Creed And Deed Part 3

The Bible likens the relations of man to G.o.d to those of a child to its father. It is true supernaturalism has often proved a valuable stay to those already morally strong, and it were absurd to deny that under its fostering care many of the n.o.blest qualities that distinguish the filial relation have been developed in the lives of religious men. It is from no lack of appreciation on our part that we have dwelt on the evils rather than the blessings it has brought. But in acknowledging that we have really lost the sense of protection, the childlike trust which lend such rare beauty to the character of many ancient models of piety, we deemed it important to point to the shades that darken the picture of the * supernatural religions, its lights are made the theme of a thousand discourses week after week, and are hardly in any danger of being speedily forgotten.

From the back-ground of the old Ideal stands out in bold relief the new.

It is the reverse of supernatural; if it takes pride in anything, it is in marking a return to nature. Trammels of the flesh, contamination of the body? There is nothing it tells us in itself contaminating. The body is not alien to the mind, it is the seed plot from which mind flowers out in every part. Regard the form of man, observe the quick play of the features, the expressive smile, the speaking glance, every att.i.tude, every gesture full of meaning, the whole body irradiated as it were, with the indwelling intelligence. And so the pa.s.sions too which we are wont to a.s.sociate with our corporeal nature are but the rough material from which the artist soul behind them fashions its immortal types of beauty and of holiness. There is a graceless innuendo in the term nature, as of something hard, gross, material. In truth, nature is the subtlest, most ethereal presence of which we catch a gleam only at rare intervals, the reflex of a hidden light that glimmers through the facts and motions of the world. Take the nature of water for instance. Is it in the hydrogen, in the oxygen, in the single atom? Not there, yet there!

somewhere hovering, imponderous, elusive. It comes nighest to the senses when the atoms act and react upon each other, in the flow of mighty rivers, in the leap of cataracts, in the turmoil of the sea. Or the nature of the tree; is it in the roots, in the trunk, in the spreading branches, the leafy crown? Perhaps in the fruit more than elsewhere the hidden being of the tree comes forth into external reality, and opens to the eye and touch. In action and fruition the deeper nature appears.

Thus in the outward world, and thus in man. Our soul-life, too, is a flowing stream, whose power is not in any part but in the ceaseless, changeful motion of the whole, that forms a strong spiritual current on which our thoughts and sentiments move like swimmers toward an infinite sea. And like a tree are we, with the mighty trunk of intellect, the spreading branches of imagination, the fibrous roots of the lower instincts, that bind us to the earth. But the moral life is the fruit we bear; in it our true nature is revealed; in it we see the purpose of our being fulfilled. So when we speak of a return to nature, it is this higher nature to which we refer, whose origin we know not, but whose workings we feel, and know them by the token of the sweet satisfaction they afford us to be the crown and glory of our lives. The old Ideal emphasizes the Eternal that is without us; the new the Eternal that is within ourselves. The old styles us exiles from the kingdom of truth; the new summons us to be the banner-bearers of truth; the old points to a heaven beyond the earth, the new tells us that our earth too is a part of the heaven, a light-world, among endless worlds of light.

If secondly we consider the means of support at our disposal in the pursuit of the ideal, we find prayer in universal use among the adherents of the old. Prayer in the sense of supplication, has been defined as "a request made to the Deity as if he were a man." And truly the language of prayer often tallies with this description. "Let me succeed in this undertaking," prays the Indian, "that I may slay my enemy and bring home the tokens of victory to my dear family, in order that they may rejoice together. Have pity on me and protect my life, and I will bring thee an offering." Some such inducement as the last is frequently coupled with the pet.i.tion, "Here is an offering for you, O G.o.d! Look kindly towards this family, let it prosper and increase, and let us all be in good health." "Let me come upon my enemies speedily, let me find them sleeping and not awake, and let me slay a good many of them." "I pray for cattle, I pray for corn, I ask also for children, in order that this village may have a large population, and that your name may never come to an end, for of old we have lived by your favor, let us continue to receive it. Remember that the increase of our produce is the increase of your worship, and that its diminution must be the diminution of your rites." Among the Hindoos the efficacy ascribed to prayer was such that the G.o.ds themselves were deemed powerless to resist it, and the mystic invocations of the priests exerted a fateful influence on the destinies of the world. The ancient and modern literature of the Hebrews likewise testifies to their faith in prayer, and Christianity has herein followed if not outstripped their example. In case of drought the following prayer is offered in many of our churches: "Send us, we beseech thee, in this our necessity, such moderate rain and showers that we may receive the fruits of the earth to our comfort and to thy honor."

