UNITARIANISM. (continued 3)

Now let us come to consider for a moment the nature of faith. I said a little while ago that the word is very frequently misused. Nine times out of ten, when I hear people using the word "faith" and I see the connection in which they use it, I discover they do not know the meaning of the word. That which has favor generally under the name of faith is simple credulity. It is closing the eyes and accepting something on somebody's authority without any investigation. That, remember, is not faith.

Let us see now if I can give you a clear idea of what faith really is; and now I have the Bible and I am glad to say it behind me. This magnificent chapter,* a portion of which I read as our lesson this morning, gives precisely the same idea of faith as that which I am going to outline. What is faith? Faith is a purely rational faculty. It is not irrational, but it is perfectly understandable. Suppose there is a man suddenly accused of a crime, and I never saw him before, I do not even know his name; but I go into court when he is brought up for trial, and I say that I have faith in that man, and I do not believe that he committed the crime. Do you not see that I am talking nonsense? I have no business to have faith in him, there is no ground for faith, it is an entire misuse of the word. But now take another case. Here is a man that I have known for twenty years. I have seen him in business. I have seen him in his home, among his neighbors and friends, and in the street. I have met him in all sorts of relations. I have talked with him, I have tested him. I have been intimate with him. He is suddenly accused of crime, and is brought into court. I appear, and say I have faith in that man, I do not believe that he committed the crime. I do not know that he did not commit it; but I have grounds here for faith. In the light of his past life, of his experience, of his temptations, of his opportunities to go wrong, and of his having gone right, in the light of all this past experience of years, I have faith in this man; and I say it, and I am talking reason and sense. In the other case I am talking folly.

Faith, you see, is a rational faculty. Let me give you another illustration. Suppose I am driving along through the country some morning when there is a very thick fog hanging over the landscape. The fog is so thick that I can see no more than ten or fifteen feet ahead of me; but I discover that I am near the bank of a river, and I come to the entrance to a bridge. I can see enough to know that here is an abutment of a bridge and an arch springing out into the fog. I drive on to that bridge with simple confidence. I do not know that there is any other end to the bridge. I have never seen it before. I have seen other bridges, however; and I know that, generally, bridges not only begin somewhere, but end somewhere. So, though I do not know for certain that the bridge ends on the other side of the river, for aught I know there may be a break in it, the bridge may not be completed, something may have happened to it, I confidently drive on; and in ninety-nine times out of a hundred my faith is justified by the result. This is a pure act of faith, but faith, do you not see, based in reality, springing out of experience, and so a purely rational act of the mind.

Let me give you one illustration of the scientific use of faith, very striking, beautiful, as it seems to me. The only time Mr. Huxley was in this country, I happened to be in New York, and heard him give the opening one of a brief course of three lectures in Chickering Hall. He was very much interested then in the ancestry of the horse. Most of you are probably aware of the fact that they have traced its ancestry to a little creature having five toes, like ordinary animals. At the time that Mr. Huxley was here, one link in this chain was missing; that is, one of the forms in the line of the horse's ancestors had not been discovered.

But here, for example, was the first one and the second one, we say, and the third one was missing, and here was the fourth one, and here was the horse itself. Now, in the light of the presumable uniformity of nature, Mr. Huxley went on to describe this missing animal. He said, if the remains of this creature are ever found, they will be so and so; and he went into an accurate detailed explanation as to what sort of creature it would be. He had not been at his home in England a year before Professor Marsh, of Yale College, discovered this missing link in Colorado, and it answered precisely to the description which Professor Huxley had beforehand given of it.

Now here is a case of scientific prophecy, scientific faith, a faith based on previous scientific observations, based on the experienced uniformity of nature. Mr. Huxley did not know, he could not have known; but he believed. He believed in the universe, he believed in the sanity of the universe, he believed in the uniformity, the order, the beauty of the universe; and the result justified his faith.

Faith, then, is a purely rational faculty. It has nothing to do with the past, but is always the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of something not yet seen. It is always looking along the lines of possible experience for something as possibly or probably to be.

Now at the end I wish to suggest a few things that are in the rightful province and field of faith, fields where we can fearlessly exercise this grand faculty, where indeed we must exercise it if we are to achieve the highest and finest results in the world.

And, in the first place, quoting the words of the old writer, let me say, "Have faith in God." I do not mean by this, accept certain intellectual statements or propositions about him, though they may be mine, and though I may thoroughly accept and believe them.

