more recent world, pursuant to its +genius, demanded the ethical idealist. Drink-sodden Georgian England +responded to the open-air evangelism of Whitefield and Wesley; the +next century found the Established Church divided against itself +by the learning and culture of the Oxford Movement. Sometimes +a philosopher and theologian, like Edwards, initiates the Great +Awakening; sometimes an emotional mystic like Bernard can arouse +all Europe and carry men, tens of thousands strong, over the Danube +and over the Hellespont to die for the Cross upon the burning sands +of Syria; sometimes it is the George Herberts, in a hundred rural +parishes, who make grace to abound through the intimate and precious +ministrations of the country parson. Let us, therefore, devote this +chapter to a review of the several aspects of the Christian ministry, +in order to set in its just perspective the one which we have chosen +for these discussions and to see why it seems to stand, for the +moment, in the forefront of importance. Our immediate question is, +Who, on the whole, is the most needed figure in the ministry today? +Is it the professional ecclesiastic, backed with the authority and +prestige of a venerable organization? Is it the curate of souls, +patient shepherd of the silly sheep? Is it the theologian, the +administrator, the prophet--who? + +One might think profitably on that first question in these very +informal days. We are witnessing a breakdown of all external forms of +authority which, while salutary and necessary, is also perilous. Not +many of us err, just now, by overmagnifying our official status. +Many of us instead are terribly at ease in Zion and might become less +assured and more significant by undertaking the subjective task of +a study in ministerial personality. "What we are," to paraphrase +Emerson, "speaks so loud that men cannot hear what we say." Every +great calling has its characteristic mental attitude, the unwritten +code of honor of the group, without a knowledge of which one could +scarcely be an efficient or honorable practitioner within it. One of +the perplexing and irritating problems of the personal life of the +preacher today has to do with the collision between the secular +standards of his time, this traditional code of his class, and +the requirements of his faith. Shall he acquiesce in the smug +conformities, the externalized procedures of average society, somewhat +pietized, and join that large company of good and ordinary people, +of whom Samuel Butler remarks, in _The Way of All Flesh_, that they +would be "equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, +or at seeing it practised?" There are ministers who do thus content +themselves with being merely superrespectable. Shall he exalt the +standards of his calling, accentuate the speech and dress, the code +and manners of his group, the historic statements of his faith, at the +risk of becoming an official, a "professional"? Or does he possess the +insight, and can he acquire the courage, to follow men like Francis +of Assisi or Father Damien and adopt the Christian ethic and thus join +that company of the apostles and martyrs whose blood is the seed of +the church? A good deal might be said today on the need of this sort +of personal culture in the ministerial candidate. But, provocative and +significant though the question is, it is too limited in scope, too +purely subjective in nature, to suit the character and the urgency of +the needs of this moment. + +Again, every profession has the prized inheritance of its own +particular and gradually perfected human skill. An interesting study, +then, would be the analysis of that rich content of human insights, +the result of generations of pastoral experience, which form the +background of all great preaching. No man, whether learned or pious, +or both, is equipped for the pulpit without the addition of that +intuitive discernment, that quick and varied appreciation, that sane +and tolerant knowledge of life and the world, which is the reward +given to the friends and lovers of mankind. For the preacher deals not +with the shallows but the depths of life. Like his Master he must be a +great humanist. To make real sermons he has to look, without dismay or +evasion, far into the heart's impenetrable recesses. He must have had +some experience with the absolutism of both good and evil. I think +preachers who regard sermons on salvation as superfluous have not had +much experience with either. They belong to that large world of the +intermediates, neither positively good nor bad, who compose the mass +of the prosperous and respectable in our genteel civilization. Since +they belong to it they cannot lead it. And certainly they who do +not know the absolutism of evil cannot very well understand sinners. +Genuine satans, as Milton knew, are not weaklings and traitors who +have declined from the standards of a respectable civilization. They +are positive and impressive figures pursuing and acting up to their +own ideal of conduct, not fleeing from self-accepted retribution or +falling away from a confessed morality of ours. Evil is a force even +more than a folly; it is a positive agent busily building away at the +City of Dreadful Night, constructing its insolent and scoffing society +within the very precincts of the City of God. + +He must know, then, that evil and suffering are not temporary elements +of man's evolution, just about to be eliminated by the new reform, +the last formula, the fresh panacea. To those who have tasted grief +and smelt the fire such easy preaching and such confident solutions +are a grave offense. They know that evil is an integral part of our +universe; suffering an enduring element of the whole. So he must +preach upon the chances and changes of this mortal world, or go to +the house of shame or the place of mourning, knowing that there is +something past finding out in evil, something incommunicable about +true sorrow. They are not external things, alien to our natures, that +happen one day from without, and may perhaps be avoided, and by and +by are gone. No; that which makes sorrow, sorrow, and evil, evil, is +their naturalness; they well up from within, part of the very texture +of our consciousness. He knows you can never express them, for truly +to do that you would have to express and explain the entire world. +It is not easy then to interpret the evil and suffering which are not +external and temporary, but enduring and a part of the whole. + +So the preacher is never dealing with plain or uncomplicated matters. +It is his business to perceive the mystery of iniquity in the saint +and to recognize the mystery of godliness in the sinner. It is his +business to revere the child and yet watch him that he may make a +man of him. He must say, so as to be understood, to those who balk at +discipline, and rail at self-repression, and resent pain: you have +not yet begun to live nor made the first step toward understanding the +universe and yourselves. To avoid discipline and to blench at pain is +to evade life. There are limitations, occasioned by the evil and the +suffering of the world, in whose repressions men find fulfillment. +When you are honest with yourself you will know what Dante meant when +he said: + + "And thou shalt see those who + Contented are within the fire; + Because they hope to come, + When e'er it may be, to the blessed people."[1] + +It is his business, also, to be the comrade of his peers, and yet +speak to them the truth in love; his task to understand the bitterness +and assuage the sorrows of old age. I suppose the greatest influence +a preacher ever exercises, and a chief source of the material and +insight of his preaching, is found in this intimate contact with +living and suffering, divided and distracted men and women. When +strong men blench with pain and exquisite grief stirs within us at +the sight and we can endure naught else but to suffer with them, when +youth is blurred with sin, and gray heads are sick with shame and we, +then, want to die and cry, O God! forgive and save them or else blot +me out of Thy book of life--for who could bear to live in a world +where such things are the end!--then, through the society of sorrow, +and the holy comradeship in shame, we begin to find the Lord and to +understand both the kindness and the justice of His world. In the +moment when sympathy takes the bitterness out of another's sorrow and +my suffering breaks the captivity of my neighbor's sin--then, when +because "together," with sinner and sufferer, we come out into the +quiet land of freedom and of peace, we perceive how the very heart of +God, upon which there we know we rest, may be found in the vicarious +suffering and sacrifice called forth by the sorrow and the evil +of mankind. Then we can preach the Gospel. Because then we dimly +understand why men have hung their God upon the Cross of Christ! + +[Footnote 1: _The Divine Comedy: Hell_; canto I.] + +Is it not ludicrous, then, to suppose that a man merely equipped with +professional scholarship, or contented with moral conformities, can +minister to the sorrow and the mystery, the mingled shame and glory of +a human being? This is why the average theologue, in his first parish, +is like the well-meaning but meddling engineer endeavoring with clumsy +tools and insensitive fingers to adjust the delicate and complicated +mechanism of a Genevan watch. And here is one of the real reasons why +we deprecate men entering our calling, without both the culture of +a liberal education and the learning of a graduate school. Clearly, +therefore, one real task of such schools and their lectureships is to +offer men wide and gracious training in the art of human contacts, +so that their lives may be lifted above Pharisaism and moral +self-consciousness, made acquainted with the higher and comprehensive +interpretations of the heart and mind of our race. For only thus can +they approach life reverently and humbly. Only thus will they revere +the integrity of the human spirit; only thus can they regard it with +a magnanimous and catholic understanding and measure it not by the +standards of temperamental or sectarian convictions, but by what +is best and highest, deepest and holiest in the race. No one needs +more than the young preacher to be drawn out of the range of narrow +judgments, of exclusive standards and ecclesiastical traditions and to +be flung out among free and sensitive spirits, that he may watch their +workings, master their perceptions, catch their scale of values. + +A discussion, then, dealing with this aspect of our problem, would +raise many and genuine questions for us. There is the more room for it +in this time of increasing emphasis upon machinery when even ministers +are being measured in the terms of power, speed and utility. These are +not real ends of life; real ends are unity, repose, the imaginative +and spiritual values which make for the release of self, with its +by-product of happiness. In such days, then, when the old-time +pastor-preacher is becoming as rare as the former general +practitioner; when the lines of division between speaker, educator, +expert in social hygiene, are being sharply drawn--as though new +methods insured of themselves fresh inspiration, and technical +knowledge was identical with spiritual understanding--it would be +worth while to dwell upon the culture of the pastoral office and to +show that ingenuity is not yet synonymous with insight, and that, in +our profession at least, card-catalogues cannot take the place of +the personal study of the human heart. But many discussions on this +Foundation, and recently those of Dr. Jowett, have already dealt with +this sort of analysis. Besides, today, when not merely the preacher, +but the very view of the world that produced him, is being threatened +with temporary extinction, such a theme, poetic and rewarding though +it is, becomes irrelevant and parochial. + +Or we might turn to the problem of technique, that professional +equipment for his task as a sermonizer and public speaker which is +partly a native endowment and partly a laborious acquisition on the +preacher's part. Such was President Tucker's course on _The Making +and Unmaking of the Preacher_. Certainly observations on professional +technique, especially if they should include, like his, acute +discussion of the speaker's obligation to honesty of thinking, no less +than integrity of conduct; of the immorality of the pragmatic standard +of mere effectiveness or immediate efficiency in the selection of +material; of the aesthetic folly and ethical dubiety of simulated +extempore speaking and genuinely impromptu prayers, would not be +superfluous. But, on the other hand, we may hope to accomplish +much of this indirectly today. Because there is no way of handling +specifically either the content of the Christian message or the +problem of the immediate needs and temper of those to whom it is to +be addressed, without reference to the kind of personality, and the +nature of the tools at his disposal, which is best suited to commend +the one and to interpret the other. + +Hence such a discussion as this ought, by its very scale of values--by +the motives that inform it and the ends that determine it--to condemn +thereby the insincere and artificial speaker, or that pseudo-sermon +which is neither as exposition, an argument nor a meditation but a +mosaic, a compilation of other men's thoughts, eked out by impossibly +impressive or piously sentimental anecdotes, the whole glued together +by platitudes of the Martin Tupper or Samuel Smiles variety. It is +certainly an obvious but greatly neglected truth that simplicity +and candor in public speaking, largeness of mental movement, what +Phillips Brooks called direct utterance of comprehensive truths, are +indispensable prerequisites for any significant ethical or spiritual +leadership. But, taken as a main theme, this third topic, like the +others, seems to me insufficiently inclusive to meet our present +exigencies. It deals more with the externals than with the heart of +our subject. + +Again we might address ourselves to the ethical and practical +aspects of preaching and the ministry. Taking largely for granted +our understanding of the Gospel, we might concern ourselves with its +relations to society, the detailed implications for the moral and +economic problems of our social and industrial order. Dean Brown, in +_The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit_, and Dr. Coffin in _In a +Day of Social Rebuilding_, have so enriched this Foundation. Moreover, +this is, at the moment, an almost universally popular treatment of +the preacher's opportunity and obligation. One reason, therefore, +for not choosing this approach to our task is that the preacher's +attention, partly because of the excellence of these and other +books and lectures, and partly because of the acuteness of the +political-industrial crisis which is now upon us, is already focused +upon it. + +Besides, our present moment is changing with an ominous rapidity. And +one is not sure whether the immediate situation, as distinguished from +that of even a few years ago, calls us to be concerned chiefly with +the practical and ethical aspects of our mission, urgent though the +need and critical the pass, to which the abuses of the capitalistic +system have brought both European and American society. In this day of +those shifting standards which mark the gradual transference of power +from one group to another in the community, and the merging of a +spent epoch in a new order, neither the chief opportunity nor the most +serious peril of religious leadership is met by fresh and energetic +programs of religion in action. In such days, our chief gift to the +world cannot be the support of any particular reforms or the alliance +with any immediate ethical or economic movement. For these things at +best would be merely the effects of religion. And it is not religion +in its relations, nor even in its expression in character--it is the +thing in itself that this age most needs. What men are chiefly asking +of life at this moment is not, What ought we to do? but the deeper +question, What is there we can believe? For they know that the answer +to this question would show us what we ought to do. + +Nor do our reform alliances and successive programs and crusades +always seem to me to proceed from any careful estimate of the +situation as a whole or to be conceived in the light of comprehensive +Christian principle. Instead, they sometimes seem to draw their +inspiration more from the sense of the urgent need of presenting to an +indifferent or disillusioned world some quick and tangible evidence +of a continuing moral vigor and spiritual passion to which the deeper +and more potent witnesses are absent. It is as though we thought the +machinery of the church would revolve with more energy if geared into +the wheels of the working world. But that world and we do not draw +our power from the same dynamo. And surely in a day of profound +and widespread mental ferment and moral restlessness, some more +fundamental gift than this is asked of us. + +If, therefore, these chapters pay only an incidental attention +to the church's social and ethical message, it is partly because +our attention is, at this very moment, largely centered upon this +important, yet secondary matter, and more because there lies beneath +it a yet more urgent and inclusive task which confronts the spokesman +of organized religion. + +You will expect me then to say that we are to turn to some speculative +and philosophic study, such as the analysis of the Christian idea in +its world relationships, some fresh statement of the Gospel, either by +way of apologia for inherited concepts, or as attempting to make a new +receptacle for the living wine, which has indeed burst the most of +its ancient bottles. Such was Principal Fairbairn's monumental task in +_The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_ and also Dr. Gordon's in his +distinguished discussions in _The Ultimate Conceptions of Faith_. + +Here, certainly, is an endeavor which is always of primary importance. +There is an abiding peril, forever crouching at the door of ancient +organizations, that they shall seek refuge from the difficulties of +thought in the opportunities of action. They need to be continually +reminded that reforms begin in the same place where abuses do, +namely, in the notion of things; that only just ideas can, in the +long run, purify conduct; that clear thinking is the source of +all high and sustained feeling. I wish that we might essay the +philosopher-theologian's task. This generation is hungry for +understanding; it perishes for lack of knowledge. One reason for +the indubitable decline of the preacher's power is that we have been +culpably indifferent in maintaining close and friendly alliances +between the science and the art, the teachers and the practitioners of +religion. Few things would be more ominous than to permit any further +widening of the gulf which already exists between these two. Never +more than now does the preacher need to be reminded of what Marcus +Aurelius said: "Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also shall be +thyself; for the soul is dyed by its thoughts." + +But such an undertaking, calling for wide and exact scholarship, large +reserves of extra-professional learning, does not primarily belong +to a discussion within the department of practical theology. Besides +which there is a task, closely allied to it, but creative rather than +critical, prophetic rather than philosophic, which does fall within +the precise area of this field. I mean the endeavor to describe +the mind and heart of our generation, appraise the significant +thought-currents of our time. This would be an attempt to give some +description of the chief impulses fermenting in contemporary society, +to ask what relation they hold to the Christian principle, and to +inquire what attitude toward them our preaching should adopt. If it be +true that what is most revealing in any age is its regulative ideas, +then what is more valuable for the preacher than to attempt the +understanding of his generation through the defining of its ruling +concepts? And it is this audacious task which, for two reasons, we +shall presume to undertake. + +The first reason is that it is appropriate both to the temperament +and the training of the preacher. There are three grand divisions, +or rather determining emphases, by which men may be separated into +vocational groups. To begin with, there is the man of the scientific +or intellectual type. He has a passion for facts and a strong sense of +their reality. He moves with natural ease among abstract propositions, +is both critical of, and fertile in, theories; indicates his essential +distinction in his love of the truth for the truth's sake. He looks +first to the intrinsic reasonableness of any proposition; tends to +judge both men and movements not by traditional or personal values, +but by a detached and disinterested appraisal of their inherent worth. +He is often a dogmatist, but this fault is not peculiar to him, he +shares it with the rest of mankind. He is sometimes a literalist and +sometimes a slave to logic, more concerned with combating the crude +or untenable form of a proposition than inquiring with sympathetic +insight into the worth of its substance. But these things are +perversions of his excellencies, defects of his virtues. His +characteristic qualities are mental integrity, accuracy of statement, +sanity of judgment, capacity for sustained intellectual toil. Such +men are investigators, scholars; when properly blended with the +imaginative type they become inventors and teachers. They make good +theologians and bad preachers. + +Then there are the practical men, beloved of our American life. Both +their feet are firmly fixed upon the solid ground. They generally +know just where they are, which is not surprising, for they do not, +for the most part, either in the world of mind or spirit, frequent +unusual places. The finespun speculations of the philosophers and the +impractical dreams of the artist make small appeal to them; the world +they live in is a sharply defined and clearly lighted and rather +limited place. They like to say to this man come and he cometh, and to +that man go and he goeth. They are enamored of offices, typewriters, +telegrams, long-distance messages, secretaries, programs, conferences +and drives. Getting results is their goal; everything is judged by the +criterion of effective action; they are instinctive and unconscious +pragmatists. They make good cheer leaders at football games in their +youth and impressive captains of industry in their old age. Their +virtues are wholesome, if obvious; they are good mixers, have shrewd +judgment, immense physical and volitional energy. They understand that +two and two make four. They are rarely saints but, unlike many of +us who once had the capacity for sainthood, they are not dreadful +sinners. They are the tribe of which politicians are born but, when +they are blended with imaginative and spiritual gifts, they become +philanthropists and statesmen, practical servants of mankind. They +make good, if conservative, citizens; kind, if uninspiring, husbands +and deplorable preachers. + +Then there are those fascinating men of feeling and imagination, those +who look into their own hearts and write, those to whom the inner +dominions which the spirit conquers for itself become a thousand-fold +more real than the earth whereon they stamp their feet. These are the +literary or the creative folk. Their passion is not so much to know +life as to enjoy it; not to direct it, but to experience it; not even +to make understanding of it an end, but only a means to interpreting +it. They do not, as a rule, thirst for erudition, and they are +indifferent to those manipulations of the externals of life which +are dear to the lovers of executive power. They know less but they +understand more than their scholastic brethren. As a class they are +sometimes disreputable but nearly always unworldly; more distinguished +by an intuitive and childlike than by an ingenious or sophisticated +quality of mind. Ideas and facts are perceived by them not abstractly +nor practically, but in their typical or symbolic, hence their +pictorial and transmissible, aspects. They read dogma, whether +theological or other, in the terms of a living process, unconsciously +translating it, as they go along, out of its cold propositions into +its appropriate forms of feeling and needs and satisfactions. + +The scientist, then, is a critic, a learner who wants to analyze and +dissect; the man of affairs is a director and builder and wants to +command and construct; the man of this group is a seer. He is a lover +and a dreamer; he watches and broods over life, profoundly feeling it, +enamored both of its shame and of its glory. The intolerable poignancy +of existence is bittersweet to his mouth; he craves to incarnate, +to interpret its entire human process, always striving to pierce to +its center, to capture and express its inexpressible ultimate. He +is an egotist but a valuable one, acutely aware of the depths and +immensities of his own spirit and of its significant relations to +this seething world without. Thus it is both himself and a new vision +of life, in terms of himself, that he desires to project for his +community. + +The form of that vision will vary according to the nature of the +tools, the selection of material, the particular sort of native +endowment which are given to him. Some such men reveal their +understanding of the soul and the world in the detached serenity, +the too well-defined harmonies of a Parthenon; others in the dim +and intricate richness, the confused and tortured aspiration of the +long-limbed saints and grotesque devils of a Gothic cathedral. Others +incarnate it in gleaming bronze; or spread it in subtle play of light +and shade and tones of color on a canvas; or write it in great plays +which open the dark chambers of the soul and make the heart stand +still; or sing it in sweet and terrible verse, full-throated utterance +of man's pride and hope and passion. Some act it before the altar or +beneath the proscenium arch; some speak it, now in Cassandra-tones, +now comfortably like shepherds of frail sheep. These folk are the +brothers-in-blood, the fellow craftsmen of the preacher. By a silly +convention, he is almost forbidden to consult with them, and to betake +himself to the learned, the respectable and the dull. But it is with +these that naturally he sees eye to eye. + +In short, in calling the preacher a prophet we mean that preaching +is an art and the preacher is an artist; for all great art has the +prophetic quality. Many men object to this definition of the preacher +as being profane. It appears to make secular or mechanicalize their +profession, to rob preaching of its sacrosanctity, leave it less +authority by making it more intelligible, remove it from the realm +of the mystical and unique. This objection seems to me sometimes +an expression of spiritual arrogance and sometimes a subtle form of +skepticism. It assumes a special privilege for our profession or a +not-get-at-able defense and sanction by insisting that it differs in +origin and hence in kind from similar expressions of the human spirit. +It hesitates to rely on the normal and the intelligible sources of +ministerial power, to confess the relatively definable origin and +understandable methods of our work. It fears to trust to these alone. + +But all these must be trusted. We may safely assert that the preacher +deals with absolute values, for all art does that. But we may not +assert that he is the only person that does so or that his is the only +or the unapproachable way. No; he, too, is an artist. Hence, a sermon +is not a contribution to, but an interpretation of, knowledge, made +in terms of the religious experience. It is taking truth out of its +compressed and abstract form, its impersonal and scientific language, +and returning it to life in the terms of the ethical and spiritual +experience of mankind, thus giving it such concrete and pictorial +expression that it stimulates the imagination and moves the will. + +It will be clear then why I have said that the task of appraising the +heart and mind of our generation, to which we address ourselves, is +appropriate to the preaching genius. For only they could attempt +such a task who possess an informed and disciplined yet essentially +intuitive spirit with its scale of values; who by instinct can see +their age as a whole and indicate its chief emphases, its controlling +tendencies, its significant expressions. It is not the scientist but +the seer who thus attempts the precious but perilous task of making +the great generalizations. This is what Aristotle means when he says, +"The poet ranks higher than the historian because he achieves a more +general truth." This is, I suppose, what Houston Stewart Chamberlain +means when he says, in the introduction to the _Foundations of the +Nineteenth Century_: "our modern world represents an immeasurable +array of facts. The mastery of such a task as recording and +interpreting them scientifically is impossible. It is only the genius +of the artist, which feels the secret parallels that exist between +the world of vision and of thought, that can, if fortune be favorable, +reveal the unity beneath the immeasurable complexities and diversities +of the present order." Or as Professor Hocking says: "The prophet must +find in the current of history a unity corresponding to the unity of +the physical universe, or else he must create it. It is this conscious +unification of history that the religious will spontaneously tends to +bring about."[2] + +[Footnote 2: _The Meaning of God in Human Experience_, p. 518.] + +It is then precisely the preacher's task, his peculiar office, to +attempt these vast and perilous summations. What he is set here for +is to bring the immeasurable within the scope of vision. He deals with +the far-flung outposts, no man knows how distant, and the boundless +interspaces of human consciousness; he deals with the beginning, the +middle, the end--the origin, the meaning and the destiny--of human +life. How can anyone give unity to such a prospect? Like any other +artist he gives it the only unity possible, the unity revealed in +his own personality. The theologian should not attempt to evaluate +his age; the preacher may. Because the theologian, like any other +scientist, analyzes and dissects; he breaks up the world. The preacher +in his disciplined imagination, his spiritual intuitiveness,--what we +call the "religious temperament,"--unites it again and makes men see +it whole. This quality of purified and enlightened imagination is of +the very essence of the preacher's power and art. Hence he may attempt +to set forth a just understanding of his generation. + +This brings us to the second reason for our topic namely, its +timeliness. All religious values are not at all times equal in +importance. As generations come and go, first one, then another looms +in the foreground. But I sincerely believe that the most fateful +undertaking for the preacher at this moment is that of analyzing his +own generation. Because he has been flung into one of the world's +transition epochs, he speaks in an hour which is radical in changes, +perplexing in its multifarious cross-currents, prolific of new +forms and expressions. What the world most needs at such a moment of +expansion and rebellion, is a redefining of its ideals. It needs to +have some eternal scale of values set before it once more. It needs +to stop long enough to find out just what and where it is, and toward +what it is going. It needs another Sheridan to write a new _School for +Scandal_, another Swift, with his _Gulliver's Travels_, a continuing +Shaw with his satiric comedies, a Mrs. Wharton with her _House of +Mirth_, a Thorstein Veblen with his _Higher Learning in America_, a +Savonarola with his call to repentance and indictment of worldly and +unfaithful living. It is a difficult and dangerous office, this of +the prophet; it calls for a considerate and honest mind as well as a +flashing insight and an eager heart. The false prophet exposes that he +may exploit his age; the true prophet portrays that he may purge it. +Like Jeremiah we may well dread to undertake the task, yet its day and +hour are upon us! + +I have already spoken to this point at length, in a little book +recently published. I merely add here that in a day of obvious +political disillusionment and industrial revolt, of intellectual +rebellion against an outworn order of ideas and of moral restlessness +and doubt, an indispensable duty for the preacher is this +comprehensive study and understanding of his own epoch. Else, without +realizing it,--and how true this often is,--he proclaims a universal +truth in the unintelligible language of a forgotten order, and applies +a timeless experience to the faded conditions of yesterday. + +Indeed, I am convinced that a chief reason why preaching is +temporarily obscured in power, is because most of our expertness in it +is in terms of local problems, of partial significances, rather +than in the wider tendencies that produce and carry them, or in the +ultimate laws of conduct which should govern them. We ought to be +troubled, I think, in our present ecclesiastical situation, with its +taint of an almost frantic immediacy. Not only are we not sufficiently +dealing with the Gospel as a universal code, but, as both cause and +effect of this, we are not applying it to the inclusive life of our +generation. We are tinkering here and patching there, but attempting +no grand evaluation. We have already granted that sweeping +generalizations, inclusive estimates, are as difficult as they are +audacious. Yet we have also seen that these grand evaluations are +of the very essence of religion and hence are characteristic of the +preacher's task. And, finally, it appears that ours is an age which +calls for such redefining of its values, some fresh and inclusive +moral and religious estimates. Hence we undertake the task. + +There remains but one thing more to be accomplished in this chapter. +The problem of the selection and arrangement of the material for such +a summary is not an easy one. Out of several possible devices I +have taken as the framework on which to hang these discussions three +familiar divisions of thought and feeling, with their accompanying +laws of conduct, and value judgments. They are the humanistic +or classic; the naturalistic or primitive; and the religious or +transcendent interpretation of the world and life. One sets up a +social, one an individual, and one a universal standard. Under the +movements which these headings represent we can most easily and +clearly order and appraise the chief influences of the Protestant +centuries. The first two are largely preëmpting between them, at this +moment, the field of human thought and conduct and a brief analysis +of them, contrasting their general attitudes, may serve as a fit +introduction to the ensuing chapter. + +We begin, then, with the humanist. He is the man who ignores, as +unnecessary, any direct reference to, or connection with, ultimate or +supernatural values. He lives in a high but self-contained world. His +is man's universe. His law is the law of reasonable self-discipline, +founded on observation of nature and a respect for social values, +and buttressed by high human pride. He accepts the authority of the +collective experience of his generation or his race. He believes, +centrally, in the trustworthiness of human nature, in its group +capacity. Men, as a race, have intelligently observed and experimented +with both themselves and the world about them. Out of centuries of +critical reflection and sad and wise endeavor, they have evolved +certain criteria of experience. These summations could hardly be +called eternal laws but they are standards; they are the permits and +prohibitions for human life. Some of them affect personal conduct +and are moral standards; some of them affect civil government and are +political axioms; some of them affect production and distribution and +are economic laws; some of them affect social relationships. But in +every case the humanist has what is, in a sense, an objective because +a formal standard; he looks without himself as an individual, yet to +himself as a part of the composite experience and wisdom of his race, +for understanding and for guides. Thus the individual conforms to the +needs and wisdom of the group. Humanism, at its best, has something +heroic, unselfish, noble about it. Its votaries do not eat to their +liking nor drink to their thirst. They learn deep lessons almost +unconsciously; to conquer their desires, to make light of toil and +pain and discomfort; the true humanist is well aware that Spartan +discipline is incomparably superior to Greek accidence. This is what +one of the greatest of them, Goethe, meant when he said: "Anything +which emancipates the spirit without a corresponding growth in +self-mastery is pernicious." + +All humanists then have two characteristics in common: first, +they assume that man is his own arbiter, has both the requisite +intelligence and the moral ability to control his own destiny; +secondly, they place the source and criterion of this power in +collective wisdom, not in individual vagary and not in divine +revelation. They assert, therefore, that the law of the group, the +perfected and wrought out code of human experience, is all that is +binding and all that is essential. To be sure, and most significantly, +this authority is not rigid, complete, fixed. There is nothing +complete in the humanist's world. Experience accumulates and man's +knowledge grows; the expectation and joy in progress is a part of it; +man's code changes, emends, expands with his onward marching. But the +humanistic point of view assumes something relatively stable in life. +Hence our phrase that humanism gives us a classic, that is to say, a +simple and established standard. + +It is to be observed that there is nothing in humanism thus defined +which need be incompatible with religion. It is not with its content +but its incompleteness that we quarrel. Indeed, in its assertion of +the trustworthiness of human experience, its faith in the dignity and +significance of man, its respect for the interests of the group, and +its conviction that man finds his true self only outside his immediate +physical person, beyond his material wants and desires, it is quite +genuinely a part of the religious understanding. But we shall have +occasion to observe that while much of this may be religious this is +not the whole of religion. For the note of universality is absent. +Humanism is essentially aristocratic. It is for a selected group that +it is practicable and it is a selected experience upon which it rests. +Its standards are esoteric rather than democratic. Yet it is hardly +necessary to point out the immense part which humanism, as thus +defined, is playing in present life. + +But there is another law which, from remotest times, man has +followed whenever he dared. It is not the law of the group but of +the individual, not the law of civilization but of the jungle. "Most +men," says Aristotle, "would rather live in a disorderly than a sober +manner." He means that most men would rather consult and gratify their +immediate will, their nearest choices, their instantaneous desires, +than conform the moment to some regulated and considerate, some +comprehensive scheme of life and action. The life of unreason is their +desire; the experience whose bent is determined by every whim, the +expression which has no rational connection with the past and no +serious consideration for the future. This is of the very essence of +lawlessness because it is revolt against the normal sequence of law +and effect, in mind and conduct, in favor of untrammeled adventure. + +Now this is naturalism or paganism as we often call it. Naturalism +is a perversion of that high instinct in mankind which issues in the +old concept of supernaturalism. The supernaturalist, of a former and +discredited type, believed that God violates the order of nature +for sublime ends; that He "breaks into" His own world, so to speak, +"revealing" Himself in prodigious, inexplicable, arbitrary ways. By a +sort of degradation of this notion, a perversion of this instinct, the +naturalist assumes that he can violate both the human and the divine +law for personal ends, and express himself in fantastic or indecent +or impious ways. The older supernaturalism exalts the individualism +of the Creator; naturalism the egotism of the creature. I make the +contrast not merely to excoriate naturalism, but to point out the +interdependence between man's apparently far-separated expressions +of his spirit, and how subtly misleading are our highly prized +distinctions, how dangerous sometimes that secondary mental power +which multiplies them. It sobers and clarifies human thinking a +little, perhaps, to reflect on how thin a line separates the sublime +and the ridiculous, the saint and the sensualist, the martyr and the +fool, the genius and the freak. + +Now, with this selfish individualism which we call naturalism we shall +have much to do, for it plays an increasing rôle in the modern +world; it is the neo-paganism which we may see spreading about us. +Sophistries of all kinds become the powerful allies of this sort of +moral and aesthetic anarchy. Its votaries are those sorts of +rebels who invariably make their minds not their friends but their +accomplices. They are ingenious in the art of letting themselves go +and at the same time thinking themselves controlled and praiseworthy. +The naturalist, then, ignores the group; he flaunts impartially +both the classic and the religious law. He is equally unwilling to +submit to a power imposed from above and without, or to accept those +restrictions of society, self-imposed by man's own codified and +corrected observations of the natural world and his own impulses. He +jeers at the one as hypocrisy and superstition and at the other as +mere "middle-class respectability." He himself is the perpetual Ajax +standing defiant upon the headland of his own inflamed desires, +and scoffing at the lightnings either of heaven or society. Neither +devoutness nor progress but mere personal expansion is his goal. The +humanist curbs both the flesh and the imagination by a high doctrine +of expediency. Natural values are always critically appraised in the +light of humane values, which is nearly, if not quite, the same as +saying that the individual desires and delights must be conformed +to the standards of the group. There can be no anarchy of the +imagination, no license of the mind, no unbridled will. Humanism, +no less than religion, is nobly, though not so deeply, traditional. +But there is no tradition to the naturalist; not the normal and +representative, but the unique and spectacular is his goal. Novelty +and expansion, not form and proportion, are his goddesses. Not truth +and duty, but instinct and appetite, are in the saddle. He will try +any horrid experiment from which he may derive a new sensation. + +Over against them both stands the man of religion with his vision of +the whole and his consequent law of proud humility. The next three +chapters will try to discuss in detail these several attitudes toward +life and their respective manifestations in contemporary society. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +THE CHILDREN OF ZION AND THE SONS OF GREECE + + +We are not using the term "humanism" in this chapter in its strictly +technical sense. Because we are not concerned with the history of +thought merely, but also with its practical embodiments in various +social organizations as well. So we mean by "humanism" not only those +modes and systems of thought in which human interests predominate but +also the present economic, political and ecclesiastical institutions +which more or less consistently express them. Hence, the term as +used will include concepts not always agreeing with each other, and +sometimes only semi-related to the main stream of the movement. This +need not trouble us. Strict intellectual consistency is a fascinating +and impossible goal of probably dubious value. Moreover, it is +this whole expression of the time spirit which bathes the sensitive +personality of the preacher, persuading and moulding him quite as much +by its derived and concrete manifestations in contemporary society as +by its essential and abstract principles. + +There are then two sets of media through which humanism has affected +preaching. The first are philosophical and find their expression in a +large body of literature which has been moulding thought and feeling +for nearly four centuries. Humanism begins with the general abstract +assumption that all which men can know, or need to know, are "natural" +and human values; that they have no means of getting outside the +inexorable circle of their own experience. + +Much, of course, depends here upon the sense in which the word +"experience" is used. The assumption need not necessarily be +challenged except where, as is very often the case, an arbitrarily +limited definition of experience is intended. From this general +assumption flows the subjective theory of morals; from it is derived +the conviction that the rationalistic values in religion are the only +real, or at least demonstrable, ones; and hence from this comes the +shifting of the seat of religious authority from "revelation" to +experience. In so far as this is a correction of emphasis only, or the +abandonment of a misleading term rather than the denial of one of the +areas and modes of understanding, again we have no quarrel with it. +But if it means an exclusion of the supersensuous sources of knowledge +or the denial of the existence of absolute values as the source of our +relative and subjective understanding, then it strikes at the heart +of religion. Because the religious life is built on those factors of +experience that lie above the strictly rational realm of consciousness +just as the pagan view rests on primitive instincts that lie beneath +it. Of course, in asserting the importance of these "supersensuous" +values the religionist does not mean that they are beyond the reach +of human appraisal or unrelated by their nature to the rest of our +understanding. By the intuitive he does not mean the uncritical nor by +the supersensuous the supernatural in the old and discredited sense of +an arbitrary and miraculous revelation. Mysticism is not superstition, +nor are the insights of the poet the whimsies of the mere +impressionist. But he insists that the humanist, in his ordinary +definition of experience, ignores or denies these superrational +values. In opposition to him he rests his faith on that definition of +experience which underlies Aristotle's statement that "the intellect +is dependent upon intuition for knowledge both of what is below and +what is above itself." + +Now it is this first set of factors which are the more important. +For the cause, as distinguished from the occasions, of our present +religious scale of values is, like all major causes, not practical but +ideal, and its roots are found far beneath the soil of the present +in the beginnings of the modern age in the fourteenth century. It was +then that our world was born; it is of the essence of that world that +it arose out of indifference toward speculative thinking and unfaith +in those concepts regarding the origin and destiny of mankind which +speculative philosophy tried to express and prove. + +From the first, then, humanistic leaders have not only frankly +rejected the scholastic theologies, which had been the traditional +expression of those absolute values with which the religious +experience is chiefly concerned, but also ignored or rejected the +existence of those values themselves. Thus Petrarch is generally +considered the first of modern humanists. He not only speaks of +Rome--meaning the whole semi-political, semi-ecclesiastical structure +of dogmatic supernaturalism--as that "profane Babylon" but also +reveals his rejection of the distinctively religious experience itself +by characterizing as "an impudent wench" the Christian church. The +attack is partly therefore on the faith in transcendent values which +fixes man's relative position by projecting him upon the screen of an +infinite existence and which asserts that he has an absolute, that is, +an other-than-human guide. Again Erasmus, in his _Praise of Folly_, +denounces indiscriminately churches, priesthoods, dogmas, ethical +values, the whole structure of organized religion, calling it those +"foul smelling weeds of theology." It was inevitable that such men as +Erasmus and Thomas More should hold aloof from the Reformation, not, +as has been sometimes asserted, from any lack of moral courage but +because of intellectual conviction. They saw little to choose between +Lutheran, Calvinistic and Romish dogmatism. They had rejected not only +mediaeval ecclesiasticism but also that view of the world founded on +supersensuous values, whose persistent intimations had produced the +speculative and scholastic theologies. To them, in a quite literal +sense, the proper study of mankind was man. + +It is hardly necessary to speak here of the attitude towards the old +"supernatural" religion taken by the English Deists of the last half +of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century. Here +was the first definite struggle of the English church with a group +of thinkers who, under the leadership of Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke +and others, attempted to adapt humanistic philosophy to theological +speculation, to establish the sufficiency of natural religion as +opposed to revelation, and to deny the unique significance of the +Old and New Testament Scriptures. The English Deists were not deep +or comprehensive thinkers, but they were typically humanistic in that +their interests were not mainly theological or religious but rather +those of a general culture. They were inconsistent with their humanism +in their doctrine of a personal God who was not only remote but +separated from his universe, a _deus ex machina_ who excluded the idea +of immanence. While less influential in England, they had a powerful +effect upon French and German thinking. Both Voltaire and Rousseau +were rationalists and Deists to the end of their days and both were +unwearied foes of any other-than-natural sources for our spiritual +knowledge and religious values. + +In Germany the humanistic movement continued under Herder and his +younger contemporaries, Schiller and Goethe. Its historical horizon, +racial and literary sympathies, broadened under their direction, +moving farther and farther beyond the sources and areas of accepted +religious ideas and practices. They led the revival of study of the +Aryan languages and cultures; especially those of the Hellenes and the +inhabitants of the Indian peninsula. They originated that critical +and rather hostile scrutiny of Semitic ideas and values in present +civilization, which plays no small part in the dilettante naturalism +of the moment. Thus the nature and place of _man_, under the influence +of these "uninspired" literatures and cultures, became more and more +important as both his person and his position in the cosmos ceased +to be interpreted either in those terms of the moral transcendence +of deity, or of the helplessness and insignificance of his creatures, +which inform both the Jewish-Christian Scriptures and the philosophic +absolutism of the Catholic theologies. + +But the humanism of the eighteenth century comes most closely to grips +with the classic statements and concepts of religion in the critical +philosophy of Kant. It is the intellectual current which rises in +him which is finding its last multifarious and minute rivulets in the +various doctrines of relativity, in pragmatism, the subjectivism of +the neo-realists, and in the superior place generally ascribed by +present thinking to value judgments as against existential ones. His +central insistence is upon the impossibility of any knowledge of God +as an objective reality. Speculative reason does indeed give us the +idea of God but he denies that we have in the idea itself any ground +for thinking that there is an objective reality corresponding to it. +The idea he admits as necessitated by "the very nature of reason" but +it serves a purely harmonizing office. It is here to give coherence +and unity to the objects of the understanding, "to finish and crown +the whole of human knowledge."[3] Experience of transcendence thus +becomes impossible. As Professor McGiffert in _The Modern Ideas of +God_ says: "Subjectively considered, religion is the recognition of +our duties as commands of God. When we do our duty we are virtuous; +when we recognize it as commanded by God we are religious. The notion +that there is anything we can do to please God except to live rightly +is superstition. Moreover, to think that we can distinguish works +of grace from works of nature, which is the essence of historic +Christianity, or that we can detect the activity of heavenly +influences is also superstition. All such supernaturalism lies beyond +our ken. There are three common forms of superstition, all promoted +by positive religion: the belief in miracles, the belief in mysteries, +and the belief in the means of grace."[4] So prayer is a confession of +weakness, not a source of strength. + +[Footnote 3: See _The Critique of Pure Reason_ (Müller, tr.), pp. 575 +ff.] + +[Footnote 4: _Harvard Theo. Rev._, vol. I, no. 1, p. 16.] + +Kant is more than once profoundly inconsistent with the extreme +subjectivism of his theory of ideas as when he says in the _Practical +Reason_: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing +admiration and awe the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on +them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within."[5] Again he +remarks, "The belief in a great and wise Author of the world has been +supported entirely by the wonderful beauty, order and providence, +everywhere displayed in nature."[6] Here the objective reality both of +what is presented to our senses and what is conceived of in the mind, +is, as though unconsciously, taken for granted. Thus while he contends +for a practical theism, the very basis of his interest still rests in +the conviction of a Being external to us and existing independent of +our thought. + +[Footnote 5: _The Critique of Practical Reason_ (tr. T.K. Abbott), p. +260.] + +[Footnote 6: _The Critique of Pure Reason_, p. 702.] + +But his intention of making right conduct the essence of religion +is typical of the limits of humanistic interests and perceptions. In +making his division of reason into the theoretical and the practical, +it is to the latter realm that he assigns morality and religion. +Clearly this is genuine rationalism. I am not forgetting Kant's great +religious contribution. He was the son of devout German pietists and +saturated in the literature of the Old Testament. It is to Amos, who +may justly be called his spiritual father, that he owes the moral +absoluteness of his categorical imperative, the reading of history +as a moral order. He was following Amos when he took God out of the +physical and put Him into the moral sphere and interpreted Him in +the terms of purpose. But the doctrine of _The Critique of Practical +Reason_ is intended to negate those transcendent elements generally +believed to be the distinctive portions of religion. God is not known +to us as an objective being, an entity without ourselves. He is an +idea, a belief, which gives meaning to our ethical life, a subjective +necessity. He is a postulate of the moral will. To quote Professor +McGiffert again: "We do not get God from the universe, we give Him +to the universe. We read significance and moral purpose into it. We +assume God, not to account for the world, but for the subjective +need of realizing our highest good.... Religion becomes a creative +act of the moral will just as knowledge is a creative act of the +understanding."[7] Thus there are no ultimate values; at least we can +know nothing of them; we have nothing to look to which is objective +and changeless. The absolutism of the Categorical Imperative is +a subjective one, bounded by ourselves, formed of our substance. +Religion is not discovered, but self-created, a sort of sublime +expediency. It can carry, then, no confident assertion as to the +meaning and destiny of the universe as a whole. + +[Footnote 7: _H.T.R._, vol. I, no. 1, p. 18.] + +Here, then, the nature of morality, the inspiration for character, +the solution of human destiny, are not sought outside in some sort +of cosmic relationship, but within, either in the experience of the +superman, the genius or the hero, or, as later, in the collective +experience and consciousness of the group. Thus this, too, throws man +back upon himself, makes a new exaltation of personality in sharpest +contrast to the scholastic doctrine of the futility and depravity of +human nature. It produces the assertion of the sacred character of the +individual human being. The conviction of the immeasurable worth of +man is, of course, a characteristic teaching of Jesus; what it is +important for the preacher to remember in humanism is the source, not +the fact, of its estimate. With Jesus man's is a derived greatness +found in him as the child of the Eternal; in humanism, it is, so to +speak, self-originated, born of present worth, not of sublime origin +or shining destiny. + +So man in the humanistic movement moves into the center of his own +world, becomes himself the measuring rod about whom all other values +are grouped. In the place of inspiration, or prophetic understanding, +which carries the implications of a transcendent source of truth and +goodness, we have a sharply limited, subjective wisdom and insight. +The "thus saith the Lord" of the Hebrew prophet means nothing here. +The humanist is, of course, confronted with the eternal question of +origins, of the thing-in-itself, the question whose insistence makes +the continuing worth of the absolutist speculations. He begs the +question by answering it with an assertion, not an explanation. He +meets it by an exaltation of human genius. Genius explains all sublime +achievements and genius is, so to speak, its own _fons et origo_. Thus +Diderot says: "Genius is the higher activity of the soul." "Genius," +remarks Rousseau in a letter, "makes knowledge unnecessary." And +Kant defines genius as "the talent to discover that which cannot be +taught or learned."[8] This appears to be more of an evasion than +a definition! But the intent here is to refer all that seems to +transcend mundane categories, man's highest, his widest, his sublimest +intuitions and achievements, back to himself; he is his own source of +light and power. + +[Footnote 8: _Anthropologie_, para. 87 c.] + +Such an anthropocentric view of life and destiny in exalting man, +of course, thereby liberated him, not merely from ecclesiastical +domination, but also from those illusive fears and questionings, those +remote and imaginative estimates of his own intended worth and those +consequent exacting demands upon himself which are a part of the +religious interpretation of life. Humanistic writing is full of the +exulting sense of this emancipation. These superconsiderations do not +belong in the world of experience as the humanist ordinarily conceives +of it. Hence, man lives in an immensely contracted, but a very real +and tangible world and within the small experimental circumference of +it, he holds a far larger place (from one viewpoint, a far smaller one +from another) than that of a finite creature caught in the snare of +this world and yet a child of the Eternal, having infinite destinies. +The humanist sees man as freed from the tyranny of this supernatural +revelation and laws. He rejoices over man because now he stands, + + "self-poised on manhood's solid earth + Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, + Fed from within with all the strength he needs." + +It is this sense of independence which arouses in Goethe a perennial +enthusiasm. It is the greatest bliss, he says, that the humanist won +back for us. Henceforth, we must strive with all our power to keep it. + +We have attempted this brief sketch of one of the chief sources of the +contemporary thought movement, that we may realize the pit whence we +were digged, the quarry from which many corner stones in the present +edifice of civilization were dug. The preacher tends to underestimate +the comprehensive character of the pervasive ideas, worked into many +institutions and practices, which are continually impinging upon him +and his message. They form a perpetual attrition, working silently and +ceaselessly day and night, wearing away the distinctively religious +conceptions of the community. Much of the vagueness and sentimentalism +of present preaching, its uncritical impressionism, is due to the +influence of the non-religious or, at least, the insufficiently +religious character of the ruling ideas and motives outside the church +which are impinging upon it, and upon the rest of the thinking of the +moment. + +Now, this _abstract_ humanism of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries had a considerable influence upon early American preaching. +The latter part of the eighteenth century marked a breaking away from +the Protestant scholasticism of the Reformation theology. The French +Revolution accented and made operative, even across the Atlantic, the +typical humanistic concepts of the rights of man and the sovereignty +of the individual person. Skepticism and even atheism became a fashion +in our infant republic. It was a mark of sophistication with +many educated men to regard Christianity as not worthy of serious +consideration. College students modestly admitted that they were +infidels and with a delicious naïveté assumed the names of Voltaire, +Thomas Paine and even of that notorious and notable egotist +Rousseau. It is said that in 1795, on the first Sunday of President +administration in Yale College, only three undergraduates remained +after service to take the sacrament. The reasons were partly +political, probably, but these themselves were grounded in the new +philosophical, anti-religious attitude. + +Of course, this affected the churches. There was a reaction from +Protestant scholasticism within them which, later on, culminated in +Unitarianism, Universalism and Arminianism. The most significant thing +in the Unitarian movement was not its rejection of the Trinitarian +speculation, but its positive contribution to the reassertion of +Jesus' doctrine of the worth and dignity of human nature. But it +recovered that doctrine much more by the way of humanistic philosophy +than by way of the teaching of the New Testament. I suppose the +thing which has made the weakness of the Unitarian movement, its +acknowledged lack of religious warmth and feeling, is due not to the +place where it stands, but to the road by which it got there. + +Yet, take it for all in all, the effect upon the preaching of the +supernatural and speculative doctrines and insights of Christianity, +was not in America as great as might be expected. Kant died in 1804, +and Goethe in 1832, but only in the last sixty years has the preaching +of the "evangelical" churches been fundamentally affected by the +prevailing intellectual currents of the day. This is due, I think, +to two causes. One was the nature of the German Reformation. It +found preaching at a low ebb. Every great force, scholastic, popular, +mystical, which had contributed to the splendor of the mediaeval +pulpit had fallen into decay, and the widespread moral laxity of the +clergy precluded spiritual insight. The Reformation, with its ethical +and political interests, revived preaching and by the nature of these +same interests fixed the limits and determined the direction within +which it should develop. It is important to remember that Luther did +not break with the old theological system. He continued his belief +in an authority and revelation anterior, exterior and superior to +man, merely shifting the locus of that authority from the Church +to the Book. Thus he paved the way for Zwingli and the Protestant +scholasticism which became more rigid and sterile than the Catholic +which it succeeded. We usually regard the Reformation as a part of the +Renaissance and hence included in the humanistic movement. Politically +and religiously, it undoubtedly should be so regarded, for it was +a chief factor in the renewal of German nationalism and its central +doctrines of justification by faith, and the right of each separate +believer to an unmediated access to the Highest, exalted the integrity +and dignity of the individual. Inconsistently, however, it continued +the old theological tradition. In the Lutheran system, says Paul de +Lagarde, we see the Catholic scholastic structure standing +untouched with the exception of a few loci. And Harnack, in the +_Dogmengeschichte_ calls it "a miserable duplication of the Catholic +Church." + +Now, New England preaching, it is true, found its chief roots in +Calvinism; Calvin, rather than Luther, was the religious leader of +the Reformation outside Germany. But his system, also, is only +the continuation of the ancient philosophy of the Christian faith +originating with Augustine. He reduced it to order, expounded it with +energy and consistency, but one has only to recall its major doctrines +of the depravity of man, the atonement for sin, the irresistible grace +of the Holy Spirit, to see how untouched it was by the characteristic +postulates of the new humanism. And it was on his theology that New +England preaching was founded. It was Calvin who, through Jonathan +Edwards, the elder and the younger, Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, +Nathaniel Emmons, Nathaniel N. Taylor, determined the course of the +New England pulpit. + +The other reason for our relative immunity from humanistic influence +is accidental and complementary merely. It is the mere fact of our +physical isolation, which, until the last seventy-five years, quite +largely shut off thinkers here from continental and English currents +of thought and contributed to the brilliant, if sterile, provincialism +of the New England theology. + +It is, therefore, to the second set of media, which may be generally +characterized as scientific and practical, that we now turn. These are +the forces which apparently are most affecting Christian preaching +at this moment. But it is important to remember that a large part +of their influence is to be traced to the philosophic and ethical +tendencies of the earlier humanistic movement which had set the scene +for them, to which they are so sympathetic that we may assert that +it is in them that their practical interests are grounded and by them +that their scientific methods are reinforced. I divide this second +group of media, for clearness, under three heads. + +First comes the rise of the natural sciences. In 1859, Darwin +published the _Origin of Species_ and gave to the world the +evolutionary hypothesis, foreshadowed by Goethe and other +eighteenth-century thinkers, simultaneously formulated by Wallace +and himself. Here is a theory, open to objections certainly, not yet +conclusively demonstrated, but the most probable one which we yet +possess, as to the method of the appearance and the continuance of +life upon the planet. It conceives of creation as an unimaginably +long and intricate development from the inorganic to the organic, from +simple to complex forms of life. Like Kantianism and the humanistic +movement generally, the evolutionary hypothesis springs from reasoned +observation of man and nature, not from any _a priori_ or speculative +process. With this theory, long a regulative idea of our world, +preaching was forced to come to some sort of an understanding. It +strikes a powerful blow at the scholastic notion of a dichotomized +universe divided between nature and supernature, divine and human. +It reinforced humanism by minimizing, if not making unnecessary, +the objective and external source and external interpretations of +religions. It pushes back the initial creative _act_ until it is lost +in the mists and chaos of an unimaginably remote past. Meanwhile, +creative _energy_, the very essence of transcendent life, is, as we +know it, not transcendent at all, but working outward from within, +a part of the process, not above and beyond it. The inevitable +implication here is that God is sufficiently, if not exclusively, +known through natural and human media. Science recognizes Him in the +terms of its own categories as in and of His world, a part of all its +ongoings and developments. But His creative life is indistinguishable +from, if not identical with, its expressions. Here, then, is a +practical obliteration of the line once so sharply drawn between the +natural and the supernatural. Hence the demarcation between the divine +and human into mutually exclusive states has disappeared. + +This would seem, then, to wipe out also any knowledge of absolute +values. Christian theism has interpreted God largely in static, final +terms. The craving for the absolute in the human mind, as witnessed by +the long course of the history of thought, as pathetically witnessed +to in the mixture of chicanery, fanaticism and insight of the modern +mystical and occult healing sects, is central and immeasurable. But +God, found, if at all, in the terms of a present process, is not +static and absolute, but dynamic and relative; indefinite, incomplete, +not final. And man's immense difference from Him, that sense of +the immeasurable space between creator and created, is strangely +contracted. The gulf between holiness and guiltiness tends also to +disappear. For our life would appear to be plastic and indefinite, +a process rather than a state, not open then to conclusive moral +estimates; incomplete, not fallen; life an orderly process, hence not +perverse but defensible; without known breaks or infringements, hence +relatively normal and sufficiently intelligible. + +A second factor was the rise of the humane sciences. In the seventh +and eighth decades of the last century men were absorbed in the +discovery of the nature and extent of the material universe. But +beginning about 1890, interest swerved again toward man as its +most revealing study and most significant inhabitant. Anthropology, +ethnology, sociology, physical and functional psychology, came to +the front. Especially the humane studies of political science and +industrial economics were magnified because of the new and urgent +problems born of an industrial civilization and a capitalistic state. +The invention and perfection of the industrial machine had by now +thoroughly dislocated former social groupings, made its own ethical +standards and human problems. In the early days of the labor movement +William Morris wrote, "we have become slaves of the monster to which +invention has given birth." In 1853, shortly after the introduction of +the cotton gin into India, the Viceroy wrote: "The misery is scarcely +paralleled in the history of trade." (A large statement that!) "The +bones of the cotton workers whiten the plains of India." + +But the temporary suffering caused by the immediate crowding out +of cottage industry and the abrupt increase in production was +insignificant beside the deeper influence, physical, moral, mental, +of the machine in changing the permanent habitat and the entire mode +of living for millions of human beings. It removed them from those +healthy rural surroundings which preserve the half-primitive, +half-poetic insight into the nature of things which comes from +relative isolation and close contact with the soil, to the nervous +tension, the amoral conditions, the airless, lightless ugliness of +the early factory settlements. Here living conditions were not merely +beastly; they were often bestial. The economic helplessness of the +factory hands reduced them to essential slavery. They must live where +the factory was, and could work only in one factory, for they could +not afford to move. Hence they must obey their industrial master in +every particular, since the raw material, the plant, the tools, the +very roof that covered them, were all his! In this new human condition +was a powerful reinforcement, from another angle of approach, of +the humanistic impulse. Man's interest in himself, which had been +sometimes that of the dilettante, largely imaginative and even +sentimental, was reinforced by man's new distress and became concrete +and scientific. + +Thus man regarded himself and his own world with a new and urgent +attention. The methods and secondary causes of his intellectual, +emotional and volitional life began to be laid bare. The new situation +revealed the immense part played in shaping the personality and +the fate of the individual by inheritance and environment. The +Freudian doctrine, which traces conduct and habit back to early +or prenatal repressions, strengthens the interest in the physical +and materialistic sources of character and conduct in human life. +Behavioristic psychology, interpreting human nature in terms of +observation and action, rather than analysis and value judgments, +does the same. It tends to put the same emphasis upon the external and +sensationalistic aspects of human experience. + +That, then, which is a central force in religion, the sense of the +inscrutability of human nature, the feeling of awe before the natural +processes, what Paul called the mystery of iniquity and the mystery of +godliness, tends to disappear. Wonder and confident curiosity succeed +humility and awe. That which is of the essence of religion, the sense +of helplessness coupled with the sense of responsibility, is stifled. +Whatever else the humane sciences have done, they have deepened man's +fascinated and narrowing absorption in himself and given him apparent +reason to believe that by analyzing the iron chain of cause and effect +which binds the process and admitting that it permits no deflection +or variation, he is making the further questions as to the origin, +meaning and destiny of that process either futile or superfluous. So +that, in brief, the check to speculative thinking and the repudiation +of central metaphysical concepts, which the earlier movement brought +about, has been accentuated and sealed by the humane sciences and the +new and living problems offered them for practical solution. Thus the +generation now ending has been carried beyond the point of combating +ancient doctrines of God and man, to the place where it has become +comparatively indifferent, rather than hostile, to any doctrine of +God, so absorbed is it in the physical functions, the temporal needs +and the material manifestations of human personality. + +Finally, as the natural and humane sciences mark new steps in the +expanding humanistic movement, so in these last days, critical +scholarship, itself largely a product of the humanistic viewpoint, has +added another factor to the group. The new methods of historical and +literary criticism, of comparative investigation in religion and the +other arts, have exerted a vast influence upon contemporary religious +thought. They have not merely completed the breakdown of an arbitrary +and fixed external authority and rendered finally invalid the notion +of equal or verbal inspiration in sacred writings, but the present +tendency, especially in comparative religion, is to seek the source +of all so-called religious experience within the human consciousness; +particularly to derive it all from group experience. Here, then, is +a theory of religious origins which once more turns the spirit of man +back upon itself. Robertson Smith, Jane Harrison, Durkheim, rejecting +an earlier animistic theory, find the origin of religion not in +contemplation of the natural world and in the intuitive perception +of something more-than-world which lies behind it, but in the group +experience whose heightened emotional intensity and nervous energy +imparts to the one the exaltation of the many. Smith, in the _Religion +of the Semites_,[9] emphasizes, as the fundamental conception of +ancient religion, "the solidarity of the gods and their worshipers as +part of an organic society." Durkheim goes beyond this. There are +not at the beginning men and gods, but only the social group and the +collective emotions and representations which are generated through +membership in the group. + +[Footnote 9: P. 32.] + +Here, then, is humanism again carried to the very heart of the +citadel. Religion at its source contains no real perceptions of any +extra-human force or person. What seemed to be such perceptions +were only the felt participation of the individual in a collective +consciousness which is superindividual, but not superhuman and always +continuous with the individual consciousness. So that, whatever may or +may not be true later, the beginning of man's metaphysical interests, +his cosmic consciousness, his more-than-human contacts, is simply his +social experience, his collective emotions and representations. Thus +Durkheim: "We are able to say, in sum, that the religious individual +does not deceive himself when he believes in the existence of a moral +power upon which he depends and from which he holds the larger portion +of himself. That power exists; it is society. When the Australian +feels within himself the surging of a life whose intensity surprises +him, he is the dupe of no illusion; that exaltation is real, and it +is really the product of forces that are external and superior to the +individual."[10] Yes, but identical in kind and genesis with himself +and his own race. To Leuba, in his _Psychological Study of Religion_, +this has already become the accepted viewpoint. Whatever is enduring +and significant in religion is merely an expression of man's social +consciousness and experience, his sense of participation in a common +life. "Humanity, idealized and conceived as a manifestation of +creative energy, possesses surprising qualifications for a source +of religious inspiration." Professor Overstreet, in "The Democratic +Conception of God," _Hibbert Journal_, volume XI, page 409, says: "It +is this large figure, not simply of human but of cosmic society which +is to yield our God of the future. There is no place in the future for +an eternally perfect being and no need--society, democratic from end +to end, can brook no such radical class distinction as that between a +supreme being, favored with eternal and absolute perfection, and the +mass of beings doomed to the lower ways of imperfect struggle." + +[Footnote 10: _Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse_, p. 322.] + +There is certainly a striking immediacy in such language. We leave for +later treatment the question as to the historical validity of such +an attitude. It certainly ignores some of the most distinguished and +fruitful concepts of trained minds; it rules out of court what are +to the majority of men real and precious factors in the religious +experience. It would appear to be another instance, among the many, of +the fallacy of identifying the part with the whole. But the effect +of such pervasive thought currents, the more subtle and unfightable +because indirect and disguised in popular appearance and influence, +upon the ethical and spiritual temper of religious leaders, the +very audacity of whose tasks puts them on the defensive, is vast +and incalculable. At the worst, it drives man into a mechanicalized +universe, with a resulting materialism of thought and life; at the +best, it makes him a pragmatist with amiable but immediate objectives, +just practical "results" as his guide and goal. Morality as, in +Antigone's noble phrase, "the unwritten law of heaven" sinks down and +disappears. There is no room here for the Job who abhors himself and +repents in dust and ashes nor for Plato's _One behind the Many_; no +perceptible room, in such a world, for any of the absolute values, the +transcendent interests, the ethics of idealism, any eschatology, or +for Christian theodicy. That which has been the typical contribution +of the religious perceptions in the past, namely, the comprehensive +vision of life and the world and time _sub specie aeternitatis_ is +here abandoned. Eternity is unreal or empty; we never heard the music +of the spheres. We are facing at this moment a disintegrating age. +Here is a prime reason for it. The spiritual solidarity of mankind +under the humanistic interpretation of life and destiny is dissolving +and breaking down. Humanism is ingenious and reasonable and clever but +it is too limited; it doesn't answer enough questions. + +Before going on, in a future chapter, to discuss the question as to +what kind of preaching such a world-view, seen from the Christian +standpoint, needs, we are now to inquire what the effect of this +humanistic movement upon Christian preaching has already been. +That our preaching should have been profoundly influenced by it is +inevitable. Religion is not apart from the rest of life. The very +temperament of the speaker makes him peculiarly susceptible to the +intellectual and spiritual movements about him. What, then, has +humanism done to preaching? Has it worked to clarify and solidify +the essence of the religious position? Or has preaching declined and +become neutralized in religious quality under it? + +First: it has profoundly affected Christian preaching about God. +The contemporary sermon on Deity minimizes or leaves out divine +transcendence; thus it starves one fundamental impulse in man--the +need and desire to look up. Instead of this transcendence modern +preaching emphasizes immanence, often to a naïve and ludicrous degree. +God is the being who is like us. Under the influence of that monistic +idealism, which is a derived philosophy of the humanistic impulse, +preaching lays all the emphasis upon divine immanence in sharpest +contrast either to the deistic transcendence of the eighteenth century +or the separateness and aloofness of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, +or of the classic Greek theologies of Christianity. God is, of course; +that is, He is the informing principle in the natural and human +universe and essentially one with it. Present preaching does not +confess this identification but it evades rather than meets the +logical pantheistic conclusion. So our preaching has to do with God +in the common round of daily tasks; with sweeping a room to His glory; +with adoration of His presence in a sunset and worship of Him in a +star. Every bush's aflame with Him; there are sermons in stones and +poems in running brooks. Before us, even as behind, God is and all is +well. We are filled with a sort of intoxication with this intimate and +protective company of the Infinite; we are magnificently unabashed as +we familiarly approach Him. "Closer is He than breathing; nearer than +hands or feet." Not then by denying or condemning or distrusting the +world in which we live, not by asserting the differences between God +and humanity do we understand Him. But by closest touch with nature +do we find Him. By a superb paradox, not without value, yet equally +ineffable in sentimentality and sublime in its impiety we say, +beholding man, "that which is most human is most divine!" + +That there is truth in such comfortable and affable preaching is +obvious; that there is not much truth in it is obvious, too. To +what extent, and in what ways, nature, red with tooth and claw, +indifferent, ruthless, whimsical, can be called the expression of the +Christian God, is not usually specifically stated. In what way man, +just emerging from the horror, the shame, the futility of his last and +greatest debauch of bloody self-destruction, can be called the chief +medium of truth, holiness and beauty, the matrix of divinity, is not +entirely manifest. But the fatal defect of such preaching is not that +there is not, of course, a real identity between the world and its +Maker, the soul and its Creator, but that the aspect of reality which +this truth expresses is the one which has least religious value, is +least distinctive in the spiritual experience. The religious nature is +satisfied, and the springs of moral action are refreshed by dwelling +on the "specialness" of God; men are brought back to themselves, not +among their fellows and by identifying them with their fellows, but +by lifting them to the secret place of the Most High. They need +religiously not thousand-tongued nature, but to be kept secretly in +His pavilion from the strife of tongues. It is the difference between +God and men which makes men who know themselves trust Him. It is the +"otherness," not the sameness, which makes Him desirable and potent in +the daily round of life. A purely ethical interest in God ceases to be +ethical and becomes complacent; when we rule out the supraphenomenal +we have shut the door on the chief strength of the higher life. + +Second: modern preaching, under this same influence and to a yet +greater degree, emphasizes the principle of identity, where we need +that of difference, in its preaching about Jesus. He is still the most +moving theme for the popular presentation of religion. But that +is because He offers the most intelligible approach to that very +"otherness" in the person of the godhead. His healing and reconciling +influence over the heart of man--the way the human spirit expands and +blossoms in His presence--is moving beyond expression to any observer, +religious or irreligious. Each new crusade in the long strife for +human betterment looks in sublime confidence to Him as its forerunner +and defense. To what planes of common service, faith, magnanimous +solicitude could He not lift the embittered, worldlyized men and women +of this torn and distracted age, which is so desperately seeking its +own life and thereby so inexorably losing it! But why is the heart +subdued, the mind elevated, the will made tractable by Him? Why, +because He is enough like us so that we know that He understands, has +utter comprehension; and He is enough different from us so that we are +willing to trust Him. In what lies the essence of the leadership of +Jesus? He is not like us: therefore, we are willing to relinquish +ourselves into His hands. + +Now, that is only half the truth. But if I may use a paradox, it is +the important half, the primary half. And it is just that essential +element in the Christian experience of Jesus that modern preaching, +under the humanistic impulse, is neglecting. Indeed, liberal preachers +have largely ceased to sermonize about Him, just because it has become +so easy! Humanism has made Jesus obvious, hence, relatively impotent. +With its unified cosmos, its immanent God, its exalted humanity, the +whole Christological problem has become trivial. It drops the cosmic +approach to the person of Jesus in favor of the ethical. It does not +approach Him from the side of God; we approach nothing from that +side now; but from the side of man. Thus He is not so much a divine +revelation as He is a human achievement. Humanity and divinity are +one in essence. The Creator is distinguished from His creatures in +multifarious differences of degree but not in kind. We do not see, +then, in Christ, a perfect isolated God, joined to a perfect isolated +man, in what were indeed the incredible terms of the older and +superseded Christologies. But rather, He is the perfect revelation of +the moral being, the character of God, in all those ways capable of +expression or comprehension in human life, just because he is the +highest manifestation of a humanity through which God has been forever +expressing Himself in the world. For man is, so to speak, his own +cosmic center; the greatest divine manifestation which we know. +Granted, then, an ideal man, a complete moral being, and _ipso facto_ +we have our supreme revelation of God. + +So runs the thrice familiar argument. Of course, we have gained +something by it. We may drop gladly the old dualistic philosophy, and +we must drop it, though I doubt if it is so easy to drop the dualistic +experience which created it. But I beg to point out that, on the +whole, we have lost more religiously than we have gained. For we have +made Jesus easy to understand, not as He brings us up to His level, +but as we have reduced Him to ours. Can we afford to do that? +Bernard's mystical line, "The love of Jesus, what it is, none but His +loved ones know," has small meaning here. The argument is very good +humanism but it drops the word "Saviour" out of the vocabulary +of faith. Oh, how many sermons since, let us say, 1890, have been +preached on the text, "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." +And how uniformly the sermons have explained that the text means +not that Jesus is like God, but that God is like Jesus--and we have +already seen that Jesus is like us! One only has to state it all to +see beneath its superficial reasonableness its appalling profanity! + +Third: we may see the influence of humanism upon our preaching in the +relinquishment of the goal of conversion. We are preaching to educate, +not to save; to instruct, not to transform. Conversion may be gradual +and half-unconscious, a long and normal process under favorable +inheritance and with the culture of a Christian environment. Or it +may be sudden and catastrophic, a violent change of emotional and +volitional activity. When a man whose feeling has been repressed by +sin and crusted over by deception, whose inner restlessness has been +accumulating under the misery and impotence of a divided life, is +brought into contact with Christian truth, he can only accept it +through a volitional crisis, with its cleansing flood of penitence and +confession and its blessed reward of the sense of pardon and peace and +the relinquishment of the self into the divine hands. But one thing is +true of either process in the Christian doctrine of conversion. It is +not merely an achievement, although it is that; it is also a rescue. +It cannot come about without faith, the "will to believe"; neither can +it come about by that alone. Conversion is something we do; it is also +something else, working within us, if we will let it, helping us to +do; hence it is something done for us. + +Now, this experience of conversion is passing out of Christian +life and preaching under humanistic influence. We are accepting +the Socratic dictum that knowledge is virtue. Hence we blur the +distinction between the Christian and the non-Christian. Education +supplants salvation. We bring the boys and girls into the church +because they are safer there than outside it; and on the whole it is +a good thing to do and really they belong there anyway. The church +member is a man of the world, softened by Christian feeling. He is +a kindly and amiable citizen and an honorable man; he has not been +saved. But he knows the unwisdom of evil; if you know what is right +you will do it. Intelligence needs no support from grace. It is +strange that the church does not see that with this relinquishment +of her insistence upon something that religion can do for a man that +nothing else can attempt, she has thereby given up her real excuse for +being, and that her peculiar and distinctive mission has gone. It is +strange that she does not see that the humanism which, since it is +at home in the world, can sometimes make there a classic hero, +degenerates dreadfully and becomes unreal in a church where unskilled +hands use it to make it a substitute for a Christian saint! But +for how many efficient parish administrators, Y.M.C.A. secretaries, +up-to-date preachers, character is conceived of as coming not by +discipline but by expansion, not by salvation, but by activity. Social +service solves everything without any reference to the troublesome +fact that the value of the service will depend upon the quality of the +servant. Salvation is a combination of intelligence and machinery. Sin +is pure ignorance or just maladjustment to environment. All we need is +to know what is right and wrong; the humane sciences will take care of +that; and, then, have an advertising agent, a gymnasium, a committee +on spiritual resources, a program, a conference, a drive for money, +and behold, the Kingdom of God is among us! + +Fourth, and most significant: it is to the humanistic impulse and +its derived philosophies that we owe the individualistic ethics, the +relative absence of the sense of moral responsibility for the social +order which has, from the beginning, maimed and distorted Protestant +Christianity. It was, perhaps, a consequence of the speculative +and absolute philosophies of the mediaeval church that, since they +endeavored to relate religion to the whole of the cosmos, its +remotest and ultimate issues, so they conceived of its absoluteness as +concerned with the whole of human experience, with every relation of +organized society. Under their regulative ideas all human beings, not +a selected number, had, not in themselves but because of the Divine +Sacrifice, divine significance; reverence was had, not for supermen or +captains of industry, but for every one of those for whom Christ died. +There were no human institutions which were ends in themselves or +more important than the men which created and served them. The Holy +Catholic Church was the only institution which was so conceived; all +others, social, political, economic, were means toward the end of the +preservation and expression of human personality. Hence, the interest +of the mediaeval church in social ethics and corporate values; hence, +the axiom of the church's control of, the believers' responsibility +for, the economic relations of society. An unjust distribution of +goods, the withholding from the producer of his fair share of the +wealth which he creates, profiteering, predatory riches--these were +ranked under one term as avarice, and they were counted not among +the venial offenses, like aberrations of the flesh, but avarice was +considered one of the seven deadly sins of the spirit. The application +of the ethics of Jesus to social control began to die out as +humanism individualized Christian morals and as, under its influence, +nationalism tended to supplant the international ecclesiastical order. +The cynical and sordid maxim that business is business; that, in the +economic sphere, the standards of the church are not operative and the +responsibility of the church is not recognized--notions which are +a chief heresy and an outstanding disgrace of nineteenth-century +religion, from which we are only now painfully and slowly +reacting--these may be traced back to the influence of humanism upon +Christian thought and conduct. + +In general, then, it seems to me abundantly clear that the humanistic +movement has both limited and secularized Christian preaching. It +dogmatically ignores supersensuous values; hence it has rationalized +preaching hence it has made provincial its intellectual approach and +treatment, narrowed and made mechanical its content. It has turned +preaching away from speculative to practical themes. It was, +perhaps, this mental and spiritual decline of the ministry to which a +distinguished educator referred when he told a body of Congregational +preachers that their sermons were marked by "intellectual frugality." +It is this which a great New England theologian-preacher, Dr. Gordon, +means when he says "an indescribable pettiness, a mean kind of retail +trade has taken possession of the preachers; they have substituted the +mill-round for the sun-path." + +The whole world today tends toward a monstrous egotism. Man's +attention is centered on himself, his temporal salvation, his external +prosperity. Preaching, yielding partly to the intellectual and partly +to the practical environment, has tended to adopt the same secular +scale of values, somewhat pietized and intensified, and to move within +the same area of operation. That is why most preaching today deals +with relations of men with men, not of men with God. Yet human +relationships can only be determined in the light of ultimate ones. +Most preaching instinctively avoids the definitely religious themes; +deals with the ethical aspects of devotion; with conduct rather than +with worship; with the effects, not the causes, the expression, not +the essence of the religious life. Most college preaching chiefly +amounts to informal talks on conduct; somewhat idealized discussions +of public questions; exhortations to social service. When sermons do +deal with ultimate sanctions they can hardly be called Christian. They +are often stoical; self-control is exalted as an heroic achievement, +as being self-authenticating, carrying its own reward. Or they are +utilitarian, giving a sentimentalized or frankly shrewd doctrine of +expediencies, the appeal to an exaggerated self-respect, enlightened +self-interest, social responsibility. These are typical humanistic +values; they are real and potent and legitimate. But they are not +religious and they do not touch religious motives. The very difference +between the humanist and the Christian lies here. To obey a principle +is moral and admirable; to do good and be good because it pays is +sensible; but to act from love of a person is a joyous ecstasy, a +liberation of power; it alone transforms life with an ultimate and +enduring goodness. Genuine Christian preaching makes its final appeal, +not to fear, not to hope, not to future rewards and punishments, not +to reason or prudence or benevolence. It makes its appeal to love, +and that means that it calls men to devotion to a living Being, a +Transcendence beyond and without us. For you cannot love a principle, +or relinquish yourself to an idea. You must love another living +Being. Which amounts to saying that humanism just because it is +self-contained is self-condemned. It minimizes or ignores the living +God, in His world, but not to be identified with it; beyond it and +above it; loving it because it needs to be loved; blessing it because +saving it. In so doing, it lays the axe at the very root of the tree +of religion. Francis Xavier, in his greatest of all hymns, has stated +once for all the essence of the Christian motive and the religious +attitude: + + "O Deus, ego amo te + Nec amo te ut salves me + Aut quia non amantes te + Aeternis punis igne. + + "Nee praemii illius spe + Sed sicut tu amasti me + Sic amo et amabo te + Solem, quia Rex meus est." + +What, then, has been the final effect of humanism upon preaching? It +has tempted the preacher to depersonalize religion. And since love is +the essence of personality, it has thereby stripped preaching of the +emotional energy, of the universal human interests and the +prophetic insight which only love can bestow. Over against this +depersonalization, we must find some way to return to expressing the +religious view and utilizing the religious power of the human spirit. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +EATING, DRINKING AND BEING MERRY + + +We ventured to say in the preceding chapter that, under the influences +of more than three centuries of humanism, the spiritual solidarity of +mankind is breaking down. For humanism makes an inhuman demand upon +the will; it minimizes the force of the subrational and it largely +ignores the superrational elements in human experience; it does not +answer enough questions. Indeed, it is frankly confessed, particularly +by students of the political and economic forces now working in +society, that the new freedom born in the Renaissance is, in some +grave sense, a failure. It destroyed what had been the common moral +authority of European civilization in its denial of the rule of the +church. But for nearly four centuries it has become increasingly clear +that it offered no adequate substitute for the supernatural moral and +religious order which it supplanted. John Morley was certainly one of +the most enlightened and humane positivists of the last generation. +In his _Recollections_, published three years ago, there is a final +paragraph which runs as follows: "A painful interrogatory, I must +confess, emerges. Has not your school held the civilized world, +both old and new alike, in the hollow of their hand for two long +generations past? Is it quite clear that their influence has been +so much more potent than the gospel of the various churches? +_Circumspice_. Is not diplomacy, unkindly called by Voltaire the field +of lies, as able as ever it was to dupe governments and governed by +grand abstract catchwords veiling obscure and inexplicable purposes, +and turning the whole world over with blood and tears, to a strange +Witch's Sabbath?"[11] This is his conclusion of the whole matter. + +[Footnote 11: _Recollections_: II, p. 366 ff.] + +But while the reasons for the failure are not far to seek, it is worth +while for the preacher to dwell on them for a moment. In strongly +centered souls like a Morley or an Erasmus, humanism produces a +stoical endurance and a sublime self-confidence. But it tends, in +lesser spirits, to a restless arrogance. Hence, both those lower +elements in human nature, the nature and extent of whose force it +either cloaks or minimizes, and those imponderable and supersensuous +values which it tends to ignore and which are not ordinarily included +in its definition of experience, return to vex and plague it. Indeed +the worst foe of humanism has never been the religious view of the +world upon whose stored-up moral reserves of uncompromising doctrine +it has often half-consciously subsisted. Humanism has long profited +from the admitted truth that the moral restraints of an age that +possesses an authoritative and absolute belief survive for some time +after the doctrine itself has been rejected. What has revealed the +incompleteness of the humanistic position has been its constant +tendency to decline into naturalism; a tendency markedly accelerated +today. Hence, we find ourselves in a disintegrating and distracted +epoch. In 1912 Rudolph Eucken wrote: "The moral solidarity of mankind +is dissolved. Sects and parties are increasing; common estimates and +ideals keep slipping away from us; we understand one another less +and less. Even voluntary associations, that form of unity peculiar to +modern times, unite more in achievement than in disposition, bring men +together outwardly rather than inwardly. The danger is imminent that +the end may be _bellum omnium contra omnes_, a war of all against +all."[12] + +[Footnote 12: _Harvard Theo. Rev._, vol. V, no. 3, p. 277.] + +That disintegration is sufficiently advanced so that we can see the +direction it is taking and the principle that inspires it. Humanism +has at least the value of an objective standard in the sense that it +sets up criteria which are without the individual; it substitutes a +collective subjectivism, if we may use the term, for personal whim +and impulse. Thus it proclaims a classic standard of moderation in all +things, the golden mean of the Greeks, Confucius' and Gautama's law +of measure. It proposes to bring the primitive and sensual element in +man under critical control; to accomplish this it relies chiefly upon +its amiable exaggeration of the reasonableness of human nature. But +the Socratic dictum that knowledge is virtue was the product of a +personality distinguished, if we accept the dialogues of Plato, by +a perfect harmony of thought and feeling. Probably it is not wise to +build so important a rule upon so distinguished an exception! + +But the positive defect of humanism is more serious. It likewise +proposes to rationalize those supersensuous needs and convictions +which lie in the imaginative, the intuitive ranges of experience. +The very proposal carries a denial of their value-in-themselves. +Its inevitable result in the humanist is their virtual ignoring. The +greatest of all the humanists of the Orient was Confucius. "I venture +to ask about death," said a disciple to the sage. "While you do not +know life," replied he, "how can you know about death?"[13] Even more +typical of the humanistic attitude towards the distinctively religious +elements of experience are other sayings of Confucius, such as: "To +give oneself earnestly to the duties due to men, and while respecting +spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them may be called wisdom."[13] +The precise area of humanistic interests is indicated in another +observation. "The subjects on which the Master did not talk were +... disorder and spiritual beings."[13] For the very elements of +experience which humanism belittles or avoids are found in the world +where pagans like Rabelais robustly jest or the high spaces where +souls like Newman meditate and pray. The humanist appears to be +frightened by the one and repelled by the other; will not or cannot +see life steadily and whole. That a powerful primitivistic faith, +like Taoism, a sort of religious bohemianism, should flourish beside +such pragmatic and passionless moderation as classic Confucianism is +inevitable; that the worship of Amida Buddha, the Buddha of redemption +and a future heaven, of a positive and eternal bliss, should be the +Chinese form of the Indian faith is equally intelligible. After a like +manner it is the humanism of our Protestant preaching today from which +men are defecting into utter worldliness and indifference on the one +hand and returning to mediaeval and Catholic forms of supernaturalism +on the other. + +[Footnote 13: _Analects_, XI, CXI; VI, CXX.] + +For the primitive in man is a beast whom it is hard to chain nor does +humanism with its semi-scientific, semi-sentimental laudation of all +natural values produce that exacting mood of inward scrutiny in which +self-control has most chance of succeeding. Hence here, as elsewhere +on the continent, and formerly in China, in Greece and in Rome, a sort +of neo-paganism has been steadily supplanting it. + +To the study of this neo-paganism we now address ourselves. It is +the third and lowest of those levels of human experience to which we +referred in the first lecture. The naturalist, you may remember, +is that incorrigible individual who imagines that he is a law unto +himself, that he may erect his person into a sovereign over the whole +universe. He perversely identifies discipline with repression and +makes the unlimited the goal both of imagination and conduct. Oscar +Wilde's epigrams, and more particularly his fables, are examples of +a thoroughgoing naturalist's insolent indifference to any form of +restraint. All things, whether holy or bestial, were material for his +topsy-turvy wit, his literally unbridled imagination. No humanistic +law of decency, that is to say, a proper respect for the opinions of +mankind, and no divine law of reverence and humility, acted for him +as a restraining force or a selective principle. An immediate and +significant example of this naturalistic riot of feeling, with its +consequent false and anarchic scale of values, is found in the +film dramas of the moving picture houses. Unreal extravagance of +imagination, accompanied by the debauch of the aesthetic and moral +judgment, frequently distinguishes them. In screenland, it is the +vampire, the villain, the superman, the saccharine angel child, +who reign almost undisputed. Noble convicts, virtuous courtesans, +attractive murderers, good bad men, and ridiculous good men, flit +across the canvas haloed with cheap sentimentality. Opposed to them, +in an ever losing struggle, are those conventional figures who stand +for the sober realities of an orderly and disciplined world; the +judge, the policeman, the mere husband. These pitiable and laughable +figures are always outwitted; they receive the fate which indeed, in +any primitive society, they so richly deserve! + +How deeply sunk in the modern world are the roots of this naturalism +is shown by its long course in history, paralleling humanism. It has +seeped down through the Protestant centuries in two streams. One is +a sort of scientific naturalism. It exalts material phenomena and the +external order, issues in a glorification of elemental impulses, an +attempted return to childlike spontaneous living, the identifying of +man's values with those of primitive nature. The other is an emotional +naturalism, of which Maeterlinck is at the moment a brilliant and +lamentable example. This exchanges the world of sober conduct, +intelligible and straightforward thinking for an unfettered dreamland, +compounded of fairy beauty, flashes of mystical and intuitive +understanding intermixed with claptrap magic, a high-flown +commercialism and an etherealized sensuality. + +Rousseau represents both these streams in his own person. His +sentimentalized egotism and bland sensuality pass belief. His +sensitive spirit dissolves in tears over the death of his dog but he +bravely consigns his illegitimate children to the foundling asylum +without one tremor. In his justly famous and justly infamous +_Confessions_, he presents himself Satan-wise before the Almighty at +the last Judgment, these _Confessions_ in his hand, a challenge to the +remainder of the human race upon his lips. "Let a single one assert +to Thee, if he dare: I am better than that man." But his preachment +of natural and spontaneous values, return to primitive conditions, +was equally aggressive. If anyone wants to inspect the pit whence the +Montessori system of education was digged, let him read Rousseau, who +declared that the only habit a child should have is the habit of not +having a habit, or his contemporary disciple, George Moore, who says +that one should be ashamed of nothing except of being ashamed. +There are admirable features in the schooling-made-easy system. It +recognizes the fitness of different minds for different work; that +the process of education need not and should not be forbidding; that +natural science has been subordinated overmuch to the humanities; that +the imagination and the hand should be trained with the intellect. +But the method which proposes to give children an education along +the lines of least resistance is, like all other naturalism, a +contradiction in terms, sometimes a _reductio ad absurdum_, sometimes +_ad nauseam_. As long ago as 1893, when Huxley wrote his Romanes +lecture on _Evolution and Ethics_, this identity of natural and human +values was explicitly denied. Teachers do not exist for the amusement +of children, nor for the repression of children; they exist for +the discipline of children. The new education is consistently +primitivistic in the latitude which it allows to whim and in its +indulgence of indolence. There is only one way to make a man out of +a child; to teach him that happiness is a by-product of achievement; +that pleasure is an accompaniment of labor; that the foundation of +self-respect is drudgery well done; that there is no power in any +system of philosophy, any view of the world, no view of the world, +which can release him from the unchanging necessity of personal +struggle, personal consecration, personal holiness in human life. +"That wherein a man cannot be equaled," says Confucius, "is his work +which other men cannot see."[14] The humanist, at least, does not +blink the fact that we are caught in a serious and difficult world. To +rail at it, to deny it, to run hither and thither like scurrying rats +to evade it, will not alter one jot or one tittle of its inexorable +facts. + +[Footnote 14: _Doctrine of the Mean_, ch. xxxiii, v. 2.] + +Following Rousseau and Chateaubriand come a striking group of +Frenchmen who passed on this torch of ethical and aesthetic rebellion. +Some of them are wildly romantic like Dumas and Hugo; some of them +perversely realistic like Balzac, Flaubert, Gautier, Zola. Paul +Verlaine, a near contemporary of ours, is of this first number; writer +of some of the most exquisite lyrics in the French language, yet a man +who floated all his life in typical romantic fashion from passion +to repentance, "passing from lust of the flesh to sorrow for sin in +perpetual alternation." Guy de Maupassant again is a naturalist of +the second sort, a brutal realist; de Maupassant, who died a suicide, +crying out to his valet from his hacked throat "_Encore l'homme au +rancart_!"--another carcass to the dustheap! + +In English letters Wordsworth in his earlier verse illustrated the +same sentimental primitivism. It would be unfair to quote _Peter +Bell_, for that is Wordsworth at his dreadful worst, but even in +_Tinlern Abbey_, which has passages of incomparable majesty and +beauty, there are lines in which he declares himself: + + "... well pleased to recognize + In nature, and the language of the sense + The anchor of my purest thought, the nurse, + The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul + Of all my moral being." + +Byron's innate sophistication saves him from the ludicrous depths to +which Wordsworth sometimes fell, but he, too, is Rousseau's disciple, +a moral rebel, a highly personal and subjective poet of whom Goethe +said that he respected no law, human or divine, except that of the +three unities. Byron's verse is fascinating; it overflows with a sort +of desperate and fiery sincerity; but, as he himself says, his life +was one long strife of "passion with eternal law." He combines both +the romantic and the realistic elements of naturalism, both flames +with elemental passion and parades his cynicism, is forever snapping +his mood in _Don Juan_, alternating extravagant and romantic feeling +with lines of sardonic and purposely prosaic realism. Shelley is a +naturalist, too, not in the realm of sordid values but of Arcadian +fancy. The pre-Raphaelites belong here, together with a group of young +Englishmen who flourished between 1890 and 1914, of whom John Davidson +and Richard Middleton, both suicides, are striking examples. Poor +Middleton turned from naturalism to religion at the last. When he had +resolved on death, he wrote a message telling what he was about to do, +parting from his friend with brave assumption of serenity. But he did +not send the postcard, and in the last hour of that hired bedroom in +Brussels, with the bottle of chloroform before him, he traced across +the card's surface "a broken and a contrite spirit thou wilt not +despise." So there was humility at the last. One remembers rather +grimly what the clown says in _Twelfth Night_, + + "Pleasure will be paid some time or other." + +This same revolt against the decencies and conventions of our humanist +civilization occupies a great part of present literature. How far +removed from the clean and virile stoicism of George Meredith or the +honest pessimism of Thomas Hardy is Arnold Bennett's _The Pretty Lady_ +or Galsworthy's _The Dark Flower_. Finally, in this country we need +only mention, if we may descend so far, such naturalists in literature +as Jack London, Robert Chambers and Gouverneur Morris. One's only +excuse for referring to them is that they are vastly popular with the +people whom you and I try to interest in sermons, to whom we talk on +religion! + +Of course, this naturalism in letters has its accompanying and +interdependent philosophic theory, its intellectual interpretation +and defense. As Kant is the noblest of the moralists, so I suppose +William James and, still later, Henri Bergson and Croce are the chief +protagonists of unrestrained feeling and naturalistic values in the +world of thought. To the neo-realists "the thing given" is alone +reality. James' pragmatism frankly relinquishes any absolute standard +in favor of relativity. In _the Varieties of Religious Experience_, +which Professor Babbitt tells us someone in Cambridge suggested should +have had for a subtitle "Wild Religions I Have Known," he is plainly +more interested in the intensity than in the normality, in the +excesses than in the essence of the religious life. Indeed, Professor +Babbitt quotes him as saying in a letter to Charles Eliot Norton, +"mere sanity is the most Philistine and at the bottom most unessential +of a man's attributes."[15] In the same way Bergson, consistently +anti-Socratic and discrediting analytical intellect, insists that +whatever unity may be had must come through instinct, not analysis. +He refuses to recognize Plato's _One in the Many_, sees the whole +universe as "a perpetual gushing forth of novelties," a universal and +meaningless flux. Surrender to this eternal flux, he appears to say, +and then we shall gain reality. So he relies on impulse, instinct, his +_elan vital_, which means, I take it, on man's subrational emotions. +We call it Intuitionism, but such philosophy in plain and bitter +English is the intellectual defense and solemn glorification of +impulse. "Time," says Bergson, "is a continuous stream, a present that +endures."[16] Time apparently is all. "Life can have no purpose in the +human sense of the word."[17] Essentially, then, James, Bergson and +Croce appeal from intellect to feeling. They return to primitivism. + +[Footnote 15: Letter to C.E. Norton, June 30, 1904.] + +[Footnote 16: _Le Perception de Changement_, 30.] + +[Footnote 17: _L'evolution creatrice_, 55.] + +Here is a philosophy which obviously may be both as antihumanistic and +as irreligious as any which could well be conceived. Here is license +in conduct and romanticism in expression going hand in hand with +this all but exclusive emphasis upon relativity in thought. Here is +disorder, erected as a universal concept; the world conceived of as +a vast and impenetrable veil which is hiding nothing; an intricacy +without pattern. Obviously so ungoverned and fluid a universe +justifies uncritical and irresponsible thinking and living. + +We have tried thus to sketch that declension into paganism on the +part of much of the present world, of which we spoke earlier in the +chapter. It denies or ignores the humanistic law with its exacting +moral and aesthetic standards; it openly flouts the attitude of +obedience and humility before religious mandates, and, so far as +opportunity offers or prudence permits, goes its own insolently wanton +way. Our world is full of dilettanti in the colleges, anarchists in +the state, atheists in the church, bohemians in art, sybarites in +conduct and ineffably silly women in society, who have felt, and +occasionally studied the scientific and naturalistic movement just far +enough and superficially enough to grasp the idea of relativity and +to exalt it as sufficient and complete in itself. Many of them are +incapable of realizing the implications for conduct and belief which +it entails. Others of them, who are of the lesser sort, pulled by +the imperious hungers of the flesh, the untutored instincts of a +restless spirit, hating Hellenic discipline no less than Christian +renunciation, having no stomach either for self-control or +self-surrender, look out on the mass of endlessly opposing +complexities of the modern world and gladly use that vision as an +excuse for abandoning what is indeed the ever failing but also the +ever necessary struggle to achieve order, unity, yes, even perfection. + +To them, therefore, the only way to conquer a temptation is to yield +to it. They rail nonsensically at all repression, forgetting that man +cannot express the full circle of his mutually exclusive instincts, +and that when he gives rein to one he thereby negates another; +that choice, therefore, is inevitable and that the more exacting +and critical the choice, the more valuable and comprehensive the +expression. So they frankly assert their choices along the lines of +least resistance and abandon themselves, at least in principle, to +emotional chaos and moral sentimentalism. Very often they are of all +men the most meticulously mannered. But their manners are not the +decorum of the humanist, they are the etiquette of the worldling. +Chesterfield had these folk in mind when he spoke with an intolerable, +if incisive, cynicism of those who know the art of combining the +useful appearances of virtue with the solid satisfactions of vice. + +Such naturalism is sometimes tolerated by those who aspire to urbane +and liberal judgments because they think it can be defended on +humanistic grounds. But, as a matter of fact, it is as offensive to +the thoroughgoing humanist as it is to the sincere religionist. +They have a common quarrel with it. Take, for example, the notorious +naturalistic doctrine of art for art's sake, the defiant divorcing of +ethical and aesthetic values. Civilization no less than religion +must fight this. For it is as false in experience and as unclear in +thinking as could well be imagined. Its defense, so far as it has +any, is based upon the confusion in the pagan mind of morality with +moralizing, a confusion that no good humanist would ever permit +himself. Of course, the end of art is neither preaching nor teaching +but delighting. For that very reason, however, art, too, must +conform--hateful word!--conform to fixed standards. For the sense of +proportion, the instinct for elimination, is integral to art and this, +as Professor Babbitt points out, is attained only with the aid of +the ethical imagination.[18] Because without the ethical restraint, +the creative spirit roams among unbridled emotions; art becomes +impressionism. What it then produces may indeed be picturesque, +melodramatic, sensual, but it will not be beautiful because there +will be no imaginative wholeness in it. In other words, the artist +who divorces aesthetics from ethics does gain creative license, but +he gains it at the expense of a balanced and harmonious expression. +If you do not believe it, compare the Venus de Milo with the Venus de +Medici or a Rubens fleshy, spilling-out-of-her-clothes Magdalen with +a Donatello Madonna. When ethical restraint disappears, art tends to +caricature, it becomes depersonalized. The Venus de Milo is a living +being, a great personage; indeed, a genuine and gracious goddess. The +Venus de Medici has scarcely any personality at all; she is chiefly +objectified desire! The essence of art is not spontaneous expression +nor naked passion; the essence of art is critical expression, +restrained passion. + +[Footnote 18: _Rousseau and Romanticism_, p. 206.] + +Now, such extreme naturalism has been the continuing peril and the +arch foe of every successive civilization. It is the "reversion to +type" of the scientist, the "natural depravity" of the older theology, +the scoffing devil, with his eternal no! in Goethe's _Faust_. It tends +to accept all powerful impulses as thereby justified, all vital and +novel interests as _ipso facto_ beautiful and good. Nothing desirable +is ugly or evil. It pays no attention, except to ridicule them, to +the problems that vex high and serious souls: What is right and wrong? +What is ugly and beautiful? What is holy and what is profane? It +either refuses to admit the existence of these questions or else +asserts that, as insoluble, they are also negligible problems. To all +such stupid moralizing it prefers the click of the castanets! The +law, then, of this naturalism always and everywhere is the law of +rebellion, of ruthless self-assertion, of whim and impulse, of cunning +and of might. + +You may wonder why we, being preachers, have spent so much time +talking about it. Folk of this sort do not ordinarily flock to the +stenciled walls and carpeted floors of our comfortable, middle-class +Protestant meeting-houses. They are not attracted by Tiffany glass +windows, nor the vanilla-flavored music of a mixed quartet, nor the +oddly assorted "enrichments" we have dovetailed into a once puritan +order of worship. That is true, but it is also true that these are +they who need the Gospel; also that these folk do influence the +time-current that enfolds us and pervades the very air we breathe and +that they and their standards are profoundly influencing the youth of +this generation. You need only attend a few college dances to be sure +of that! One of the sad things about the Protestant preacher is his +usual willingness to move in a strictly professional society and +activity, his lack of extra-ecclesiastical interests, hence his narrow +and unskillful observations and perceptions outside his own parish and +his own field. + +Moreover, there are other forms in which naturalism is dominating +modern society. It began, like all movements, in literature and +philosophy and individual bohemianism; but it soon worked its way +into social and political and economic organizations. Now, when we are +dealing with them we are dealing with the world of the middle class; +this is our world. And here we find naturalism today in its most +brutal and entrenched expressions. Here it confronts every preacher +on the middle aisle of his Sunday morning congregation. We are +continually forgetting this because it is a common fallacy of our +hard-headed and prosperous parishioners to suppose that the vagaries +of philosophers and the maunderings of poets have only the slightest +practical significance. But few things could be further from the +truth. It is abstract thought and pure feeling which are perpetually +moulding the life of office and market and street. It has sometimes +been the dire mistake of preaching that it took only an indifferent +and contemptuous interest in such contemporary movements in literature +and art. Its attitude toward them has been determined by temperamental +indifference to their appeal. It forgets the significance of their +intellectual and emotional sources. This is, then, provincialism and +obtuseness and nowhere are they by their very nature more indefensible +or more disastrous than in the preacher of religion. + +Let us turn, then, to those organized expressions of society where +our own civilization is strained the most, where it is nearest to the +breaking point, namely, to our industrial and political order. Let us +ask ourselves if we do not find this naturalistic philosophy regnant +there. That we are surrounded by widespread industrial revolt, that we +see obvious political decadence on the one hand, and a determination +to experiment with fresh governmental processes on the other, few +would deny. It would appear to me that in both cases the revolt and +the decadence are due to that fierce, short creed of rebellion against +humane no less than religious standards, which has more and more +governed our national economic systems and our international political +intercourse. Let me begin with business and industry as they existed +before the war. I paint a general picture; there are many and notable +exceptions to it, human idealism there is in plenty, but it and they +only prove the rule. And as I paint the picture, ask yourselves the +two questions which should interest us as preachers regarding it. +First, by which of these three laws of human development, religious, +humanistic, naturalistic, has it been largely governed? Secondly, by +what law are men now attempting to solve its present difficulties? + +The present industrial situation is the product of two causes. One +of them was the invention of machinery and the discovery of steam +transit. These multiplied production. They made accessible unexploited +sources of raw material and new markets for finished goods. The +opportunities for lucrative trading and the profitableness of +overproduction which they made possible became almost immeasurable. +Before these discoveries western society was generally agricultural, +accompanied by cottage industries and guild trades. It was largely +made up of direct contacts and controlled by local interests. After +them it became a huge industrial empire of ramified international +relationships. + +The second factor in the situation was the intellectual and spiritual +nature of the society which these inventions entered. It was, as we +have seen, essentially humanistic. It believed much in the natural +rights of man. The individual was justified, by the natural order, in +seeking his separate good. If he only sought it hard enough and well +enough the result would be for the general welfare of society. Thus at +the moment when mechanical invention offered unheard-of opportunities +for material expansion and lucrative business, the thought and feeling +of the community pretty generally sanctioned an individualistic +philosophy of life. The result was tragic if inevitable. The new +industrial order offered both the practical incentive and the +theoretical justification for institutional declension from humane +to primitive standards. It is not to be supposed that men slipped +deliberately into paganism; the human mind is not so sinister as it +is stupid nor so cruel as it is unimaginative nor so brutal as it +is complacent. For the most part we do not really understand, in +our daily lives, what we are about. Hence society degenerated, as +it always does, in the confident and stubborn belief that it was +improving the time and doing God's service. But He that sitteth in the +heavens must have laughed, He must have had us in derision! + +For upon what law, natural, human, divine, has this new empire been +founded? That it has produced great humanists is gratefully +conceded; that real spiritual progress has issued from its incidental +cosmopolitanism is manifest; but which way has it fronted, what have +been its characteristic emphases and its controlling tendencies? +Let its own works testify. It has created a world of new and extreme +inequality, both in the distribution of material, of intellectual +and of spiritual goods. Here is a small group who own the land, the +houses, the factories, machinery and the tools. Here is a very large +group, without houses, without tools, without land or goods. At this +moment only 7 per cent of our 110,000,000 of American people have an +income of $3,000 or more; only 1¼ per cent have an income of $5,000 +or more! What law produced and justifies such a society? The unwritten +law of heaven? No. The law of humanism, of Confucius and Buddha and +Epictetus and Aurelius? No. The law of naked individualism; of might; +force; cunning? Yes. + +Here in our American cities are the overwealthy and the insolently +worldly people. They have their palatial town house, their broad +inland acres; some of them have their seaside homes, their fish and +game preserves as well. Here in our American cities are the alien, the +ignorant, the helpless, crowded into unclean and indecent tenements, +sometimes 1,000 human beings to the acre. What justifies a +pseudo-civilization which permits such tragic inequality of fortune? +Inequality of endowment? No. First, because there is no natural +inequality so extreme as that; secondly, because no one would dare +assert that these cleavages in the industrial state even remotely +parallel the corresponding cleavages in the distribution of ability +among mankind. What justifies it, then? The unwritten law of heaven? +No. The law of humanism? No. The law of the jungle? Yes. + +Now for our second question. By what law, admitting many exceptions, +are men on the whole trying to change this situation at once indecent +and impious? This is a yet more important query. Our world has +obviously awakened to the rottenness in Denmark. But where are we +turning for our remedy? Is it to the penitence and confession, the +public-mindedness, the identification of the fate of the individual +with the fate of the whole group which is the religious impulse? Is it +to a disinterested and even-handed justice, the high legalism of the +Golden Rule, which would be the humanist's way? Or is it to the old +law of aggression and might transferring the gain thereof from the +present exploiters to the recently exploited? + +It would appear to be generally true that society at this moment is +not chiefly concerned with either love or justice, renunciation +or discipline, not with the supplanting of the old order, but +with perpetuating the naturalistic principle by means of a partial +redivision of the spoils, a series of compromises, designed to make it +more tolerable for one class of its former victims. Thus in capital we +have the autocratic corporation, atoning for past outrages on humanity +by a well-advertised benevolent paternalism, calculated to make men +comfortable so that they may not struggle to be free, or by huge gifts +to education, to philanthropy, to religion. In labor we see men rising +in brute fury against both employer and society. They deny the basic +necessities of life to their fellow citizens; they bring the bludgeon +of the picket down upon the head of the scab; by means of the closed +shop they refuse the right to work to their brother craftsmen; they +level the incapable men up and the capable men down by insisting upon +uniformity of production and wage. Thus they replace the artificial +inequality of the aristocrat with the artificial equality of the +proletariat, striving to organize a new tyranny for the old. It is +significant that our society believes that this is the only way by +which it can gain its rights. That betrays our real infidelity. For +between the two, associated capital and associated labor, what is +there to choose today? By what law, depending upon what sort of power, +is each seeking its respective ends? By the unwritten law of heaven? +No. By the humane law, some objective standard of common rights and +inclusive justice? No! By the ancient law that the only effectual +appeal is to might and that opportunity therefore justifies the deed? +On the whole it is to this question that we must answer, yes! + +Turn away now from national economics and industry to international +politics. Does not its _real politik_ make the philosophical +naturalism of Spencer and Haeckel seem like child's play? For long +there has been one code of ethics for the peaceful penetration of +commercially desirable lands, for punitive expeditions against peoples +possessed of raw materials, for international banking and finance +and diplomatic intercourse, and another code for private honor and +personal morality. There has been one moral scale of values for the +father of his family and another for the same man as ward or state or +federal politician; one code to govern internal disputes within the +nation; another code to govern external disputes between nations. +And what is this code that produced the Prussian autocracy, that long +insisted on the opium trade between India and China, that permitted +the atrocities in the Belgian Congo, that sent first Russia and then +Japan into Port Arthur and first Germany and then Japan into Shantung, +that insists upon retaining the Turk in Constantinople, that produced +the already discredited treaty of Versailles? What is the code that +made the deadly rivalry of mounting armaments between army and army, +navy and navy, of the Europe before 1914? The code, to be sure, of +cunning, of greed, of might; the materialism of the philosopher and +the naturalism of the sensualist, clothed in grandiose forms and +covered with the insufferable hypocrisy of solemn phrases. There are +no conceivable ethical or religious interests and no humane goals +or values that justify these things. International diplomacy and +politics, economic imperialism, using political machinery and power to +half-cloak, half-champion its ends, has no law of Christian sacrifice +and no law of Greek moderation behind it. On the contrary, what +should interest the Christian preacher, as he regards it, is its sheer +anarchy, its unashamed and naked paganism. Its law is that of the +unscrupulous and the daring, not that of the compassionate or the +just. In what does scientific and emotional naturalism issue, then? In +this; a man, if he be a man, will stand above divine or human law and +make it operative only for the weaklings beneath. Wherever opportunity +offers he will consult his own will and gratify it to the full. To +have, to get, to buy, to sell, to exploit the world for power, to +exploit one's self for pleasure, this is to live. The only law is +the old primitive snarl; each man for himself, let the devil take the +hindmost. + +There is only one end to such naturalism and that is increasing +anarchy. It means my will against your will; my appetite for gold, for +land, for women, for luxury and beauty against your appetite; until +at length it culminates in the open madness of physical violence, +physical destruction, physical death and despair. There can be no +other end to it. If men dare not risk being the lovers of their kind, +then they must choose between being the slaves of duty or the slaves +of force. What are we reading in the public prints and hearing from +platform and stage? The unending wail for "rights"; the assertion of +the individual. Ceased is the chant of duty, forgotten the sacrifice +of love! + +The events which have transformed the world since 1914 are an awful +commentary upon such naturalism and a dreadful confirmation of our +indictment. Before the spectacle that many of us saw on those sodden +fields of Flanders, both humanist and religionist should be alike +aghast. How childish not to perceive that its causes, as distinguished +from its occasions, were common to our whole civilization. How +perverse not to confess that beneath all our modern life, as its +dominating motive, has lain that ruthless and pagan philosophy, which +creates alike the sybarite, the tyrant and the anarch; the philosophy +in which lust goes hand in hand with cruelty and unrestrained will to +power is accompanied by unmeasured and unscrupulous force. + +It is incredible to me how men can take this delirium of +self-destruction, this plunging of the sword into our own heart in +a final frenzy of competing anarchy and deck it out with heroic and +poetic values, fling over it the seamless robe of Christ, unfurl above +it the banner of the Cross! The only contribution the World War +has made to religion has been to throw into intolerable relief the +essentially irreligious and inhumane character of our civilization. + +Of course, the men and the ideals who actually fought the contest +as distinguished from the men and ideals which precipitated it and +determined its movements, fill gallant pages with their heroism and +holy sacrifice. For wars are fought by the young at the dictation of +the old, and youth is everywhere humane and poetic. Thus, if I may be +permitted to quote from a book of mine recently published: + +"Our sons were bade to enter it as a 'war to end war,' a final +struggle which should abolish the intolerable burdens of armaments and +conscription. They were taught to exalt it as a strife for oppressed +and helpless peoples; the prelude to a new brotherhood and cooperation +among the nations, and to that reign of justice which is the +antecedent condition of peace. + +"They did their part. With adventurous faith they glorified their +cause and offered their fresh lives to make it good. Their sacrifice, +the idealism which lay behind it in their respective communities--the +unofficial perceptions that they, the fathers and mothers and the +boys, were fighting to vindicate the supremacy of the moral over the +material factors of life--this has made an imperishable gift to the +new world and our children's lives. When an entire commuity rises to +something of magnanimity, and a nation identifies its fate with +the lot of weaker states, then even mutilation and death may be +gift-bringers to mankind. + +"But it is more significant to our purpose to note that the blood of +youth had hardly ceased to run before the officials began to dicker +for the material fruits of conquest. Not how to obtain peace but how +to exploit victory--to wrest each for himself the larger tribute from +the fallen foe--became their primary concern. So the youth appear to +have died for a tariff, perished for trade routes and harbors, for +the furthering of the commercial advantages of this nation as against +that, for the seizing of the markets of the world. They supposed they +fought 'to end business of that sort' but they returned to find their +accredited representatives contemplating universal military service +in frank expectation of 'the next war.' They strove for the +'self-determination of peoples' but find that it was for some people, +but not all. And as for the cooperation among nations, Judge Gary has +recently told us that, as a result of the war, we should prepare for +'the fiercest commercial struggle in the history of mankind!'"