In case of storms: "We humbly beseech thee to restrain these immoderate rains, wherewith for our sins thou hast afflicted us, and we pray thee to send such seasonable weather that the earth may in due time yield her increase for our benefit." In case of famine, "Increase the fruits of the earth by thy heavenly benediction, and grant that the scarcity and dearth which we now most justly suffer for our sins, through thy goodness may be turned into plenty." In case of sickness, prayers are offered for the recovery of the sufferer.

Against all these forms of pet.i.tion the modern view of life emphatically protests. It starts with the grandest of scientific generalizations, that of the universality of nature's laws. These laws cannot be broken; they govern the course of the planets as they revolve through s.p.a.ce, they appear in the slightest eddy of dust that rises on our streets. The world is a Kosmos; to pray for a change in its arrangements is to pray for its destruction. The rains come when they must come, and the earth yields or withholds her crop, as a system of causes determined from immeasurable aeons of time prescribes. Is the G.o.d to whom men pray so poor a workman that he will change the mechanism of the Universe at their bidding? If all that is, is his work, why then the drought is his work, and the famine, and the sickness are his work, and they are, because he has willed that they should be. "The G.o.ds help them that help themselves." We are placed in a world with which we are but half acquainted; our business is to know it thoroughly. All the history of mankind from the beginning has been a series of tentative struggles to acquire this precious knowledge, and we have made indeed some headway.

We began by defending ourselves against the attacks of wild beasts; we tilled the soil; we invented tools, we formed communities, we moderated the friction of social intercourse; we discovered the talisman of science, and the Aladdin's lamp of art. In the treatment of disease also a great advance has been made. When the Mayflower reached the American continent, she found a bleak and barren sh.o.r.e, full only of graves. A great epidemic had swept over the Indian tribes, and the natives fell like dead flies before the scourge. They had charms and prayers; these did not help them. We have accomplished a little; we are bound to aim at more. Why then call in the supernatural? It will not come, though we call never so loudly. The vain attempt does but keep us from that which is more needful, active exertion and strenuous efforts at self-help.

But we are told that our success is poor at best, and that in the vast majority of cases, all our exertions avail nothing: moreover it is said that man is too frail and feeble a creature to depend upon himself alone in times of trial, and that prayer, whether it be answered or not, is valuable as a means of consolation that soothes and stills the heart. It is but too true that our achievements fall far short of our desires. Let those that do not, cannot pray, seek support in the sympathies of their kind, and where self-help fails, mutual help will offer them an inexhaustible source of strength and comfort. As for that species of prayer which is not addressed to a personal G.o.d at all, but claims to be an aspiration, an outpouring of the spirit, we do fail to see how it deserves the name of prayer in any sense. The use of the vocative, and of the p.r.o.noun thou is certainly calculated to mislead, and the appearance of inconsistency is hardly avoidable.

Lastly, the old Ideal was stationary, retrospective; it placed its paradise at the beginning of human history. In the far off past it beheld our best and loftiest hopes antic.i.p.ated and realized. Then the full significance of life had been reached; then the oracles had spoken loudly and clearly whose faint echoes now float like memories of half forgotten melodies to our ear; then the imperishable truths were revealed in those olden, golden days. Not so, says the new Ideal. Rude and wretched were the beginnings of mankind on earth, poor the mind, and void the heart. Far from being exemplary, the ideas of right and wrong entertained by our earliest progenitors were infinitely below our own. Not indeed, that the substance of the moral sentiment has ever perceptibly changed. The inherent principle of right remains the same, but it a.s.sumes higher forms and is applied on a wider scale as the race advances. Thus the commandment not to kill a being like ourselves was recognized from the first, but in the earliest times, only members of the same family were esteemed beings like ourselves; to kill a neighbor was not wrong. The family widened into the clan, the clan into the people, and all the nations are now embraced in the common bond of humanity. Thus step by step the life of the clansman, the fellow citizen and at last of every human being came to be regarded as sacred. From a common centre morality has developed _outward in concentric circles_.