You may doubt the representation of God that is made in any one of the theologies of the world, as to whether the statements made about him are accurate. It is not this intellectual belief that I am talking about at this minute. Have faith in God! You may not even use the name. I am no such stickler for phrases as to condemn a man who cannot say "God." I have known a good many men, who have hesitated to pronounce the name, who were infinitely more divine in their life and character than those who are glibly uttering it every hour of their lives. It is not this I mean. It is something deeper, higher, grander than that. As you look along the lines of history from the far-off time when we begin to trace it until to-day, and see the magnificent march of advance, an orderly universe lightening and glorifying as it advances, becoming ever finer and higher and better; as you observe the order and truth and beauty and good dominant, and ever coming to be more and more dominant as the years advance, believe in this and trust this, trust to all possibilities of something finer and grander by way of outcome in the future. Have faith in God!

And, then, have faith in truth. I meet only a few people that seem to me to have utter faith in truth, who really believe that it is safe to tell the truth, always tell it. I talk with a great many people I wish to mention this as an illustration of what I mean who speak in the greatest commendation of the Roman Catholic Church. They say, We do not know what we should do in this country if we had not the Roman Catholic Church to keep a certain section of the people down, to keep them in order. I wonder if people ever realize just what this means. It means a lack of faith in God and faith in truth and faith in humanity, all three. If it is not safe to tell the truth, then I am not responsible for it. I propose to say it, although people tell me that there is danger of the explosion of the universe on account of it. If there is, I am not responsible for making it true. Oh, I get so tired of this kind of timidity, this playing hide-and-seek with people! I have had a minister tell me that he wished he was free to tell the truth in his pulpit, as I am; and then I have had people in his congregation tell me afterwards that they wished their minister would preach the truth plainly, as I did. Simply playing hide-and-seek with each other!

You remember the story of the man in Italy, who asked the priest if he really believed the religion of the country; and the priest said, "Oh, no! we have to go slowly on account of the people; they believe it." And when the people were asked if they believed it, they said, "Oh, no, we are not such fools; but the priests believe it." And so people play hide-and-seek with each other, not daring to tell the magnificent, clear truth of things.

Have faith in the truth. It is feared that it is not quite safe to tell people the truth, because they are not quite ready for it; and I have had no end of conversations during the religious discussion of the last two or three weeks right in this line. It seems to me very much like saying that, because a man has been shut up in a dark prison for a long time, you had better keep him there, because it would be such a shock to him suddenly to face the light. Undoubtedly, it would be a shock. Undoubtedly, it would trouble and stagger people for a little while to be told the simple truth; but how is the world ever to get ahead, if you keep on, as a matter of policy, lying to it for ages? How is it ever going to find the truth? Shall I lie for the glory of God, the supposed honor of God? I will take no such responsibility.

Let us have faith in the truth, then. Tell it fearlessly, simply, utterly; and, if God is not able to take care of his own world, why, the sooner it ends and we get into a stage of existence where it is safe to tell the truth, the better.

Have faith in men. Have faith in the people. This it is that we trust to in all our hopes of progress for the future. This it is which distinguished Lincoln among our statesmen. You remember that grand saying of his, true and humorous, so that it sticks in our memory, and we can never forget it, "You can fool all the people a part of the time; you can fool a part of the people all the time; but you can't fool all the people all of the time." Here is the basis on which we rest our republic. Our republic is fallen unless the people are really to be trusted.

Have faith, then, in the people, faith in their healthy instincts, faith in their general sanity, faith in their desire for the right and the true; and this is a genuine exercise of faith, for the past history of the world justifies it.

And, then, have faith in yourself as a child of God. I do not mean conceit now. I do not mean an overestimate of your ability, but belief that you can do great, grand, noble things, belief that you can become something great, noble, grand; belief in the possibility in this life or in some other life of unfolding all that is highest, truest, sweetest, in manhood and womanhood. It is this faith that is able to create the fact and make that which it trusts in.

Let us then believe in God, believe in truth, believe in humanity, believe in ourselves; and then we may work towards the coming of that far, grand time when the dreams of the world shall be realized and its faith shall become reality.

IS LIFE A PROBATION ENDED BY DEATH?

MY subject this morning is an attempted answer to the question, "Is Life a Probation ended by Death?" It will broaden itself naturally, if we cannot accept that theory of it, into the further question, What is the main end and purpose of our life? I take my text from the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the fifteenth and the sixteenth verses. I will read them as they appear in the Old Version: "See, then, that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time."

