Our Unitarian Gospel Part 10

So that the life of the world, from that day to this, has been the growth, the gradual increase, and the gradual conquest of good over that which was in existence before.

There is no fall of man, then, there is no conscious and purposeful rebellion against G.o.d to be accounted for, there is no need of any devil to explain the facts. He is only an enc.u.mbrance, only in the way, only makes it difficult and practically impossible to solve our problem.

The old story was that, after the rebellion, pain and death and all evil came into the human world; and the natural world was blighted.

Thorns and briers and thistles sprang up on every hand; and animals which before had been peaceful began to fight and destroy each other.

We all know this to be a childish myth, and pagan. The actual history of the world has been something entirely other than that.

Now I do not wish that you should suppose that I minimize evil, that I make light of sin, that I do not properly estimate the cruelties and the wrongs that have devastated the world. I need only suggest to you that you look in this direction and that to see how hideous all these evils may be; how bitter, how cruel, is the fruit of wrong thoughts and of wrong actions. Look at a man, for example, divine in the possibilities of his being, but through vice, through drink, through habits of one kind and another, corrupted until it is an insult to a brute to call him brutal. We do not deny all this. Notice the cruelties of men towards each other, the jealousies, the envies, the strifes, the warfares. How one cla.s.s looks down upon and treats with contempt another that is a little lower! How masters have used their slaves; how tyrants like Nero and Caligula have made themselves hideous spectacles of what is possible to humanity, on a stage that is world-wide and illuminated by the flash-lights of history!

I do not wish you to suppose for a moment that I belittle, that I underestimate these evils, only we do not need anything other than the scientific and historic facts of the world in order to account for them. What is sin, as science looks at it and treats it? Not something consciously and purposely developed, not something originating in a rebellion in some other world than this. It seems to me that we can very easily account for it when we recognize that man has been gradually coming up from the lower orders of life, and that he still has in him the snake and the hyena, the wolf, the tiger, the bear, all the wild, fierce pa.s.sions of the animal world only partly sloughed off, not yet outgrown; when you remember how ignorant he is, how he does not understand yet the meaning of these divine laws and the divine life, glimpses of which now and then attract his attention and lure him on; when you remember that selfishness, misguided by ignorance, can believe that one man can get something for his behoof and happiness and good at the expense of the welfare of somebody else, and harm come only to the person that is defrauded. Right in here, if I had time to treat it in still further detail, it seems to me we have a simple and adequate explanation of all the evil that has ever blasted, blighted, and darkened the history of man.

Now, man being this kind of a creature, having an animal origin as well as a divine one, gradually climbing up out of this lower life and looking towards G.o.d as his ideal, what is it that he needs? Is there any need of atonement? All need of atonement! What does atonement mean?

The word itself carries its clearest explanation. In its root it means "atonement," healing the division, whatever its nature or kind, bringing man into one-ness with G.o.d and men into one-ness with each other.

Now let me suggest to you a little as to the things that keep man and G.o.d apart, keep men away from each other; and they will suggest the atonement that is needed to heal all these divisions, and bring about that ideal condition of things that we dream of and pray for and talk about, when men shall perfectly love G.o.d, and when they shall love each other as themselves.

What is it that keeps man from G.o.d? First, it seems to me, it is ignorance. What man needs in order to bring him into oneness with G.o.d is first to have some clear conceptions of the divine, some high, sweet, n.o.ble thoughts of G.o.d, some knowledge of the laws of G.o.d as embodied in himself and in the universe around him. Man needs intelligence, then, to help him, needs education.

In the next place, he needs such a picture of G.o.d as shall; make him seem lovable. You cannot make the human heart love that which seems hateful. The picture of G.o.d, as he has been outlined to the world in the past, has repelled the human heart; and I do not wonder. I do not think it strange that humanity should be at enmity with that conception of the divine. Make G.o.d the ideal of all that is n.o.ble and sweet and lovely, and the heart will be as naturally attracted and drawn to him as a flower is toward the sun.

Then man needs to have his spiritual side developed, that in him which is akin to G.o.d, so that he shall naturally live out the divine love.

Education, then, is all on man's side, you will see. G.o.d does not need to be changed: we need to know him, to love him, to come into conscious relations.h.i.+p with him. This is what we need, so far as our relation to G.o.d is concerned.