In different ages also different virtues predominated. Patriotism was esteemed highest in the Roman world; self-sacrifice and chast.i.ty in the first Christian communities. But whatever had thus been gained was not thereafter lost. Each age added its own to the stock of virtue; each contributed its share to swell the treasure of mankind. The struggle for existence that raged fiercely on the lower levels of culture, loses its harsher aspects as we advance upon the path of civilization. The methods of force by which the unfit were eliminated are gradually falling into disrepute, if not into disuse. At last the good will survive because of its own persuasive excellency. The conflict will become one of ideas merely, an emulous peaceful contest for the prize of truth.

That the manners of the modern world have indeed become ameliorated, our own brief experience as a society serves to ill.u.s.trate. A few centuries ago, such an enterprise as ours would never have been attempted, or if undertaken, would have been speedily crushed by the arm of authority or the weight of prejudice. We will not say that bigotry is dead; the fires of persecution still slumber beneath their ashes, and now and then start up into pretty bonfires to amuse the idle crowd; but the time has gone by when they could mount on funeral pyres--they can kindle conflagrations no more.

The new Ideal is progressive. Whatever we have achieved, it tells us there are larger achievements yet beyond. As we rise in the scale of moral worth, the eye becomes clearer and wider of vision. We see in remote ages a race of men freer and stronger because of our toils, and that is our dearest hope and our sweetest recompense that they shall reap what we have sown.

The old and the new Ideals will struggle for the mastery; that which is stronger will conquer as of old, in the struggle for existence. But the new hope fills us with trust and gladness that that which is true will be strong.

IV. THE PRIESTS OF THE IDEAL

It is with good reason, that the very name of the priesthood, has become odious to the modern mind. How has their fanaticism drenched the earth with blood, how has their unbridled ambition sown seeds of discord among the nations; how lamentable a commentary is the record of their frailties upon the a.s.sumption of superior sanct.i.ty and G.o.d-given authority. Yet it is not the priestly office, but its abuse, which has proved of evil, nor has the time yet come, when the ministry of priests can be safely dispensed with. There shall come a new Ideal to attract men's reverence and a new service of the Infinite and a new priesthood also to do its ministry. It is of this modern priesthood, I would speak.

Fear not that I am about to advocate a return to that system of spiritual bondage, from which we have but just escaped. The priests to whom we allude shall not be known by ca.s.sock or surplice. It is not at the altar they shall serve, least of all shall they have dogmas to communicate. They shall not be more than human, only if possible more human. Priests have we of science, we name them so; men whose whole soul is wrapped up in the pursuit of knowledge: priests of art, who dedicate their lives to the service of the Beautiful, priests also of the Moral, artists of the Good, sages in the science of Virtue, teachers of the Ideal.

Let us consider for a moment, in order to ill.u.s.trate our meaning, the life of one such priest, whose fame has come down to us undimmed by the corroding influence of time--the life of Socrates. He held no office, he ministered at no shrine, yet he was in the true sense a priest. A plain unpretentious man, content to live on coa.r.s.e fare, inured to want, homely in appearance, using homely language; nothing had he in appearance to attract; yet the gay youths left their feasts and frolics when he approached, and the busy market-place was hushed to listen to the strange wisdom of his sayings; there was indeed a singular and potent charm in this man's soul. He had a great need of righteousness, wonderful, how he awakened the same need in the hearts of the Athenian burghers of his day. He was the reverse of dogmatic. In comparison with the vastness of the unknown, he was wont to say, all human knowledge is little even to nothingness, he did not a.s.sume to know the truth, but strove to a.s.sist men in finding truths for themselves. He had his own enlightened views on questions of theology. But far from desiring to convert others to his convictions, he rather sought to divert their attention from those mysterious problems, in which men can never be wise, problems that are no nearer their solution today, than they were two thousand years ago. To those who questioned him concerning religion he replied: Are ye then masters of the humanities, that ye seek to pry into divine secrets? His father had been a fashioner of statues before him, he was a fashioner of souls! This Socrates was condemned to suffer death on the charge of atheism, and met his fate with the calmness of the philosophic mind. If death, he said, is progress to untried spheres, then welcome death! If it is sleep only, then also welcome death and its deep repose. All the tokens of the priest were fulfilled in him. He was true to himself and unbared to others the veiled truths of their own higher nature. He was a loftier presence on earth, a living flame fed from its own central being, a sun to which the world turned and was thereby enlightened. We perceive then, that what we desire is not a new thing. There has been this service of the Ideal from the earliest times.