The idea of the writer is that, as we pass through the world, we should do it with our eyes kept intelligently open, looking about us on every hand, trying to comprehend the situation, to see what things are, and what we ought to do to play our part in the midst of them. Not heedlessly, not unwisely, he says, perhaps hardly the harsh word "fools," but as wise, as persons intelligently ready to take advantage of the situation and make the most of the condition in which one finds himself; redeeming the time, or, as the Revised Version has it, "buying up the opportunity "; being ready, that is, to pay whatever price is necessary in order to make the most of the situation.

This, then, is the spirit according to our text in which we should look over the problem of life; and this is the method by which we should attempt to guide its practical affairs.

That which people regard as the matter of most importance, any particular theory or plan of life which they may hold to be for them the most desirable, this, of course, is that to which they will direct their chief attention, on which they will lavish their thought, on which they will pour out their care, to which they will consecrate their energies. If now the theory or plan of life be false, if it be inadequate, if one is looking in the wrong direction for the success that he desires, or if he expects to achieve the great end and object of living by means which are not real, which do not match the actual facts of the world and of human life, then of course his effort is so far thrown away. He wastes energies, power, time, enthusiasm on wrong ends which might be used to the attainment of things which are real and fine and high.

Is it not then of the utmost importance that our conception of life, what it is for, what we ought to attempt to reach, and how we should make this attempt, should be an accurate one? Any young man starting out in life, if he sets up for himself a goal which is unworthy, which does not match his faculties and powers, and if he proposes to reach it by means which are not adequate to the attainment of his desires, do you not see how he wrecks and wastes his life? His opportunity is gone; and by and by he wakes up to find that the years have been dissipated, and he has not attained any worthy or noble end.

If this be true of a young man as he looks forward to a scheme or plan of life here during these few short years, how much more is a similar thing true, when we are contemplating not merely the question of a business, or professional or social failure and success, but are looking at the grander and more inclusive theme of the beginning and aim and outcome of life itself We have inherited from the past the idea that this life here, under the blue sky for a few years, as we live it, is a probation, that we are put here on trial, and that death ends it, and that, when we have passed that line, gone over from that which is visible here into the invisible, we are either "lost" or "saved," and things are definitely fixed forever.

I am perfectly well aware that the most of us who are here have given up this idea, though there may remain fragments and suggestions of it in our minds still haunting the chambers of the brain, not yet outgrown, not yet cleared away. But with most people in the modern world, if they are sincere, if they are consistent, the one great question with them is whether they are to be saved or lost in another life. And, if this be the true theory of things, then not only ought men to bend all their thought, their energies, devote their enthusiasms, consecrate their time and money to it as much as they do, but a thousand times more.

We look, perhaps, with a sort of amused curiosity, some of us, from what we regard as our superior point of view, at a man like Mr. Moody; and yet Mr. Moody is one man out of a million for his consistency and consecration to the thought which underlies all the Protestant churches of the modern world, with the exception of a few here and there. Mr. Moody believes that this life is a probation ended by death. There are thousands on thousand on thousands of men who say they believe it, who still cast in all their influence with churches that are based on it, and who yet devote their energies mainly to making money, to attaining social success, to pleasures of one kind or another, to political ambitions, who live as though this great fate were not overhanging the world, who meet their neighbors for pleasure or business, believing, if they are sincere, that this neighbor is heedlessly walking on to the brink of a gulf, and yet never speaking to him about it, never saying a word to imply that they really believe it; and yet this fear hangs over them, haunts their consciousness waking or sleeping; and, if you ask them if they believe it, they will say they suppose they do. In hours of danger, when disease threatens them or they are looking death in the face, they are affrighted, and try to flee to the traditional refuge as a place of safety.

The whole great Catholic Church teaches that nobody has the slightest chance of being saved except by becoming a member of her great body of believers and partaking of her sacramental means of grace.

This, I say then, is the great underlying belief of Christendom; and, if it is true, the world ought to consecrate itself, head and brain and soul, time, money, power, prayer, enthusiasm, everything, to delivering men from the imminent danger. If it is not true, then it ought to be brushed completely one side, put out of consciousness, of thought, of fear. The world ought to be dispossessed of its haunting presence. Why? So that we may fix our attention on the true end and aim of life, and find out what it means to live, how we ought to live, and why and what for, what ought to be the goal of our human endeavor.

So long, then, as this belief does lie at the foundation of all the great churches of Christendom, so long as it is employed in all the criticisms of us who do not any longer accept it, it seems to me that it is worth our while to reconsider the question for a little while, so that we may clear our minds and thoughts, and may fix our attention definitely and earnestly on that which ought to be the goal of all our endeavor, our enthusiasm and our hope.

Let us, then, look for just a few moments at this theory, and see what it means and implies.