Now for the more important side; for it is infinitely the more important practically. Let me speak a little while of the work of atonement between man and man. If we trace the history of humanity, we find that men were scattered in groups all over the world, isolated, separated from each other, ignorant of each other, misunderstanding each other, hating each other, fighting each other; and the work of some other world than this. It seems to me that we can very easily account for it when we recognize that man has been gradually coming up from the lower orders of life, and that he still has in him the snake and the hyena, the wolf, the tiger, the bear, all the wild, fierce pa.s.sions of the animal world only partly sloughed off, not yet outgrown; when you remember how ignorant he is, how he does not understand yet the meaning of these divine laws and the divine life, glimpses of which now and then attract his attention and lure him on; when you remember that selfishness, misguided by ignorance, can believe that one man can get something for his behoof and happiness and good at the expense of the welfare of somebody else, and harm come only to the person that is defrauded. Right in here, if I had time to treat it in still further detail, it seems to me we have a simple and adequate explanation of all the evil that has ever blasted, blighted, and darkened the history of man.

Now, man being this kind of a creature, having an animal origin as well as a divine one, gradually climbing up out of this lower life and looking towards G.o.d as his ideal, what is it that he needs? Is there any need of atonement? All need of atonement! What does atonement mean?

The word itself carries its clearest explanation. In its root it means "atonement," healing the division, whatever its nature or kind, bringing man into one-ness with G.o.d and men into one- ness with each other.

Now let me suggest to you a little as to the things that keep man and G.o.d apart, keep men away from each other; and they will suggest the atonement that is needed to heal all these divisions, and bring about that ideal condition of things that we dream of and pray for and talk about, when men shall perfectly love G.o.d, and when they shall love each other as themselves.

What is it that keeps man from G.o.d? First, it seems to me, it is ignorance. What man needs in order to bring him into oneness with G.o.d is first to have some clear conceptions of the divine, some high, sweet, n.o.ble thoughts of G.o.d, some knowledge of the laws of G.o.d as embodied in himself and in the universe around him. Man needs intelligence, then, to help him, needs education.

In the next place, he needs such a picture of G.o.d as shall: make him seem lovable. You cannot make the human heart: love that which seems hateful. The picture of G.o.d, as he has been outlined to the world in the past, has repelled the human heart; and I do not wonder. I do not think it strange that humanity should be at enmity with that conception of the divine. Make G.o.d the ideal of all that is n.o.ble and sweet and lovely, and the heart will be as naturally attracted and drawn to him as a flower is toward the sun.

Then man needs to have his spiritual side developed, that in him which is akin to G.o.d, so that he shall naturally live out the divine love.

Education, then, is all on man's side, you will see. G.o.d does not need to be changed: we need to know him, to love him, to come into conscious relations.h.i.+p with him. This is what we need, so far as our relation to G.o.d is concerned.

Now for the more important side; for it is infinitely the more important practically. Let me speak a little while of the work of atonement between man and man. If we trace the history of humanity, we find that men were scattered in groups all over the world, isolated, separated from each other, ignorant of each other, misunderstanding each other, hating each other, fighting each other; and the work of civilization means to bring men together, to work out an atonement between nation and nation, religion and religion, family and family, man and man.

Here, again, as in the case of G.o.d, the first thing that needs to be overcome is ignorance. Look back no further than our late war. I think every careful student of that tremendous conflict is ready to say to-day that, if the North and South had been acquainted with each other, known each other as they know each other now, the war would have been impossible. We need to know other men. As you go back, you find curious traditions ill.u.s.trating this ignorance of different nations and different peoples of each other. Plato, for example, taught it as a virtue that the Athenians should hate all other peoples except the Greeks and all other Greek cities except Athens; and they spoke of the outside nations that did not speak Greek as barbarians, people who could not talk, people who, when they essayed to speak, said, "Ba, ba,"

misusing words and expressions. They had traditions of men who carried their heads under their arms, who had only one eye, which was in the middle of their forehead, all sorts of monstrosities in human shape, antagonistic to the rest of mankind.

Even in modern times those ignorances, misconceptions, and prejudices are far from being outgrown. Lord Nelson counted it as a virtue in an Englishman that he should hate a Frenchman as he did the devil. How many people are there to- day who look with an unprejudiced eye upon a foreigner?

The things, then, that keep nations apart are ignorance. Then there is the lack of sympathy. You will find people walking side by side here in our streets, people in the same family, who find it impossible to understand each other.

They cannot put themselves in the place of another; they cannot comprehend something which is a little different from what they are accustomed to hear; not only cannot they understand it, they cannot lovingly or patiently look at it. Think of the things that have kept people apart in physical and mental and spiritual realms, the rivers, the mountain chains, the oceans; differences of religion, differences of language, differences of civilization; different ethical ideas, until people of the world have sat looking at each other with faces of fear and antagonism instead of with the dawning in their eyes of love and brotherhood.