Only a new plea would we urge for larger fidelity to that which the best have striven for, and which under new conditions it will be the glory of our age to approach more nearly.

The priest shall be a teacher of the "Ideal," but what is the Ideal and how distinguish it from the Real. Regard the trees, behold their number, the wondrous plenitude of their kinds.. There is the lithe and slender pine, the mighty oak, the stately palm, the tender willow. Alike yet most unlike. And who has ever seen the perfect tree! Observe the expressive features of the human face. How many thousands of such faces are born into the world each year and yet no two alike. By what fine shades, what scarce perceptible curves, what delicate touches has nature's chisel marked them each apart. Graceful forms and lovely faces there are, yet perfect none. Now the Ideal is the perfection of the Real. To find it we must go beyond the Realities. We study the nature of the tree, of man. We note the suggestions of the various parts, complete and produce them in utmost harmony, each perfect in itself, each serving by its own perfection, the rounded symmetry of the whole. In the image thus created we grasp the ideal form. Art with its genial enchantments, creates such images and gives them permanence in pure types of immortal significance. Art is idealism of form.

The intellect also, which looks out from behind the features, the indwelling man, exhibits the same twofold aspect of the Real and Ideal.

Our real thoughts are incomplete and inadequate. We are led astray a thousand times by false a.n.a.logies, we are decoyed into the labyrinths of fancy, we become the victims of impression, the toys of circ.u.mstance.

But deep down in the basic structure of the mind are true laws, unerring guides. Logic expresses them, logic is the idealism of intellect.

And lastly we recognize the same distinction in the realm of feeling.

To the untutored caprice, the overmastering impulse, in brief to the realism of the pa.s.sions is opposed the law of right feeling, which ethics expresses. Ethics is the idealism of character. We call this last the capital revelation of man's nature. The moral law is not derivative, it can not be proven, it can not be denied. It is the root from which springs every virtue, every grace, all wisdom and all achievement. An attempt has indeed been made to base morality upon a certain commonplace utility, but true morality scorns your sad utilities. That is useful, which serves an object besides itself, while morality is itself an end, and needs and admits no sanction save its own excellency. As it delights the man of science to expand his judgment in ever wider and wider generalizations, as the larger thought is ever the truer thought, so is there an exquisite pleasure and an unspeakable reward in expanding the narrow consciousness of self in the unselfish, and the larger emotion is ever the n.o.bler emotion. We speak of the moral Ideal, as The IDEAL, because it expresses the central idea of human life,# the purpose of our existence on earth. To expound and ill.u.s.trate its bearings on our daily duties, our joys, our griefs and our aspirations, is the scope and limit of the priestly office.

The moral ideal would embrace the whole of life. Before it nothing is petty or indifferent, it touches the veriest trifles and turns them into shining gold. We are royal by virtue of it, and like the kings in the fairy tale, we may never lay aside our crowns. It tells us, that nothing shall be for its uses only, but all things shall take their tone and quality from the central idea.