It is said that our first father was put on probation, was called upon to decide, not for himself only, but for all his descendants, as to what the future history of the inhabitants of this planet should be. Two famous books were published only a few years ago by Dr. Edward Beecher, the eldest son in that famous family. These were "The Conflict of Ages" and "The Concord of Ages." Dr. Beecher argued that anything like a fair probation on the part of Adam was an impossibility. This in the face of the prevailing beliefs of the time when the books were written. He said that, if a man were to choose on such a momentous question as this, choose adequately, choose fairly, he must be so circumstanced and endowed that he could comprehend the entire result of his choice. He must be able to look down the ages imaginatively, and see on one hand all the line of sin and misery, of death, finite and eternal, which should issue from his choosing in one direction. He must be able to comprehend all the good, the music, the joy, the beauty, the glory, the infinite perfectibility, in this world and the next, which should follow his choice in the other direction. And he said that Adam had no such opportunity as that, and was not endowed with the ability or the experience to make any such momentous choice; in other words, that the fundamental basis of the whole theological scheme of the world was unjust and unfair.

This was Dr. Beecher's contention. How did he get over the difficulty? He believed in the pre-existence of human souls, and that in some other life before Adam there must have been an intelligent and fair choice, and that we here and now are only fighting out one stage of the results of that far-off decision. But, if you will stop to think of it a moment, you will see that this puts the difficulty only a little further back: it does not solve it. How does this first person, if it is so, countless millions of ages ago, happen to be endowed with intelligence and experience and ability enough to make such a momentous choice?

And now just consider a moment. Is it conceivable that a sane person should intelligently choose evil, unless he had some inherited bias or tendency in that direction? For what does the choice of evil mean? It means sorrow, it means pain, it means death, it means everything horrible, everything undesirable, and means that a person deliberately and intelligently pits himself against an infinite and almighty power in what he knows must be an eternally losing battle. Can you conceive of a sane person making such a choice as that?

If one of these first ancestors in the Garden of Eden, or no matter how far back, had a right to choose for himself, I deny his right to choose for me. What right had he to choose for you? What right had he to determine that you should be born with a perverted and corrupt nature, so that you would be certain to choose evil instead of good, helpless in the hands of a fate like this?

Now you may look at this theory any way you please, place this probationary choice at the beginning of human history on this planet, or place it just as far back as you will, it is inconceivable, it is unfair, it is unjust, it is insane, it is everything that is foolish and wrong. And yet, note clearly one thing. So long as the world believes this, so long as the one end and aim of human life, as held up to people, is to be saved, think of the waste, think of the time, the anxiety, the enthusiasms, the prayers, the consecrations; think of the wealth, think of the intellectual faculties, think of the moral devotion, this whole power of the world expended on a false issue, turned into wrong channels!

Is this a dead question? Is there no reason for us to consider it here in this latter part of the nineteenth century? Why, nine-tenths of Christendom to-day is spending its time in trying to propitiate a God who is not angry and trying to "save" souls that are not "lost." Expending its energies along mistaken channels towards issues that are entirely imaginary! Think, for example, if during the last two thousand years all the time and the money, all the intelligence, all the consecration, could have been spent on those things that would have really helped men to find out the meaning of life, and to illustrate that meaning in earnest living; suppose the money that has been spent on the cathedrals, on the monasteries, spent in supporting hordes and hordes of priests, spent in all the endeavor to save men in a future life, if all this had been used in educating men and training them into a comprehension of what kind of beings they really are, what kind of a world this is in which they have found themselves, spent in training them into mastery of themselves, spent in teaching them how to understand and control the forces of nature in order to serve and develop the higher life, think what a civilization might have been developed here on this poor old planet by this time! How much of the disease, how much of the corruption, how much of the unkindness, how much of the cruelty, how much of all that still remains in us of the animal, might have been outgrown, sloughed off, put underneath our feet!

Is it not, then, a vital question, so long as so many thousands, so many millions of people are still consecrating their time, their money, their energy, in the attempt to do that which does not need to be done?

Let us turn, now, and for a little while face another theory of human life; try to find out, or to suggest, what we are here on this planet for, what may be accomplished, how much of grand and true may be wrought out as the result of our attempt.

The philosopher Kant has somewhere said that there are three things needed to the success of a human life, "something to do, some one to love, something to hope for." The old Catechism says that the chief end of man is "to glorify God and enjoy him forever." I indorse the words of Kant; I agree most heartily and thoroughly with the Catechism. Philip James Bailey, the author of that once famous poem "Festus," has said,

"Life's but a means unto an end; that end, Beginning, mean, and end to all things, God."