[19] + +[Footnote 19: _Can the Church Survive_? pp. 14 ff.] + +Is it not clear, then, today that behind the determining as +distinguished from the fighting forces of the war there lay a +commercial and financial imperialism, directed by small and powerful +minorities, largely supported by a sympathetic press which used the +machinery of representative democracy to overthrow a more naked and +brutal imperialism whose machinery was that of a military autocracy? +Motives, scales of value, methods and desired ends, were much the same +for all these small governing groups as they operated from behind the +various shibboleths whose magic they used to nerve the arms of the +contending forces. The conclusion of the war has revealed the common +springs of action of the professional soldier, statesman, banker, +ecclesiastic, in our present civilization. On the whole they accept +the rule of physical might as the ultimate justification of conduct. +They are the leaders and spokesmen in an economic, social and +political establishment which, pretending to civilization, always +turns when strained or imperiled by foreign or domestic dangers to +physical force as the final arbiter. + +It is truly ominous to see the gradual extension of this naturalistic +principle still going on in the state. The coal strike was settled, +not by arbitration, but by conference, and "conferences" appear to +be replacing disinterested arbitration. This means that decisions are +being made on the principle of compromise, dictated by the expediency +of the moment, not by reference to any third party, or to some fixed +and mutually recognized standards. This is as old as Pythagoras and +as new as Bergson and Croce; it assumes that the concept of justice +is man-made, produced and to be altered by expediences and +practicalities, always in flux. But the essence of a civilization is +the humanistic conviction that there is something fixed and abiding +around which life may order and maintain itself. + +Progress rests on the Platonic theory that laws are not made by man +but discovered by him; that they exist as eternal distinctions +beyond the reach of his alteration. Again, an unashamed and rampant +naturalism has just been sweeping this country in the wave of mean +and cruel intolerance which insists upon the continued imprisonment +of political heretics, which would prohibit freedom of speech by +governmental decree and oppose new or distasteful ideas by the +physical suppression of the thinker. The several and notorious +attempts beginning with deportations and ending with the unseating of +the New York assemblymen, to combat radical thinking by physical +or political persecution--attempts uniformly mean and universally +impotent in history--are as sinister as they are stupid. The only +law which justifies the persecution and imprisonment of religious and +political heretics is neither the law of reason nor the law of +love, but the law of fear, hence of tyranny and force. When a +twentieth-century nation begins to raise the ancient cry, "Come now +and let us kill this dreamer and we shall see what will become of his +dreams," that nation is declining to the naturalistic level. For +this clearly indicates that the humane and religious resources of +civilization, of which the church is among the chief confessed and +appointed guardians, are utterly inadequate to the strain imposed +upon them. Hence force, not justice, though they may sometimes have +happened to coincide, and power, not reason or faith, are becoming the +embodiment of the state today. + +We come now to the final question of our chapter. How has this renewal +of naturalism affected the church and Christian preaching? On the +whole today, the Protestant church is accepting this naturalistic +attitude. In a signed editorial in the _New Republic_ for the last +week of December, 1919, Herbert Croly said, under the significant +title of "Disordered Christianity": "Both politicians and property +owners consider themselves entitled to ignore Christian guidance in +exercising political and economic power, to expect or to compel the +clergy to agree with them and if necessary to treat disagreement as +negligible. The Christian church, as a whole, or in part, does not +protest against the practically complete secularization of political, +economic and social life." + +You may say such extra-ecclesiastical strictures are unsympathetic and +ill informed. But here is what Washington Gladden wrote in January, +1918: "If after the war the church keeps on with the same old +religion, there will be the same old hell on earth that religious +leaders have been preparing for centuries, the full fruit of which we +are gathering now. The church must cease to sanction those principles +of militaristic and atheistic nationalism by which the rulers of the +earth have so long kept the earth at war."[20] Thus from within the +sanctuary is the same indictment of our naturalism. + +[Footnote 20: The _Pacific_, January 17, 1918.] + +But you may say Dr. Gladden was an old man and a little extreme in +some of his positions and he belonged to a past generation. But there +are many signs at the present moment of the increasing secularizing +of our churches. The individualism of our services, their casual +character, their romantic and sentimental music, their minimizing of +the offices of prayer and devotion, their increasing turning of the +pulpit into a forum for political discussion and a place of common +entertainment all indicate it. There is an accepted secularity today +about the organization. Church and preacher have, to a large degree, +relinquished their essential message, dropped their religious values. +We are pretty largely today playing our game the world's way. We are +adopting the methods and accepting the standards of the market. In +an issue last month of the _Inter-Church Bulletin_ was the following +headline: "Christianity Hand in Hand with Business," and underneath +the following: + +"George W. Wickersham, formerly United States attorney-general, +says in an interview that there is nothing incompatible between +Christianity and modern business methods. A leading lay official of +the Episcopal Church declares that what the churches need more than +anything else is a strong injection of business method into their +management. 'Some latter-day Henry Drummond,' he said, 'should write a +book on Business Law in the Spiritual World.'" + +In this same paper, in the issue of March 27, 1920, there was +an article commending Christian missions. The first caption ran: +"Commercial Progress Follows Work of Protestant Missions," and its +subtitle was "How Missionaries Aid Commerce." Here is Business Law in +the Spiritual World! Here is the church commended to the heathen and +the sinner as an advertising agent, an advance guard of commercial +prosperity, a hawker of wares! If the _Bulletin_ ever penetrates to +those benighted lands of the Orient upon which we are thus anxious +to bestow the so apparent benefits of our present civilization it is +conceivable that even the untutored savage, to say nothing of Chinamen +and Japanese, might read it with his tongue in his cheek. + +Such naïve opportunism and frantic immediacy would seem to me +conclusive proof of the disintegration and anarchy of the spirit +within the sanctuary. It is a part of it all that everyone has today +what he is pleased to call "his own religion." And nearly everyone +made it himself, or thinks he did. Conscience has ceased to be a check +upon personal impulse, the "thou shalt not" of the soul addressed to +untutored desires, and become an amiable instinct for doing good to +others. The Christian is an effusive creature, loving everything and +everybody; exalting others in terms of himself. We abhor religious +conventions; in particular we hasten to proclaim that we are free from +the stigma of orthodoxy. We do not go to church to learn, to meditate, +to repent and to pray; we go to be happy, to learn how to keep young +and prosperous; it is good business; it pays. We have a new and most +detestable cant; someone has justly said that the natural man in us +has been masquerading as the spiritual man by endlessly prating +of "courage," "patriotism"--what crimes have been committed in +its name!--"development of backward people," "brotherhood of man," +"service of those less fortunate than ourselves," "natural ethical +idealism," "the common destinies of nations"--and now he rises up and +glares at us with stained fingers and bloodshot eyes![21] In so far +as we have succumbed to naturalism, we have become cold and shrewd and +flexible; shallow and noisy and effusive; have been rather proud to +believe anything in general and almost nothing in particular; become +a sort of religious jelly fish, bumping blindly about in seas of +sentiment and labeling that peace and brotherhood and religion! + +[Footnote 21: _Rousseau and Romanticism_, p. 376.] + +Here, then, is the state of organized religion today in our churches. +They are voluntary groups of men and women, long since emancipated +from the control of the church as such, or of the minister as an +official, set free also from allegiance to historic statements, +traditional, intellectual sanctions of our faith; moulded by the +time spirit which enfolds them to a half-unconscious ignoring or +depreciation of what must always be the fundamental problem of +religion--the relationship of the soul, not to its neighbor, but to +God. Hence the almost total absence of doctrinal preaching--indeed, +how dare we preach Christian doctrine to the industry and politics and +conduct of this age? Hence the humiliating striving to keep up +with popular movements, to conform to the moment. Hence the placid +acceptance of military propaganda and even of vindictive exhortation. + +Is it any wonder then that we cannot compete with the state or the +world for the loyalty of men and women? We have no substitute to +offer. Who need be surprised at the restlessness, the fluidity, the +elusiveness of the Protestant laity? And who need wonder that at this +moment we are depending upon the externals of machinery, publicity and +money to reinstate ourselves as a spiritual society in the community? +A well-known official of our communion, speaking before a meeting of +ministers in New York City on Tuesday, March 23, was quoted in the +_Springfield Republican_ of the next day as saying: "The church holds +the only cure for the possible anarchy of the future and offers the +only preventative for the hell which we have had for the last five +years. But to meet this challenge the church can only go as far--as +the money permits." + +Has not the time arrived when, if we are to find ourselves again in +the world, we should ask, What is this religion in which we believe? +What is the real nature of its resources? What the real nature of its +remedies? Do we dare define it? And, if we do, would we dare to assert +it, come out from the world and live for it, in the midst of the +paganism of this moment? Is it true that without the loaves and the +fishes we can do nothing? If so, then we, too, have succumbed to +naturalism indeed! + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE UNMEASURED GULF + + +You may remember that when Daniel Webster made his reply to Hayne +in the Senate he began the argument by a return to first principles. +"When the mariner," said he, "has been tossed for many days in thick +weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the +first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his +latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his +true course. Let us imitate this prudence and before we float +further on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we +departed." He then asked for the reading of the resolution. + +It is to some such rehearsing of our original message, a restatement +of the thesis which we, as preachers, are set to commend, that we turn +ourselves in these pages. The brutal dislocations of the war, and the +long and confused course of disintegrating life that lay behind it, +have driven civilization from its true course and deflected the church +from her normal path, her natural undertakings. Let us try, then, to +get back to our charter; define once more what we really stand for; +view our human life, not as captain of industry, or international +politician, or pagan worldling, or even classic hero, would regard +it, but see it through the eyes of a Paul, an Augustine, a Bernard, +a Luther, the Lord Jesus. We have already remarked how timely and +necessary is this redefining of our religious values. If, as Lessing +said, it is the end of education to make men to see things that are +large as large and things that are small as small, it is even more +truly the end of Christian preaching. What we are most in need of +today is a corrected perspective of our faith; without it we darken +counsel as we talk in confusion. So, while we may not attempt here a +detailed and reasoned statement of religious belief, we may try to say +what is the fundamental attitude, both toward nature and toward man, +that lies underneath the religious experience. We have seen that we +are not stating that attitude very clearly nowadays in our pulpits; +hence we are often dealing there with sentimental or stereotyped or +humane or even pagan interpretations. Yet nothing is more fatal for +us; if we peddle other men's wares they will be very sure that we +despise our own. + +We approach, then, the third and final level of experience to which we +referred in the first lecture. We have seen that the humanist accepts +the law of measure; he rests back upon the selected and certified +experience of his race; from within himself, as the noblest inhabitant +of the planet, and by the further critical observation of nature he +proposes to interpret and guide his life. He is convinced that this +combined authority of reason and observation will lead to the _summum +bonum_ of the golden mean in which unbridled self-expression will be +seen as equally unwise and indecent and ascetic repression as both +unworthy and unnecessary. It is important to again remind ourselves +that confidence in the human spirit as the master of its own fate, +and in reason and natural observation as offering it the means of this +self-control and understanding, are essential humanistic principles. +The humanist world is rational, social, ethical. + +Over against this reasonable and disciplined view of man and of +his world stands naturalism. It exploits the defects of the classic +"virtue"; it is, so to speak, humanism run to seed. Just as religion +so often sinks into bigotry, cruelty and superstitition, so humanism, +in lesser souls, declines to egotism, license and sentimentality. +Naturalism, either by a shallow and insincere use of the materialistic +view of the universe, or by the exalting of wanton feeling and +whimsical fancy as ends in themselves, attempts the identification of +man with the natural order, permits him to conceive of each desire, +instinct, impulse, as, being natural, thereby defensible and +valuable. Hence it permits him to disregard the imposed laws of +civilization--those fixed points of a humane order--and to return +in principle, and so far as he dares in action, to the unlimited and +irresponsible individualism of the horde. Inevitably the law of the +jungle is deliberately exalted, or unconsciously adopted, over against +the humanist law of moderation and discipline. + +The humanist, then, critically studies nature and mankind, finding in +her matrix and in his own spirit data for the guidance of the race, +improving upon it by a cultivated and collective experience. The +naturalist uncritically exalts nature, seeks identification with it so +that he may freely exploit both himself and it. The faith of the one +is in the self-sufficiency of the disciplined spirit of mankind; the +unfaith of the other is in its glorification of the natural world and +in its allegiance to the momentary devices and desires of the separate +heart. It will be borne in mind that these definitions are too +clear-cut; that these divisions appear in the complexities of human +experience, blurred and modified by the welter of cross currents, +subsidiary conflicting movements, which obscure all human problems. +They represent genuine and significant divisions of thought and +conduct. But they appear in actual experience as controlling emphases +rather than mutually exclusive territories. + +Now, the clearest way to get before us the religious view of the world +and the law which issues from it is to contrast it with the other two. +In the first place, the religious temperament takes a very different +view of nature than either romantic, or to a less degree +scientific, naturalism. Naturalism is subrational on the one hand or +non-imaginative on the other, in that it emphasizes the _continuity_ +between man and the physical universe. The religious man is +superrational and nobly imaginative as he emphasizes the _difference_ +between man and nature. He does not forget man's biological kinship to +the brute, his intimate structural and even psychological relation to +the primates, but he is aware that it is not in dwelling upon these +facts that his spirit discovers what is distinctive to man as man. +That he believes will be found by accenting the _chasm_ between man +and nature. He does not know how to conceive of a personal being +except by thinking of him as proceeding by other, though not +conflicting, laws and by moving toward different secondary ends from +those laws and ends which govern the impersonal external world. This +sense of the difference between man and nature he shares with the +humanist, only the humanist does not carry it as far as he does and +hence may not draw from it his ultimate conclusions. + +The religious view, then, begins with the perception of man's +isolation in the natural order; his difference from his surroundings. +That sense of separateness is fundamental to the religious nature. The +false sentiment and partial science of the pagan which stresses the +identification of man and beast is the first quarrel that religionist +and humanist alike have with him. Neither of them sanctions +this perversion of thought and feeling which either projects the +impressionistic self so absurdly and perilously into the natural +order, or else minimizes man's imaginative and intellectual power, +leveling him down to the amoral instinct of the brute. "How much +more," said Jesus, "is a man better than a sheep!" One of the greatest +of English humanists was Matthew Arnold. You remember his sonnet, +entitled, alas! "To a Preacher," which runs as follows: + + "In harmony with Nature? Restless fool, + Who with such heat doth preach what were to thee, + When true, the last impossibility-- + To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool! + Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, + And in that more lie all his hopes of good, + Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood; + Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore; + Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest; + Nature forgives no debt and fears no grave; + Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest. + Man must begin; know this, where Nature ends; + Nature and man can never be fast friends. + Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!" + +Religionist and humanist alike share this clear sense of separateness. +Literature is full of the expression of it. Religion, in especial, +has little to do with the natural world as such. It is that other and +inner one, which can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell, with +which it is chiefly concerned. Who can forget Othello's soliloquy as +he prepares to darken his marriage chamber before the murder of his +wife? + + "Put out the light, and then put out the light. + If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, + I can again thy former light restore, + Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, + Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, + I know not where is that Promethean heat, + That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose + I cannot give it vital growth again, + It needs must wither." + +Indeed, how vivid to us all is this difference between man and nature. +"I would to heaven," Byron traced on the back of the manuscript of +_Don Juan_, + + "I would to heaven that I were so much clay, + As I am bone, blood, marrow, passion, feeling." + +Ah me! So at many times would most of us. And in that sense that we +are not is where the religious consciousness takes its beginning. + +Here is the sense of the gap between man and the natural world felt +because man has no power over it. He cannot swerve nor modify its +laws, nor do his laws acknowledge its ascendency over them. But +what makes the gulf deeper is the sense of the immeasurable moral +difference between a thinking, feeling, self-estimating being and all +this unheeding world about him. Whatever it is that looks out from the +windows of our eyes something not merely of wonder and desire but also +of fear and repulsion must be there as it gazes into so cruel as well +as so alien an environment. For a moral being to glorify nature as +such is pure folly or sheer sentimentality. For he knows that her +apparent repose and beauty is built up on the ruthless and unending +warfare of matched forces, it represents a dreadful equilibrium of +pain. He knows, too, that that in him which allies him with +this natural world is his baser, not his better part. This nobly +pessimistic attitude toward the natural universe and toward man so far +as he shares in its characteristics, is found in all classic systems +of theology and has dominated the greater part of Christian +thinking. If it is ignored today by the pseudo-religionists and +the sentimentalists; it is clearly enough perceived by contemporary +science and contemporary art. The biologist understands it. "I know of +no study," wrote Thomas Huxley, "which is so unutterably saddening +as that of the evolution of humanity as set forth in the annals of +history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the +marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more +intelligent than the other brutes; a blind prey to impulses which as +often as not lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions +which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his +physical life with barren toil and battle. He attains a certain degree +of comfort, and develops a more or less workable theory of life in +such favorable situations as the plains of Mesopotamia or of Egypt, +and then, for thousands and thousands of years struggles with various +fortunes, attended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed and misery, to +maintain himself at this point against the greed and ambition of his +fellow men. He makes a point of killing and otherwise persecuting all +those who first try to get him to move on; and when he has moved +a step farther he foolishly confers post-mortem deification on his +victims. He exactly repeats the process with all who want to move a +step yet farther."[22] + +[Footnote 22: "Agnosticism," the _Nineteenth Century_, February, +1889.] + +And no less does the artist, the man of high and correct feeling, +perceive the immeasurable distance between uncaring nature and +suffering men and women. There is, for instance, the passage in _The +Education of Henry Adams_, in which Adams speaks of the death of +his sister at Bagni di Lucca. "In the singular color of the Tuscan +atmosphere, the hills and vineyards of the Apennines seemed bursting +with midsummer blood. The sick room itself glowed with the Italian joy +of life; friends filled it; no harsh northern lights pierced the soft +shadows; even the dying woman shared the sense of the Italian summer, +the soft velvet air, the humor, the courage, the sensual fullness of +Nature and man. She faced death, as women mostly do, bravely and even +gayly, racked slowly to unconsciousness but yielding only to violence, +as a soldier sabred in battle. For many thousands of years, on these +hills and plains, Nature had gone on sabring men and women with the +same air of sensual pleasure. + +"Impressions like these are not reasoned or catalogued in the mind; +they are felt as a part of violent emotion; and the mind that feels +them is a different one from that which reasons; it is thought +of a different power and a different person. The first serious +consciousness of Nature's gesture--her attitude toward life--took form +then as a phantasm, a nightmare, an insanity of force. For the first +time the stage scenery of the senses collapsed; the human mind felt +itself stripped naked, vibrating in a void of shapeless energies, +with resistless mass, colliding, crushing, wasting and destroying what +these same energies had created and labored from eternity to perfect." + +Here is a vivid interpretation of a universal human experience. +Might not any one of us who had endured it turn upon the pagan and +sentimentalist, crying in the mood of a Swift or a Voltaire, "_Ca vous +amuse, la vie_"? The abstract natural rights of the eighteenth century +smack of academic complacency before this. The indignation we feel +against the insolent individualism of a Louis XIV who cried "_L'état +c'est moi_!" or against the industrial overlord who spills the tears +of women for his ambition, the sweat of the children for his greed, +is as nothing beside the indignation with the natural order which any +biological study would arouse except as the scientist perceives that +indignation is, for him, beside the point and the religionist believes +that it proceeds from not seeing far enough into the process. This +is why there is an essential absurdity in any naturalistic system of +ethics. Even the clown can say, + + "Here's a night that pities + Neither wise men nor fools." + +This common attitude of the religionist toward nature as a remote +and cruel world, alien to our spirits, is abundantly reflected in +literature. It finds a sort of final consummation in the intuitive +insight, the bright understanding of the creative spirits of our race. +What Aristotle defines as the tragic emotions, the sense of the terror +and the pity of human life, arise partly from this perception of the +isolation always and keenly felt by dramatist and prophet and poet. +They know well that Nature does not exist by our law; that we neither +control nor understand it; is it not our friend? + +There is, then, the law of identity between man and nature, found in +their common physical origin; there is also the law of difference. It +is on that aspect of reality that religion places its emphasis. It +is with this approach to understanding ourselves that preachers, as +distinguished from scientists, deal. Our present society is traveling +farther and farther away from reality in so far as it turns either to +the outside world of fact, or to the domain of natural law, expecting +to find in these the elements of insight for the fresh guidance of +the human spirit. Not there resides the secret of the beings of whom +Shelley said, + + "We look before and after + And pine for what is not, + Our sincerest laughter + With some pain is fraught." + +Instinct is a base, a prime factor, part of the matrix of personality. +But personality is not instinct; it is instinct plus a different +force; instinct transformed by spiritual insight and controlled by +moral discipline. The man of religion, therefore, finds himself not +in one but two worlds, not indeed mutually exclusive, having a common +origin, but nevertheless significantly distinct. Each is incomplete +without the other, each in a true sense non-existent without the +other. But that which is most vital to man's world is unknown in the +domain of nature. Already the perception of a dualism is here. + +But now a third element comes into it. There is something spiritually +common to nature and man behind the one, within the other. This +Something is the origin, the responsible agent for man's and nature's +physical identity. This Something binds the separates into a sort of +whole. This, I suppose, is what Professor Hocking refers to when he +says, "the original source of the knowledge of God is an experience +which might be described as of _not being alone in knowing the world_, +and especially the world of nature."[23] Thus the religious man +recognizes beyond the gulf, behind the chasm, something more like +himself than it. When he contemplates nature, he sees something other +than nature; not a world which is what it seems to be, but a world +whose chief significance is that it is more than it seems to be. It is +a world where appearance and reality are inextricably mingled and yet +sublimely and significantly separate. In short, the naturalist, the +pagan, takes the world as it stands; it is just what it appears; the +essence of his irreligion is that he perceives nothing in it that +needs to be explained. But the religionist knows that the world +which lies before our mortal vision so splendid and so ruthless, so +beautiful and so dreadful, does really gain both its substance and +significance from immaterial and unseen powers. It is significant +not in itself but because it hides the truth. It points forever to a +beyond. It is the vague and insubstantial pageant of a dream. Behind +it, within the impenetrable shadows, stands the Infinite Watcher of +the sons of men. + +[Footnote 23: _The Meaning of God in Human Experience_, p. 236.] + +In every age religious souls have voiced this unearthliness of +reality, the noble other-worldliness of the goals of the natural +order. "Heard melodies are sweet, but unheard melodies are sweeter." +Poet, philosopher and mystic have sung their song or proclaimed their +message knowing that they were moving about in worlds not realized, +clearly perceiving the incompleteness of the phenomenal world and the +delusive nature of sense perceptions. They have known a Reality which +they could not comprehend; felt a Presence which they could not grasp. +They have found strength for the battle and peace for the pain by +regarding nature as a dim projection, a tantalizing intimation of that +other, conscious and creative life, that originating and directive +force, which is not nature any more than the copper wire is the +electric fluid which it carries--a force which was before it, which +moves within it, which shall be after it. + +So poet and believer and mystic find the key to nature, the +interpretation of that alien and cruel world, not by sinking to its +indifferent level, not by sentimental exaltation of its specious +peace, its amoral cruelty and beauty, but by regarding it as the +expression, the intimation rather, of a purposive Intelligence, a +silent and infinite Force, beyond it all. So the pagan effuses over +nature, gilding with his sentimentality the puddles that the beasts +would cough at. And the scientist is interested in efficient causes, +seeing nature as an unbroken sequence, an endless uniformity of cause +and effect, against whose iron chain the spirit of mankind wages a +foredoomed but never ending revolt. But the religionist, confessing +the ruthless indifference, the amorality which he distrusts and +fears, and not denying the majestic uniformity of order, nevertheless +declares that these are not self-made, that the amorality is but +one half and that the confusing half of the tale. The whole creation +indeed groaneth and travaileth in pain, but for a final cause, which +alone interprets or justifies it, and which eventually shall set it +free. As a matter of fact, nearly all poets and artists thus view +nature in the light of final causes, though often instinctively and +unconsciously so. For what they sing or paint or mould is not the +landscape that we see, the flesh we touch, but the life behind it, +the light that never was on land or sea. What they give us is not +a photograph or an inventory--it is worlds away from such naïve and +lying realism. But they hint at the inexpressible behind expression; +paint the beauty which is indistinguishable from nature but not +identical with Nature. They make us see that not she, red in tooth and +claw, but that intangible and supernal something-more, is what gives +her the cleansing bath of loveliness. No reflective or imaginative +person needs to be greatly troubled, therefore, by any purely +mechanical or materialistic conception of the universe. They who +would commend that view of the cosmos have not only to reckon with +philosophical and religious idealism, but also with all the bright +band of poets and artists and seers. Such an issue once resolutely +forced would therewith collapse, for it would pit the qualitative +standards against the quantitative, the imagination against +literalism, the creative spirit in man against the machine in him. + +Here, then, is the difference between the naturalist's and the +religionist's attitude toward Nature. The believer judges Nature, well +aware of the gulf between himself and her, hating with inexpressible +depth of indignation and repudiating with profound contempt the +sybarite's identification of human and natural law. But also he comes +back to her, not to accept in wonder her variable outward form, but to +worship in awe before her invariable inner meaning. Sometimes, like +so many of the humanists, he rises only to a vague sense of the mystic +unity that fills up the interspaces of the world, and cries with +Wordsworth: + + "... And I have felt + A presence that disturbs me with the joy + Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime + Of something far more deeply interfused, + Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, + And the round ocean and the living air, + And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; + A motion and a spirit, that impels + All thinking things, all objects of all thought, + And rolls through all things."[24] + +Sometimes he dares to personalize this ultimate and then ascends to +the supreme poetry of the religious experience and feels the cosmic +consciousness, the eternal "I" of this strange world, which fills it +with observant majesty. And then he chants, + + "The heavens declare the glory of God, + The firmament showeth his handiwork." + +Or he whispers, + + "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, + Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? + If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there, + If I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there, + If I take the wings of the morning + And dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, + Even there shall Thy hand lead me + And Thy right hand shall hold me."[25] + +Indeed, the devout religionist almost never thinks of nature as such. +She is always the bush which flames and is not consumed. Therefore he +walks softly all his days, conscious that God is near. + + "Of old," he says, "Thou hast laid the foundations of the earth; + And the heavens are the work of Thy hands. + They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; + Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; + As a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed; + But Thou art the same, + And Thy years shall have no end."[26] + +To him nature is the glass through which he sees darkly and often with +a darkling mind, the all-pervasive Presence; it is the veil--the veil +that covers the face of God. + +[Footnote 24: _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_, stanza +3, ll. 36-45.] + +[Footnote 25: Psalm cxxxix. 7-9.] + +[Footnote 26: Psalm cii. 25-27.] + +Here, then, we have the contrasting attitude of worldling and believer +toward nature, the outward universe. Now we come to the contrasting +attitude of humanist and believer toward man, the world within. For +why are we so sure, first, of the chasm between ourselves and +Nature and, second, that we can bridge that chasm by reaching out to +something behind and beyond her which is more like us than her? +What gives us the key to her dualism? Why do we think that there is +Something which perpetually beckons to us through her, makes awful +signs of an intimate and significant relationship? Because we feel +a similar chasm, an equal cleft in our own hearts, a division in the +moral nature of mankind. We know that gulf between us and the outward +world because we know the greater gulf between flesh and spirit, +between the natural man and the real man, between the "I" and the +"other I." + +Here is where the humanist bids us good-by and we must go forward on +our road alone. For he will not acknowledge that there is anything +essential or permanent in that divided inner world; he would minimize +it or explain it away. But we know it is there and the reason we know +there is Something without which can bridge the outer chasm is because +we also know there is Something-Else within which might bridge this +one. For we who are religious know that within the depths and the +immensities of this inner world, where there is no space but where +there is infinite largeness, where there is no time but where there is +perpetual strife, there is Something-Else as well as the "I" and the +"other I," and it is that He who is the Something-Else who alone can +close the gap in that divided kingdom and make us one with ourselves, +hence with Himself and hence with His world. + +You ask how we can say, "He's there; He knows." We answer that this +"other," this "He" is a constant figure in the experience; always +in the vision; an integral part of the perception. What is He like? +"He" is purity and compassion and inexorableness. Something +fixed, immutable, not to be tricked, not to be evaded and oh! +all-comprehending. He sees, his eyes run to and fro in all the dark +and wide, the light and high dominions of the soul. If we will not +come to terms with "Him," that eternal and changeless life will be the +cliff against which the tumultuous waves of the divided spirit shall +shatter and dissipate into soundless foam; if we will come to terms, +relinquish, accept, surrender, then that purity and that compassion +will be the cleansing tide, the healing and restoring flood in which +we sink in the ecstasy of self-loss to arise refreshed, radiant, and +made whole. + +So we reckon from within out. The religious view of the world is based +upon the religious experience of the soul. We have no other means of +getting at reality. I know that there is Something-more than me and +Something-more than the nature outside of me, because we know that +there is Something which is not me and is not nature, inside of me. So +the man of religion, like any other poet, artist, seer, looks in his +own heart and writes. What he finds there is real, or else, as far +as he is concerned, there is no reality. He does not assert that +this reality is the final and utter truth. But he knows it is his +trustworthy mediator of that truth. + +Here, then, is an immense separation between religionist and both +humanist and naturalist; a separation so complete as to come full +circle. We are convinced of the secondary value, both of natural +appearances and of the mortal, temporal consciousness. So we +substitute for impertinent familiarity with Nature, a reverent regard +for what she half reveals, half hides. We interpret her by ourselves. +We are the same compound of identity and difference. We acknowledge +our continuity with the natural world, our intimate and tragic +alliance with the dust, but we also know that we, within ourselves, +are Something-Else as well. And it is that Something-Else in us which +makes the significant part of us, which sets our value and place in +the scale of being. + +In short, the dualism of nature is revealed in the dualism of the +soul. There is a gulf within, and if only man can span the inner +chasm, he will know how to bridge the outer. He must begin by finding +God within himself, or he will never find Him anywhere. Now, it is out +of this sense of a separation within himself, from himself and +from the Author of himself, that there arises that awful sense of +helplessness, of dependence, of bewilderment, which is the second +great element in the religious life. Man is alone in the world; man +is helpless in the world; man ought not to be alone in the world; +man is therefore under scrutiny and condemnation; he must find +reconciliation, harmony, companionship, somehow, somewhere. Hence +the religious man is not arrogant like the pagan, nor proud like the +humanist; he is humble. It is Burke, I think, who says that the whole +ethical life of man has its roots in this humility.[27] The religious +man cannot help but be humble. He has an awful pride in his kinship +with heaven, but, standing before the Lord of heaven, he feels human +nature's proper place, its confusion and division and helplessness; +its dependence upon the higher Power. + +[Footnote 27: _Correspondence_, III, p. 213.] + +It is at this point that humanism and religion definitely part +company. The former does not feel this absolute and judging Presence, +hence cannot understand the spiritual solicitude of the latter. St. +Paul was not quite at home on Mars Hill; it was hard to make those who +were always hearing and seeing some new thing understand; the shame +and humility of the cross were an unnecessary foolishness to them. So +they have always been. The humanist cannot take seriously this sense +of a transcendent reality. When Cicero, to escape the vengeance of +Clodius, withdrew from Rome, he passed over into Greece and dwelt for +a while in Thessalonica. One day he saw Mount Olympus, the lofty and +eternal home of the deities of ancient Greece. "But I," said the bland +eclectic philosopher, "saw nothing but snow and ice." + +How inadequate, then, as a substitute for religion, is even the +noblest humanism. True and fine as far as it goes, it does not go far +enough for us. It takes too little account of the divided life. It +appears not to understand it. On the whole it refuses to acknowledge +that it really exists, or, if it does, it is convinced of man's +unaided ability to efface it. It isn't something inevitable. Hence the +pride which is an essential quality of the humanistic attitude. + +But the religious man knows that it does exist and that while he is +not wholly responsible for it, yet he is essentially so and that, +alas, in spite of that fact, he alone cannot bridge it. So he cries, +"Wretched man that I am, what shall I do to be saved?" Here is the +feeling of uneasiness, the sense of something being wrong about us +as we naturally stand, of which James speaks. In that sense of +responsibility is the confession of sin and in the confession of sin +is the acknowledgment of the impotence of the sinner. + + "The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on + Nor all your wit nor all your tears, can wash a line of it." + +Man cannot, unaided, make his connection with this higher power. The +world is at fault, yes, but we are at fault, something both within and +without dreadfully needs explaining. So man is subdued and troubled by +the infinite mystery; and he cannot accept the place in which he finds +himself in that mystery; he is ashamed of it. + +Vivid, then, is his sense of helplessness! It makes him resent the +humanist, who bids him, unaided, solve his fate and be a man. That is +giving him stones when he asks for bread. He knows that advice makes +an inhuman demand upon the will; it assumes a reasonableness, an +insight and a moral power, which for him do not exist; it ignores +or it denies the reality and the meaning of this inner gulf. It is +important to note that even as philosophy and art and literature soon +parted company with the naturalist, so, to a large degree, they part +company with the humanist, too. They do not know very much of an +harmonious and triumphant universe. Few of the world's creative +spirits have ever denied that inner chasm or minimized its tragic +consequences to mankind. Isaiah and Paul and John and Augustine and +Luther are wrung with the consciousness of it. Indeed, the antithesis +between flesh and spirit is too familiar in religious literature to +need any recounting. It is more vividly brought home to us from +the nonprofessional, the disinterested and involuntary testimony of +secular writing. Was there ever such a cry of revolt on the part of +the trapped spirit against the net and slough of natural values and +natural desires as runs through the sonnets of William Shakespeare? We +remember the 104th: + + "Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, + Foiled by these rebel powers that thee array, + Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, + Painting thine outward walls so costly gay? + Why so large cost, having so short a lease, + Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? + Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, + Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? + Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss + And let that pine to aggravate thy store, + Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross + Within be fed, without be rich no more--" + +Or turn to our contemporary poet, James Stephens: + + "Good and bad are in my heart + But I cannot tell to you + For they never are apart + Which is the better of the two. + + I am this: I am the other + And the devil is my brother + And my father he is God + And my mother is the sod, + Therefore I am safe, you see + Owing to my pedigree. + + So I cherish love and hate + Like twin brothers in a nest + Lest I find when it's too late + That the other was the best."