When we build a house, it shall not be for its uses only. We shall have kitchens and drawing rooms and libraries and pictures and flowers, if possible. But the house, with all its comforts and luxuries, is mere framework, and our words and doings construct the true, the spiritual home. When we sit down to table, it shall not be for the use of the food and the flavor of the wine only, but morality should preside at the feast and lend it grace and dignity. Morality does not mope in corners, is not sour nor gloomy. It loves genial fellowship, loves to convert our meanest wants into golden occasions for joy and sympathy and happy communion. Manners too are the offspring of character. We do not rate highly the dry and cheerless conventionalisms of etiquette, but in their origin, they were the fruit of truth, and love. The rules of good breeding may be reduced to two; self-possession and deference. As when a public speaker loses his self-control, his own uncertainty is quickly communicated to his audience, and he forfeits his influence over his hearers; so the same cause produces the same effect in every lesser audience that gathers in our parlors. Society says to you: If I shall trust you, you must begin by trusting yourself. The man of the world will enter the palace of the prince and the cottage of the peasant with the same equipoise of manner. If he respects himself, there is no reason why he should stand abashed. Self-possession is essentially self-respect. Deference, too, is a primary condition of all courtesy.

It teaches us to concede to others whatever we claim for ourselves; it leads us instinctively to avoid loudness, and self-complacency. It is expressed not only in the polished phrase, but in mien, att.i.tude, every movement. Self-possession and deference of manner are both the outgrowth of moral qualities, the one depending on the consciousness of personal worth, the other inspired by an unselfish regard for the well-being of others. From these two it were possible to deduce the rules of a new 'Chesterfield,' which should be free from all the conceit and affectation of the old. Unfortunately, manners are no longer the natural outpouring of heart-goodness. Men attire themselves in politeness as they do in rich apparel; they may be as rude as they please, the year round, they know they can be fine on occasion. Moreover in the home circle, where the forms of courtesy are quite indispensable to prevent undue friction; to send the light of grace and poetry into a world of little cares; to fill the atmosphere of our daily surroundings as with the fragrance of a pervading perfume; they are yet most commonly neglected. The word manners has the same meaning as morals. When we shall have better morals, we shall have truer and sweeter manners.

The Ideal which thus seeks to interpenetrate the most ordinary affairs of private life, stands out also in the market place, in the forum, in the halls of legislation, and setting aside the merely useful, exhorts men to return to permanent values. That is the ideal view of politics which teaches us to hold the idea of country superior to the utilities of party, to exact worthiness of the public servants, to place the common good above sectional animosities and jealousies. That is the ideal view of commerce, which impels the merchant, while seeking prosperity by legitimate means, to put conscience into his wares and dealings and to keep ever in sight the larger purposes of human life. That is the ideal view of the professions, which leads their representatives to subordinate the claims of ambition and material gain to the enduring interests of science, justice, and of all the great trusts that are confided to their keeping. And he therefore shall be called a priest of the Ideal, who by precept and example will divert us from the absorbing pursuit of the realities and make plain to us that the real is transitory, while in the pursuit of the Ideal alone we can find lasting happiness. For the realities are constantly disconcerting us in our search for the better. They are so powerful, so insistent; we think them every thing until we have proved their attractions and find them nothing. We have that only which we are. But the common judgment holds to the reverse; we are only what we have. And so the turbulent crowd plunges madly into the race--for acres, for equipage, for well-stocked larders, for office, for fame. Good things are these, as scales on the ladder of life, but life is somewhat more than acres and equipage and office and fame. Seldom indeed do we truly live. Often are we but shadows of other lives. We affect the fashions not only in dress but also in thought and opinion. We are good or bad, as public opinion bids us. The state is ruined, the church is corrupted, and the world's giddy masquerade rushes heedlessly on. Give me one who will think Having and Seeming less than Being; who will be content to be himself and a law unto himself and in him I will revere the ideal man. Before him the shams and mockeries of existence shall sink away. He will look into his own soul and tell you the oracles he has read there, and you will hear and behold your own heart. He will plant the sign of the Eternal on a high standard and call unto a people that strays in the wilderness to look up to that and be saved. The old and the young will he instruct, and they shall love him, for his words will be an articulate cry to the dumb voices in their own b.r.e.a.s.t.s. This is the be-all and end-all of his mission,--to make them acquainted with themselves. Do you know he will say, what a power is in you, what a light is hidden in the deep recesses of your nature. Artists are ye all to whom your own soul is given to mold it into beauty. Happy, happy indeed if you seek no other reward but the artist's joy in his work and know that to be your glory and your recompense.