This also I indorse. I believe that life is something inner, something deeper than that which we ordinarily think of as constituting the matters of chief concern regarding it. Let me quote two or three lines again from Bailey's "Festus," familiar to you because so fine.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. "He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."

What is human life, then? What is it for? The object of life is living. But what does living mean? Most people cannot answer that question, because they have never more than half lived, and consequently have never appreciated its depth and significance. As I have had occasion over and over and over again, to say to business men, and I like to say it on every opportunity, it seems to me, as I look over the face of society, that most people live only in some little fragmentary way, some corner of their being.

Most men spend their lives in the attempt to accumulate the means to live, and forget to begin to live at all. Sometimes, as you are riding through the country on a winter evening, you come to a silent farm- house, and you see one window lighted; and, if you should go and knock at the door, you would probably find out that the light is shining from the kitchen, where the family is gathered in the evening, perhaps as a matter of economy to save fire, perhaps to save trouble. And, if you examine the lives of these people, you would find that they live chiefly in the kitchen. They may have a sitting-room where they spend a few leisure hours; perhaps they have the beginning of a library; but they do not spend much time in that. They have little opportunity for the life of the parlor, representing the expansive, social human life which comes into contact with other lives. And so you will find that this, which is a figure, represents that which is true of most of us. We have only begun to live; and we live in the lower ranges of our nature, or perhaps we have touched life on a higher level in some tentative sort of way. But the most of us are only partly alive, have only developed a little of what is possible in us, have only come in contact with some fragments of this wonderful universe that is all around us on every hand.

What, then, is the meaning of life? What shall we try to do? What are we here for? I do not attempt to go into the profound explanation of mysteries too deep for me to answer, as to what must have been in the mind of God when he planned and created this universe of which we are a part. My task is a humbler one. Let us see if I can help you comprehend a little part of it. Take an illustration.

An immensely wealthy man suddenly dies, leaving his estates to a little boy seven or eight years of age. He has wide stretches of land, hill and valley, river, woods, all that is beautiful as making up a landscape. The house represents the accumulated resources of the experiences and the intelligence of a lifetime. There are not only beautiful drawing-rooms, telling of taste, but there is a library in which is all that the world has been able to accumulate of learning, of literature in every department. Here is another room containing instruments of music and the works of the great composers. There is an art gallery, containing some of the finest masterpieces in the way of painting and sculpture; and then there is a room devoted to scientific experiments,— chemistry, the microscope, the telescope. Here are means and opportunity for finding out what the world has so far developed.

Now has this young boy come into possession of these things? He has inherited them, he is his father's heir. We say they belong to him; but do they belong to him? In what sense and to what extent do they belong to him? They belong to him just in so far and just as fast as he develops himself into capacity of comprehension and enjoyment, no faster, no farther. As he enters upon his inheritance then he is put under tutors. Some man comes to teach him the languages which he does not comprehend; and by and by that part of the library which is composed of books written in other speech than his own begins to belong to him. It belongs to the tutor a good deal more than it does to the child, until the child has learned the lessons of the tutor. And so another teacher comes to instruct him in art; and the masterpieces of art belong to the person of taste, of culture, with appreciation, to the teacher again, to any one who knows and who feels, instead of to the boy, who merely has possession of the title-deeds.

Do you see the suggestion of the picture? Man wakes up here on this planet what sort of a being? Not at first "a little lower than God," as the old Psalmist says of him, but only a little higher than the animals, ignorant of himself, ignorant of his surroundings, weak, undeveloped in every faculty and power. He begins, we say, to live; and what does that mean? He begins to explore this wonderful world, which is his heritage; and do you not see that along with this exploration there goes of necessity a process of self- development? I would pit against that statement of Kant's a phrase something like this. The object of life is threefold: it is to become all possible, it is to serve all possible, it is to enjoy all possible. But I cannot outline completely either one of these suggestions; for they blend, they intermingle, as you will see in a moment. They are like different notes in a piece of music that are so blended together that they constitute one tune, while separate they are only fragments, or discords.

The first thing, then, if a man wishes really to live, is that he should develop himself, unfold the faculties and powers which lie dormant in him. He is a child of God. He is capable of comprehending within his limit that which is divine. He is capable of being touched, played on, by all the phases and forces of the universe surrounding him. He is an instrument of ten thousand strings; and marvellous may be the music of his life.

