Our Unitarian Gospel Part 14

They say, Now, Job, why not confess, why not own up as to what you have been doing? Of course, you have been doing something wrong, or all this would not have happened. This is the tone that one of his critics takes. This is the kind of comfort that he receives in the midst of his sorrow. But Job protests earnestly and indignantly that it is not true.

He says he is innocent, there are no secret wrongs in his life; and he wishes that he might find some way by which he could come into the presence of the great Ruler of the universe, and openly plead his cause. But his friends do not believe him.

Now the writer of the book lets us into the explanation he has thought out for this: G.o.d for a special reason is testing Job, to see whether he will be true to him in spite of the fact that he does not get the ordinary blessings that the people were accustomed to look for as the rewards of their conduct. But the writer is not consistent with the wonderful position that he makes Job a.s.sume; for, after the trial is all over, he falls in with the popular theory, and shows us Job, not with the old children who could not be brought back, but with a lot of new ones, with herds and cattle again in plenty, with honor among his fellow-citizens, with all that heart could wish in the way of worldly prosperity and peace.

So I say the writer is not quite consistent, for he falls back at the end on the old theory, and he lets us gain a glimpse behind the scenes, just enough to see that there are cases, special cases, where the popular theory does not hold; but he still seems to a.s.sume that, in a general way, we are to accept it as correct, and as explaining the facts of human life.

The Jews acted on this theory in their political history. Their prophets, their great teachers, a.s.serted over and over again that, if they were true to their G.o.d, if they were faithful in their obedience to the law, if they lived out all these highest and finest ideals of ceremonial as well as heart righteousness, that they would be mighty as a nation, that their enemies would be put under their feet, that they would have political success and power; and yet their increasing insistence on this ceremonial and interior righteousness of thought and life was found to be no adequate defence against the Roman legions.

Political success did not come to them. In spite of all their obedience, they were swept out of existence as a nation.

Now do we find any difference in teaching in the New Testament? We do; and we do not. The teaching of the New Testament is not consistent in this matter. If Jesus be correctly reported, his own teaching is not quite consistent on this subject. Let me give you one or two ill.u.s.trations, that you may see what I mean. John tells us that a certain man, who had been born blind, was brought to Jesus to be cured; and the people stood about, and said to Jesus, "Who is it, this man himself or his parents, that sinned, so that he was born blind?" You see it does not occur to them that there is any natural cause for a man's being blind, apart from some sin on the part of somebody. Who is it, then, his father or mother, or he himself, that has sinned, that is the cause of it? Jesus says, "Neither this man nor his parents have sinned," and you think at first that you are going to get an adequate explanation; but he straightway adds that the man was blind in order that the works of G.o.d might be manifest in him; which we cannot accept to-day as quite an adequate explanation.

Then take the case of the man who was lying at the pool of Bethesda, and was reported as cured. Jesus meets him, after a good deal of question and criticism on the part of the Jews, and says, "Now you have been healed, see to it that you sin no more, lest a worse thing come to you," seeming to imply again that sin might be punished by lameness, by affliction of this kind or that.

So it seems to me that we do not get, even in the New Testament, entirely free from this old conception. Indeed, there are the verses which I read as a part of our lesson from the fifth chapter of Matthew, one of which for a clear or more spiritual insight I have quoted as a part of my text, "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled" with what? Filled with righteousness; not filled with health, external prosperity, many children, friends, political position, honor. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall what? See G.o.d. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

You see these beat.i.tudes strike down to the eternal principle of natural, necessary causation and result, just as does the last verse which I have quoted from Galatians, "Be not deceived; G.o.d is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," not something else, that. Here is a clear and explicit annunciation of the eternal, universal law of cause and effect, of the idea that those things which happen are not arbitrary infliction, but natural and necessary result.

Let us, then, consider this matter for a little as we look over the face of human life as it is manifested to us at the present time. I suppose hardly a week pa.s.ses that, either by letter or in conversation, I do not come face to face with this same old problem, showing that only partially and here and there have men and women even to-day come to comprehend the real method after which this universe of ours is governed. For example, let me give you a few ill.u.s.trations.

I have a friend in Boston, one of the n.o.blest men I ever knew, sweet, gentle, true: he came to me one day, and said: "Mr. Savage, I have tried all my life to be an honest man. I do not own an ill-gotten dollar. I have tried to be kind and helpful to people in need, in trouble; and yet," and then it began to dawn on him that he was not on a very logical track, for he smiled, "and yet I have not got on very well in the world; I have not made a great deal of money; I have not been specially prosperous in business." And the implication was that here, next door or in another street, was a man who had a good many ill-gotten dollars, and who had not been generous or kindly or humane or tender, but who had prospered and become rich, as he had not. And he raised this as a serious objection against the justice of the government of the world.