[28] + +Here, then, we find the next thing which grows out of man's sense +of separation both from nature and from his own best self. It is his +moral judgment on himself as well as on the world outside, and that +power to judge shows that he is greater than either. As Dr. Gordon +says, "Every honest man lives under the shadow of his own rebuke." We +can go far with the humanist in acknowledging the failures that are +due to environment, to incompleteness, to ignorance; we do not forget +the helpless multitude who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; +and we agree with the scientist that their helplessness foredooms +them and that their fate cannot be laid to their charge. But we go far +beyond where scientist and humanist stop. For we know that the deepest +cause of human misery is not inheritance, is not environment, is not +ignorance, is not incompleteness; it is the informed but the perverse +human will. Just as unhappiness is the consciousness of the divided +mind, so guilt is this sense of the deliberately divided will. +Jonathan Swift knew that; on every yearly recurrence of the hour in +which he came into the world, he cried lamentably, "Let the day perish +wherein I was born." + +[Footnote 28: _Songs from the Clay_, p. 40.] + +The Lord Jesus knew it, too. His teaching, unlike that of Paul, does +not throw into the foreground the divided will and its accompanying +sense of sin and guilt. But he does not ignore it. He brought it out +with infinite tenderness but inexorable clearness in the parables of +the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost boy. The sheep were but +young and silly, they did not wish to be lost on the mountain-side; +they knew no better; inexperience, ignorance were theirs, and +for their sad estate they were not held responsible. For them the +compassionate shepherd sought until he found them in the wilds, took +them, involuntary burdens, on his heart, brought them back to safety +and the fold. The coin had no native affinity with the dirt and grime +of the careless woman's house. It was only a coin, attached to anklet +or bracelet, having no power, no independence of its own; where it +fell, there must it lie. So with the lives set by fate in the refuse +and grime of our industrial civilization, the pure minted gold +effectually concealed by the obscurity and filth around. For such +lives, victims of environment, the Father will search, too, until they +are found, taken up, and somewhere, in this world or another, restored +to their native worth. But the chief of the parables, and the one that +has captured the imagination and subdued the heart of mankind, because +it so true to the greater part of life, is the story of the lost boy. +For he was the real sinner and he was such because, knowing what +he was about and able to choose, he desired to do wrong. It was not +ignorance, nor environment, nor inheritance, that led him into the far +country. It was its alien delights and their alien nature, for which +as such he craved. How subtle and certain is the word of Jesus here. +No shepherd seeks this wandering sheep; no householder searches for +this lost coin. The boy who willed to do wrong must stay with the +swine among the husks until he wills to do right. Then, when +he desires to return, return is made possible and easy, but the +responsibility is forever his. The source of his misery is his own +will. + +So the disposition of mankind is at the bottom of the suffering and +the division. There is rebellion and perverseness mingled with the +helplessness and ignorance and sorrow. No man ever understands or can +speak to the religious life unless he has the consciousness of this +inner moral cleft. No man will ever be able to preach with power about +God unless he does it chiefly in terms of God's difference from man +and man's perilous estate and desperate need of Him. Indeed, God is +not like us, not like this inner life of ours; this is what we want +to hear. God is different; that is why we want to be able to love Him. +And being thus different, we are separated from Him, both by the inner +chasm of the divided soul and the outer chasm of remote and hostile +nature. Then comes the final question: How are we, being helpless, to +reach Him? How are we, being guilty, to find Him? + +When men deal with these queries, with this range of experience, this +set of inward perceptions, then they are preaching religiously. And +then, I venture to say, they do not fail either of hearers or of +followers. Then there is what Catherine Booth used to call "liberty +of speech"; then there is power because then we talk of realities. +For what is it that looks out from the eyes of religious humanity? +Rebellion, pride? no! Humility, loneliness, something of a just and +deserved fear; but most of all, desire, insatiable, unwavering, an +intense desire. This passion of the race, its never satisfied hunger, +its incredible intensity and persistency of striving and longing, +is at once the tragedy and glory, the witness to the helplessness, +the revelation of the capacity of the race. The mainspring of human +activity, the creative impulse from which in devious ways all the +thousand-hued motives of our lives arise, is revealed in the ancient +cry, "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God!" That unquenched +thirst for Him underlies all human life, as the solemn stillness of +the ocean underlies the restless upper waves. The dynamic of the world +is the sense of the divine reality. The woe of the world is man's +inability to discover and appropriate that reality. Who that has +entered truly into life does not perceive beneath all the glitter of +its brilliance, the roar of its energy and achievement, the note of +melancholy? The great undertone of life is solemn in its pathetic +uniformity. The poets and prophets of the world have seized unerringly +upon that melancholy undertone. Who ever better understood the +futility and helplessness of unaided man, the certain doom that tracks +down his pride of insolence, or his sin, than the Greek tragedians? +Sophocles, divided spirit that he was, heard that note of melancholy +long ago by the Ægean, wrote it into his somber dramas, with their +turbid ebb and flow of human misery. Sometimes the voices of our +humanity as they rise blend and compose into one great cry that is +lifted, shivering and tingling, to the stars, "Oh, that I knew where I +might find Him!" Sometimes and more often they sink into a subdued and +minor plaint, infinitely touching in its human solicitude, perplexity +and pain. Again, James Stephens has phrased it for us in his verse +_The Nodding Stars_.[29] + +[Footnote 29: _Songs from the Clay_, p. 68.] + + "Brothers, what is it ye mean, + What is it ye try to say + That so earnestly ye lean + From the spirit to the clay. + + "There are weary gulfs between + Here and sunny Paradise, + Brothers! What is it ye mean + That ye search with burning eyes, + + "Down for me whose fire is clogged, + Clamped in sullen, earthy mould, + Battened down and fogged and bogged, + Where the clay is seven-fold." + +Now we understand the tragic aspect of nature and of the human soul +caught in this cosmic dualism without which corresponds to the ethical +dualism within. This perception of the One behind the many in nature, +of the thing-in-itself, as distinguished from the many expressions of +that thing, is the chief theme for preaching. This is what brings men +to themselves. Herein, as Dr. Newman Smyth has pointed out, appears +the unique marvel of personality. "It becomes conscious of itself as +individual and it individualizes the world; it is the one discovering +itself among the many. In the midst of uniformities of nature, moving +at will on the plane of natural necessities, weaving the pattern of +its ideas through the warp of natural laws, runs the personal life. +On the same plane and amid these uniformities, yet itself a sphere of +being of another order; in it, yet disentangled from it, and having +its center in itself, it lives and moves and has its being, breaking +no thread of nature's weaving, subject to its own law, and manifesting +a dynamic of its own."[30] + +[Footnote 30: _The Meaning of the Personal Life_, p. 173.] + +The source, then, as we see it, of all human hopes and human dignity, +the urge that lies behind all metaphysics and much of literature and +art, the thing that makes men eager to live, yet nobly curious to die, +is this conviction that One like unto ourselves but from whom we have +made ourselves unlike, akin to our real, if buried, person, walketh +with us in the fiery furnace of our life. There is a Spirit in man +and the breath of the Almighty giveth him understanding. Starting from +this interpretation, we can begin to order the baffling and teasing +aspects, the illusive nature of the world. Why this ever failing, but +never ending struggle against unseen odds to grasp and understand +and live with the Divine? Why, between the two, the absolute and the +changeless spirit, unseen but felt, and the hesitant and timid spirit +of a man, would there seem to be a great gulf fixed? Because we are +wrong. Because man finds the gulf within himself. He chafes at the +limitations of time and space? Yes; but he chafes more at the mystery +and weakness, the mingled deceitfulness and cunning and splendor of +the human heart. Because there is no one of us who can say, I have +made my life pure, I am free from my sin. He knows that the gulf is +there between the fallible and human, and the more than human; he does +not know how to cross it; he says, + + "I would think until I found + Something I can never find + Something lying on the ground + In the bottom of my mind." + +Here, then, can we not understand that mingling of mystic dignity +and profound humility, of awe-struck pride and utter self-abnegation, +wherewith the man of religion regards his race and himself? He is the +child of the Eternal; he, being man, alone knows that God is. "When I +consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars +which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, +or the son of man that Thou visitest him?" Here is the humility: "Why +so hot, little man!" Then comes the awe-struck pride: "Yet Thou hast +made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and +honor." "Alone with the gods, alone!" God is the high and lofty one +which inhabiteth eternity, but He is also nigh unto them who are of a +broken and a contrite heart. + +Here we are come to the very heart of religion. Man's proud +separateness in the universe; yet man's moral defection and his +responsibility for it which makes him know that separateness; man's +shame and helplessness under it. Over against the denial or evasion +of moral values by the naturalist and the dullness to the sense +of moral helplessness by the humanist, there stands the sense of +moral difference, the sense of sin, of penitence and confession. No +preaching not founded on these things can ever be called religious or +can ever stir those ranges of the human life for which alone preaching +is supposed to exist. + +What is the religious law, then? It is the law of humility. And what +is the religious consciousness? The sense of man's difference from +nature and from God. The sense of his difference from himself within +himself and the longing for an inner harmony which shall unite him +with himself and with the beauty and the spirit without. So what +is the religious passion? Is it to exalt human nature? It would +be more true to say it is to lose it. What is the end for us? Not +identification with nature and the natural self, but pursuit of the +other than nature, the more than natural self. Our humility is not +like that of Uriah Heep, a mean opinion of ourselves in comparison +with other men. It is the profound consciousness of the weakness and +the nothingness of our kind, and of the poor ends human nature sets +its heart upon, in comparison with that Other One above and beyond and +without us, to whom we are kin, from whom we are different, to whom we +aspire, to reach whom we know not how. + +This, then, is what we mean when we turn back from the language of +experience to the vocabulary of philosophy and theology and talk about +the absolute values of religion. We mean by "absolute values" that +behind the multifarious and ever changing nature, is a single and a +steadfast cause--a great rock in a weary land. We have lost the old +absolute philosophies and dogmatic theologies and that is good and +right, for they were outworn. But we are never going to lose the +central experience that produced them, and our task is to find a +new philosophy to express these inner things for which the words +"supernatural," "absolute," are no longer intelligible. For we still +know that behind man's partial and relative knowledge, feeling, +willing, is an utter knowledge, a perfect feeling, a serene and +unswerving will; that beneath man's moral anarchy there is moral +sovereignty; that behind his helplessness there is abundant power +to save. Perhaps this Other is always changing, but, if so, it is a +Oneness which is changing. In short, the thing that is characteristic +of religion is that it dwells, not on man's likenesses, but on his +awful differences from nature and from God; sees him not as little +counterparts of deity, but as broken fragments only to be made whole +within the perfect life. It sees relativity as the law of our being, +yes, but relativity, not of the sort that excludes, but is included +in, a higher absolute, even as the planet swings in infinite space. + +The trouble with much preaching is that it lacks the essentially +religious insight; in dwelling on man's identities it confuses or +drugs, not clarifies and purges, the spirit. Thus, it obscures the +gulf. Sometimes it evades it, or bridges it by minimizing it, and +genuinely religious people, and those who want to be religious, and +those who might be, know that such preaching is not real and that it +does not move them and, worst of all, the hungry sheep look up and +are not fed. For in such preaching there is no call to humility, no +plea for grace, no sense that the achievement of self-unity is as +much a rescue as it is a reformation. But this sense of the need of +salvation is integral to religion; this is where it has parted company +with humanism. Humanism makes no organic relations between man and +the Eternal. It is as though it thought these would take care of +themselves! In the place of grace it puts pride; pride of caste, of +family, of character, of intellect. But high self-discipline and +pride in the human spirit are not the deepest or the highest notes man +strikes. The cry, not of pride in self, but for fellowship with the +Infinite, is the superlative expression of man. Augustine sounded the +highest note of feeling when he wrote, "O God, Thou hast made us for +Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." The +words of the Lord Jesus gave the clearest insight of the human mind +when He said, "And when he came to himself, he said, I will arise and +go to my Father." + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +GRACE, KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE + + +I hope the concluding paragraphs of the last chapter brought us back +into the atmosphere of religion, into that sort of mood in which the +reality of the struggle for character, the craving of the human spirit +to give and to receive compassion, the cry of the lonely soul for the +love of God, were made manifest. These are the real goods of life to +religious natures; they need this meat which the world knoweth not of; +there is a continuing resolve in them to say, "Good-by, proud world, +I'm going home!" The genuinely religious man must, and should indeed, +live in this world, but he cannot live of it. + +Merely to create such an atmosphere then, to induce this sort of mood, +to shift for men their perspectives, until these needs and values rise +once more compelling before their eyes, is a chief end of preaching. +Its object is not so much moralizing or instructing as it is +interpreting and revealing; not the plotting out of the landscape +at our feet, but the lifting of our eyes to the hills, to the fixed +stars. Then we really do see things that are large as large and things +that are small as small. We need that vision today from religious +leaders more than we need any other one thing. + +For humanism and naturalism between them have brought us to an almost +complete secularization of preaching, in which its characteristic +elements, its distinctive contribution, have largely faded from +liberal speaking and from the consciousness of its hearers. We have +emphasized man's kinship with nature until now we can see him again +declining to the brute; we have proclaimed the divine Immanence +until we think to compass the Eternal within a facile and finite +comprehension. By thus dwelling on the physical and rational elements +of human experience, religion has come to concern itself to an +extraordinary degree with the local and temporal reaches of faith. +We have lost the sense of communion with Absolute Being and of the +obligation to standards higher than those of the world, which that +communion brings. Out of this identification of man with nature has +come the preaching which ignores the fact of sin; which reduces free +will and the moral responsibility of the individual to the vanishing +point; which stresses the control of the forces of inheritance and +environment to the edge of fatalistic determinism; which leads man +to regard himself as unfortunate rather than reprehensible when moral +disaster overtakes him; which induces that condoning of the moral +rebel which is born not of love for the sinner but of indifference to +his sin; which issues in that last degeneration of self-pity in +which individuals and societies alike indulge; and in that repellent +sentimentality over vice and crime which beflowers the murderer while +it forgets its victim, which turns to ouija boards and levitated +tables to obscure the solemn finality of death and to gloze over the +guilty secrets of the battlefield. + +Thus it has come about that we preach of God in terms of the +drawing-room, as though he were some vast St. Nicholas, sitting up +there in the sky or amiably informing our present world, regarding +with easy benevolence His minute and multifarious creations, winking +at our pride, our cruelty, our self-love, our lust, not greatly +caring if we break His laws, tossing out His indiscriminate gifts, +and vaguely trusting in our automatic arrival at virtue. Even as in +philosophy, it is psychologists, experts in empirical science and +methods, and sociologists, experts in practical ethics, who may be +found, while the historian and the metaphysician are increasingly +rare, so in preaching we are amiable and pious and ethical and +practical and informative, but the vision and the absolutism of +religion are a departing glory. + +What complicates the danger and difficulty of such a position, with +its confusion of natural and human values, and its rationalizing +and secularizing of theistic thinking, is that it has its measure of +reality. All these observations of naturalist and humanist are half +truths, and for that very reason more perilous than utter falsehoods. +For the mind tends to rest contented within their areas, and so the +partial becomes the worst enemy of the whole. What we have been doing +is stressing the indubitable identity between man and nature and +between the Creator and His creatures to the point of unreality, +forgetting the equally important fact of the difference, the +distinction between the two. But sound knowledge and normal feeling +rest upon observing and reckoning with both aspects of this law of +kinship and contrast. All human experience becomes known to us through +the interplay of what appear to be contradictory needs and opposing +truths within our being. Thus, man is a social animal and can only +find himself in a series of relationships as producer, lover, husband, +father and friend. He is a part of and like unto his kind, his spirit +immanent in his race. But man is also a solitary creature, and in that +very solitariness, which he knows as he contrasts it with his social +interests, he finds identity of self, the something which makes us +"us," which separates us from all others in the world. A Crusoe, +marooned on a South Sea island, without even a black man Friday for +companionship, would soon cease to be a man; personality would forsake +him. But the same Crusoe is equally in need of solitude. The hell of +the barracks, no matter how well conducted, is their hideous lack of +privacy; men condemned by shipwreck or imprisonment to an unbroken and +intimate companionship kill their comrade or themselves. We are all +alike and hence gregarious; we are all different and hence flee as a +bird to the mountain. The reality of human personality lies in neither +one aspect of the truth nor the other, but in both. The truth is found +as we hold the balance between identity and difference. Hence we are +not able to think of personality in the Godhead unless we conceive of +God as being, within Himself, a social no less than a solitary Being. + +Again, this law that the truth is found in the balance of the +antinomies appears in man's equal passion for continuity and +permanency and for variety and change. The book of Revelation tells +us that the redeemed, before the great white throne, standing upon the +sea of glass, sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. What has the one +to do with the other? Here is the savage, triumphant chant of the far +dawn of Israel's history, joined with the furthest and latest possible +events and words. Well, it at least suggests the continuity of the +ageless struggle of mankind, showing that the past has its place +in the present, relieving man's horror of the impermanence, the +disjointed character of existence. He wants something orderly and +static. But, like the jet of water in the fountain, his life is +forever collapsing and collapsing, falling in upon itself, its +apparent permanence nothing but a rapid and glittering succession of +impermanences. The dread of growing old is chiefly that, as years +come on, life changes more and faster, becomes a continual process of +readjustment. Therefore we want something fixed; like the sailor with +his compass, we must have some needle, even if a tremulous one, always +pointing toward a changeless star. Yet this is but one half of the +picture. Does man desire continuity?--quite as much does he wish for +variety, cessation of old ways, change and fresh beginnings. The +most terrible figure which the subtle imagination of the Middle Ages +conjured up was that of the Wandering Jew, the man who could not die! +Here, then, we arrive at knowledge, the genuine values of experience, +by this same balancing of opposites. Continuity alone kills; perpetual +change strips life of significance; man must have both. + +Now, it is in the religious field that this interests us most. We have +seen that what we have been doing there of late has been to ignore the +fact that reality is found only through this balancing of the law of +difference and identity, contrast and likeness. We have been absorbed +in one half of reality, identifying man with nature, prating of his +self-sufficiency, seeing divinity almost exclusively as immanent in +the phenomenal world. Thus we have not merely been dealing with only +one half of the truth, but that, to use a solecism, the lesser half. + +For doubtless men do desire in religion a recognition of the real +values of their physical nature. And they want rules of conduct, a +guide for practical affairs, a scale of values for this world. This +satisfies the craving for temporal adjustment, the sense of the +goodness and worth of what our instinct transmits to us. But it does +nothing to meet that profound dissatisfaction with this world and that +sense of the encumbrances of the flesh which is also a part of reality +and, to the religious man, perhaps the greater part. He wants to turn +away from all these present things and be kept secretly in a pavilion +from the strife of tongues. Here he has no continuing city. Always +while we dwell here we have a dim and restless sense that we are in an +unreal country and we know, in our still moments, that we shall only +come to ourselves when we return to the house of our Father. Hence +men have never been satisfied with religious leaders who chiefly +interpreted this world to them. + +And indeed, since July, 1914, and down to and including this very +hour, this idealizing of time, which we had almost accepted as our +office, has had a ghastly exposure. Because there has come upon us all +one of these irrevocable and irremediable disasters, for which time +has no word of hope, to which Nature is totally indifferent, for which +the God of the outgoings and incomings of the morning is too small. +For millions of living and suffering men and women all temporal +and mortal values have been wiped out. They have been caught in a +catastrophe so ruthless and dreadful that it has strewed their bodies +in heaps over the fields and valleys of many nations. Today central +and south and northeastern Europe and western Asia are filled with +idle and hungry and desperate men and women. They have been deprived +of peace, of security, of bread, of enlightenment alike. Something +more than temporal salvation and human words of hope are needed +here. Something more than ethical reform and social readjustment and +economic alleviation, admirable though these are! Something there must +be in human nature that eclipses human nature, if it is to endure so +much! What has the God of this world to give for youth, deprived of +their physical immortality and all their sweet and inalienable human +rights, who are lying now beneath the acre upon acre of tottering +wooden crosses in their soldier's graves? Is there anything in this +world sufficient now for the widow, the orphan, the cripple, the +starving, the disillusioned and the desperate? What Europe wants to +know is why and for what purpose this holocaust--is there anything +beyond, was there anything before it? A civilization dedicated to +speed and power and utility and mere intelligence cannot answer these +questions. Neither can a religion resolved into naught but the ethics +of Jesus answer them. "If in this world only," cries today the voice +of our humanity, "we have hope, then we are of all men the most +miserable!" When one sees our American society of this moment +returning so easily to the physical and the obvious and the practical +things of life; when one sees the church immersed in programs, and +moralizing, and hospitals, and campaigns, and membership drives, and +statistics, and money getting, one is constrained to ask, "What shall +be said of the human spirit that it can forget so soon?" + +Is it not obvious, then, that our task for a pagan society and a +self-contained humanity is to restore the balance of the religious +consciousness and to dwell, not on man's identity with Nature, but +on his far-flung difference; not on his self-sufficiency, but on his +tragic helplessness; not on the God of the market place, the office +and the street, an immanent and relative deity, but on the Absolute, +that high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity? Indeed, we are being +solemnly reminded today that the other-worldliness of religion, its +concern with future, supertemporal things, is its characteristic and +most precious contribution to the world. We are seeing how every human +problem when pressed to its ultimate issue becomes theological. Here +is where the fertile field for contemporary preaching lies. It +is found, not in remaining with those elements in the religious +consciousness which it shares in common with naturalism and humanism, +but in passing over to those which are distinctive to itself alone. It +has always been true, but it is especially true at this moment, that +effective preaching has to do chiefly with transcendent values. + +Our task is to assert, first, then, the "otherness" of man, his +difference from Nature, to point out the illusoriness of her phenomena +for him, the derived reality and secondary value of her facts. +These are things that need religious elucidation. The phrase +"other-worldliness" has come, not without reason, to have an evil +connotation among us, but there is nevertheless a genuine disdain +of this world, a sense of high superiority to it and profound +indifference toward it, which is of the essence of the religious +attitude. He who knows that here he is a stranger, sojourning in +tabernacles; that he belongs by his nature, not to this world, but +that he seeks a better, that is to say, a heavenly country, will for +the joy that is set before him, endure a cross and will despise +the shame. He will have a conscious superiority to hostile facts of +whatever sort or magnitude, for he knows that they deceive in so +far as they pretend to finality. When religion has thus acquired a +clear-sighted and thoroughgoing indifference to the natural order, +then, and then only, it begins to be potent within that order. Then, +as Professor Hocking says, it rises superior to the world of facts and +becomes irresistible.[31] + +[Footnote 31: _The Meaning of God in Human Experience_, p. 518.] + +The time is ripe, then, first, for the preacher to emphasize the +inward and essential difference between man and nature which exists +under the outward likeness, to remind him of this more-than-nature, +this "otherness" of man, without which he would lose his most precious +possession, the sense of personality. Faith begins by recognizing this +transcendent element in man and the acceptance of it is the foundation +of religious preaching. What was the worst thing about the war? Not +its destruction nor its horrors nor its futilities, but its shames; +the dreadful indignities which it inflicted upon man; it treated men +as though they were not souls! No such moral catastrophe could have +overwhelmed us if we had not for long let the brute lie too near the +values and practices of our lives, depersonalizing thus, in politics +and industry and morals and religion, our civilization. It all +proceeded from the irreligious interpretation of human existence, and +the fruits of that interpretation are before us. + +The first task of the preacher, then, is to combat the naturalistic +interpretation of humanity with every insight and every conviction +that is within his power. If we are to restore religious values, +rebuild a world of transcendent ends and more-than-natural beauty, we +must begin here with man. In the popular understanding of the phrase +all life is not essentially one in kind; physical self-preservation +and reproduction are not the be-all and the end-all of existence. +There is something more to be expressed in man without which these are +but dust and ashes in the mouth. There is another kind of life mixed +in with this, the obvious. If we cannot express the other world, we +shall not long tolerate this one. To think that this world is all, +leans toward madness; such a picture of man is a travesty, not a +portrait of his nature. Only on some such basic truths as these can +we build character in our young people. Paganism tells them that it +is neither natural nor possible to keep themselves unspotted from the +world. Over against it we must reiterate, You can and you must! for +the man that sinneth wrongeth his own soul. You are something more +than physical hunger and reproductive instinct; you are of spirit no +less than dust. How, then, can you do this great sin against God! + +How abundant here are the data with which religious preaching may +deal. Indeed, as Huxley and scores of others have pointed out, it is +only the religious view of man that builds up civilization. A great +community is the record of man's supernaturalism, his uniqueness. It +is built on the "higher-than-self" principle which is involved in the +moral sense itself. And this higher-than-self is not just a collective +naturalism, a social consciousness, as Durkheim and Overstreet and +Miss Harrison would say. The simplest introspective act will prove +that. For a man cannot ignore self-condemnation as if it were only a +natural difficulty, nor disparage it as though it were merely humanly +imposed. We think it comes from that which is above and without, +because it speaks to the solitary and the unique, not the social +and the common part of us. Hence conscience is not chiefly a tribal +product, for it is what separates us from the group and in our +isolation unites us with something other than the group. "Against +Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." So +religious preaching perpetually holds us up above our natural selves +and the natural order. + +Thus man must live by an other-than-natural law if he is to preserve +the family, which is the social unit of civilization. Its very +existence depends upon modifying and transforming natural hunger by a +diviner instinct, by making voluntary repressions, willing sacrifices +of the lower to the higher, the subordinating of the law of self and +might to the law of sacrifice and love--this is what preserves family +life. Animals indeed rear and cherish their young and for the mating +season remain true to one another, but no animality _per se_ ever yet +built a home. There must be a more-than-natural law in the state. Our +national life and honor rest upon the stability of the democracy and +we can only maintain that by walking a very straight and narrow path. +For the peace of freedom as distinguished from precarious license is +a more-than-natural attainment, born of self-repression and social +discipline, the voluntary relinquishment of lesser rights for higher +rights, of personal privileges for the sake of the common good. +Government by the broad and easy path, following the lines of least +resistance, like the natural order, saying might is right, means +either tyranny or anarchy. _Circumspice_! One of the glories of +western civilization is its hospitals. They stand for the supernatural +doctrine of the survival of the unfit, the conviction of the community +that, to take the easy path of casting out the aged and infirm, +the sick and the suffering, would mean incalculable degeneration +of national character, and that the difficult and costly path of +protection and ministering service is both necessary and right. And +why is the reformatory replacing the prison? Because we have learned +that the obvious, natural way of dealing with the criminal certainly +destroys him and threatens to destroy us; and that the hard, difficult +path of reeducating and reforming a vicious life is the one which the +state for her own safety must follow. + +Genuine preaching, then, first of all, calls men to repentance, bids +them turn away from their natural selves, and, to find that other and +realer self, enter the straight and narrow gate. The call is not an +arbitrary command, born of a negative and repressive spirit. It is a +profound exhortation based upon a fundamental law of human progress, +having behind it the inviolable sanction of the truth. Such preaching +would have the authentic note. It is self-verifying. It stirs to +answer that quality--both moral and imaginative--in the spirit of man +which craves the pain and difficulty and satisfaction of separation +from the natural order. It appeals to a timeless worth in man which +transcends any values of mere intelligence which vary with the ages, +or any material prosperity which perishes with the using, or any +volitional activity that dies in its own expenditure. Much of the +philosophy of Socrates was long ago outmoded, but Socrates himself, as +depicted in the Phaedo, confronting death with the cup of hemlock in +his hand, saying with a smile, "There is no evil which can happen to +a good man living or dead," has a more-than-natural, an enduring and +transcendent quality. Whenever we preach to the element in mankind +which produces such attitudes toward life and bid it assert itself, +then we are doing religious preaching, and then we speak with power. +Jesus lived within the inexorable circle of the ideas of His time; +He staked much on the coming of the new kingdom which did not appear +either when or as He had first expected it. He had to adjust, as do we +all, His life to His experience, His destiny to His fate. But when He +was hanging on His cross, forgotten of men and apparently deserted by +His God, something in Him that had nothing to do with nature or the +brute rose to a final expression and by its more-than-natural reality, +sealed and authenticated His life. Looking down upon His torturers, +understanding them far better than they understood themselves, He +cried, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That +cry has no place in nature; it has no application and no meaning +outside the human heart and that which is above, not beneath, the +human heart, from which it is derived. There, then, again was the +supernatural law; there was the more-than-nature in man which makes +nature into human nature; and there is the thing to whose discovery, +cultivation, expression, real preaching is addressed. Every time a man +truly preaches he so portrays what men ought to be, must be, and can +be if they will, that they know there is something here + + "that leaps life's narrow bars + To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven! + A seed of sunshine that doth leaven + Our earthly dullness with the beams of stars, + And glorify our clay + With light from fountains elder than the Day."[32] + +[Footnote 32: J.R. Lowell, _Commemoration Ode_, stanza IV, ll. 30-35.] + +Such preaching is a perpetual refutation of and rebuke to the +naturalism and imperialism of our present society. It is the call +to the absolute in man, to a clear issue with evil. It would not cry +peace, peace, when there is no peace. It would be living and active, +and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of +both joints and marrow, quick to discern the thoughts and intents of +the heart. + +Following this insistence upon the difference from nature, the +more-than-natural in man, the second thing in religious preaching +will have to be, obviously, the message of salvation. That is to say, +reducing the statement to its lowest terms, if man is to live by such +a law, the law of more-than-nature, then he must have something also +more-than-human to help him in his task. He will need strength from +outside. Indeed, because religion declares that there is such divine +assistance, and that faith can command it, is the chief cause and +reason for our existence. When we cease to preach salvation in some +form or other, we deny our own selves; we efface our own existence. +For no one can preach the more-than-human in mankind without +emphasizing those elements of free will, moral responsibility, the +need and capacity for struggle and holiness in human life which it +indicates, and which in every age have been a part of the message of +Him who said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is +in heaven, is perfect." + +Therefore, as we have previously corrected the half truth of the +naturalist who makes a caricature, not a portrait of man, we must now +in the same way turn to the correcting of the humanist's emphasis upon +man's native capacity and insist upon the complementary truth which +fulfills this moral heroism of mankind, namely, the divine rescue +which answers to its inadequacy. Man must struggle for his victory; he +can win; he cannot win alone. We must then insist upon the doctrine +of salvation, turning ourselves to the other side of the humanist's +picture. Man cannot live by this more-than-natural law unaided. For +not only has he the power to rise above Nature; the same thing gives +him equal capacity to sink beneath her, and, when left to himself, he +generally does so. The preacher does not dare deny the sovereignty +of sin. Humanism hates the very name of sin; it has never made +any serious attempt to explain the consciousness of guilt. Neither +naturalist nor humanist can afford to admit sin, for sin takes man, as +holiness does, outside the iron chain of cause and effect; it breaks +the law; it is not strictly natural. It makes clear enough that man +is outside the natural order in two ways. He is both inferior and +superior to it. He falls beneath, he rises above it. When he acts like +a beast, he is not clean and beastly, but unclean and bestial. When he +lifts his head in moral anguish, bathes all his spirit in the flood +of awe and repentance, is transfigured with the glorious madness of +self-sacrifice, he is so many worlds higher than the beast that their +relationship becomes irrelevant. So we must deal more completely +than humanists do with the central mystery of our experience; man's +impotent idealism, his insight not matched with consummation; the fact +that what he dares to dream of he is not able alone to do. + +For the humanist exalts man, which is good; but then he makes him +self-sufficient for the struggle which such exaltation demands, which +is bad. In that partial understanding he departs from truth. And what +is it that makes the futility of so much present preaching? It is the +acceptance of this doctrine of man's moral adequacy and consequently +the almost total lack either of the assurance of grace or of the +appeal to the will. No wonder such exhortations cannot stem the tide +of an ever increasing worldliness. Such preaching stimulates the mind; +in both the better and the worse preachers, it moves the emotions but +it gives men little power to act on what they hear and feel to the +transformation of their daily existence. Thus the humanistic sense of +man's sufficiency, coupled with the inherent distrust of any notion of +help from beyond and above, any belief in a reinforcing power which a +critical rationalism cannot dissect and explain, has gradually ruled +out of court the doctrine of salvation until the preacher's power, +both to experience and to transmit it, has atrophied through disuse. + +Who can doubt that one large reason why crude and indefensible +concepts of the Christian faith have such a disconcerting vitality +today is because they carry, in their outmoded, unethical, discredited +forms, the truth of man's insufficiency in himself and the confident +assurance of that something coming from without which will abundantly +complete the struggling life within? They offer the assurance of that +peace and moral victory which man so ardently desires, because they +declare that it is both a discovery and a revelation, an achievement +and a rescue. There are vigorous and rapidly growing popular movements +of the day which rest their summation of faith on the quadrilateral of +an inerrant and verbally inspired Scripture, the full deity of Jesus +Christ, the efficacy of His substitutionary atonement, the speedy +second coming of the Lord. No sane person can suppose that these cults +succeed because of the ethical insight, the spiritual sensitiveness, +the intellectual integrity of such a message. It does not possess +these things. They succeed, in spite of their obscurantism, because +they do confess and meet man's central need, his need to be saved. +The power of that fact is what is able to carry so narrow and so +indefensible a doctrine. + +So the second problem of the preacher is clear. Man asserts his +potential independence of the natural law. But to realize that, he +must bridge the gulf between himself and the supernatural lawgiver +to whose dictates he confesses he is subject. He is not free from the +bondage of the lower, except through the bondage to the higher. Nor +can he live by that higher law unaided and alone. Here we strike at +the root of humanism. Its kindly tolerance of the church is built +up on the proud conviction that we, with our distinctive doctrine of +salvation, are superfluous, hence sometimes disingenuous and always +negligible. The humanist believes that understanding takes the place +of faith. What men need is not to be redeemed from their sins, but to +be educated out of their follies. + +But does right knowing in itself suffice to insure right doing? +Socrates and Plato, with their indentification of knowledge and +virtue, would appear to think so; the church has gone a long way, +under humanistic pressure, in tacit acquiescence with their doctrine. +Yet most of us, judging alike from internal and personal evidence +and from external and social observation, would say that there was no +sadder or more universal experience than that of the failure of right +knowledge to secure right performance. Right knowledge is not in +itself right living. We have striking testimony on that point from one +of the greatest of all humanists, no less a person than Confucius. +"At seventy," he says, "I could follow what my heart desired without +transgressing the law of measure."[33] The implication of such +testimony makes no very good humanistic apologetic! Most of us, when +desire has failed, can manage to attain, unaided, the identification +of understanding and conduct, can climb to the poor heights of a +worn-out and withered continence. But one wonders a little whether, +then, the climbing seems to be worth while. + +[Footnote 33: _Analects_, II, civ.] + +But the doctrine usually begins by minimizing the free agency of +the individual, playing up the factors of compulsion, either of +circumstance or inheritance or of ignorance, as being in themselves +chiefly responsible for blameful acts. These are therefore considered +involuntary and certain to be reformed when man knows better and has +the corresponding strength of his knowledge. But Aristotle, who deals +with this Socratic doctrine in the third book of the _Ethics_, very +sensibly remarks, "It is ridiculous to lay the blame of our wrong +actions upon external causes rather than upon the facility with which +we ourselves are caught by such causes, and, while we take credit for +our noble actions to ourselves, lay the blame of our shameful actions +upon pleasure."