First, he should be as complete an animal as possible. Then he should develop himself as a being capable of thinking, of knowing. How many men are there that take possession of the intellectual realm that lies around them on every hand? Just think. Let me hint suggestions, illustrations, in one or two directions. A man goes out for a walk in the park, or, better yet, into the country. The park is too artificial, perhaps, to carry just the meaning that I have in mind. Let it be a walk in the country, then. How much do the grasses and the flowers have to say to him?

I have a friend in Washington, a famous botanist, a botanist not only of all things that live and grow to-day, but who has pushed his researches back and down into the prehistoric ages so as to understand and explain the records, the prints, the leaves and twigs, the forms of every kind that are on the rocks and left to tell the story of a life that has passed away many thousands on thousands of years ago. How much of all this marvellous realm, or even a suggestion of it, is revealed to the ordinary man as he walks through the field?

Look in the direction of geology a moment. Here is a river course; here is the shape of a hill top; do they say anything to the ordinary man who walks with his head down, and occupied with some problem of Wall Street, perhaps? Here are marvels of creative power. God shaped the slope of that hill as really as though he smoothed it down with his hand. And he who understands the methods of world building, of landscape-sculpture, may stand in wonder and awe and reverence before the forces that have been at work for millions of years, and are at work the same to-day. How many men have even a conception of the wonders of the microscopic world? To how many men do the star have anything to say at night? A man looks at a bowlder, unlike any other rock there is to be found anywhere in the neighborhood, and perhaps he does not even ask a question about it; while a man who has made a careful study of these things sees spring up before him in his imagination that long ice age before man lived on the planet, when this bowlder was swept from some far-off place by the glacial power, deposited where it is, scraped on its surface by the passing of the ice, as if God himself had left his sign-manual here, his autograph, that he, in after- ages who might make himself capable of reading, might understand.

These merely as fragmentary, brief hints of what it is to live in the intellectual realm.

Go up to that realm where the intellect is blended with the emotions, the glamour of pictures, poetry, sculpture, music, beauty of color and form and sound. What a world this is, infinite resources of an infinite universe, appealing to, and, if a man responds, calling out the faculties and powers of his own nature that are capable of dealing with these things, so that a man may feel that he is thinking over the thoughts of God, tracing his footsteps, listening to the marvellous music of his words! This is one of the results of self-development, if a man is unfolding, developing himself, becoming as much as possible.

Now let us turn sharply to one of these other phases which I spoke of, of doing what we can to help the world. And now note, this universe is so cunningly contrived that a man cannot possibly be successful as a selfish man. It is one of the most conclusive proofs, it seems to me, not only of the divine goodness, but of the moral meaning and scope of the world. Selfishness is not wicked only, it is the most outrageous folly on the face of the earth. If a man develop himself, if he develops that which is finest in him, that which is best and sweetest and truest, he develops not only his power to think, but his capacity to love, his capacity to enjoy, and to bestow enjoyment; and he cannot possibly succeed in the long run, and in the best ways, on selfish lines.

People used to have a notion that he who grasped and retained everything he could get hold of was the fortunate, the successful man. People had an idea in politics, for example, that that nation was happiest which humbled other nations; and, if it was superior to all the rest, by as much as they were poor and devastated, this nation was fortunate. We know now that a nation finds its prosperity in that of other nations, in its ability to exchange, to trade, to carry on all the grand avocations of life with them. If a man writes a book, he wants the world intelligent enough to understand and appreciate it. If a man paints a picture, he wants artistic ability on the part of the public, so that they will appreciate and buy his pictures. If a man carves a statue, he wants the people to appreciate glory of form enough to see how great and true his work is, and reward him for his endeavor. In other words, no man would write a book, and go off with it alone by himself. No man would paint a picture, and hide it. No man would carve a statue, and conceal it from his fellows.

We have learned, and are learning constantly in every direction, that our happiness is involved in the happiness of other people. The world is haunted to-day and I thank God that it is with the thought of the unhappiness, the misery, of men. What does it mean? It means that men have developed so on their sympathetic side that they cannot be happy themselves while the world is unhappy. So you see that this self- development, which I placed as the chief thing at the outset in the meaning of life, carries with it the necessity on the part of those who are developed, of doing everything they can to develop and lift up everybody else; so that making the most of yourself means making the most of everybody else.

And now, if I turn for a moment to that other point, merely to distinguish it by itself, although I have been dealing with it all the while, the end and aim of life once more is to be happy. I am perfectly well aware that the old Puritan theology has taught otherwise, so far as this life is concerned. I was brought up with the feeling that, if I wanted to do anything, the chances were it was wrong, that it was a good deal more likely to be in the way of virtue if it was something that was disagreeable to me. And yet, curiously enough, this old Puritan theology invented and held up before men, as a lure to lead them to virtue, the most tremendous bribe that ever entered into the imaginations of men, eternal felicity on the one hand, and eternal woe on the other. So that it conceded the very thing that it seemed to deny, that men naturally and necessarily sought happiness, and could not possibly do otherwise.