It is well, that there should be priests appointed to bear such messages to us from time to time as we rest from our toil; to bring us face to face with the inner life. But there are special occasions in these pa.s.sing years of ours, when the ideal bearings of life come home to us with peculiar force and when we require the priest to be their proper interpreter.

Marriage is one of them. We often hear it said that marriage is a mere legal compact. The state, it is true, has a vital interest in protecting the purity of the conjugal relation and may prescribe certain forms to which its citizens are bound to conform. But has the meaning of the new bond been indeed fully expressed, when the magistrate in the court room has p.r.o.nounced the young man and the maiden to be now husband and wife?

Among the ancient Hebrews youths and young girls were wont to meet on the Day of Atonement, the most solemn day of the year, the day of purification from sin, to cement their affections and plight their troth. For marriage itself was esteemed an act of purification. Marriage is the foundation of all morality. Its celebration does not end with the wedding day: it is a constant celebration, a perpetual intermarrying of two souls while life lasts.

Not the state only, but humanity also, that ideal state of which we are all citizens, has an interest in the contract. A new sanctuary is to be reared sacred to the ineffable mysteries of the home-life; in the home with all the tender and holy a.s.sociations that cl.u.s.ter about it let it be dedicated. The supreme festival of humanity is marriage. There shall be music and joy and a white-robed bride with myrtle wreath; and solemn words to express the solemn meanings of the act.

At the grave also is the office of the priest, When some dear friend has been taken from us, when the whole earth seems empty for the loss of one and the pillars of existence seem broken, he shall say to the grieving heart: Arise, be strong. He shall bid your brooding sorrow pause. He shall speak of larger duties, which they you mourn have left you, as their legacy. Larger duties: this is his medicine. You are not free, you poor and sadly stricken friends to stand aside in idle woe, but you shall make for the departed a memorial in your lives and a.s.sume their half completed tasks. So the loss, though loss it be, will purify you, and vim and vigor be found in the consolations of the Ideal. We trust that we have used the term priest in no narrow restricted sense.

It is not the hierarchies of the past or the present of whom we have spoken. The priest is not superior to his fellow men, nor has he access to those transcendental regions which are closed to others. His power is in this, that he speaks what all feel. And he shall be counted an acceptable teacher, then only, when the slumbering echoes within you waken to the music that moves and masters him.

There have been those, whose lives were molded on such a pattern among the clergy at all times, and it is this circ.u.mstance, that has attracted the reverence of mankind to the priestly office.

n.o.ble men were they whose love burst through the cramping fetters of their creeds, apostles of liberty, missionaries of humanity.

But there is one other trait necessary to complete the picture. The priest of the Ideal must have the gift of tongues and kingly words to utter kingly thoughts. In the philosophy of Alexandria it was held, that before the world was, the word was, and the word created a universe out of chaos and the word was divine. With that heaven-born energy must he be filled, and with a breath of that creative speech must he inspire.

No tawdry eloquence be his, no glittering gift of phrase or fantasy, but words of the soul's own language, words of the pith and core of truth.

The image of the Ideal priest which I have attempted to draw is itself an ideal image, nowhere realized, never to be fully attained. But it is to it that the priests of the new age will strive to come near and nearer, and that will be their pride and their happiness, if they can become in this sense friends and helpers of their kind.

In the eyes of the dogmatist they are strangers out of a strange land of thought. If you ask them for their pa.s.s word, it is freedom, if you ask for their creed, it is boundless. The mult.i.tude seeking to compress the infinite within the narrow limits of the senses, must needs have tangible shapes to lay hands on, names if nothing better. But the Ideal in the highest is void of form and its name unutterable. We will ascend on the wings of the morning, we will let ourselves down to the uttermost depths of the sea, and know it there. But chiefly within ourselves shall we seek it, in ourselves is its shrine. The time will come when single men shall no more be needed to do its ministry, when in the brotherhood and sisterhood of mankind all shall be priests and priestesses one to another, for all their life shall be a song of praise to the highest, and their whole being shall be consecrated and glorified in the immortal service of deathless Ideals.