I have had mothers; I presume a thousand times, say to me: "I have tried to take the best possible care of my child. I loved my child, I watched over it night and day, I have money enough to give it a good education, I could train it into fitness for life; and yet my child is taken away." Here is somebody else who has not the means to educate her child, perhaps whose character and intelligence are a good deal below the average level. Her child is spared, spared for what? Spared for a career for which it will be entirely unfitted; and the question is, Why does G.o.d do such things, why is the universe governed in this fashion?

And I have had persons say to me: "I have been ill all my life, I have suffered no end of pain and trouble: I wonder why? What have I done that I must be burdened and afflicted after this fashion?" So these questions are coming up perpetually, showing that underlying the ordinary surface of our common daily life is still this theory that G.o.d arbitrarily governs the world, and rewards people for being good with health and with money and with children and with all sorts of prosperity. There is no end of talk in regard to judgments, as they are called. I remember when I was living in the West I take this as an ill.u.s.tration as good as any a neighboring small city was badly devastated by fire. All the ministers around me in my city began to preach about it as a judgment of G.o.d for the supposed wickedness of this city. One peculiar thing about this particular judgment, which I noticed as reported in the papers, was that the last thing which the fire burned was a church; and it left standing next door, and untouched, a liquor saloon. It seemed to me a very peculiar kind of divine judgment, if that is what it really was.

And so, as you look into these cases of supposed divine judgments, which people are so ready to see in regard to their neighbors, you will find that it has some serious defect of this sort almost always that makes you question whether a wise man would be guilty of that method of conducting his affairs.

This, perhaps, is enough by way of setting forth the popular method of looking at these problems. I want to ask you now to go with me for a little while, as I attempt to a.n.a.lyze some of these cases, and get at the real principle involved as to what it is that is really going on.

Now take this case of the mother whose child is taken away from her, as she says. Let us see if we can find out what is really being done. It is possible, of course, that the child has inherited, it may be from a grandfather or great-grandfather, from somewhere along the line, a tendency to a particular kind of disease. It may be that, without anybody's being to blame for it or anybody's knowing it, the child was exposed to some contagious disease on the street or at school. It may be that the mother, through a little otherwise pardonable vanity, wishing to display the beauty of the child rather than to dress it in the healthiest manner, has been the means of exposing it to cold. It may be any one of a dozen things has caused the death of this child.

And do you not see that in every case it has nothing whatever to do with the mother's moral goodness or spiritual cultivation? It is absurd to think that the mother, in this case, is being punished for something that she is entirely unconscious of having been guilty of. Do you not see that there is no logical connection between an inherited disease, between exposure, between taking cold, between any of these natural causes and the goodness of the mother? Is it not absurd to talk about their having anything whatever to do with each other?

I remember hearing a famous revivalist preach some years ago; and in this particular sermon he represented G.o.d as using all means to try to turn such a man from his path of evil, as he regarded it, into the way of right and truth and salvation; and he said: First, perhaps, G.o.d takes his property away from him; and that does not change him. And by and by he takes his wife; and that does not change him. And then he takes one of his children; and, as he expressed it, he lays these coffins across his pathway in order to warn him of his sinful condition, and turn him into the right way.

Think of a G.o.d who kills other people on account of my wrong!

I had a friend in Boston once, a lady, a school-teacher, who in all seriousness told me, when her sister died, that she was afraid G.o.d had taken her sister away because she had not been sufficiently faithful in attending church services during Lent. Think of it! Not only the lack of logic in linking things like these together, but the practical impiety of attributing to G.o.d such feelings and action in regard to his dealings with his children!

Let us take the case of a man who, not being highly elevated in character, becomes rich. Let us see if we can get at the principles involved here. Perhaps you can call to mind one or another case that you may be thinking of while I speak. Of course I shall mention no names. Here is a man who possesses remarkable natural business ability, power to read the commerce, the business of his times. He deals with these in a practical way. He complies with the conditions of acc.u.mulating wealth. No matter for the present whether he does wrong in doing it or not, that is, whether he is unjust or hard or cruel; but he complies with the conditions for the obtaining of money in this particular department of life. Now do you not see that, no matter what his moral character may be in other directions, whether he is kind to his wife, whether he is loving towards his children, whether he is generous in a charitable way, whether he is politically stanch or corrupt, do you not see that these questions are entirely irrelevant, have nothing whatever to do with the question of success in the money field? He sows according to the laws of the product which he wishes to raise, and the product appears.