And so we learn to live, to think, to serve others. We are beginning to learn also that this desire for happiness is natural, is necessary, is right. If a man is not happy, you may be sure there is something wrong. If there is pain in the body, it means disease, difficulty, obstruction, something out of the way. It means that God's laws are not perfectly kept. If there is pain up in the mental realm, pain in the moral realm, pain in the spiritual realm, it means always something wrong. Man ought to be happy. He ought to seek happiness as the great end and outcome of human life.

And we are learning, as the natural and necessary result of our experiences in knowing and in serving, that just in so far as we know the laws of God, just in so far as we obey the laws of God, just in so far as we help others to know and obey, just in so far there comes into our lives the blessedness of the blessed God.

The end of life, then, the object of life here on earth, is to develop ourselves to the utmost. It is to learn to know, take possession of our inheritance, this earth, control all its forces for the service of civilization. It is to rejoice in all this self-development, in all this help, in all this knowledge, in all this power. It is to feel ourselves thrilling with the consciousness that we are sons of God, and are co-operating with him in bringing about the grand result of the ages, the perfection of man.

And then what? Death? This is only one stage of our career. We are here at school; we learn our lessons or we do not; we attain the ends we seek after or we only partly attain them or do not attain them at all; and then we go on. Does that mean that it ends there? I do not believe it. I believe that it simply means that we go out into a larger opportunity, from the planet to the system, to the galaxy, to the universe, wider knowledge answering to more magnificent resources in the infinite universe. We, with undeveloped powers that may increase and advance forever, and a universe so complete, so exhaustless, that it may match and lure and lead and rejoice us forever; we being trained as God's children in God's likeness and helping others to attain the same magnificent ends, this I believe to be the significance, the meaning, the purpose, of life.

Are there any here this morning who think or fear that the taking away of the old idea concerning the results of Lying may remove moral motive, may undermine character, nay make people less careful to do right? It seems to me hat, if people understand the significance of this universe, and their relation to it, they will find that all the carelessness of motive, the ease of salvation, as they call it, is with the old idea. Our theory is a more strenuous and insistent one. Children are learning as they become wiser that evil is not only evil, but it is folly. A man wishes life, health, happiness, prosperity, all good. He learns, as he goes on, that the universe is in favor of the keeping of its own laws; and that, f he flings himself against the forces of the universe, he is only broken for his pains. If you wish to be healthful, sappy, strong, wish to attain any desirable thing, it is to be bound not in defiance of the laws of the universe, but in loving and tender obedience.

And, then, if you only remember that in this universe and coder the universal law of cause and effect you are building to-morrow out of to-day, and next week and next year, and all he future, that every thought, every word, every action, is cemented together as a part of this structure that you build, hat you can make your own future for good or ill, and that you cannot build it successfully except in accordance with he eternal laws of things, then you find that here are the most insistent and tremendous motives it is possible for the human mind to conceive.

This life of ours, if we lead it nobly and truly, then, we shall find to be a growth into the likeness of the Divine, a growth into an increasing opportunity to share the work of our Father in building and helping men, and that, as the result of this, joy, infinite joy, is to fill our hearts until we share the very blessedness of our Father.

God made our lives to be a song Sweet as the music of the spheres, That still their harmonies prolong For him who rightly hears. The heavens and the earth do play Upon us, if we be in tune: Winter shouts hoarse his roundelay, And tender sweet pipes June. But oftentimes the songs are pain, And discord mars our harmonies: Our strings are snapped by selfish strain, And harsh hands break our keys. But God meant music; and we may, If we will keep our lives in tune, Hear the whole year sing roundelay, December answering June. God ever at his keyboard plays, Harmonics, right; and discords, wrong: "He that hath ears," and who obeys, May hear the mystic song.

SIN AND ATONEMENT.

For the sake of clearness, and in order that you may definitely comprehend the doctrine of sin and atonement which I believe to be the true one, I need in the first place to outline as a background that which lies at the foundation of all the popular theologies of Christendom. I am perfectly well aware that at least a part of the time, while I am doing this, I shall be traversing ground with which you are already familiar. Some of it, however, I think may be somewhat strange to you.