[34] "The facility with which we are caught"--there +is the religious understanding there is that perversion of will which +conspires with the perils and chances of the world so that together +they may undo the soul. + +[Footnote 34: _Ethics_, Book III, ch. ii, p. 61.] + +Of course, as Aristotle admits, there is this half truth lying at the +root of the Socratic identification of virtue and knowledge that every +vicious person is ignorant of what he ought to do and what he ought to +abstain from doing in the sense that what he is about to do could +not be defended upon any ground of enlightened self-interest. And +so, while he finds sin sweet and evil pleasant, these are delusive +experiences, which, if he saw life steadily and whole, he would know +as such. But one reason for this ignorance is unwillingness to know. +Good men do evil, and understanding men sin, partly because they are +misled by false ideas, partly, also, because, knowing them false, +they cannot or will not give them up. This is what Goethe very well +understood when he said, "Most men prefer error to truth, because +truth imposes limitations and error does not." + +And another reason is that when men do know, they find a deadly and +mysterious, a sort of perverted joy--a sweet and terrible and secret +delight,--in denying their own understanding. Thus right living calls +for a repeated and difficult exercise of the will, what Professor +Babbitt calls "a pulling back of the impulse to the track that +knowledge indicates." Such moral mastery is not identical with moral +perception and most frequently is not its accompaniment, unless +observation and experience are alike fallacious. Thus the whole +argument falls to the ground when we confess that possession of +knowledge does not guarantee the application of it. Therefore the two +things, knowledge and virtue, according to universal experience, are +not identical. Humanists indeed use the word "knowledge" for the most +part in an esoteric sense. Knowledge is virtue in the sense that it +enables us to see virtue as excellent and desirable; it is not virtue +in the sense that it alone enables us to acquire it. + +Who, indeed, that has ever lived in the far country does not know +that one factor in its fascination was a bittersweet awareness of the +folly, the inevitable disaster, of such alien surroundings. Who +also does not know that often when the whole will is set to identify +conduct with conviction, it may be, for all its passionate and bitter +sincerity, set in vain. In every hour of every day there are hundreds +of lives that battle honestly, but with decreasing spiritual forces, +with passion and temptation. Sometimes a life is driven by the fierce +gales of enticement, the swift currents of desire, right upon the +jagged rock of some great sin. Lives that have seemed strong and fair +go down every day, do they not, and shock us for a moment with their +irremediable catastrophe? And we must not forget that before they went +down, for many a month or even year they have been hard beset lives. +Before that final and complete ruin, they have been drifting and +struggling, driven and fighting, sin drawing nearer and nearer, their +fated lives urged on, the mind growing darker, the stars in their +souls going out, the steering of their own lives taken from their +hands. Then there has been the sense of the coming danger, the dark +presentiment of how it all must end when the "powers that tend the +soul to help it from the death that cannot die, and save it even in +extremes, begin to vex and plague it." There has been the dreadful +sense of life drifting toward a great crash, nearer and nearer to what +must be the wreck of all things. What does the humanist have to offer +to these men and women who know perfectly well where they are, and +what they are about, and where they would like to be, but who can't +get there and who are, today and every day, putting forth their last +and somber efforts, trying in vain to just keep clear of ruin until +the darkness and the helplessness shall lift and something or someone +shall give them peace! + +Now, it is this defect in the will which automatically limits the +power of the intellect. It is this which the Socratic identification +ignores. So while we might readily grant that it is in the essential +nature of things that virtue and truth, wisdom and character, +understanding and goodness, are but two aspects of one thing, is it +not trifling with one of the most serious facts of human destiny +to interpret the truism to mean that, when a man knows that a +contemplated act is wrong or foolish or ugly, he is thereby restrained +from accomplishing it? Knowledge is not virtue in the sense that +mere reason or mere perception can control the will. And this is the +conclusion that Aristotle also comes to when he says: "Some people +say that incontinence is impossible, if one has knowledge. It seems +to them strange, as it did to Socrates, that where knowledge exists in +man, something else should master it and drag it about like a slave. +Socrates was wholly opposed to this idea; he denied the existence of +incontinence, arguing that nobody with a conception of what was best +could act against it, and therefore, if he did so act, his action +must be due to ignorance." And then Aristotle adds, "The theory is +evidently at variance with the facts of experience."[35] Plato himself +exposes the theoretical nature of the assertion, its inhuman demand +upon the will, the superreasonableness which it expects but offers no +way of obtaining, when he says, "Every one will admit that a nature +having in perfection all the qualities which are required in a +philosopher is a rare plant seldom seen among men."[36] + +[Footnote 35: _Ethics_, Book VII, ch. iii, pp. 206-207.] + +[Footnote 36: _Republic_, VI, 491.] + +It would be well if those people who are going about the world today +teaching social hygiene to adolescents (on the whole an admirable +thing to do) but proceeding on the assumption that when youth knows +what is right and what is wrong, and why it is right and why it is +wrong, and what are the consequences of right and wrong, that then, +_ipso facto_, youth will become chaste,--well if they would acquaint +themselves either with the ethics of Aristotle or with the Christian +doctrine of salvation. For if men think that knowledge by itself ever +yet produced virtue in eager and unsated lives, they are either knaves +or fools. They will find that knowledge uncontrolled by a purified +spirit and a reinforced will is already teaching men not how to +be good, but how to sin the more boldly with the better chance of +physical impunity. "Philosophy," says Black, "is a feeble antagonist +before passion, because it does not supply an adequate motive for the +conflict."[37] There were few men in the nineteenth century in whom +knowledge and virtue were more profoundly and completely joined than +in John Henry Newman. But did that subtle intellect suffice? could it +make the scholar into the saint? Hear his own words: + + "O Holy Lord, who with the children three + Didst walk the piercing flame; + Help, in those trial hours which, save to Thee, + I dare not name; + Nor let these quivering eyes and sickening heart + Crumble to dust beneath the tempter's dart. + + "Thou who didst once Thy life from Mary's breast + Renew from day to day; + O might her smile, severely sweet, but rest + On this frail clay! + Till I am Thine with my whole soul, and fear + Not feel, a secret joy, that Hell is near." + +So, only when we include in the term "knowledge" understanding plus +good will, is the humanist position true, and this, I suppose, is +what Aristotle meant when he finally says, "Vice is consistent with +knowledge of some kind, but it excludes knowledge in the full and +proper sense of the word."[38] + +[Footnote 37: _Culture and Restraint_, p. 104.] + +[Footnote 38: _Ethics_, Book VII, ch. v, p. 215.] + +Now, so finespun a discussion of intricate and psychological +subtleties is mildly interesting presumably to middle-aged scholars, +but I submit that a half truth that needs so much explanation and +so many admissions before it can be made safe or actual, is a rather +dangerous thing to offer to adolescence or to a congregation of +average men and women. It cannot sound to them very much like the good +news of Jesus. Culture is a precious thing, but no culture, without +the help of divine grace and the responsive affection on our part +which that grace induces, will ever knit men together in a kingdom +of God, a spiritual society. As long ago as the second century Celsus +understood that. He says in his polemic against Christianity, as +quoted by Origen, "If any one suppose that it is possible that the +people of Asia and Europe and Africa, Greeks and barbarians, should +agree to follow one law, he is hopelessly ignorant."[39] Now, Celsus +was proceeding on the assumption that Christianity was only another +philosophy, a new intellectual system, and he was merely exposing the +futility of all such unaided intellectualism. + +[Footnote 39: _Origen, contra Celsum_, VIII, p. 72.] + +It is, therefore, of prime importance for the preacher to remember +that humanism, or any other doctrine which approaches the problem of +life and conduct other than by moral and spiritual means, can never +take the place of the religious appeal, because it does not touch the +springs of action where motives are born and from which convictions +arise. You do not make a man moral by enlightening him; it is nearer +the truth to say that you enlighten him when you make him moral. +"Blessed are the pure in heart," said Jesus, "for they shall see +God. If any man wills to do the will, he shall know the doctrine." +Education does not wipe out crime nor an understanding mind make a +holy will. The last half of the nineteenth century made it terribly +clear that the learning and science of mankind, where they are +divorced from piety, unconsecrated by a spiritual passion, and largely +directed by selfish motives, can neither benefit nor redeem the race. +Consider for a moment the enormous expansion of knowledge which the +world has witnessed since the year 1859. What prodigious accessions +to the sum of our common understanding have we seen in the natural and +the humane sciences; and what marvelous uses of scientific knowledge +for practical purposes have we discovered! We have mastered in these +latter days a thousand secrets of nature. We have freed the mind from +old ignorance and ancient superstition. We have penetrated the secrets +of the body, and can almost conquer death and indefinitely prolong +the span of human days. We face the facts and know the world as our +fathers could never do. We understand the past and foresee the future. +But the most significant thing about our present situation is this: +how little has this wisdom, in and of itself, done for us! It has made +men more cunning rather than more noble. Still the body is ravaged and +consumed by passion. Still men toil for others against their will, +and the strong spill the blood of the weak for their ambition and the +sweat of the children for their greed. Never was learning so diffused +nor the content of scholarship so large as now. Yet the great cities +are as Babylon and Rome of old, where human wreckage multiplies, and +hideous vices flourish, and men toil without expectancy, and live +without hope, and millions exist--not live at all--from hand to mouth. +As we survey the universal unrest of the world today and see the +horrors of war between nation and nation, and between class and class, +it would not be difficult to make out a case for the thesis that the +scientific and intellectual advances of the nineteenth century +have largely worked to make men keener and more capacious in their +suffering. And at least this is true; just so far as the achievement +of the mind has been divorced from the consecration of the spirit, +in just so far knowledge has had no beneficent potency for the human +race. + +Is it not clear, then, that preaching must deal again, never more +indeed than now, with the religion which offers a redemption from sin? +This is still foolishness to the Greeks, but to those who believe it +is still the power of God unto salvation. Culture is not religion. +When the preacher substitutes the one for the other, he gives stones +for bread, and the hungry sheep go elsewhere or are not fed. It is +this emasculated preaching, mulcted of its spiritual forces, which +awakes the bitterest distrust and deepest indignation that human +beings know. They are fighting the foes of the flesh and the enemies +of the spirit, enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, +standing by the open graves of their friends and kindred, saying +there, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." And then, +with all this mystery and oppression of life upon them they enter the +doors of the house of God and listen to a polite essay, are told of +the consolations of art, reminded of the stupidity of evil, assured of +the unreality of sin, offered the subtle satisfactions of a cultivated +intelligence. In just so far as they are genuine men and women, they +resent such preaching as an insult, a mockery and an offense. No, no; +something more is needed than the humanist can offer for those who are +hard-pressed participants in the stricken fields of life. + +Religious preaching, then, begins with these two things: man's +solitary place in nature, man's inability to hold that place alone. +Hence two more things are necessary as essentials of great preaching +in a pagan day. The clear proclamation of the superhuman God, the +transcendent spirit who is able to control and reinforce the spirit of +man, and the setting forth of some way or some mediator, through whom +man may meet and touch that Spirit so far removed yet so infinitely +near and dear to him. It is with these matters that we shall be +occupied in the next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +THE ALMIGHTY AND EVERLASTING GOD + + +If the transcendent element in man which endows him with the proud if +tragic sense of personality is the first message of the preacher to +a chattering and volatile world, and the second is the setting forth +of what this endowment demands and how pitiably man fails to meet it, +then the third message is of the Rock that is higher than he, even +inclusive of his all, in whose composed and comprehensive Being his +baffled and divided person may be gathered up, brought to its own +consummation of self. The rivers that pour tumultuously to their ocean +bed, the ascending fire ever falling backward but leaping upward to +the sun, are poor figures to express the depth and irresistible urge +of the passion in man for completeness, for repose, for power, for +self-perception in self-expression, for victory and the attainment +of the end. Conscious and divided spirit that he is, man turns away, +sooner or later, with utter weariness and self-disgust from the nature +which pleases him by betraying him, which maims his person that he +may enjoy his senses, and reaches out after the other-worldly, the +supernatural, the invisible and eternal Hope and Home of the Soul. + +Humanism which bids men sufficiently find God within themselves, if +they think they need to find Him at all, seems not to comprehend this +passion of pride and humility, this inner perception of the futility +and the blunder of the self-contained life. Life is so obviously +not worth its brevity, its suffering, its withheld conclusions, its +relative insignificance, if it must thus stand alone. All that can +save it, preserve to it worth and dignity, maintain its self-respect +and mastery, is to find that abundant power without which confesses, +certifies and seals the divinity within. + +How foredoomed to failure, then, especially in an age when men are +surmounting life by placating it, enjoying it by being easy with +themselves--how foredoomed to failure is the preaching which continues +in the world of religion this exaltation of human sufficiency and +natural values, domesticating them within the church. It is to laugh +to see them there! It means so transparent a surrender, so pitiable a +confession of defeat. If anything can bring the natural man into the +sanctuary it is that there he has to bring his naturalness to the bar +of a more-than-natural standard. If he comes at all, it will not +be for entertainment and expansion but because there we insist on +reverence and restraint. If church and preacher offer only a pietized +and decorous naturalism, when he can get the real thing in naked and +unashamed brutality without; if they offer him only another form of +humanistic living, he will stay away. Such preaching is as boresome +as it is unnecessary. Such exercise of devotion is essentially +superfluous and a rather humorous imposition upon the world. The only +thing that will ever bring the natural man to listen to preaching is +when it insists upon something more-than-the-natural and calls him to +account regarding it; when it speaks of something different and better +for him than this world and what it can offer. "Take my _yoke_ upon +you" is the attractive invitation, "make inner obeisance and outward +obedience to something higher than thy poor self." + +It is clear, then, that these observations have a bearing upon our +preaching of the doctrine of God. There is a certain illogicality, +something humorous, in going into a church, of all places in the +world, to be told how like we are to Him. The dull and average +personality, the ordinary and not very valuable man, can probably +listen indifferently and with a slow-growing hardness and dim +resentment to that sort of preaching for a number of years. But the +valuable, the highly personalized people, the saints and the sinners, +the great rebels and the great disciples, who are the very folk for +whom the church exists, would hate it, and they would know the final +bitterness of despair if they thought that this was so. Either saint +or sinner would consider it the supreme insult, the last pitch of +insolence, for the church to be telling them that it is true. + +For they know within themselves that it is a lie. Their one hope hangs +on God because His thoughts are not their thoughts, nor His ways their +ways; because He seeth the end from the beginning; because in Him +there is no variableness, neither shadow that is caused by turning; +because no man shall see His face and live. They, the sinners and the +saints, do not want to be told that they, within themselves, can heal +themselves and that sin has no real sinfulness. That is tempting them +to the final denial, the last depth of betrayal, the blurring of moral +values, the calling of evil good and the saying that good is evil. +They know that this is the unpardonable madness. In the hours when +they, the saints and sinners, wipe their mouths and say, "We have done +no harm"; in the days when what they love is ugliness because it is +ugly and shameless, and reckless expression because it is so terrible, +so secretly appalling, so bittersweet with the sweetness of death, +they know that it is the last affront to have the church--the one +place where men expect they will be made to face the facts--bow these +facts out of doors. + +No, we readily grant that the religious approach to the whole truth +and to final reality is like any other one, either scientific, +economic, political, a partial approach. It sets forth for the most +part only a group of facts. When it does not emphasize other facts, +it does not thereby deny them. But it insists that the truth of man's +differences, man's helplessness which the differences reveal, and +man's fate hanging therefore upon a transcendent God, are the key +truths for the religious life. It is with that aspect of life the +preacher deals, and if he fails to grapple with these problems and +considerations, ignores these facts, his candlestick has been removed. + +The argument for a God, then, within His world, but also distinct +from it, above its evil custom and in some sense untouched by +its all-leveling life, is essential to the preservation of human +personality, and personality is essential to dignity, to decency, to +hope. The clearest and simplest thing to be said about the Hebrew God, +lofty and inaccessible Being, with whom nevertheless His purified and +obedient children might have relationships, or about the "living +God" of Greek theology, far removed from us but with whose deathless +goodness, beauty and truth our mortality by some mediator may be +endowed, is that the argument that supports such transcendence is +the argument from necessity. It is the facts of experience, the very +stuff of human life, coming down alike from Hebraic and Hellenic +civilization, which demand Him. Immanence and transcendence are merely +theistic terms for identity and difference. Through them is revealed +and discovered personality, the "I" which is the ultimate fact of +my consciousness. I can but reckon from the known to the unknown. +The world which produced me is also, then, a cosmic identity and +difference. In that double fact is found divine personality. But +that aspect of His Person, that portion of the fact which feeds +the imaginative and volitional life, is the glorious and saving +unlikeness of God--His unthinkable and inexpressible glory; His utter +comprehension and unbelievable compassion; His justice which knows no +flaw and brooks no evasion and cannot be swerved; His power which +may not be withstood and hence is a sure and certain tenderness; His +hatred of sin, terrible and flaming, a hatred which will send sinful +men through a thousand hells, if they will have them, and can only be +saved thereby; His love for men, which is what makes Him hate their +sin and leads Him by His very nature as God to walk into hell with the +sinner, suffering with him a thousand times more than the sinner is +able to understand or know,--like the Paul who could not wish himself, +for himself, in hell, but who did wish himself accursed of God for +his brethren's sake; like Jesus, who, in Gethsemane, would for Himself +avoid His cross, but who accepted it and was willing to hang, forsaken +of God, upon it, for the lives of men, identifying Himself to the +uttermost with their fate. Yes; it is such a supernal God--that God +who is apart, incredible, awful--that the soul of humanity craves and +needs. + +Of course, here again, as throughout these discussions, we are +returning to a form of the old dualism. We cannot seem to help it. We +may construct philosophies like Hegel's in which thesis and antithesis +merge in a higher synthesis; we may use the dual view of the world as +representing only a stage, a present achievement in cosmic progress or +human understanding. But that does not alter the incontestable witness +of present experience that the religious consciousness is based upon, +interwoven with, the sense of the cosmic division without, and the +unresolved moral dualism within the individual life. It is important +enough to remember, however, that we have rejected, at least for this +generation, the old scholastic theologies founded on this general +experience. Fashions of thought change with significant facility; +there is not much of the Absolute about them! Nevertheless we cannot +think with forgotten terms. Therefore ours is no mechanically divided +world where man and God, nature and supernature, soul and body, belong +to mutually exclusive territories. We do not deny the principle of +identity. Hence we have discarded that old view of the world and all +the elder doctrines of an absentee creator, a worthless and totally +depraved humanity, a legalistic or substitutionary atonement, a +magical and non-understandable Incarnation which flowed from it. But +we are not discarding with them that other aspect of the truth, the +principle of separateness, nor those value judgments, that perpetual +vision of another nature, behind and beneath phenomena, from which +the old dualism took its rise. It is the form which it assumed, the +interpretation of experience which it gave, not the facts themselves, +obscure but stubborn as they are, which it confessed, that we have +dropped. Identity and difference are still here; man is a part of his +world, but he is also apart from it. God is in nature and in us; God +is without and other than nature and most awfully something other than +us. + +Indeed, the precise problem of the preacher today is to keep the old +supernatural values and drop the old vocabulary with the philosophy +which induced it. We must acknowledge the universe as one, and yet be +able to show that the He or the It, beyond and without the world, is +its only conceivable beginning, its only conceivable end, the chief +hope of its brevity, the only stay of its idealism. It was the +arbitrary and mechanical completeness of the old division, not the +reality that underlay the distinction itself, which parted company +with truth and hence lost the allegiance of the mind. It was that the +old dualism tried to lock up this, the most baffling of all realities, +in a formula,--that was what undid it. But we shall be equally foolish +if now, in the interests of a new artificial clearness, we deny +another portion of experience just as our fathers ignored certain +other facts in the interests of their too well-defined systems. We +cannot hold to the old world view which would bend the modern mind to +the support of an inherited interpretation of experience and therefore +would not any longer really explain or confirm it. Neither can we hold +new views which mutilate the experience and leave out some of the most +precious elements in it, even if in so doing we should simplify the +problem for the mind. It would be an unreal simplification; it would +darken, not illumine, the understanding; we should never rest in it. +Nor do we need to be concerned if the intellect cannot perfectly +order or easily demonstrate the whole of the religious life, fit each +element with a self-verifying defense and explanation. No man of the +world, to say nothing of a man of faith or imagination, has ever yet +trusted to a purely intellectual judgment. + +So we reject the old dualism, its dichotomized universe, its two sorts +of authority, its prodigious and arbitrary supernaturalism. But we do +not reject what lay behind it. Still we wrestle with the angel, lamed +though we are by the contest, and we cannot let him go until the day +breaks and the shadows flee away. It would be easier perhaps to give +up the religious point of view, but for that ease we should pay with +our life. For that swift answer, achieved by leaving out prime factors +in the problem, we should be betraying the self for whose sake alone +any answer is valuable. It does not pay to cut such Gordian knots! Our +task, then, is to preach transcendence again, not in terms of the old +absolutist philosophy, but in terms of the perceptions, the needs, the +experience of the human heart and mind and will which produced that +philosophy. + +Nor is this so hard to do. Now, as always for the genuinely religious +temperament, there are abundant riches of material lying ready to its +hand. It is not difficult to make transcendence real and to reveal to +men their consummate need of it when we speak of it in the language +of experience and perception. What preaching should avoid is +the abstractions of an archaic system of thought with all their +provocative and contentious elements, the mingled dogmatism and +incompleteness which any worked-out system contains. It is so foolish +in the preacher to turn himself into a lay philosopher. Let him keep +his insight clear, through moral discipline keep his intuitions high, +his spirit pure, and then he can furnish the materials for philosophy. + +Thus an almost universal trait of the religious temperament is in +its delight in beauty. Sometimes it is repressed by an irreligious +asceticism or narrowed and stunted by a literal and external faith. +But when the religious man is left free, it is appropriate to his +genius that he finds the world full of a high pleasure crowded with +sound, color, fragrance, form, in which he takes exquisite delight. +There is, in short, a serene and poetic naturalism, loosely called +"nature-worship," which is keenly felt by both saints and sinners. +All it needs for its consecration and perfection is to help men to +see that this naturalism is vital and precious because, as a matter +of fact, it is something more than naturalism, and more than pleasure +objectified. + +Recall, for instance, the splendors of the external world and that +best season of our climate, the long, slow-breathing autumn. What +high pleasure we take in those hushed days of mid-November in the +soft brown turf of the uplands, the fragrant smell of mellow earth and +burning leaves, the purple haze that dims and magnifies the quiescent +hills. Who is not strangely moved by that profound and brooding peace +into which Nature then gathers up the multitudinous strivings, the +myriad activities of her life? Who does not love to lie, in those +slow-waning days upon the sands which hold within their golden cup the +murmuring and dreaming sea? The very amplitude of the natural world, +its far-flung grace and loveliness, spread out in rolling moor and +winding stream and stately forest marching up the mountain-side, +subdues and elevates the spirit of a man. + +Now, so it has always been and so men have always longed to be the +worshipers of beauty. Therefore they have believed in a conscious and +eternal Spirit behind it. Because again we know that personality is +the only thing we have of absolute worth. A man cannot, therefore, +worship beauty, wholly relinquish himself to its high delights, if he +conceives of this majestic grace as impersonal and inanimate. For that +which we worship must be greater than we. Behind it, therefore, just +because it seems to us so beautiful, must be something that calls to +the hidden deeps of the soul, something intimately akin to our own +spirits. So man worships not nature, but the God of nature; senses an +Eternal Presence behind all gracious form. For that interprets beauty +and consecrates the spell of beauty over us. This gives a final +meaning to what the soul perceives is an utter loveliness. This gives +to beauty an eternal and cosmic significance commensurate to its charm +and power. As long as men's hearts surge, too, when the tide yearns +up the beach; as long as their souls become articulate when the birds +sing in the dawn, and the flowers lift themselves to the sun; so long +will men believe that only from a supreme and conscious Loveliness, +a joyous and a gracious Spirit could have come the beauty which is so +intimately related to the spirit of a man. + +But not all saints and sinners are endowed with this joy and insight, +this quick sensitiveness to beauty. Some of them cannot find the +eternal and transcendent God in a loveliness which, by temperament, +they either underrate or do not really see. There are a great many +good people who cannot take beauty seriously. They become wooden and +suspicious and uncomfortable whenever they are asked to perceive or +enjoy a lovely object. Incredible though it seems, it appears to them +to be unworthy of any final allegiance, any complete surrender, any +unquestioning joy. But there are other ways in which they, too, may +come to this sense of transcendence, other aspects of experience which +also demand it. Most often it is just such folk who cannot perceive +beauty, because they are practical or scientific or condemned to mean +surroundings, who do feel to the full the grim force and terror of +the external world. Prudence, caution, hard sense are to the fore with +them! Very well; there, too, in these perceptions is an open door for +the human spirit to transcend its environment, get out of its physical +shell. The postulate of the absolute worth of beauty may be an +argument for God drawn from subjective necessity. But the postulate of +sovereign moral Being behind the tyranny and brutality of nature is +an argument of objective necessity as well; here we all need God to +explain the world. + +For we deal with what certainly appear to be objective aspects of the +truth, when we regard ourselves in our relation to the might of the +physical universe. For even as men feed upon its beauty, so they have +found it necessary to discover something which should enable them to +live above and unafraid of its material and gigantic power. We have +already seen how there appears to be a cosmic hostility to human life +which sobers indeed those who are intelligent enough to perceive +it. It is only the fool or the brute or the sentimentalist who is +unterrified by nature. The man of reflection and imagination sees his +race crawling ant-like over its tiny speck of slowly cooling earth and +surrounded by titanic and ruthless forces which threaten at any moment +to engulf it. The religious man knows that he is infinitely greater +than the beasts of the field or the clods of the highway. Yet Vesuvius +belches forth its liquid fire and in one day of stark terror the great +city which was full of men is become mute and desolate. The proud +liner scrapes along the surface of the frozen berg and crumples like +a ship of cards. There is a splash, a cry, a white face, a lifted +arm, and then all the pride and splendor, all the hopes and fears, the +gorgeous dreams, the daring thoughts are gone. But the ice floats on +unscarred and undeterred and the ocean tosses and heaves just as it +did before. + +Now, if this is all, if there is for us only the physical might of +nature and the world is only what it seems to be; if there is no other +God except such as can be found within this sort of cosmic process, +then human life is a sardonic mockery, and self-respect a silly +farce, and all the heroism of the heart and the valor of the mind the +unmeaning activities of an insignificant atom. The very men who will +naturally enter your churches are the ones who have always found that +theory of life intolerable. It doesn't take in all the facts. They +could not live by it and the soul of the race, looking out upon this +universe of immeasurable material bulk, has challenged it and dared to +assert its own superiority. + +So by this road these men come back to the transcendent God without +whom they cannot guard that integrity of personality which we are all +set to keep. For here there is no way of believing in oneself, no +way of enduring this world or our place in it and no tolerable way of +understanding it except we look beneath this cosmic hostility and +find our self-respect and a satisfying cosmic meaning in perceiving +spiritual force, a conscious ethical purpose, which interpenetrates +the thunder and the lightning, which lies behind the stars as they +move in their perpetual courses. "Through it the most ancient heavens +are fresh and strong." Integrity of personality in such a world as +this, belief in self, without which life is dust and ashes in the +mouth, rest on the sublime assumption that suffusing material force +is ethical spirit, more like unto us than it, controlling force in the +interest of moral and eternal purposes. In these purposes living, not +mechanical, forces play a major part. + +Of course, to all such reasoning the Kantians and humanists reply that +these notions of an objective and eternal beauty, of a transcendent +and actual Cosmic Being exist within the mind. They are purely +subjective ideas, they are bounded by the inexorable circle of our +experience, hence they offer no proof of any objective reality which +may in greater or less degree correspond to them. + +However, there must be a "source" of these ideas. To which the +philosophers reply, Yes, they are "primitive and necessary," produced +by reason only, without borrowing anything from the senses or the +understanding. Yet there is no sufficient evidence that the idea of +God is thus produced by any faculty of mind acting in entire freedom +from external influence. On the contrary, the idea appears to owe much +to the operation of external things upon the mind; it is not then the +wholly unaffected product of reason. It is a response no less than +an intuition. Like all knowledge a discovery, but the discovery of +something there which could be discovered, hence, in that sense, a +revelation. + +It is not necessary, then, for men to meet their situation in the +cosmos by saying with Kant: We will act as though there were a God, +although we are always conscious that we have no real knowledge of +Him as an external being. In the light of the tragic circumstances of +humanity, this is demanding the impossible. No sane body of men will +ever get sufficient inspiration for life or find an adequate solution +for the problem of life by resting upon mere value judgments which +they propose, by an effort of will, to put in the place of genuine +reality judgments. Indeed, there is a truly scholastic naïveté, a +sort of solemn and unconscious humor, in seriously proposing that +men should vitalize and consecrate their deepest purposes and most +difficult experiences by hypothesizing mere appearances and illusions. + +Nor are we willing either to say with Santayana that all our sense of +the beauty of the world is merely pleasure objectified and that we can +infer no eternal Beauty from it. We are aware that there cannot be an +immediate knowledge of a reality distinct from ourselves, that all +our knowledge must be, in the nature of the case, an idea, a mental +representation, that we can never know the Thing Itself. But if we +believe, as we logically and reasonably may, that our subjective ideas +are formed under the influence of objects unknown but without us, +produced by stimuli, real, if not perceived apart from our own +consciousness, then we may say that what we have is a mediate or +representative knowledge not only of an Eternal Being but formed under +the influence of that Being. Nor does the believer ask for more. He +does not expect to see the King in His beauty; he only needs to know +that He is, that He is there. + +How self-verifying and moving, then, are the appeals ready to our +hands. As long as man with the power to question, to strive, to +aspire, to endure, to suffer, lives in a universe of ruthless and +overwhelming might, so long, if he is to understand it or maintain +his reason and his dignity, he will believe it to be controlled by a +Spirit beyond no less than within, from whom his spirit is derived. It +is out of the struggle to revere and conserve human personality, out +of the belief in the indefectible worth and honor of selfhood that +our race has fronted a universe in arms, and pitting its soul against +nature has cried, "God is my refuge: underneath me, at the very moment +when I am engulfed in earthquake shock or shattered in the battle's +roar, there are everlasting arms!" There is something which is too +deep for tears in the unconquerable idealism, the utter magnanimity +of the faith of the human spirit in that which will answer to itself, +as evidenced in this forlorn and glorious adventure of the soul. +Sometimes we are constrained to ask ourselves, How can the heart of +man go so undismayed through the waste places of the world? + +But, of course, the preacher's main task is to interpret man's moral +experience, which drives him out to search for the eternal in +the terms of the "other" and redeeming God. We have spoken of the +depersonalizing of religion which paganism and humanism alike have +brought upon the world. One evidence of that has been the way in +which we have confounded the social expressions of religion with its +individual source. We are so concerned with the effect of our religion +upon the community that we have forgotten that the heart of religion +is found in the solitary soul. All of which means that we have here +again yielded to the time spirit that enfolds us and have come to +think of man as religious if he be humane. But that is not true. No +man is ever religious until he becomes devout. And indeed no man of +our sort--the saint and sinner sort--is ever long and truly humane +unless the springs of his tenderness for men are found in his ever +widening and deepening gratitude to God! Hence no man was ever yet +able to preach the living God until he understood that the central +need in human life is to reconcile the individual conscience to +itself, compose the anarchy of the spiritual life. Men want to be +happy and be fed; but men must have inward peace. + +We swing back, therefore, to the native ground of preaching, approach +the religious problem, now, not from the aesthetic or the scientific, +but from the moral angle. Here we are dealing with the most poignant +of all human experiences. For it is in this intensely personal world +of moral failure and divided will that men are most acutely aware of +themselves and hence of their need of that other-than-self beyond. +The sentimental idealizing of contemporary life, the declension of the +humanist's optimism into that superficial complacency which will not +see what it does not like or what it is not expedient to see, makes +one's mind to chuckle while one's heart doth ache. There is a brief +heyday, its continuance dependent upon the uncontrollable factors +of outward prosperity, physical and nervous vigor, capacity for +preoccupation with the successive novelties of a diversified and +complicated civilization, in which even men of religious temperament +can minimize or ignore, perhaps sincerely disbelieve in, their divided +life. Sometimes we think we may sin and be done with it. But always in +the end man must come back to this moral tragedy of the soul. Because +sin will not be done with us when we are done with it. Every evil +is evil to him that does it and sooner or later we are compelled +to understand that to be a sinner is the sorest and most certain +punishment for sinning. + +Then the awakening begins. Then can preaching stir the heart until +deep answereth unto deep. It can talk of the struggle with moral +temptation and weakness; of the unstable temperament which oscillates +between the gutter and the stars; of the perversion or abuse of +impulses good in themselves; of the dreadful dualism of the soul. For +these are inheritances which have made life tragic in every generation +for innumerable human beings. Whoever needed to explain to a company +of grown men and women what the cry of the soul for its release from +passion is? Every generation has its secret pessimists, brooding over +the anarchy of the spirit, the issues of a distracted life. We need +not ask with Faust, "Where is that place which men call 'Hell'?" nor +wait for Mephistopheles to answer, + + "Hell is in no set place, nor is it circumscribed, + For where we are--is Hell!" + +Now, it is from such central and poignant experiences as these that +men have been constrained to look outward for a God. For these mark +the very disintegration of personality, the utter dissipation of +selfhood. That is the inescapable horror of sin. That is what we mean +when we say sinners are lost; so they are, they are lost to their own +selves. With what discriminating truth the father in the parable of +the lost boy speaks. "This, my son," he says, "was dead though he is +alive again." So it is with us; being is the price we pay for sinning. +The more we do wrong the less we are. How then shall we become alive +again? + +It is out of the shame and passion, the utter need of the human heart, +which such considerations show to be real that men have built up their +redemptive faiths. For all moral victory is conditioned upon help from +without. To be sure each will and soul must strive desperately, even +unto death, yet all that strife shall be in vain unless One stoops +down from above and wrestles with us in the conflict. For the sinner +must have two things, both of them beyond his unaided getting, or he +will die. He must be released from his captivity. Who does not know +the terrible restlessness, that grows and feeds upon itself and then +does grow some more, of the man bound by evil and wanting to get out? +The torture of sin is that it deprives us of the power to express +ourselves. The cry of moral misery, therefore, is always the groaning +of the prisoner. Oh, for help to break the bars of my intolerable +and delicious sin that I may be myself once more! Oh, for some power +greater than I which, being greater, can set me free! + +But more than the sinner wants to be free does he want to be kept. +Along with the passion for liberty is the desire for surrender. Again, +then, he wants something outside himself, some Being so far above the +world he lives in that it can take him, the whole of him, break his +life, shake it to its foundations, then pacify, compose it, make it +anew. He is so tired of his sin; he is so weary with striving; he +wants to relinquish it all; get far away from what he is; flee like +a bird to the mountain; lay down his life before the One like whom he +would be. So he wants power, he wants peace. He would be himself, he +would lose himself. He prays for freedom, he longs for captivity. + +Now, out of these depths of human life, these vast antinomies of the +spirit, has arisen man's belief in a Saviour-God. Sublime and awful +are the sanctions upon which it rests. Out of the extremity and +definiteness of our need we know that He must be and we know what He +must be like. He is the One to whom all hearts are open, all desires +known, from whom no secrets are hid. Who could state the mingling of +desire and dread with which men strive after, and hide from, such +a God? We want Him, yet until we have Him how we fear Him. For that +inclusive knowledge of us which is God, if only we can bear to come to +it, endows us with freedom. For then all the barriers are down, there +is nothing to conceal, nothing to explain, nothing to hold back. Then +reality and appearance coincide, character and condition correspond. +I am what I am before Him. Supreme reality from without answers and +completes my own, and makes me real, and my reality makes me free. + +But if He thus knows me, and through that knowledge every inner +inhibition melts in His presence and every damning secret's out, and +all my life is spread like an open palm before His gaze, and I am come +at last, through many weary roads, unto my very self, why then I can +let go, I can relinquish myself. The dreadful tension's gone and in +utter surrender the soul is