Or take the case of a farmer: Here is a certain tract of land adapted to a particular crop. He sows wisely in this field. He cultivates it: the rain and the sun do their part; and in the fall he has a magnificent result. Now has that anything whatever to do with the question whether the man was a good man or not, as to whether he went to prayer-meeting or not, as to whether he read his Bible or not, as to whether he was profane or not, as to whether he was a good neighbor or not? Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap, and reap it where he sows it. Is it not perfectly plain? So in any department of human life, I care not what, trace it out, and you will find that precisely the same principle is involved, and that you get results, not arbitrary bestowal's of reward or punishment.

Now I must come having, I hope, made this sufficiently clear, though after this fragmentary fashion to deal a little more with some of the ethical sides of this question. I have had no end of persons tell me, first and last, that it seemed to them that the universe could not be a moral universe, that it was not governed fairly, that reward and punishment were not meted out evenly to people; and they based their criticism on statements of fact similar to those with which I have been dealing.

Now let us look into the matter a little deeply; and let us see if we can find any hint of light and guidance. I have had a person within a week say to me, "I do not feel at all sure that it means much that people get the moral results of their moral action in a particular department of life. If a person becomes a little bit callous and hard, wisely selfish and prudent, and so prospers in the affairs of this life, I am not sure that he is not as well off as anybody, perhaps a little better off, perhaps a little better off than a person who is sensitive, and worries because he does not reach his ideals; and it is possible that he serves the world after all quite as well." This is a kind of criticism, I say, that has been made to me in the last week.

Let us look at it for just a minute. People do not seem able as yet to understand that a man is really "punished," in the popular sense of that word, unless they can see him publicly whipped. It does not seem to them to mean anything because a man deteriorates, because the highest and finest qualities in him atrophy and threaten to die out. I used an ill.u.s.tration in my sermon two weeks ago to which I shall have to recur again, to see if I can make it mean more than it did then. It is the story of Ulysses who fell into the hands of the famous sorceress, and whose companions were turned into swine. Now would you be willing to be turned into a pig, merely because, being a pig, you would not know anything about it, and would not suffer? Would you be willing to be reduced to the life of an oyster, merely because, being an oyster, you would be haunted by no restless ideals, and, so far as you had any sense at all, would probably be very comfortable indeed? Is there no "punishment" in this deprivation of the highest and finest things that we can conceive of?

It seems to me that a person who has deteriorated, who has become selfish, who has become mean, who has lost all taste for high and fine and sweet things, and is unconscious of them, is having meted out to him the worst conceivable retribution. If a man is mean and knows it, if a man is selfish and is conscious of it, if a man is unjust and is stung by the reflection, there is a little hope for him, there is life there, there is moral vitality, there is a chance for him to recuperate, to climb up into something higher and finer; but, if he has not only become degraded and mean, but has become contented in that condition, it seems to me that he is worse off than almost anybody else of whom we can dream.

Let us see for a moment on what conditions a man who has deteriorated is well off. There are three big "ifs" in the way, in my thought of it.

If a man really is a spiritual being, if he is a child of G.o.d, if there are in him possibilities of unfolding of all that is sweet and divine, then he is not well off when he is not developing these, and is content not to develop them. Browning says, in his introduction to "Sordello,"

"The culture of a soul, little else is of any value."

If we are souls, and if the culture of a soul is of chiefest importance, then cursed beyond all words is the man who has deteriorated and become degraded and is content to have it so. Blessed beyond all words is the soul that is haunted by discontent, haunted by unattained and unattainable ideals, who is restless because of that which he feels he might be and yet is not, he who is touched by the far-off issues of divinity, and cannot rest until he has grown into the stature of the Divine!

And then, once more, if it be true that it is worth our while to help our fellow-men in the higher side of their nature, to help them be men and women, to help them realize that they are children of G.o.d, and to grow into the realization of it, if, I say, this be worth while, then lamentable beyond all power of expression is the condition of that man who does not feel it and does not care for it, and does not consecrate himself to its attainment. Look over the long line of those who have served mankind. Who are they? From Abraham down, the prophets of Israel; Jesus, Paul, Savonarola, Huss, Wyclif, Luther, Channing, Parker, who have these men been but the ones who were ready at any price to do something to lift up and lead on the progress of mankind?