Now what the world needs is something to atone, to bridge over these differences, to bring men into sympathetic and loving acquaintance with each other. I wish to note two or three things that have wrought very largely and effectively in this direction. Does it ever occur to you that commerce is something besides a means for the acc.u.mulation of wealth? Commerce has played one of the largest parts in the history of this world in atoning the differences, the antagonisms, between nation and nation and man and man. It has taught the world that there is a community of interests, and that, instead of fighting each other, they are mutually blessed and helped by coworking, co-operating, exchanging with each other.

So the inventors, the discoverers, have helped to bring about this sense of human brotherhood, this community of human interests. How much, for example, was wrought when the electric wire was placed under the seas, and, instead of allowing weeks and weeks for a misunderstanding to grow and for ill-feeling to ferment between England and this country, puts us in such quick relations that a misapprehension could be corrected in an hour. All these things have helped bring the world together, are engaged in this magnificent religious service of atonement, of making nations one, making humanity one, a family.

I do not wish you to suppose that I misunderstand or underestimate the work of the Christ in this direction. He has done a grander work of atonement than any other figure in the history of the world. He revealed to us the glory, the tenderness, the love, of G.o.d, and so lifted the heart of the world towards the Father as no other one man has done who has ever lived. And, then, he lived out and manifested the glory, the tenderness, the wonder, of human character and human life as hardly any other man who has ever lived; and on so world- wide a stage did he do this that the influence of his work has overrun all national barriers, and is rapidly coming to be world-wide, and in admiration of, and love for him, Jew and Greek, and barbarian, Scythian, Arabian, European, and Asiatic, all the nations of the world are becoming one.

For no matter what their theory may be about him, whether they hold him to be G.o.d or man, they hold the ideal that he set forth and lived to be spiritually human and n.o.bly divine. So Jesus is more and more, as the ages go by, helping us to one-ness with G.o.d, helping us into sympathetic one-ness with each other.

But I would not have you think that Jesus is the only one who has wrought atonement for the sin of the world. Every man in his degree, in so far as he has been divine and human, patient, faithful, has rendered service to the world, has done his part in bringing about this magnificent consummation.

Look for a moment at Abraham Lincoln. Think what he did by the atoning sacrifice of his life for liberty, for humanity, for truth. On the one hand, his murderer showed what sin may come to in its ignorance, its misconception, its antagonism to whatever is right and good and true.

And, on the other hand, he, with words of forgiveness on his lips, words of human love, with all tenderness and charity in his heart, ill.u.s.trated again and lived out the sweetness of divinity and the tenderness of humanity.

As another ill.u.s.tration, human, simple, natural, just let me say a word concerning the act, the att.i.tude, of General Grant at Appomattox. He did more at the surrender of Lee to send a thrill of brotherly sympathy through North and South and help wield this nation into one than he could have possibly done by the most magnificent achievement of arms, when he refused to take his opponent's sword; when he let the officers go away with their side-arms; when he told each man that his horse or his mule was still of right his because he would need it to begin the new life again that was before him.

Facts like these suggest the naturalness, the humanness, as well as the G.o.d-likeness of the work of atonement that is going on all over the world, as it climbs and swings slowly up out of the darkness and into the light of life. Jesus the great atoning sacrifice? Yes, but thousands on thousands of others atoning in just the same divine way, just the same human way, just as naturally, just as necessarily. Every man who does an honest day's work, every man who is kind and loving in his family, every man who is helpful as a neighbor, every man who stands faithfully by his convictions of truth, every man who shows that he cares more for the truth than he does for worldly success, that he knows that in that truth only is immortality, and that it is greater and better and sweeter than even life, every man who consecrates himself in this way is doing his part towards working out the atonement of human sin, the reconciliation of man with G.o.d, the reconciliation of men with each other.

Let us, then, while loving Jesus, while reverencing him for the grandeur of his work and the beauty of his life, let us rise and claim kins.h.i.+p with him, rise to the dignity and glory of the thought that we are sons of G.o.d as he was, and that we may share with him the grandest service that one man can render to his time, the helping of people to find and love and serve G.o.d, the helping of people to discover and love and serve each other. The outcome of this atoning work is simply the coming of that time which we speak of familiarly without half comprehending it, when the world shall recognize the universal Fatherhood of G.o.d and the universal brotherhood of man.