poured out, until, spent and expressed, +rest and peace flood back into the satisfied life. So the life is +free; so the life is bound. So a man stands upon his feet; so he +clings to the Rock that is higher than he. So the life is cleansed in +burning light; so the soul is hid in the secret of God's presence. So +men come to themselves; so men lose themselves in the Eternal. There +is perfect freedom at last because we have attained to complete +captivity. There is power accompanied by peace. That is the gift which +the vision of a God, morally separate from, morally other than we, +brings to the inward strife, the spiritual agony of the world. This +is the need which that faith satisfies. It is, I suppose, in this +exulting experience of moral freedom and spiritual peace which comes +to those men who make the experiment of faith that they, for the most +part, find their sufficient proof of the divine reality. Who ever +doubted His existence who could cry with all that innumerable company +of many kindreds and peoples and tongues: + + "He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay; + And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. + And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God." + +Here, then, is the preaching which is religious. How foolish are we +not to preach it more! How trivial and impertinent it is to question +the permanence of the religious interpretation of the world! What +a revelation of personal insignificance it is to fail to revere the +majesty of the devout and aspiring life! That which a starved and +restless and giddy world has lost is this pool of quietness, this +tower of strength, this cleansing grace of salvation, this haven of +the Spirit. Belief in a transcendent deity is as natural as hunger +and thirst, as necessary as sleep and breathing. It was the inner and +essential needs of our fathers' lives which drove them out to search +for Him. It will be the inner and essential needs of the lives of our +children that shall bring them to the altar where their fathers and +their fathers' fathers bowed down before them. Are we going to be +afraid to keep its fires burning? + +And so we come to our final and most difficult aspect of this +transcendent problem. We have talked of the man who is separate from +nature, and who knows himself as man because behind nature he sees +the God from whom he is separate, too. We have seen how he needs +that "otherness" in God to maintain his personality and how the gulf +between him and that God induces that sense of helplessness which +makes the humility and penitence of the religious life. We must come +now to our final question. How is he to bridge the gulf? By what power +can he go through with this experience we have just been relating and +find his whole self in a whole world? How can he dare to try it? How +can he gain power to achieve it? + +Perhaps this is the central difficulty of all religion. It is +certainly the one which the old Greeks felt. Plato, the father of +Christian theology, and all neo-platonists, knew that the gulf is +here between man and God and they knew that something or someone must +bridge it for us. They perceived that man, unaided, cannot leap it at +a stride. We proceed, driven by the facts of life, to the point where +the soul looks up to the Eternal and confesses the kinship, and knows +that only in His light shall it see light, and that it only shall be +satisfied when it awakes in His likeness. But how shall the connection +be made? What shall enable us to do that mystic thing, come back +to God? We have frightful handicaps in the attempt. How shall the +distrust that sin creates, the hardness that sin forms, the despair +and helplessness that sin induces, the dreadful indifference which +is its expression,--how shall they be removed? How shall the unfaith +which the mystery, the suffering, the evil of the world induce be +overcome? Being a sinner I do not dare, and being ignorant I do not +believe, to come. God is there and God wants us; like as a father +pitieth his children so He pitieth us. He knoweth our frame, He +remembereth that we are dust. We know that is true; again we do not +know it is true. All the sin that is in us and all which that sin +has done to us insists and insists that it is not true. And the mind +wonders--and wonders. What shall break that distrust; and melt away +the hardness so that we have an open mind; and send hope into despair, +hope with its accompanying confidence to act; change unfaith to +belief, until, in having faith, we thereby have that which faith +believes in? How amazing is life! We look out into the heavenly +country, we long to walk therein, we have so little power to stir hand +or foot to gain our entrance. We know it is there but all the facts of +our rebellious or self-centered life, individual and associated alike, +are against it and therefore we do not know that it is there. + +Philosophy and reason and proofs of logic cannot greatly help us here. +No man was ever yet argued into the kingdom of God. We cannot convince +ourselves of our souls. For we are creatures, not minds; lives, not +ideas. Only life can convince life; only a Person but, of course, +a transcendent person that is more like Him than like us, can make +that Other-who-lives certain and sure for us. This necessity for some +intermediary who shall be a human yet more-than-human proof that +God is and that man may be one with Him; this reinforcing of the old +argument from subjective necessity by its verification in the actual +stuff of objective life, has been everywhere sought by men. + +Saviours, redeemers, mediators, then, are not theological manikins. +They are not superfluous figures born of a mistaken notion of +the universe. They are not secondary gods, concessions to our +childishness. They, too, are called for in the nature of things. But +to really mediate they must have the qualities of both that which they +transmit and of those who receive the transmission. Most of all they +must have that "other" quality, so triumphant and self-verifying that +seeing it constrains belief. A mediator wholly unlike ourselves would +be a meaningless and mocking figure. But a mediator who was chiefly +like ourselves would be a contradiction in terms! + +So we come back again to the old problem. Man needs some proof that he +who knows that he is more than dust can meet with that other life from +whose star his speck has been derived. Something has got to give him +powerful reinforcement for this supreme effort of will, of faith. If +only he could know that he and it ever have met in the fields of time +and space, then he would be saved. For that would give him the will to +believe; that would prove the ultimate; give him the blessed assurance +which heals the wounds of the heart. Then he would have power to +surrender. Then he would no longer fear the gulf, he would walk out +onto it and know that as he walked he was with God. + +Some such reasoning as this ought to make clear the place that Jesus +holds in Christian preaching and why we call Him Saviour and why +salvation comes for us who are of His spiritual lineage, through Him. +Of course it is true that Jesus shows to all discerning eyes what man +may be. But that is not the chief secret of His power; that is not +why churches are built to Him and His cross still fronts, defeated +but unconquerable, our pagan world. Jesus was more-than-nature and +more-than-human. It is this "other" quality, operative and objectified +in His experience within our world, which gives Him the absoluteness +which makes Him indispensable and precious. The mystery is deepest +here. For here we transfer the antinomy from thought to conduct; from +inner perception to one Being's actual experience. Here, in Him, we +say we see it resolved into its higher synthesis in actual operation. + +Here, then, we can almost look into it. Yet when we do gaze, our eyes +dazzle, our minds swerve, it is too much. It is not easy, indeed, at +the present time it seems to be impossible to reconcile the Christ +of history with the Christ of experience. Yet there would be neither +right nor reason in saying that the former was more of a reality +than the latter. And all the time the heart from which great thoughts +arise, "the heart which has its reasons of which the mind knows +nothing," says, Here in Him is the consummate quality, the absolute +note of life. Here the impossible has been accomplished. Here the +opposites meet and the contradictions blend. Here is something so +incredible that it is true. + +Of course, Jesus is of us and He is ours. That is true and it is +inexpressibly sweet to remember it. Again, to use our old solecism, +that is the lesser part of the truth; the greater part, for men of +religion, is that Jesus is of God, that He belongs to Him. His chief +office for our world has not been to show us what men can be like; it +has been to give us the vision of the Eternal in a human face. For if +He does reveal God to man then He must hold, as President Tucker says, +the quality and substance of the life which He reveals. + +Here is where He differs immeasurably from even a Socrates. What men +want most to believe about Jesus is this, that when we commune with +Him, we are with the infinite; that man's just perception of the +Eternal Spirit, his desire to escape from time into reality, may be +fulfilled in Jesus. That is the Gospel: Come unto Him, all ye that +labor and are heavy laden, for He will give you rest. Whosoever +drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of +the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that +I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into +everlasting life. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall +be free indeed. + +Now, if all this is true, what is the religious preaching of Jesus, +what aspect of His person meets the spiritual need? Clearly, it is His +transcendence. It is not worthy of us to evade it because we cannot +explain it. Surely what has hastened our present paganism has been the +removal from the forefront of our consciousness of Jesus the Saviour, +the divine Redeemer, the absolute Meeter of an absolute need. Of such +preaching of Jesus we have today very little. The pendulum has swung +far to the left, to the other exclusive emphasis, too obviously +influenced by the currents of the day. It was perhaps inevitable +that He should for a time drop out of His former place in Christian +preaching under this combined humanistic and naturalistic movement. +But it means that again we have relinquished those values which have +made Jesus the heart of humanity. + +Of course, He was a perfected human character inspired above all +men by the spirit of God, showing the capacity of humanity to hold +Divinity. This is what Mary celebrates in her paean, "He that is +mighty has magnified me and holy is his name." But is this what men +have passionately adored in Jesus? Has love of Him been self-love? Is +this why He has become the sanctuary of humanity? I think not. We have +for the moment no good language for the other conception of Him. He +is indeed the pledge of what we may be, but how many of us would ever +believe that pledge unless there was something else in Him, more than +we, that guaranteed it? What, as President Tucker asks, is this power +which shall make "maybe" into "is" for us? "Without doubt the trend of +modern thought and faith is toward the more perfect identification +of Christ with humanity. We cannot overestimate the advantage to +Christianity of this tendency. The world must know and feel the +humanity of Jesus. But it makes the greatest difference in result +whether the ground of the common humanity is in Him or in us. To +borrow the expressive language of Paul, was He 'created' in us? Or are +we 'created' in Him? Grant the right of the affirmation that 'there +is no difference in kind between the divine and the human'; allow the +interchange of terms so that one may speak of the humanity of God +and the divinity of man; appropriate the motive which lies in these +attempts to bring God and man together and thus to explain the +personality of Jesus Christ, it is still a matter of infinite concern +whether His home is in the higher or the lower regions of divinity. +After all, very little is gained by the transfer of terms. Humanity +is in no way satisfied with its degree of divinity. We are still as +anxious as ever to rise above ourselves and in this anxiety we want to +know concerning our great helper, whether He has in Himself anything +more than the possible increase of a common humanity. What is His +power to lift and how long may it last? Shall we ever reach His level, +become as divine as He, or does He have part in the absolute and +infinite? This question may seem remote in result but it is everything +in principle. The immanence of Christ has its present meaning and +value because of His transcendence."[40] + +[Footnote 40: "The Satisfaction of Humanity in Jesus Christ," _Andover +Review_, January, 1893.] + +Preaching today is not moving on the level of this discussion, is +neither asking nor attempting to answer its questions. Great preaching +in some way makes men see the end of the road, not merely the +direction in which it travels. The power to do that we have lost if we +have lost the more-than-us in Jesus. Humanity, unaided, cannot look +to that end which shall explain the beginning. And does Jesus mean +very much to us if He is only "Jesus"? Why do we answer the great +invitation, "Come unto me"? Because He is something other than us? +Because He calls us away from ourselves? back to home? Most of us +no longer know how to preach on that plane of experience or from the +point of view where such questions are serious and real. Our fathers +had a world view and a philosophy which made such preaching easy. But +their power did not lie in that world view; it lay in this vision of +Jesus which produced the view. Is not this the vision which we need? + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +WORSHIP AS THE CHIEF APPROACH TO TRANSCENDENCE + + +Whatever becomes the inward and the invisible grace of the Christian +community such will be its outward and visible form. Those regulative +ideas and characteristic emotions which determine in any age the +quality of its religious experience will be certain to shape the +nature and conduct of its ecclesiastical assemblies. Their influence +will show, both in the liturgical and homiletical portions of public +worship. If anything further were needed, therefore, to indicate +the secularity of this age, its substitutes for worship and its +characteristic type of preaching would, in themselves, reveal the +situation. So we venture to devote these closing discussions to some +observations on the present state of Protestant public worship and the +prevailing type of Protestant preaching. For we may thus ascertain +how far those ideas and perceptions which an age like ours needs +are beginning to find an expression and what means may be taken to +increase their influence through church services in the community. + +We begin, then, in this chapter, not with preaching, but with worship. +It seems to me clear that the chief office of the church is liturgical +rather than homiletical. Or, if that is too technical a statement, +it may be said that the church exists to set forth and foster the +religious life and that, because of the nature of that life, it finds +its chief opportunity for so doing in the imaginative rather than the +rationalizing or practical areas of human expression. Even as Michael +Angelo, at the risk of his life, purloined dead bodies that he +might dissect them and learn anatomy, so all disciples of the art of +religion need the discipline of intellectual analysis and of knowledge +of the facts of the religious experience if they are to be leaders in +faith. There is a toughness of fiber needed in religious people that +can only come through such mental discipline. But anatomists are not +sculptors. Michael Angelo was the genius, the creative artist, not +because he understood anatomy, but chiefly because of those as yet +indefinable and secret processes of feeling and intuition in man, +which made him feel rather than understand the pity and the terror, +the majesty and the pathos of the human spirit and reveal them in +significant and expressive line. Knowledge supported rather than +rivaled insight. In the same way, both saint and sinner need religious +instruction. Nevertheless they are what they are because they are +first perceptive rather than reasoning beings. They both owe, the one +his salvation, the other his despair, to the fact that they have seen +the vision of the holy universe. Both are seers; the saint has given +his allegiance to the heavenly vision. The sinner has resolved to be +disobedient unto it. Both find their first and more natural approach +to religious truth, therefore, through the creative rather than the +critical processes, the emotional rather than the informative powers. + +There are, of course, many in our churches who would dissent from +this opinion. It is characteristic of Protestantism, as of humanism in +general, that it lays its chief emphasis upon the intelligence. If we +go to church to practice the presence of God, must we not first know +who and what this God is whose presence with us we are there asked +to realize? So most Protestant services are more informative than +inspirational. Their attendants are assembled to hear about God rather +to taste and see that the Lord is good. They analyze the religious +experience rather than enjoy it; insensibly they come to regard +the spiritual life as a proposition to be proved, not a power to +be appropriated. Hence our services generally consist of some +"preliminary exercises," as we ourselves call them, leading up to the +climax--when it is a climax--of the sermon. + +Here is a major cause for the declension of the influence of +Protestant church services. They go too much on the assumption that +men already possess religion and that they come to church to discuss +it rather than to have it provided. They call men to be listeners +rather than participants in their temples. Of course, one may find +God through the mind. The great scholar, the mathematician or the +astronomer may cry with Kepler, "Behold, I think the thoughts of God +after him!" Yet a service which places its chief emphasis upon the +appeal to the will through instruction has declined from that realm +of the absolutes where religion in its purest form belongs. For since +preaching makes its appeal chiefly through reason, it thereby attempts +to produce only a partial and relative experience in the life of the +listener. It impinges upon the will by a slow process. Sometimes one +gets so deadly weary of preaching because, in a world like ours, the +reasonable process is so unreasonable. That's a half truth, of course, +but one that the modern world needs to learn. + +Others would dissent from our position by saying that service, the +life of good will, is a sufficient worship. The highest adoration is +to visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction. _Laborare +est orare_. What we do speaks so loud God does not care for what +we say. True: but the value of what we do for God depends upon the +godliness of the doer and where shall he find that godliness save in +the secret place of the Most High? And the greatest gift we can give +our fellows is to bring them into the divine presence. "There is," +says Dr. William Adams Brown, "a service that is directed to the +satisfaction of needs already in existence, and there is a service +that is itself the creator of new needs which enlarge the capacity of +the man to whom it would minister. To this larger service religion +is committed, and the measure of a man's fitness to render it is his +capacity for worship." But no one can give more than he has. If we are +to offer such gifts we must ourselves go before and lead. To create +the atmosphere in which the things of righteousness and holiness +seem to be naturally exalted above the physical, the commercial, the +domestic affairs of men; to lift the level of thought and feeling +to that high place where the spiritual consciousness contributes its +insights and finds a magnanimous utterance--is there anything that our +world needs more? There are noble and necessary ministries to the body +and the mind, but most needed, and least often offered, there is a +ministry to the human spirit. This is the gift which the worshiper can +bring. Knowledge of God may not be merely or even chiefly comprehended +in a concept of the intelligence; knowledge of Him is that vitalizing +consciousness of the Presence felt in the heart, which opens our eyes +that we may see that the mountain is full of horses and chariots of +fire round about us and that they who fight with us are more than +they who fight with them. This is the true and central knowledge that +private devotion and public worship alone can give; preaching can +but conserve and transmit this religious experience through the mind, +worship creates it in the heart. Edwards understood that neither +thought nor conduct can take its place. "The sober performance of +moral duty," said he, "is no substitute for passionate devotion to a +Being with its occasional moments of joy and exaltation." + +We should then begin with worship. A church which does not emphasize +it before everything else is trying to build the structure of a +spiritual society with the corner stone left out. Let us try, +first of all, to define it. An old and popular definition of the +descriptive sort says that "worship is the response of the soul to +the consciousness of being in the presence of God." A more modern +definition, analyzing the psychology of worship, defines it as "the +unification of consciousness around the central controlling idea of +God, the prevailing emotional tone being that of adoration." Evidently +we mean, then, by worship the appeal to the religious will through +feeling and the imagination. Worship is therefore essentially +creative. Every act of worship seeks to bring forth then and there +a direct experience of God through high and concentrated emotion. +It fixes the attention upon Him as an object in Himself supremely +desirable. The result of this unified consciousness is peace and the +result of this peace and harmony is a new sense of power. Worship, +then, is the attainment of that inward wholeness for which in one form +or another all religion strives by means of contemplation. So by its +very nature it belongs to the class of the absolutes. + +Many psychologies of religion define this contemplation as aesthetic, +and make worship a higher form of delight. This appears to me a quite +typical non-religious interpretation of a religious experience. There +are four words which need explaining when we talk of worship. They +are: wonder, admiration, awe, reverence. Wonder springs from the +recognition of the limitations of our knowledge; it is an experience +of the mind. Admiration is the response of a growing intelligence to +beauty, partly an aesthetic, partly an intellectual experience. These +distinctions Coleridge had in mind in his well-known sentence "In +wonder all philosophy began; in wonder it ends; and admiration fills +up the interspace. But the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance; +the last is the parent of adoration." Awe is the sense-perception +of the stupendous power and magnitude of the universe; it is, quite +literally, a godly fear. But it is not ignoble nor cringing, it +is just and reasonable, the attitude, toward the Whole, of a +comprehensive sanity. + +Thus "I would love Thee, O God, if there were no heaven, _and if there +were no hell, I would fear Thee no less_." Reverence is devotion to +goodness, sense of awe-struck loyalty to a Being manifestly under the +influence of principles higher than our own.[41] Now it is with these +last two, awe and reverence, rather than wonder and admiration, that +worship has to do. + +[Footnote 41: For a discussion of these four words see Allen, +_Reverence as the Heart of Christianity_, pp. 253 ff.] + +Hence the essence of worship is not aesthetic contemplation. Without +doubt worship does gratify the aesthetic instinct and most properly +so. There is no normal expression of man's nature which has not its +accompanying delight. The higher and more inclusive the expression +the more exquisite, of course, the delight. But that pleasure is the +by-product, not the object, of worship. It itself springs partly from +the awe of the infinite and eternal majesty which induces the desire +to prostrate oneself before the Lord our Maker. "I have heard of Thee +by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I +abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." It also springs partly +from passionate devotion of a loyal will to a holy Being. "Behold, as +the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters and as the +eyes of a maid unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon +the Lord." Thus reverence is the high and awe-struck hunger for +spiritual communion. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. +When shall I come and appear before God?" + +There is a noble illustration of the nature and the uses of worship +in the Journals of Jonathan Edwards, distinguished alumnus of Yale +College, and the greatest mind this hemisphere has produced. You +remember what he wrote in them, as a youth, about the young woman who +later became his wife: "They say there is a young lady in New Haven +who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the world, and +that there are certain seasons in which this great Being in some way +or other invisible comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding +sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything except to +meditate on Him. Therefore if you present all the world before her, +with the richest of its treasures, she disregards and cares not for +it and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange +sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections, is most +just and conscientious in all her conduct, and you could not persuade +her to do anything wrong or sinful if you would give her all the +world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of wonderful +calmness and universal benevolence of mind, especially after this +great God has manifested Himself to her mind. She will sometimes go +about from place to place singing sweetly and seems to be always full +of joy and pleasure, and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, +walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible +always conversing with her." + +Almost every element of worship is contained in this description. +First, we have a young human being emotionally conscious of the +presence of God, who in some way or other directly but invisibly comes +to her. Secondly, we have her attention so fixed on the adoration of +God that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate upon Him. +Thirdly, as the result of this worshipful approach to religious +reality, we have the profound peace and harmony, the _summum bonum_ +of existence, coupled with strong moral purpose which characterize +her life. Here, then, is evidently the unification of consciousness in +happy awe and the control of destiny through meditation upon infinite +matters, that is, through reverent contemplation of God. Is it not +one of those ironies of history wherewith fate is forever mocking +and teasing the human spirit, that the grandson of this lady and of +Jonathan Edwards should have been Aaron Burr? + +Clearly, then, the end of worship is to present to the mind, through +the imagination, one idea, majestic and inclusive. So it presents it +chiefly through high and sustained feeling. Worship proceeds on the +understanding that one idea, remaining almost unchanged and holding +the attention for a considerable length of time, so directs the +emotional processes that thought and action are harmonized with it. +If one reads the great prayers of the centuries they indicate, for the +most part, an unconscious understanding of this psychology of worship. +Take, for instance, this noble prayer of Pusey's. + +"Let me not seek out of Thee what I can find only in Thee, O Lord, +peace and rest and joy and bliss, which abide only in thine abiding +joy. Lift up my soul above the weary round of harassing thoughts, to +Thy eternal presence. Lift up my soul to the pure, bright, serene, +radiant atmosphere of Thy presence, that there I may breathe freely, +there repose in Thy love, there be at rest from myself and from all +things that weary me, and thence return arrayed with Thy peace, to do +and bear what shall please Thee." + +This prayer expresses the essence of worship which is the seeking, +through the fixation of attention, not the delight but rather the +peace and purity which can only be found in the consciousness of God. +This peace is the necessary outcome of the indwelling presence. It +ensues when man experiences the radiant atmosphere of the divine +communion. + +The same clear expression of worship is found in another familiar and +noble prayer, that of Johann Arndt. Here, too, are phrases descriptive +of a unified consciousness induced by reverent loyalty. + +"Ah, Lord, to whom all hearts are open, Thou canst govern the vessel +of my soul far better than can I. Arise, O Lord, and command the +stormy wind and the troubled sea of my heart to be still, and at peace +in Thee, that I may look up to Thee undisturbed and abide in union +with Thee, my Lord. Let me not be carried hither and thither by +wandering thoughts, but forgetting all else let me see and hear Thee. +Renew my spirit, kindle in me Thy light that it may shine within me, +and my heart burn in love and adoration for Thee. Let Thy Holy Spirit +dwell in me continually, and make me Thy temple and sanctuary, and +fill me with divine love and life and light, with devout and heavenly +thoughts, with comfort and strength, with joy and peace." + +Thus here one sees in the high contemplation of a transcendent God +the subduing and elevating of the human will, the restoration and +composure of the moral life. Finally, in a prayer of St. Anselm's +there is a sort of analysis of the process of worship. + +"O God, Thou _art_ life, wisdom, truth, bounty and blessedness, the +eternal, the only true Good. My God and my Lord, Thou art my hope and +my heart's joy. I confess with thanksgiving that Thou hast made me in +Thine image, that I may direct all my thoughts to Thee and love Thee. +Lord, make me to know Thee aright that I may more and more love and +enjoy and possess Thee." + +One cannot conclude these examples of worshipful expression without +quoting a prayer of Augustine, which is, I suppose, the most perfect +brief petition in all the Christian literature of devotion and which +gives the great psychologist's perception of the various steps in +the unification of the soul with the eternal Spirit through sublime +emotion. + +"Grant, O God, that we may desire Thee, and desiring Thee, seek Thee, +and seeking Thee, find Thee, and finding Thee, be satisfied with Thee +forever." + +I think one may see, then, why worship as distinct from preaching, +or the hearing of preaching, is the first necessity of the religious +life. It unites us as nothing else can do with God the whole and God +the transcendent. The conception of God is the sum total of human +needs and desires harmonized, unified, concretely expressed. It is the +faith of the worshiper that this concept is derived from a real and +objective Being in some way corresponding to it. No one can measure +the influence of such an idea when it dominates the consciousness of +any given period. It can create and set going new desires and habits, +it can minish and repress old ones, because this idea carries, with +its transcendent conception, the dynamic quality which belongs to +the idea of perfect power. But this transcendent conception, being +essentially of something beyond, without and above ourselves can only +be "realized" through the feeling and the imagination, whose province +it is to deal with the supersensuous values, with the fringes of +understanding, with the farthest bounds of knowledge. These make the +springboard, so to speak, from which man dares to launch himself into +that sea of the infinite, which we can neither understand nor measure, +but which nevertheless we may perceive and feel, which in some sense +we know to be there. + +So, if we deal first with worship, we are merely beginning at the +beginning and starting at the bottom. And, in the light of this +observation, it is appalling to survey the non-liturgical churches +today and see the place that public devotion holds in them. It is not +too much, I think, to speak of the collapse of worship in Protestant +communities. No better evidence of this need be sought than in the +nature of the present attempts to reinstate it. They have a naïveté, +an incongruity, that can only be explained on the assumption of their +impoverished background. + +This situation shows first in the heterogeneous character of our +experiments. We are continually printing on our churches' calendars +what we usually call "programs," but which are meant to be orders +of worship. We are also forever changing them. There is nothing +inevitable about their order; they have no intelligible, +self-verifying procedure. Anthems are inserted here and there without +any sense of the progression or of the psychology of worship. Glorias +are sung sometimes with the congregation standing up and sometimes +while they are sitting down. There is no lectionary to determine a +comprehensive and orderly reading of Scripture, not much sequence of +thought or progress of devotion either in the read or the extempore +prayers. There is no uniformity of posture. There are two historic +attitudes of reverence when men are addressing the Almighty. They are +the standing upon one's feet or the falling upon one's knees. For +the most part we neither stand nor kneel; we usually loll. Some of us +compromise by bending forward to the limiting of our breath and the +discomfort of our digestion. It is too little inducive to physical +ease or perhaps too derogatory to our dignity to kneel before the Lord +our Maker. All this seems too much like the efforts of those who have +forgotten what worship really is and are trying to find for it some +comfortable or attractive substitute. + +Second: we show our inexperience by betraying the confusion +of aesthetic and ethical values as we strive for variety and +entertainment in church services; we build them around wonder and +admiration, not around reverence and awe. But we are mistaken if +we suppose that men chiefly desire to be pleasantly entertained or +extraordinarily delighted when they go into a church. They go there +because they desire to enter a Holy Presence; they want to approach +One before whom they can be still and know that He is God. All +"enrichments" of a service injected into it here and there, designed +to make it more attractive, to add color and variety, to arrest +the attention of the senses are, as ends, beside the point, and our +dependence upon them indicates the unhappy state of worship in our +day. That we do thus make our professional music an end in itself is +evident from our blatant way of advertising it. In the same way we +advertise sermon themes, usually intended to startle the pious and +provoke the ungodly. We want to arouse curiosity, social or political +interest, to achieve some secular reaction. We don't advertise that +tomorrow in our church there is to be a public worship of God, and +that everything that we are going to do will be in the awe-struck +sense that He is there. We are afraid that nobody would come if we +merely did that! + +What infidels we are! Why are we surprised that the world is passing +us by? We say and we sing a great many things which it is incredible +to suppose we would address to God if we really thought He were +present. Yet anthems and congregational singing are either a sacrifice +solemnly and joyously offered to God or else all the singing is less, +and worse, than nothing in a church service. But how often sentimental +and restless music, making not for restraint and reverence, not +for the subduing of mind and heart but for the expression of those +expansive and egotistical moods which are of the essence of romantic +singing, is what we employ. There is a great deal of truly religious +music, austere in tone, breathing restraint and reverence, quietly +written. The anthems of Palestrina, Anerio, Viadana, Vittoria among +the Italians; of Bach, Haydn, Handel, Mozart among the Germans; and +of Tallis, Gibbons and Purcell among the English, are all of the truly +devout order. Yet how seldom are the works of such men heard in our +churches, even where they employ professional singers at substantial +salaries. We are everywhere now trying to give our churches splendid +and impressive physical accessories, making the architecture more and +more stately and the pews more and more comfortable! Thus we attempt +an amalgam of a mediaeval house of worship with an American domestic +interior, adoring God at our ease, worshiping Him in armchairs, +offering prostration of the spirit, so far as it can be achieved along +with indolence of the body. + +So we advertise and concertize and have silver vases and costly +flowers and conventional ecclesiastical furniture. But we still hold a +"small-and-early" in the vestibule before service and a "five o'clock" +in the chapel afterward. Sunday morning church is a this-world +function with a pietized gossip and a decorous sort of sociable with +an intellectual fillip thrown in. Thus we try to make our services +attractive to the secular instincts, the non-religious things, in +man's nature. We try to get him into the church by saying, "You will +find here what you find elsewhere." It's rather illogical. The church +stands for something different. We say, "You will like to come and be +one of us because we are not different." The answer is, "I can get the +things of this world better in the world, where they belong, than with +you." Thus we have naturalized our very offices of devotion! Hence +the attempts to revive worship are incongruous and inconsistent. Hence +they have that sentimental and accidental character which is the +sign of the amateur. They do not bring us very near to the heavenly +country. It might be well to remember that the servant of Jahweh doth +not cry nor lift up his voice nor cause it to be heard in the streets. + +Now, there are many reasons for this anomalous situation. One of them +is our inheritance of a deep-rooted Puritan distrust of a liturgical +service. That distrust is today a fetish and therefore much more +potent that it was when it was a reason. Puritanism was born in the +Reformation; it came out from the Roman church, where worship was +regarded as an end in itself. To Catholic believers worship is a +contribution to God, pleasing to Him apart from any effect it may have +on the worshiper. Such a theory of it is, of course, open to grave +abuse. Sometimes it led to indifference as to the effect of the +worship upon the moral character of the communicant, so that worship +could be used, not to conquer evil, but to make up for it, and thus +sin became as safe as it was easy. Inevitably also such a theory +of worship often degenerated into an utter formalism which made +hyprocrisy and unreality patent, until the _hoc est corpus_ of the +mass became the hocus-pocus of the scoffer. + +Here is a reason, once valid because moral, for our present situation. +Yet it must be confessed that again, as so often, we are doing what +the Germans call "throwing out the baby with the bath," namely, +repudiating a defect or the perversion of an excellence and, in so +doing, throwing away that excellence itself. It is clear that no +Protestant is ever tempted today to consider worship as its own reason +and its own end. We are, in a sense, utilitarian ritualists. Worship +to us is as valuable as it is valid because it is the chief avenue +of spiritual insight, a chief means of awakening penitence, obtaining +forgiveness, growing in grace and love. These are the ultimates; these +are pleasing to God. + +A second reason, however, for our situation is not ethical and +essential, but economic and accidental. Our fathers' communities were +a slender chain of frontier settlements, separated from an ancient +civilization by an unknown and dangerous sea on the one hand, menaced +by all the perils of a virgin wilderness upon the other. All their +life was simple to the point of bareness; austere, reduced to the +most elemental necessities. Inevitably the order of their worship +corresponded to the order of their society. It is certain, I think, +that the white meeting-house with its naked dignity, the old service +with its heroic simplicity, conveyed to the primitive society which +produced them elements both of high formality and conscious reverence +which they could not possibly offer to our luxurious, sophisticated +and wealthy age. + +Is it not a dangerous thing to have brought an ever increasing +formality and recognition of a developed and sophisticated community +into our social and intellectual life but to have allowed our +religious expression to remain so anachronistic? Largely for social +and economic reasons we send most of our young men and young women +to college. There we deliberately cultivate in them the perception +of beauty, the sense of form, various expressions of the imaginative +life. But how much has our average non-liturgical service to offer +to their critically trained perceptions? Our church habits are pretty +largely the transfer into the sanctuary of the hearty conventions of +middle-class family life. The relations in life which are precious +to such youth, the intimate, the mystical and subtle ones, get small +recognition or expression. A hundred agencies outside the church are +stimulating in the best boys and girls of the present generation fine +sensibilities, critical standards, the higher hungers. Our services, +chiefly instructive and didactic, informal and easy in character, +irritate them and make them feel like truculent or uncomfortable +misfits. + +A third reason for the lack of corporate or public offices of devotion +in our services lies in the intellectual character of the Protestant +centuries. We have seen how they have been centuries of individualism. +Character has been conceived of as largely a personal affair expressed +in personal relationships. The believer was like Christian in Bunyan's +_Pilgrim's Progress_. He started for the Heavenly Country because +he was determined to save his own soul. When he realized that he was +living in the City of Destruction it did not occur to him that, as +a good man, he must identify his fate with it. On the contrary, he +deserted wife and children with all possible expedition and got him +out and went along through the Slough of Despond, up to the narrow +gate, to start on the way of life. It was a chief glory of mediaeval +society that it was based upon corporate relationships. Its cathedrals +were possible because they were the common house of God for every +element of the community. Family and class and state were dominant +factors then. But we have seen how, in the Renaissance and the +Romantic Movement, individualism supplanted these values. Now, +Protestantism was contemporary with that new movement, indeed, a part +of it. Its growing egotism and the colossal egotism of the modern +world form a prime cause for the impoverishment of worship in +Protestant churches. + +And so this brings us, then, to the real reason for our devotional +impotence, the one to which we referred in the opening sentences of +the chapter. It is essentially due to the character of the regulative +ideas of our age. It lies in that world view whose expressions in +literature, philosophy and social organizations we have been +reviewing in these pages. The partial notion of God which our age has +unconsciously made the substitute for a comprehensive understanding of +Him is essentially to blame. For since the contemporary doctrine is +of His immanence, it therefore follows that it is chiefly through +observation of the natural world and by interpretation of contemporary +events that men will approach Him if they come to Him at all. +Moreover, our humanism, in emphasizing the individual and exalting his +self-sufficiency, has so far made the mood of worship alien and the +need of it superfluous. The overemphasis upon preaching, the general +passion of this generation for talk and then more talk, and then +endless talk, is perfectly intelligible in view of the regulative +ideas of this generation. It seeks its understanding of the world +chiefly in terms of natural and tangible phenomena and chiefly by +means either of critical observation or of analytic reasoning. Hence +preaching, especially that sort which looks for the divine principle +in contemporary events, has been to the fore. But worship, which finds +the divine principle in something more and other than contemporary +events--which indeed does not look outward to "events" at all--has +been thrown into the background. + +It seems to me clear, then, that if we are to emphasize the +transcendent elements in religion; if they represent, as we have been +contending, the central elements of the religious experience, its +creative factors, then the revival of worship will be a prime step +in creating a more truly spiritual society. I am convinced that a +homilizing church belongs to a secularizing age. One cannot forget +that the ultimate, I do not say the only, reason for the founding +of the non-liturgical churches was the rise of humanism. One +cannot fail to see the connection between humanistic doctrine and +moralistic preaching, or between the naturalism of the moment and +the mechanicalizing of the church. "The Christian congregation," +said Luther, child of the humanistic movement, "should never assemble +except the word of God be preached." "In other countries," says old +Isaac Taylor, "the bell calls people to worship; in Scotland it +calls them to a preachment." And one remembers the justice of Charles +Kingsley's fling at the Dissenters that they were "creatures who +went to church to hear sermons!" It would seem evident, then, that a +renewal of worship