V. THE FORM OF THE NEW IDEAL

A NEW ORDER.

I AM aware that there exists a deep seated prejudice in the minds of many of my hearers against what are called the forms of religion. We have too long experienced their limitations and restraints, not to be jealous now of our hard won liberties. But let us ask ourselves what it is that alienates our sympathies from the ritual and ceremonial observances of the dominant creeds? Is it the forms as such? Is it not rather the fact that to us they have become dead forms: that they no longer appeal to our sentiments, that they fail to stir, to invigorate, to enn.o.ble us? We have not cast them aside lightly. Often have we entered the house of worship, prepared to be drawn back into the influence of its once familiar surroundings: we beheld again the great a.s.sembly, we heard the solemn music, we listened to the preacher as he strove to impress upon a silent mult.i.tude, the lessons of the higher life. But in the prayers we could not join, and the words to which the music moved we could not sing, and the maxims of the preacher were couched in language, and enforced with doctrinal arguments that touched no chord in our hearts. We left disappointed, we had received no help: if this were religion, we felt ourselves more distant from religion than ever before.

On the banks of the Euphrates there flourished of old an extensive colony of Jews. A "Prince of the Captivity" revived the memory of the vanished glory of King David's house. High schools were erected that afforded a common centre to the scattered members of the Jewish Faith.

In these the people beheld at once their bond of connection with the past, and the pledge of future restoration to their patrimony. In the early part of the middle ages, a prayer for the health and prosperity of the presidents of the high schools was inserted into the liturgy. Well nigh eight hundred years have elapsed since these dignitaries, and the schools themselves, have ceased to exist, yet the prayer is still retained, and may be heard repeated on any Sabbath in the synagogues of the orthodox--a prayer for the health of the Prince and the high schools on the Euphrates that vanished from the face of the earth eight hundred years ago. Thus do religious forms continue to maintain themselves long after their vitality is perished and their very meaning is forgotten.

But if the prevalent forms have ceased to satisfy us, can we therefore dispense with form altogether? If the house that has given us shelter is in ruins, shall we therefore live in the woods and fields, or shall we not rather erect a new mansion on a broader foundation, and with firmer walls? It has been the bane of liberalism, that it was simply critical and not constructive. Your thought must have not wings only, but hands and feet to walk and work, to form and reform. Liberalism must have its organs, must enter the race with its rivals; must not criticise only, but do better. Liberalism must pa.s.s the stage of individualism, must become the soul of great combinations. What then shall be the form adequate to express the new Ideal?

The form of any religion is the image of its ideal. To ill.u.s.trate what this means, let us consider for a moment the origin of the synagogue and the church.

The orthodox opinion that Judaism was revealed to Moses fourteen hundred years B. C. is condemned by modern critics of the Bible. The following are some of the considerations that have influenced their verdict.

First, we read in scripture that so late as the reign of David, idolatry was still rampant among the Hebrews, and the attempt to explain this fact upon the theory of a relapse, is contrary to the testimony of the Bible itself.

Secondly: The name of Moses is unknown to the prophets, his ostensible successors, a circ.u.mstance which would remain inexplicable if Moses had indeed been the founder of monotheism.

Thirdly: Large portions of the Pentateuch were probably not composed before the sixth or fifth century B. C, that is to say about a thousand years after the time of Moses. The account they give of the early history of the people is therefore open to serious and just doubt. The prophets were the real authors of monotheism. The priestly code of the Pentateuch does not represent the form of Judaism which they taught.