PRAYER, AND COMMUNION WITH G.o.d

SOME years ago I heard a minister, then widely known throughout the country, say in a public address, "Prayer is the power that moves the arm that moves the world." Can we accept that to-day as a definition of a rational view of the relation in which we stand to G.o.d? Many of you will remember that not long ago the churches and the scientific men of England and America were much stirred and roused over a discussion concerning the practical efficacy of prayer. There was much talk of what was called the "prayer-gauge." I think it was Professor Tyndall who proposed to test the question as to whether prayer was a real power in the physical world; and his test, if I remember rightly, was something like this. He said: You churchmen claim that prayer is able to heal the sick. Now, he said, let us take a certain hospital. We will divide it, a certain number of wards on one side, and a certain number of wards on the other, equalizing so far as we can the nature of the illnesses which afflict the patients. You now concentrate as much as you please, and as many as you please, the prayers on certain wards in the hospital, and we will commit the rest to the ordinary treatment of the physicians; and we will see if you are able to produce any results.

Against a certain type and theory of prayer I suppose a test like that is legitimate enough; and this type, this theory, is the one that has prevailed throughout Christendom largely for a good many hundreds of years. I suppose you can remember in your boyhood some of you are as old as I that it was not an uncommon thing for the minister to pray earnestly for certain things that intelligent men would hardly think of praying for in the same fas.h.i.+on to-day. It was not an uncommon thing, a few years ago, to have a special prayer- meeting during a drought in the endeavor to prevail upon G.o.d to send the rain; and there was certainly a Scriptural warrant for it; for Elijah is represented in the Old Testament as having, by the power of prayer, shut up the heavens for three years and a half, and then as bringing rain again as the result of his pet.i.tion. If you study the Book of James, and remember, when you do study it, that it was not written by the apostle, but by some unknown author towards the middle of the second century, you will see that he teaches that, if any one is sick, you are not to send for a physician. The brethren are to a.s.semble, the invalid is to be anointed with oil, they are to pray over him, and the explicit and unqualified promise is given that the prayer of faith shall save the sick. And yet we have been confronted for ages with the spectacle of people breaking their hearts in pleading prayer for those that were sick, and seeing them fade and vanish from their sight in spite of their pet.i.tions.

I have heard it said a good many times that the fame of the Cunard line of steams.h.i.+ps touching the matter of the safety of its pa.s.sengers was to be explained by the piety of the founders of the line, and the fact that they prayed every time a s.h.i.+p sailed that it might safely cross the seas and land its pa.s.sengers without accident in the wished-for haven. Are there no prayers for other lines? Has no one ever prayed on behalf of a s.h.i.+p that did meet with an accident? But this would be explained on this theory by saying that the prayer was not the prayer of faith or that there was some defect in it somewhere.

I refer to these things simply by way of ill.u.s.tration to recall to your mind that prayer used to be supposed to be a power touching the winds, the waves, the prosperity of the crops, insuring safety during a dangerous journey; that it was a power that was able to heal disease, that could accomplish all sorts of strange and startling effects in the physical realm.

And now I simply wish to call your attention to the naturalness of that kind of prayer in the olden time. To some of us this thought may seem strange, it may seem almost absurd, to-day; but remember it was not strange, it was not absurd, in the times when the old theory of the universe was thoroughly believed in, not only by church members, but by scientific men as well.

What was that old conception? I have had occasion to refer to it in one connection or another a good many times; and now I shall have to refer to it again, so that you may clearly see what is involved in this question of the efficacy of prayer. G.o.d was supposed to be up in heaven, away from nature. Nature was a sort of mechanism, a machine that ordinarily ran on after its own fas.h.i.+on. G.o.d had made it, indeed, in some sense, G.o.d supported it continually; but it went on apart from him, and he was away from it. He was, as Carlyle used to say, looked upon as an absentee G.o.d. He was up in heaven. He ruled this world as the Kaiser rules Germany, arbitrarily. He was not even always supposed to know everything that was going on, at least, if you are to judge by the tone of the prayers of a good many people such as I have heard. He needed information concerning matters. He needed to be pleaded with, that he might interfere and accomplish some results that would not otherwise take place. He ruled the world arbitrarily and from a distance.

Now, if any German wishes a certain thing accomplished that would not happen in the ordinary course of nature and human life, he knows that the Kaiser has almost unlimited power; and, if he can persuade him to undertake it, it may be accomplished. So he will send a pet.i.tion to the Kaiser; and he will back that pet.i.tion with all the influence that he is able to bring to bear upon it. If there is a prime minister who stands specially high in favor with the Kaiser, do you not see how much might be accomplished by winning his ear, and getting him to intercede on behalf of the pet.i.tioner? Do you not see right in there the parallel to the old idea that used to dominate us in regard to the government of the universe? If only we could get G.o.d interested in the matter, if we could bring to bear upon him an adequate amount of influence, if we could get Jesus to intercede with him, then something might be accomplished.