These are the ones who have felt the meaning of those sublime words of Jesus: "He that loseth his life shall save it." If there is any meaning in that splendid pa.s.sage from George Eliot, that is so trite because it is so fine,

"Oh may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rect.i.tude, in score For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing as beauteous order that control With growing sway the growing life of man.

This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow.

May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense.

So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world."

If, I say, there is any meaning in that magnificent song, then indeed it is worth while to be miserable, if need be, worth while to suffer, worth while to sacrifice for the sake of planting seed in the spiritual fields, and looking for its spiritual results, and not finding fault with the universe because we do not get results of spiritual goodness in material realms.

There is one other "if." If it be true, as I believe it is, that this life goes right on, and that we carry into the to-morrow of another life the precise and accurate results that we have wrought out in the to-day of this; if it be true that, when we get over there, it will be spiritual facts and spiritual things with which we shall deal, then the man who has cultivated his spiritual nature and has reaped spiritual results has no right to find fault with the universe because it has not paid him with material good.

Let us remember, then, that we get what we sow. G.o.d has not promised to pay you in greenbacks for being good; G.o.d has not promised to give you physical health because you are gentle and tender; G.o.d has not promised to give you long life because you are generous; G.o.d has not promised to give you positions of social or political honor because you are kind to your neighbors, faithful to your wife, true to your children. Can you not see that whatsoever a man sowest, that shall he reap; and that he will reap in the field where he sows, and not in some other; and that G.o.d is dealing fairly, justly, tenderly, truly, with you in giving you the results at which you aim, and not the results at which you do not aim?

So, if you really care to be a man, if you care to be a woman, honest, n.o.ble, tender, true, then be these, and be grateful that you reap the reward where you sowed, and do not find fault with G.o.d or the universe because he does not pay you for things that you have not done, because he does not make a crop grow in some field that you have not cultivated, because it is eternally true that G.o.d is not mocked, and that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

THINGS WHICH DOUBT CANNOT DESTROY.

THE critical and investigating work of the modern world threatens to shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And there are large numbers of people who are disturbed and afraid: they are troubled lest certain things that are precious, that are dear to them, may be taken away. Not only this, they are troubled lest things of vital importance to the highest life of the world be taken away. I propose, then, this morning to run in rapid review over a few of the changes that are caused by the investigating spirit of the time, and then to point out some things that are not touched, that cannot be shaken, and that therefore must remain. And I ask you to have in mind, as I pursue this line of thought, the question whether doubt has taken away anything really valuable from mankind. The negative part of my theme I shall touch on very lightly, and dispose of as briefly as I may.

What has doubt, what has investigation, done concerning the universe of which we are a part? In the old days, before doubt began its work, before men asked questions and demanded proof, we lived in a little, petty, tiny world, which the imagination of the superst.i.tious and the fear of ignorant men had created. But the cycles and epicycles which Ptolemy devised, and by means of which he explained, as well as he knew how, the movements of the heavenly bodies around us, these have pa.s.sed away. The breath of doubt has blown upon them; and they have gone, like mists driven by the wind.

But has doubt quenched the light of any star? Has doubt taken away from the glory of the universe? Rather, as the result of the work of these myriad investigators, whose one aim and end was truth, at last we have a universe worthy to be the home of an infinite G.o.d, a universe that matches our thought of the Divine, a universe that thrills and lifts us, fills us with reverence, and bends us to our knees in the att.i.tude of worship.

The same spirit has raised no end of questions concerning G.o.d. What has been the result? We have lost the old thought of G.o.d in the shape of a man sitting on a throne located in the heavens just above the blue or on some distant star. We have lost the thought of a G.o.d as a tyrant, as a jealous being, as angry every day with his children, as ready to punish these children forever for their ignorance, for their intellectual mistakes, for their sins of whatever kind. We have changed our conception of him; but have we lost G.o.d? I will not answer that question at this stage of the discourse, because I wish merely to suggest it now, and dwell on it a little more when I come to the positive treatment of our morning's theme.

Let us glance at the Bible a moment. Doubt and investigation have been at work there. What has been the result? Have we lost the Bible? No. We have gained it. We have lost those things about it which were intellectual burdens because we could not believe them, which were a moral burden because they conflicted with our highest and n.o.blest sense of right. We no longer feel under the necessity of reconciling human mistakes with divine infallibility. Professor Goldwin Smith has told us recently that these old theories of the Bible were a millstone about the neck of Christendom, and that they must be gotten rid of if Christianity was to live. This is all that doubt and investigation have done to the Bible. They have cleared away the things that no sane and earnest and devout mind wishes to keep; and they have restored to us in all their dignity and beauty and sweetness and power the real human Bible, the Bible which poured out of the heart of the olden time, and which is in all its truth and sweetness, so far as they go, a revelation of the divinest things in human thought and human dream.