They are not chargeable with the technicalities and dry formalism of the "Books of Moses." They were the avowed enemies of the priesthood and for a long time engaged in fierce struggles with the ruling hierarchy. Their doctrines were in the essence these: That there is a Creator, that he is just and merciful, that the same qualities in man are the most acceptable species of divine service, that G.o.d directs all events, whether great or small; and that it is the duty of man to accept the guidance of the Deity, and to follow with tireless diligence the clews of the Divine Will. Jehovah is to be reverenced not only as a spiritual, but also as a temporal sovereign, and the prophets are his ministers commissioned to transmit his decrees to men. Thus Monotheism found expression in the form of Theocratic government. It is true the heathen world was not yet prepared to enter into so near a relationship with the Creator. On this account the Jews were selected to be a typical people, and the Kingdom of G.o.d was for the time being confined to them. It is evident from the above that the order of the prophets was the very mainstay of the Theocratic fabric. When these inspired messengers ceased to appear, the conclusion was drawn that the Will of G.o.d had been fully revealed. The writings of the prophets were then collected into sacred books, and were regarded as the const.i.tution of the divine empire. When Jerusalem was destroyed, the sacrifices were discontinued and Judaism was purged of many heathenish elements which had been allowed to mar the simplicity of the prophetic religion. The synagogue took the place of the Temple, and an intricate code of ceremonies was gradually elaborated, intended to remind the pious Jew at all hours and seasons of his duties toward G.o.d, and the peculiar mission accorded to his people. The synagogue was a single prominent peak in the range of the religious life, a rallying point for the members of the Jewish community, a meeting house where they a.s.sembled to confirm their allegiance to their heavenly King.

Now the cardinal point of difference between primitive Christianity and Judaism related to the alleged abrogation of the ancient const.i.tution set forth in the old Testament. Christianity said: The Messiah has come; the law of Moses is fulfilled; the King has issued a new const.i.tution, and sent his own Son to put it in force. The time has arrived when the Kingdom of G.o.d need no longer be restricted to a single people. Jesus who perished on the cross will presently return, and the universal theocracy will then be proclaimed. But Jesus did not return, his followers waited long and patiently, but they waited in vain. As time rolled on, they learned to dwell less upon the expected Millennium on earth, and to defer the fulfilment of their hopes to the life beyond the grave. In the interval they perfected the organization of the church.

The Christian Ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven is that of a communion of all saints under the sovereignty of G.o.d through Christ. The Christian Church is designed to be an image of this Ideal, a communion of saintly men on earth, accepting Christ as their Master. Christianity aspired to be the universal religion; there should be no barriers any more between man and man; the exclusiveness of ancient Judaism should be broken down; yet withal the barriers of a new creed soon arose in place of the old; the portals of the Kingdom of Heaven were rigidly closed against all who refused to bow to the despotism of dogma; and the virtues of pagans were declared to be shining vices. The moral teachings of Christ are gentle and kindly, but in the doctrinal contentions of the Christians the spirit of the Master was forgotten, and the earth was deluged with blood. And now the new Ideal differs from Christianity in this, that it seeks to approach the goal of a Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, not by the miraculous interference of the Deity, but by the laborious exertions of men, and the slow but certain progress of successive generations. We have named the form of religion an image of the Ideal, yet an image poor and incomplete at best, rather a symbol, a suggestion of what can never be realized. In the realm of art we do not find the soul of beauty in the colored canvas or the marble statue; these are helpful hieroglyphics only, teaching those that can read their mute language to create anew the ideal as it lived in the artist's soul, in the divine hour of conception. Thus all form has its value only in what it suggests. Our Ideal is that of the fellowship of humanity in highest wisdom, highest truth and highest love. The form of this ideal therefore can be none other than a new fellowship united by the higher truths and purer love that make its bond to be a symbol of the highest! We are weary of the unreal and untrue existence we are forced to lead; we are weary of the emptiness of routine, weary of the false coin of reputation that pa.s.ses current in the market of vanity fair; we are weary of the low standards by which actions are judged, and to which, to our dismay, we perceive our actions insensibly conform. But the pressure of social influences about us is enormous, and no single arm can resist it. We must needs band together then, if we would achieve a higher life; we must create for ourselves a purer atmosphere, if any rarer virtues are to flourish in our midst; we must make our own public opinion, to buoy us up in every loftier aspiration. Unions we want that will hold, not religion as a duty, but duty as a religion; union to achieve a larger morality.