Are these antiquated ideas? I received a letter only a little while ago. It told me nothing new; but it came to me with a shock, roused me to a recognition of ideas still dominant and popular in the common mind. It was from a Catholic. He said: We do not wors.h.i.+p Mary; but she is in the spirit world, and she is in sympathetic relation with this world's sorrow and trouble. We pray to her, asking her to intercede with her son, because a mother's influence is efficacious. Think for a moment of the implications of this theory of governing the universe.

G.o.d is away off, has forgotten us, or does not care, at any rate, is not doing for us the things we need. If we can get Jesus to intercede!

But, according to this Catholic theory, Jesus had perhaps forgotten or was not attentive. So he pleads with his mother, and gets the mother to exert her influence on Jesus so he may exert his influence on G.o.d, and at last something may be done. I confess to you, friends, that this theory of things does not seem piety to me, but the precise opposite.

I ask you now to follow me while I attempt to point out some of the difficulties that confront us in this old-time theory of prayer. Why is it that we cannot pray to G.o.d to change the order of the natural world?

Why cannot we believe that prayer is the power that moves the arm that moves the world??? Why cannot I consistently pray to G.o.d to heal my disease or the disease of a friend, or to save the soul of some friend who would otherwise be neglected by the divine care? Why cannot I any longer pray to G.o.d to send his light and truth to the heathen world?

Why cannot I pray to him to insure my safety in mid-Atlantic, to do something to prevent my colliding with a derelict, as the Van-dam has done during the last few days? Do you think there was no one on that s.h.i.+p that prayed? What is the difficulty in the mind of the intelligent, modern thinker when he faces this conception of prayer?

Let us think a little clearly just a moment; and I imagine I can make it plain. We no longer think of G.o.d we cannot think of him as outside the system of nature, and as possibly interfering with it to produce a result that would not otherwise take place. Why? Because G.o.d is the soul, the mind, the heart of nature. The forces of the universe, acting according to their changeless and eternal laws, are simply G.o.d at work.

And, when I pray to G.o.d to interfere, I am praying him to interfere with himself, I am praying him to contradict his own wisely and eternally and changelessly established methods of controlling the world.

The question is sometimes asked, but a man can interfere with the course of nature, and produce a result that would not be naturally produced without it? Certainly, because man does not stand in this relation to natural forces. But man, however, does not change any law, he does not interfere with any law. He simply discovers some law and obeys it, and in that way produces a result that would not otherwise be produced. But man does not stand, I say, in this vital relation to the forces of the universe and their laws. When you remember that these forces working, as I said, changelessly, eternally, after their methods, when you remember that these are G.o.d in his ceaseless and wise and loving activity, then do you not see that he cannot contradict or interfere with himself? Here is the great difficulty in regard to this old method, this old conception of prayer which confronts the intelligent, the educated, the thoughtfully devout man.

When I was first struggling out into the light? as it seems to me now from my old theological training, I met another difficulty that I think will appeal to you. It seemed to me an impertinence for me to be telling G.o.d, as I heard so many people on every hand, all sorts of things that he knew before. I reconsidered the words of Jesus, You are not to give yourself to much speaking in your prayers, for your Father knoweth what you have need of before you ask him. And then there was another difficulty which troubled me more than any of the others, a delightful, splendid difficulty it has seemed to me since those days.

It was connected with the thought of G.o.d's goodness and love. There are heathen, they tell us, who have got a glimpse, from their point of view, of this fact about G.o.d. It is said they do not bring any offerings, except some flowers, to the deities they regard as good, because, they say, they do not need to be persuaded. They bring all their costly offerings to the bad G.o.ds, the ones they are afraid of; and they attempt to buy their favor or buy off their anger.

When I waked up to the free and grand conception of the eternal love and the boundless goodness of the Father, then it seemed to me that many of my prayers in the past had been so far from reasonable that they were absurd, and so far from piety that they were wrong. To ill.u.s.trate what I mean. When I was minister of an orthodox church in the West, a lovely, faithful lady came to me to raise some question touching this matter of prayer. It had been suggested, I suppose, by something I had said; and I asked her this question: What would you think of me if I should come to you, and with pathos in my voice, and perhaps with tears in my eyes, plead with you to be kind to your own children, beg you to give them something to eat, beseech you to furnish them with clothes, entreat you to educate them, to do the best for them that you knew how? What would you think of it? I asked. She said, I should feel insulted. And I replied, Do you not think that G.o.d is almost as good as you are?