Preachers tell us every little while that those who ask questions have taken away our Lord, and they know not where he has been laid. What has this spirit done concerning Jesus? Has it taken him away from us?

Rather, as the result of all this question and criticism, at last we have found him, found him who has been hidden away for ages, found the man, divine son of G.o.d, son of man, brother, friend, inspirer, companion, helper. It has done for Jesus the grandest service of which we can conceive.

And now one more point. People used to suppose they knew all about the next world. They knew where heaven was and where h.e.l.l was, and who were to be the inhabitants of either place, and why. Doubt and question have been at work here, and now we do not know where heaven is; and we do not know where h.e.l.l is, except that it is within the heart of those that are not in accord with the divine life. Where the places are, we know not; but blessed beyond all words be ignorance like this! We know because we believe in righteousness and truth that there is no h.e.l.l except that which we create for ourselves; and that is in this world, in any world where there is a breach of a divine law. But has the great hope gone? Has doubt touched that, so that it has shrivelled and become as nothing? That I shall have occasion to touch on a little more at length in a moment; and so I leave it here with this suggestion.

I wish you now to note, and to note with a great deal of care, that doubt, criticism, question, investigation, have no power to destroy anything. People talk as though, if you doubted a thing, it disappeared, as though doubt had magical power to annihilate in some way a truth. If you really do doubt an important divine truth, it may disturb and trouble you for a while; but the truth remains just the same. I remember some years ago a parishioner came to me, an intelligent lady, and said, "Mr. Savage, I have about lost my belief in any future life." I smiled, and said: "I am sorry for you, if it interferes with your comfort and peace; but remember one thing, neither your doubt nor my belief touches or changes the fact." The eternal life is not something to be puffed away with a breath, if it be real. So rest right there in the firm a.s.surance that whatever is true is true, and rests on the eternal foundation of the permanence of G.o.d; and asking questions about it, digging away at its foundations, testing it in any and all sorts of ways, cannot by any possibility injure it.

Enforce thus this idea, simple as it seems, because thousands of men and women at the present time are made to tremble by utterances from the pulpit, as though doubt were really a destroyer. Of course, it seems commonplace the moment you think of it; and, still for your peace and for the restfulness of your mind as you look on the things that are taking place about us, hold fast to this simple idea.

There is one other point which I wish to raise. What is the use of criticism? What is the use of all this investigating? Why indulge in all this doubt? And now let me give you an ill.u.s.tration which will lead me to answering this question and enforcing the point I have in mind. A farmer, if he selects a favorable piece of ground, plants good seed, cultivates it properly, if the rain falls and the sun shines, and the weather is propitious, will have a successful crop. Does it make any difference now whether the farmer has correct ideas about soil and seed and cultivation? Does it make any difference whether he has any true conception of the nature and work of the sunshine in producing this crop? In one sense, No. In another, a very important sense, Yes.

Suppose the farmer, having gotten into his mind the idea that the sun is the source of all the life and growth of the things that he plants and the crops he cultivates, should say, "Well, now, it does not make any difference whether I have correct scientific theories about the sun or not: the sun carries on his work just the same." I have heard people say, over and over again, using an ill.u.s.tration like this: "What difference does it make what your theories are about the spiritual life, about the origin and nature of religion, about morality? If you live a good life, the results are just the same, whatever your thinking may be." And I grant it. But now suppose the farmer should say to himself: "The sun is the source of all the life that I am able to produce, that I see growing around me; and now I will worship him as a G.o.d. I will pray to him, I will sing songs of praise to him, I will bring birds and animals and burn sacrifices to him; and so I will win his favor, and get him to produce these wonderful results for me."

Suppose he should so seek his results, and pay no attention to the character of the soil, to the kind of seed he planted, or to proper cultivation: would that make no difference?

Do you not see that theory may be of immense practical importance in certain contingencies? Whether he has any knowledge of the sun or not, if he complies with the laws, the conditions, if he is fortunately obedient, then his results will be produced. But, if his ignorance, his superst.i.tion, lead him to neglect the natural forces with which he deals, then it may make all the difference in the world. So, as I study the history and development of religious thought, I see everywhere that men and women, through their ignorance in regard to the real nature of the universe and of G.o.d and of their own souls, are going astray, wasting time, wasting thought, wasting effort, misdirecting all these instead of complying with the real natural universal conditions on which these n.o.blest and highest results which they desire depend.