would be the logical accompaniment of a return to +distinctly religious values in society and church. + +What can we do, then, better for an age of paganism than to cultivate +this transcendent consciousness? Direct men away from God the +universal and impersonal to God the particular and intimate. Nothing +is more needed for our age than to insist upon the truth that there +are both common and uncommon, both secular and sacred worlds; that +these are not contradictory; that they are complementary; that they +are not identical. It is the church's business to insist that men +must live in the world of the sacred, the uncommon, the particular, +in order to be able to surmount and endure the secular, the common and +the universal. It is her business to insist that through worship +all this can be accomplished. But can worship be taught? Is not the +devotee, like the poet or the lover or any other genius, born and +not made? Well, whether it can be taught or not, it at least can be +cultivated and developed, and there are three very practical ways in +which this cultivation can be brought about. + +One of them is by paying intelligent attention to the physical +surroundings of the worshiper. The assembly room for worship obviously +should not be used for other purposes; all its suggestions and +associations should be of one sort and that sort the highest. Quite +aside from the question of taste, it is psychologically indefensible +to use the same building, and especially the same room in the +building, for concerts, for picture shows, for worship. Here we at +once create a distracted consciousness; we dissipate attention; we +deliberately make it harder for men and women to focus upon one, and +that the most difficult, if the most precious, mood. + +For the same reason, the physical form of the room should be one +that does not suggest either the concert hall or the playhouse, but +suggests rather a long and unbroken ecclesiastical tradition. Until +the cinema was introduced into worship, we were vastly improving in +these respects, but now we are turning the morning temple into an +evening showhouse. I think we evince a most impertinent familiarity +with the house of God! And too often the church is planned so that +it has no privacies or recesses, but a hideous publicity pervades its +every part. We adorn it with stenciled frescoes of the same patterns +which we see in hotel lobbies and clubs; we hang up maps behind the +reading desk; we clutter up its platform with grand pianos. + +It is a mere matter of good taste and good psychology to begin our +preparation for a ministry of worship by changing all this. There +should be nothing in color or ornament which arouses the restless mood +or distracts the eye. Severe and simple walls, restrained and devout +figures in glass windows, are only to be tolerated. Descriptive +windows, attempting in a most untractable medium a sort of naïve +realism, are equally an aesthetic and an ecclesiastical offense. +Figures of saints or great religious personages should be typical, +impersonal, symbolic, not too much like this world and the things of +it. There is a whole school of modern window glass distinguished by +its opulence and its realism. It ought to be banished from houses of +worship. Since it is the object of worship to fix the attention upon +one thing and that thing the highest, the room where worship is held +should have its own central object. It may be the Bible, idealized as +the word of God; it may be the altar on which stands the Cross of the +eternal sacrifice. But no church ought to be without one fixed point +to which the eye of the body is insensibly drawn, thereby making it +easier to follow it with the attention of the mind and the wishes of +the heart. At the best, our Protestant ecclesiastical buildings are +all empty! There are meeting-houses, not temples assembly rooms, +not shrines. There is apparently no sense in which we are willing +to acknowledge that the Presence is on their altar. But at least the +attention of the worshiper within them may focus around some symbol of +that Presence, may be fixed on some outward sign which will help the +inward grace. + +But second: our chief concern naturally must be with the content of +the service of worship itself, not with its physical surroundings. And +here then are two things which may be said. First, any formal order of +worship should be historic; it should have its roots deep in the past; +whatever else is true of a service of worship it ought not to suggest +that it has been uncoupled from the rest of time and allowed to run +wild. Now, this means that an order of worship, basing itself on the +devotion of the ages, will use to some extent their forms. I do not +see how anyone would wish to undertake to lead the same company of +people week by week in divine worship without availing himself of the +help of written prayers, great litanies, to strengthen and complement +the spontaneous offices of devotion. There is something almost +incredible to me in the assumption that one man can, supposedly +unaided, lead a congregation in the emotional expression of its +deepest life and desires without any assistance from the great +sacramentaries and liturgies of the past. Christian literature is rich +with a great body of collects, thanksgivings, confessions, various +special petitions, which gather up the love and tears, the vision +and the anguish of many generations. These, with their phrases made +unspeakably precious with immemorial association, with their subtle +fitting of phrase to insight, of expression to need, born of long +centuries of experiment and aspiration, can do for a congregation what +no man alone can ever hope to accomplish. The well of human needs and +desires is so deep that, without these aids, we have not much to draw +with, no plummet wherewith to sound its dark and hidden depths. + +I doubt if we can overestimate the importance of giving this sense of +continuity in petitions, of linking up the prayer of the moment and +the worship of the day with the whole ageless process so that it seems +a part of that volume of human life forever ascending unto the eternal +spirit, just as the gray plume of smoke from the sacrifice ever curled +upward morning by morning and night by night from the altar of the +temple under the blue Syrian sky. We cannot easily give this sense of +continuity, this prestige of antiquity, this resting back on a great +body of experience, unless we know and use the language and the +phrases of our fathers. It is to the God who hath been our dwelling +place in all generations, that we pray; to Him who in days of old +was a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to His faithful +children; to the One who is the Ancient of Days, Infinite Watcher of +the sons of men. Only by acquaintance with the phrases, the petitions +of the past, and only by a liberal use of them can we give background +and dignity, or anything approaching variety and completeness, to our +own public expression and interpretation of the devotional life. If +anyone objects to this use of formal prayers on the ground of their +formality, let him remember that we, too, are formal, only we, alas, +have made a cult of formlessness. It would surprise the average +minister to know the well-worn road which his supposedly spontaneous +and extempore devotions follow. Phrase after phrase following in the +same order of ideas, and with the same pitiably limited vocabulary, +appear week by week in them. How much better to enrich this painfully +individualistic formalism with something of the corporate glories of +the whole body of Christian believers. + +But, second: there should be also the principle of immediacy in the +service, room for the expression of individual needs and desires +and for reference to the immediate and local circumstances of the +believer. A church in which there is no spontaneous and extempore +prayer, which only harked backward to the past, might build the tombs +of the prophets but it might also stifle new voices for a new age. +But extempore prayer should not be impromptu prayer. It should have +coherence, dignity, progression. The spirit should have been humbly +and painstakingly prepared for it so that sincere and ardent feeling +may wing and vitalize its words. The great prayers of the ages, known +of all the worshipers, perhaps repeated by them all together, tie in +the individual soul to the great mass of humanity and it moves on, +with its fellows, toward salvation as majestically and steadily as +great rivers flow. The extempore and silent prayer, not unpremeditated +but still the unformed outpouring of the individual heart, gives each +man the consciousness of standing naked and alone before his God. Both +these, the corporate and the separate elements of worships are vital; +there should be a place for each in every true order of worship. + +But, of course, the final thing to say is the first thing. Whatever +may be the means that worship employs, its purpose must be to make and +keep the church a place of repose, to induce constantly the life of +relinquishment to God, of reverence and meditation. And this it will +do as it seeks to draw men up to the "otherness," the majesty, the +aloofness, the transcendence of the Almighty. To this end I would use +whatever outward aids time and experience have shown will strengthen +and deepen the spiritual understanding. I should not fear to use +the cross, the sacraments, the kneeling posture, the great picture, +the carving, the recitation of prayers and hymns, not alone to +intensify this sense in the believer but equally to create it in the +non-believer. The external world moulds the internal, even as the +internal makes the external. If these things mean little in the +beginning, there is still truth in the assertion of the devotee that +if you practice them they will begin to mean something to you. This is +not merely that a meaning will be self-induced. It is more than that. +They will put us in the volitional attitude, the emotional mood, where +the meaning is able to penetrate. Just as all the world acknowledges +that there is an essential connection between good manners and good +morals, between military discipline and physical courage, so there +is a connection between a devotional service and the gifts of the +spiritual life. Such a service not merely strengthens belief in +the High and Holy One, it has a real office in creating, in making +possible, that belief itself. + +We shall sum it all up if we say in one word that the offices of +devotion emphasize the cosmic character of religion. They take us out +of the world of moral theism into the world of a universal theism. +They draw us away from religion in action to religion in itself; +they give us, not the God of this world, but the God who is from +everlasting to everlasting, to whom a thousand years are but as +yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night. Thus they help +us to make for ourselves an interior refuge into whose precincts +no eye may look, into whose life no other soul may venture. In that +refuge we can be still and know that He is God. There we can eat the +meat which the world knoweth not of, there have peace with Him. It +is in these central solitudes, induced by worship, that the vision +is clarified, the perspective corrected, the vital forces recharged. +Those who possess them are transmitters of such heavenly messages; +they issue from them as rivers pour from undiminished mountain +streams. Does the world's sin and pain and weakness come and empty +itself into the broad current of these devout lives? Then their +fearless onsweeping forces gather it all up, carry it on, cleanse and +purify it in the process. Over such lives the things of this world +have no power. They are kept secretly from them all in His pavilion +where there is no strife of tongues. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +WORSHIP AND THE DISCIPLINE OF DOCTRINE + + +If one were to ask any sermon-taster of our generation what is the +prevailing type of discourse among the better-known preachers of the +day, he would probably answer, "The expository." Expository preaching +has had a notable revival in the last three decades, especially +among liberal preachers; that is, among those who like ourselves have +discarded scholastic theologies, turned to the ethical aspects of +religion for our chief interests and accepted the modern view of the +Bible. To be sure, it is not the same sort of expository preaching +which made the Scottish pulpit of the nineteenth century famous. It +is not the detailed exposition of each word and clause, almost of each +comma, which marks the mingled insight and literalism of a Chalmers, +an Alexander Maclaren, a Taylor of the Broadway Tabernacle. For that +assumed a verbally inspired and hence an inerrant Scripture; it dealt +with the literature of the Old and New Testaments as being divine +revelations. The new expository preaching proceeds from almost an +opposite point of view. It deals with this literature as being a +transcript of human experience. Its method is direct and simple and, +within sharp limits, very effective. The introduction to one of these +modern expository sermons would run about as follows: + +"I suppose that what has given to the Old and New Testament Scriptures +their enduring hold over the minds and consciences of men has been +their extraordinary humanity. They contain so many vivid and accurate +recitals of typical human experience, portrayed with self-verifying +insight and interpreted with consummate understanding of the issues of +the heart. And since it is true, as Goethe said, 'That while mankind +is always progressing man himself remains ever the same,' and we +are not essentially different from the folk who lived a hundred +generations ago under the sunny Palestinian sky, we read these ancient +tales and find in them a mirror which reflects the lineaments of our +own time. For instance,..." + +Then the sermonizer proceeds to relate some famous Bible story, +resolving its naïve Semitic theophanies, its pictorial narration, +its primitive morality, into the terms of contemporary ethical or +political or economic principles. Take, for instance, the account of +the miracle of Moses and the Burning Bush. The preacher will point +out that Moses saw a bush that burned and burned and that, unlike most +furze bushes of those upland pastures which were ignited by the hot +Syrian sun, was not consumed. It was this enduring quality of the bush +that interested him. Thus Moses showed the first characteristic of +genius, namely, capacity for accurate and discriminating observation. +And he coupled this with the scientific habit of mind. For he said, +"I will now turn aside and see why!" Thus did he propose to pierce +behind the event to the cause of the event, behind the movement to the +principle of the movement. What a modern man this Moses was! It seems +almost too good to be true! + +But as yet we have merely scratched the surface of the story. For +he took his shoes from off his feet when he inspected this new +phenomenon, feeling instinctively that he was on holy ground. Thus +there mingled with his scientific curiosity the second great quality +of genius, which is reverence. There was no complacency here but an +approach to life at once eager and humble; keen yet teachable and +mild. And now behold what happens! As a result of this combination of +qualities there came to Moses the vision of what he might do to lead +his oppressed countrymen out of their industrial bondage. Whereupon +he displayed the typical human reaction and cried, "Who am I, that I +should go unto Pharoah or that I should lead the children of Israel +out of Egypt!" My brother Aaron, who is an eloquent person--and as it +turned out later also a specious one--is far better suited for this +undertaking. Thus he endeavored to evade the task and cried, "Let +someone else do it!" Having thus expounded the word of God (!) the +sermon proceeds to its final division in the application of this +shrewd and practical wisdom to some current event or parochial +situation. + +Now, such preaching is indubitably effective and not wholly +illegitimate. Its technique is easily acquired. It makes us realize +that the early Church Fathers, who displayed a truly appalling +ingenuity in allegorizing the Old Testament and who found "types" of +Christ and His Church in frankly sensual Oriental wedding songs, have +many sturdy descendants among us to this very hour! Such preaching +gives picturesqueness and color, it provides the necessary sugar +coating to the large pill of practical and ethical exhortation. To +be sure, it does not sound like the preaching of our fathers. The old +sermon titles--"Suffering with Christ that we may be also glorified +with Him," for instance--seem very far away from it. Nor is it to be +supposed that this is what its author intended the story we have been +using to convey nor that these were the reactions that it aroused +in the breasts of its original hearers. But as the sermonizer would +doubtless go on to remark, there is a certain universal quality in all +great literature, and genius builds better than it knows, and so each +man can draw his own water of refreshment from these great wells of +the past. And indeed nothing is more amazing or disconcerting than the +mutually exclusive notions, the apparently opposing truths, which can +be educed by this method, from one and the same passage of Scripture! +There is scarcely a chapter in all the Old Testament, and to a +less degree in the New Testament, which may not be thus ingeniously +transmogrified to meet almost any homiletical emergency. + +Now, I may as well confess that I have preached this kind of sermon +lo! these many years _ad infinitum_ and I doubt not _ad nauseam_. We +have all used in this way the flaming rhetoric of the Hebrew prophets +until we think of them chiefly as indicters of a social order. They +were not chiefly this but something quite different and more valuable, +namely, religious geniuses. First-rate preaching would deal with Amos +as the pioneer in ethical monotheism, with Hosea as the first poet of +the divine grace, with Jeremiah as the herald of the possibility of +each man's separate and personal communion with the living God. But, +of course, such religious preaching, dealing with great doctrines of +faith, would have a kind of large remoteness about it; it would pay +very little attention to the incidents of the story, and indeed, +would tend to be hardly expository at all, but rather speculative and +doctrinal. + +And that brings us to the theme of this final discussion. For I am one +of those who believe that great preaching is doctrinal preaching and +that it is particularly needed at this hour. The comparative neglect +of the New Testament in favor of the Old in contemporary preaching; +the use and nature of the expository method--no less than the +unworshipful character of our services--appear to me to offer a final +and conclusive proof of the unreligious overhumanistic emphases of our +interpretation of religion. And if we are to have a religious revival, +then it seems to me worshipful services must be accompanied by +speculative preaching and I doubt if the one can be nobly maintained +without the other. For we saw that worship is the direct experience +of the Absolute through high and concentrated feeling. Even so +speculative and, in general, doctrinal preaching is the same return +to first principles and to ultimate values in the realm of ideas. +It turns away from the immediate, the practical, the relative to the +final and absolute in the domain of thought. + +Now, obviously, then, devout services and doctrinal preaching should +go together. No high and persistent emotions can be maintained without +clear thinking to nourish and steady them. There is in doctrinal +preaching a certain indifference to immediate issues; to detailed +applications. It deals, by its nature, with comprehensive and abstract +rather than local and concrete thinking; with inclusive feeling, +transcendent aspiration. It does not try to pietize the ordinary, +commercial and domestic affairs of men. Instead it deals with the +highest questions and perceptions of human life; argues from those +sublime hypotheses which are the very subsoil of the religious +temperament and understanding. It deals with those aspects of human +life which indeed include, but include because they transcend, the +commercial and domestic, the professional and political affairs of +daily living. We have been insisting in these chapters that it is that +portion of human need and experience which lies between the knowable +and the unknowable with which it is the preacher's chief province to +deal. Doctrinal preaching endeavors to give form and relations to its +intuitions and high desires, its unattainable longings and insights. +There is a native alliance between the doctrine of Immanence and +expository preaching. For the office of both is to give us the God of +this world in the affairs of the moment. There is a native alliance +between expository preaching and humanism which very largely accounts +for the latter's popularity. For expository preaching, as at present +practiced, deals mostly with ethical and practical issues, with the +setting of the house of this world in order. There is also a native +and majestic alliance between the idea of transcendence and doctrinal +preaching and between the facts of the religious experience and the +content of speculative philosophy. Not pragmatism but pure metaphysics +is the native language of the mind when it moves in the spiritual +world. + +But I am aware that already I have lost my reader's sympathy. You do +not desire to preach doctrinal sermons and while you may read with +amiable patience and faintly smiling complacency this discussion, +you have no intention of following its advice. We tend to think that +doctrinal sermons are outmoded--old-fashioned and unpopular--and we +dread as we dread few other things, not being up to date. Besides, +doctrinal preaching offers little of that opportunity which is found +in expository and yet more in topical preaching for exploiting our +own personalities. Some of us are young. It is merely a polite way of +saying that we are egotistical. We know in our secret heart of hearts +that the main thing that we have to give the world is our own new, +fresh selves with their corrected and arresting understanding of the +world. We are modestly yet eagerly ready to bestow that gift of ours +upon the waiting congregation. One of the few compensations of growing +old is that, as the hot inner fires burn lower, this self-absorption +lessens and we become disinterested and judicial observers of life and +find so much pleasure in other people's successes and so much wisdom +in other folk's ideas. But not so for youth; it isn't what the past or +the collective mind and heart have formulated: it's what you've got +to say that interests you. Hence it is probably true that doctrinal +preaching, in the very nature of things, makes no strong appeal to men +who are beginning the ministry. + +But there are other objections which are more serious, because +inherent in the very genius of doctrinal preaching itself. First: +such preaching is more or less remote from contemporary and practical +issues. It deals with thought, not actions; understanding rather than +efficiency; principles rather than applications. It moves among the +basic concepts of the religious life; deals with matters beyond and +above and without the tumultuous issues of the moment. So it follows +that doctrinal preaching has an air of detachment, almost of seclusion +from the world; the preacher brings his message from some pale world +of ideas to this quick world of action. And we are afraid of this +detachment, the abstract and theoretical nature of the thinker's +sermon. + +I think the fear is not well grounded. What is the use of preaching +social service to the almost total neglect of setting forth the +intellectual and emotional concept of the servant? It is the quality +of the doer which determines the value of the deed. Why keep on +insisting upon being good if our hearers have never been carefully +instructed in the nature and the sanctions of goodness? Has not the +trouble with most of our political and moral reform been that we have +had a passion for it but very little science of it? How can we know +the ways of godliness if we take God Himself for granted? No: our +chief business, as preachers, is to preach the content rather than the +application of the truth. Not many people are interested in trying +to find the substance of the truth. It is hated as impractical by +the multitude of the impatient, and despised as old-fashioned by +the get-saved-quick reformers. Nevertheless we must find out the +distinctions between divine and human, right and wrong, and why they +are what they are, and what is the good of it all. There is no more +valuable service which the preacher can render his community than to +deliberately seclude himself from continual contact with immediate +issues and dwell on the eternal verities. When Darwin published _The +Descent of Man_ at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, the _London +Times_ took him severely to task for his absorption in purely +scientific interests and hypothetical issues. "When the foundations +of property and the established order were threatened with the fires +of the Paris Commune; when the Tuileries were burning--how could a +British subject be occupying himself with speculations in natural +science in no wise calculated to bring aid or comfort to those who +had a stake in the country!" Well, few of us imagine today that +Darwin would have been wise to have exchanged the seclusion and the +impractical hours of the study for the office or the camp, the market +or the street. + +Yet the same fear of occupying ourselves with central and abstract +matters still obsesses us. At the Quadrennial Conference of the +Methodist Episcopal Church held recently at Des Moines, thirty-four +bishops submitted an address in which they said among other things: +"Of course, the church must stand in unflinching, uncompromising +denunciation of all violations of laws, against all murderous child +labor, all foul sweat shops, all unsafe mines, all deadly tenements, +all excessive hours for those who toil, all profligate luxuries, all +standards of wage and life below the living standard, all unfairness +and harshness of conditions, all brutal exactions, whether of the +employer or union, all overlordships, whether of capital or labor, +all godless profiteering, whether in food, clothing, profits or wages, +against all inhumanity, injustice and blighting inequality, against +all class-minded men who demand special privileges or exceptions on +behalf of their class." + +These are all vital matters, yet I cannot believe that it is the +church's chief business thus to turn her energies to the problems +of the material world. This would be a stupendous program, even +if complete in itself; as an item in a program it becomes almost a +_reductio ad absurdum_. The _Springfield Republican_ in an editorial +comment upon it said: "It fairly invites the question whether the +church is not in some danger of trying to do too much. The fund of +energy available for any human undertaking is not unlimited; energy +turned in one direction must of necessity be withdrawn from another +and energy diffused in many directions cannot be concentrated. Count +the adjectives--'murderous,' 'foul,' 'unsafe,' 'deadly,' 'excessive,' +'profligate,' 'brutal,' 'godless,' 'blighting'--does not each involve +research, investigation, comparison, analysis, deliberation, a heavy +tax upon the intellectual resources of the church if any result worth +having is to be obtained? Can this energy be found without subtracting +energy from some other sphere?" + +The gravest problems of the world are not found here. They are +found in the decline of spiritual understanding, the decay of moral +standards, the growth of the vindictive and unforgiving spirit, the +lapse from charity, the overweening pride of the human heart. With +these matters the church must chiefly deal; to their spiritual +infidelity she must bring a spiritual message; to their poor thinking +she must bring the wisdom of the eternal. This task, preventive not +remedial, is her characteristic one. Is it not worth while to remember +that the great religious leaders have generally ignored contemporary +social problems? So have the great artists who are closely allied +to them. Neither William Shakespeare nor Leonardo da Vinci were +reformers; neither Gautama nor the Lord Jesus had much to say about +the actual international economic and political readjustments which +were as pressing in their day as ours. They were content to preach the +truth, sure that it, once understood, would set men free. + +But a second reason why we dislike doctrinal preaching is because we +confound it with dogmatic preaching. Doctrinal sermons are those which +deal with the philosophy of religion. They expound or defend or relate +the intellectual statements, the formulae of religion. Such discourses +differ essentially from dogmatic sermonizing. For what is a doctrine? +A doctrine is an intellectual formulation of an experience. Suppose +a man receives a new influx of moral energy and spiritual insight, +through reading the Bible, through trying to pray, through loving and +meditating upon the Lord Jesus. That experience isn't a speculative +proposition, it isn't a faith or an hypothesis; it's a fact. Like the +man in the Johannine record the believer says, "Whether he be a sinner +I know not: but one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I +see." + +Now, let this new experience of moral power and spiritual insight +express itself, as it normally will, in a more holy and more +useful life, in the appropriate terms of action. There you get that +confession of experience which we call character. Or let it express +itself in the appropriate emotions of joy and awe and reverence so +that, like Ray Palmer, the convert writes an immortal hymn, or a body +of converts like the early church produces the _Te Deum_. There is the +confession of experience in worship. Or let a man filled with this new +life desire to understand it; see what its implications are regarding +the nature of God, the nature of man, the place of Christ in the scale +of created or uncreated Being. Let him desire to thus conserve and +interpret that he may transmit this new experience. Then he will begin +to define it and to reduce it, for brevity and clearness, to some +abstract and compact formula. Thus he will make a confession of +experience in doctrine. + +Doctrines, then, are not arbitrary but natural, not accidental but +essential. They are the hypotheses regarding the eternal nature of +things drawn from the data of our moral and spiritual experience. They +are to religion just what the science of electricity is to a trolley +car, or what the formula of evolution is to natural science, or what +the doctrine of the conservation of energy is, or was, to physics. +Doctrines are signposts; they are placards, index fingers, notices +summing up and commending the proved essences of religious experience. +Two things are always true of sound doctrine. First: it is not +considered to have primary value; its worth is in the experience +to which it witnesses. Second: it is not fixed but flexible and +progressive. Someone has railed at theology, defining it as the +history of discarded errors. That is a truth and a great compliment +and the definition holds good of the record of any other science. + +Now, if doctrines are signposts, dogmas are old and now misleading +milestones. For what is a dogma? It may be one of two things. Usually +it is a doctrine that has forgotten that it ever had a history; +a formula which once had authority because it was a genuine +interpretation of experience but which now is so outmoded in fashion +of thought, or so maladjusted to our present scale of values, as to +be no longer clearly related to experience and is therefore accepted +merely on command, or on the prestige of its antiquity. Or it may be +a doctrine promulgated _ex cathedra_, not because religious experience +produced it, but because ecclesiastical expediencies demand it. Thus, +to illustrate the first sort of dogma, there was once a doctrine of +the Virgin Birth. Men found, as they still do, both God and man in +Jesus; they discovered when they followed Him their own real humanity +and true divinity. They tried to explain and formalize the experience +and made a doctrine which, for the circle of ideas and the extent +of the factual knowledge of the times, was both reasonable and +valuable. The experience still remains, but the doctrine is no +longer psychologically or biologically credible. It no longer +offers a tenable explanation; it is not a valuable or illuminating +interpretation. Hence if we hold it at all today, it is either for +sentiment or for the sake of mere tradition, namely, for reasons other +than its intellectual usefulness or its inherent intelligibility. So +held it passes over from doctrine into dogma. Or take, as an +example of the second sort, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, +promulgated by Pius IX in the year 1854, and designed to strengthen +the prestige of the Papal See among the Catholic powers of Europe and +to prolong its hold upon its temporal possessions. De Cesare describes +the promulgation of the dogma as follows: + +"The festival on that day, December 8, 1854, sacred to the Virgin, was +magnificent. After chanting the Gospel, first in Latin, then in Greek, +Cardinal Macchi, deacon of the Sacred College, together with the +senior archbishops and bishops present, all approached the Papal +throne, pronouncing these words in Latin, 'Deign, most Holy Father, +to lift your Apostolic voice and pronounce the dogmatic Decree of the +Immaculate Conception, on account of which there will be praise in +heaven and rejoicings on earth.' The Pope replying, stated that he +welcomed the wish of the Sacred College, the episcopate, the clergy, +and declared it was essential first of all to invoke the help of the +Holy Spirit. So saying he intoned _in Veni Creator_, chanted in chorus +by all present. The chant concluded, amid a solemn silence Pius IX's +finely modulated voice read the following Decree: + +"'It shall be Dogma, that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first +instant of the Conception, by singular privilege and grace of God, +in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was +preserved from all stain of original sin.' The senior cardinal then +prayed the Pope to make this Decree public, and, amid the roar of +cannon from Fort St. Angelo and the festive ringing of church bells, +the solemn act was accomplished.'"[42] Here is an assertion regarding +Mary's Conception which has only the most tenuous connection with +religious experience and which was pronounced for ecclesiastical and +political reasons. Here we have dogma at its worst. Here, indeed, it +is so bad as to resemble many of the current political and economic +pronunciamentos! + +[Footnote 42: _The Last Days of Papal Rome_, pp. 127 ff.] + +Now, nobody wants dogmatic preaching, but there is nothing that we +need more than we do doctrinal preaching and nothing which is more +interesting. The specialization of knowledge has assigned to the +preacher of religion a definite sphere. No amount of secondary +expertness in politics or economics or social reform or even morals +can atone for the abandonment of our own province. We are set to think +about and expound religion and if we give that up we give up our place +in a learned profession. Moreover, the new conditions of the modern +world make doctrine imperative. That world is distinguished by +its free inquiry, its cultivation of the scientific method, its +abandonment of obscuranticisms and ambiguities. It demands, then, +devout and holy thinking from us. Who would deny that the revival +of intellectual authority and leadership in matters of religion +is terribly needed in our day? Sabatier is right in saying that a +religion without doctrine is a self-contradictory idea. Harnack is not +wrong in saying that a Christianity without it is inconceivable. + +And now I know you are thinking in your hearts, Well, what +inconsistency this man shows! For a whole book he has been insisting +on the prime values of imagination and feeling in religion and now he +concludes with a plea for the thinker. But it is not so inconsistent +as it appears. It is just because we do believe that the discovery, +the expression and the rewards of religion lie chiefly in the +superrational and poetic realms that therefore we want this +intellectual content to accompany it, not supersede it, as a balancing +influence, a steadying force. There are grave perils in worshipful +services corresponding to their supreme values. Mystical preaching +has the defects of its virtues and too often sinks into that vague +sentimentalism which is the perversion of its excellence. How +insensibly sometimes does high and precious feeling degenerate into +a sort of religious hysteria! It needs then to be always tested and +corrected by clear thinking. + +But we in no way alter our original insistence that in our realm as +preachers, unlike the scientist's realm of the theologians, thought +is the handmaid, not the mistress. Our great plea, then, for doctrinal +preaching is that by intellectual grappling with the final and +speculative problems of religion we do not supersede but feed the +emotional life and do not diminish but focus and steady it. It is +that you and I may have reserves of feeling--indispensable to great +preaching--sincerity and intensity of emotion, that disciplined +imagination which is genius, that restrained passion which is art, +and that our congregations may have the same, that we must strive for +intellectual power, must do the preaching that gives people something +to think about. These are the religious and devout reasons why +we value intellectual honesty, precision of utterance, reserve of +statement, logical and coherent thinking. + +We are come, then, to the conclusion of our discussions. They have +been intended to restore a neglected emphasis upon the imaginative and +transcendent as distinguished from the ethical and humanistic aspects +of the religious life. They have tried to show that the reaching out +by worship to this "otherness" of God and to the ultimate in life is +man's deepest hunger and the one we are chiefly set to feed. I am sure +that the chief ally of the experience of the transcendence of God and +the cultivation of the worshipful faculties in man is to be found in +severe and speculative thinking. I believe our almost unmixed passion +for piety, for action, for practical efficiency, betrays us. It +indicates that we are trying to manufacture effects to conceal the +absence of causes. We may look for a religious revival when men have +so meditated upon and struggled with the fundamental ideas of religion +that they feel profoundly its eternal mysteries. + +And finally, we have the best historical grounds for our position. +Sometimes great religious movements have been begun by unlearned and +uncritical men like Peter the hermit or John Bunyan or Moody. But we +must not infer from this that religious insight is naturally repressed +by clear thinking or fostered by ignorance. Dr. Francis Greenwood +Peabody has pointed out that the great religious epochs in Christian +history are also epochs in the history of theology. The Pauline +epistles, the _Confessions of Augustine_, the _Meditations_ of Anselm, +the _Simple Method of How to Pray_ of Luther, the _Regula_ of Loyola, +the _Monologen_ of Schleiermacher, these are all manuals of the +devout life, they belong in the distinctively religious world of +supersensuous and the transcendent, and one thing which accounts for +them is that the men who produced them were religious geniuses because +they were also theologians.[43] + +[Footnote 43: See the "Call to Theology," _Har. Theo. Rev._, vol. I, +no. 1, pp. 1 ff.] + +It is to be remembered that we are not saying that the theologian +makes the saint. I do not believe that. Devils can believe and +tremble; Abelard was no saint. But we are contending that the +great saint is extremely likely to be a theologian. Protestantism, +Methodism, Tractarianism, were chiefly religious movements, interested +in the kind of questions and moved by the sorts of motives which +we have been talking about. They all began within the precincts +of universities. Moreover, the Lord Jesus, consummate mystic, +incomparable artist, was such partly because He was a great theologian +as well. His dealings with scribe and Pharisee furnish some of +the world's best examples of acute and courageous dialectics. His +theological method differed markedly from the academicians of His +day. Nevertheless it was noted that He spoke with an extraordinary +authority. "He gave," as Dr. Peabody also points out, "new scope +and significance to the thought of God, to the nature of man, to the +destiny of the soul, to the meaning of the world. He would have been +reckoned among the world's great theologians if other endowments had +not given Him a higher title."[44] + +[Footnote 44: "Call to Theology," _Har. Theo. Rev._, vol. I, no. 1, p. +8.] + +It is a higher title to have been the supreme mystic, the perfect +seer. All I have been trying to say is that it is to these sorts +of excellencies that the preacher aspires. But the life of Jesus +supremely sanctions the conviction that preaching upon high and +abstract and even speculative themes and a rigorous intellectual +discipline are chief accompaniments, appropriate and indispensable +aids, to religious insight and to the cultivating of worshipful +feeling. So we close our discussions with the supreme name upon +our lips, leaving the most fragrant memory, the clearest picture, +remembering Him who struck the highest note. It is to His life and +teaching that we humbly turn to find the final sanction for the +distinctively religious values. Who else, indeed, has the words of +Eternal Life? + + * * * * * + + + + + +LYMAN BEECHER LECTURESHIP ON PREACHING + +YALE UNIVERSITY + + 1871-72 Beecher, H.W., Yale Lectures on Preaching, first series. + New York, 1872. + + 1872-73 Beecher, H.W., Yale Lectures on Preaching, second series. + New York, 1873. + + 1873-74 Beecher, H.W., Yale Lectures on Preaching, third series. + New York, 1874. + + 1874-75 Hall, John, God's Word through Preaching. New York, 1875. + + 1875-76 Taylor, William M., The Ministry of the Word. New York, + 1876. + + 1876-77 Brooks, P., Lectures on Preaching. New York, 1877. + + 1877-78 Dale, R.W., Nine Lectures on Preaching. New York, 1878. + + 1878-79 Simpson, M., Lectures on Preaching. New York, 1879. + + 1879-80 Crosby, H., The Christian Preacher. New York, 1880. + + 1880-81 Duryea, J.T., and others (not published). + + 1881-82 Robinson, E.G., Lectures on Preaching. New York, 1883. + + 1882-83 (No lectures.) + + 1883-84 Burton, N.J., Yale Lectures on Preaching, and other + writings. New York, 1888.* + + 1884-85 Storrs, H.M., The American Preacher (not published). + + 1885-86 Taylor, W.M., The Scottish Pulpit. New York, 1887. + + 1886-87 Gladden, W., Tools and the Man. Boston, 1893. + + 1887-88 Trumbull. H.C., The Sunday School. Philadelphia, 1888. + + 1888-89 Broadus, J.A., Preaching and the Ministerial Life (not + published). + + 1889-90 Behrends, A.J.F., The Philosophy of Preaching. New York, + 1890. + + 1890-91 Stalker, J., The Preacher and His Models. New York, 1891. + + 1891-92 Fairbarn, A.M., The Place of Christ in Modern Theology. + New York, 1893. + + 1892-93 Horton, R.F., Verbum Dei. New York, 1893.* + + 1893-94 (No lectures.) + + 1894-95 Greer, D.H., The Preacher and His Place. New York, 1895. + + 1895-96 Van Dyke, H., The Gospel for an Age of Doubt. New York, + 1896* + + 1896-97 Watson, J., The Cure of Souls. New York, 1896. + + 1897-98 Tucker, W.J., The Making and the Unmaking of the Preacher. + Boston, 1898. + + 1898-99 Smith, G.A., Modern Criticism and the Old Testament. New + York, 1901. + + 1899-00 Brown, J., Puritan Preaching in England. New York, 1900. + + 1900-01 (No lectures.) + + 1901-02 Gladden, W., Social Salvation. New York, 1902. + + 1902-03 Gordon, G.A., Ultimate Conceptions of Faith. New York, 1903. + + 1903-04 Abbott, L., The Christian Ministry. Boston, 1905. + + 1904-05 Peabody, F.G., Jesus Christ and the Christian Character. + New York, 1905.* + + 1905-06 Brown, C.R., The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit. New + York, 1906. + + 1906-07 Forsyth, P.T., Positive Preaching and Modern Mind. New + York, 1908.* + + 1907-08 Faunce, W.H.P., The Educational Ideal in the Ministry. New + York, 1908. + + 1908-09 Henson, H.H., The Liberty of Prophesying. New Haven, 1910.* + + 1909-10 Jefferson, C.E., The Building of the Church. New York, 1910. + + 1910-11 Gunsaulus, F.W., The Minister and the Spiritual Life. New + York, Chicago, 1911. + + 1911-12 Jowett, J.H., The Preacher; His Life and Work. New York, + 1912. + + 1912-13 Parkhurst, C.H., The Pulpit and the Pew. New Haven. 1913.* + + 1913-14 Home, C. Silvester, The Romance of Preaching. New York, + Chicago, 1914. + + 1914-15 Pepper, George Wharton, A Voice from the Crowd. New Haven, + 1915.* + + 1915-16 Hyde, William DeWitt, The Gospel of Good Will as Revealed + in Contemporary Scriptures. New York, 1916. + + 1916-17 McDowell, William Fraser, Good Ministers of Jesus Christ. + New York and Cincinnati, 1917. + + 1917-18 Coffin, Henry Sloane, In a Day of Social Rebuilding. New + Haven.* + + 1918-19 Kelman, John, The War and Preaching, New Haven.* + + 1919-20 Fitch, Albert Parker, Preaching and Paganism. New Haven.* + + +*Also published in London. + +PRINTED BY E.L. HILDRETH & COMPANY BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT, U.S.A. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Preaching and Paganism, by Albert Parker Fitch + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PREACHING AND PAGANISM *** + +***** This file should be named 16076-8.txt or 16076-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/0/7/16076/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, William Flis, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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