The tradition begins with the story of a war in heaven. In some way rebellion began among the angels; and he who had been Lucifer, the light-bearer, prince among the glorious sons of God, took up arms of rebellion against the Almighty. Naturally, he failed in this inevitably losing battle, and was cast out into the abyss, with a third part of all the angels, who had followed him. Then the tradition goes on: God decided to create the world, that the sons of men born and trained here might ultimately take the places that had been held by the angels who had been cast out on account of their sin. But Satan, seeing this fair and beautiful earth, this wondrous handiwork of God, determined, if possible, to thwart and defeat the purposes of the Almighty. He therefore invades this beautiful world. He finds Adam and Eve in their condition of perfect felicity, innocent, but inexperienced; and they fall a ready prey to his intention.

They then share his rebellion, accept him instead of God as king. Henceforth they are followers of him in his age-long warfare against light and truth, and, unless in some way saved, are to be sharers of his eternal destiny, cast out into chains and darkness forever.

Now comes the necessity for noting for a moment the nature of sin on this theory. You see it is not ignorance, it is not weakness merely, it is not inherited passion only: it is conscious and purposeful rebellion against God, putting yourself at enmity with his truth, his righteousness, his love. In action it is some specific deed done against God or against his truth or his right. As a state of mind, it is a heart perverted, choosing always that which is evil, a heart at enmity with God and with all that is good; and the theologians have always been obliged, as a matter of consistency, to hold, no matter how noble, how unselfish men might appear to be, that the natural man has inherently, always, necessarily been evil. He carries about with him the taint of original sin; that is, sin of constitution, ingrained, inherited, that which is of the very fibre of his being. This is the character of man as required by the old theological systems; and this is how it happened to come about. Evil is not something natural, not imperfection, not something undeveloped, not yet outgrown. Sin originated outside of this world, invaded it, and worked its ruin and destruction.

Now comes the device that has been called the Atonement, by which it is supposed that God is going to be able to save at least a part of this rebellious humanity. There have been a good many different theories of the atonement that have been held, eighteen or twenty varieties of the doctrine, three or four of which I must outline, in order to make them clear to your mind, that you may see what have been the devices by which the theologians have supposed that they could find a way for the deliverance of man from this condition of loss, and fit him to share the felicity for which he was originally intended.

Of course, the main point in the whole scheme is that the Second Person of the Trinity becomes incarnate, comes down here to this world, is born, grows up, teaches, suffers and at last is put to an ignominious death. This is the central idea of the doctrine of the atonement; or, rather, the Christ is the central figure in that doctrine. But how is it supposed to work out the atonement that is necessary, in order that man may be saved? You will see that the world, according to the ideas I have been delineating, is in a condition of rebellion. What men need is to be persuaded that they are wrong, convinced of sin, in theological language, and then made repentant, and in some way be forgiven for the wrong which they have done.

Now it is supposed that God must invent some scheme by which to make it possible for him to save these lost and fallen men. If you read the parable of the Prodigal Son as Jesus has so tenderly, touchingly, beautifully outlined it for us, you will see that there is no thought or plan or necessity for either in that. The son left his home, followed the impulses and passions of youth, had gone among those that were degraded, had soiled his character, done despite to his father's love, injured his own nature, degraded himself by his associations and actions. But when at last he awakes, becomes conscious of his father's love and righteousness and truth, and says, "I will arise, and go to my father," there is no talk of God's not being ready to receive him, or not being able to receive him, or needing to have something done before he can receive him, no thought of anybody's suffering any more in order that he may be forgiven. You see all these elements that are associated with the popular doctrines of atonement are not once thought of, never even alluded to. He simply arises, and goes to his father; and his father is so anxious to help him that he goes to meet him before he reaches the father's house, and gladly falls on his neck and kisses him and folds him in his arms. It only needs that the son should recognize the righteousness and goodness of his father, and should wish to go back. That is the doctrine of Jesus as taught in this wonderfully sweet and beautiful parable.

Now what are the theories of atonement as outlined in the popular theology? For the first thousand years of Christian history one of the strangest conceptions possessed the ecclesiastical mind that has ever been dreamed of. It was held literally that through the sin of Adam the human race had become the rightful subjects of Satan, that they belonged to him. He was their king, their emperor, their ruler, and had a right to them in this world and the next. And so some diplomatic negotiations must be entered into with the Devil, in order to deliver a certain part of these his subjects, and open the way for them to be saved. So the Church Fathers taught that Satan recognized in Christ his old adversary in heaven, and he entered into a bargain with God that, if he could have Christ delivered over to him, in exchange for that he would give up his right to so many of the souls of men as were to be saved as the result of this compact. So the work of the atonement used to be preached as being this sort of bargain entered into with Satan.

But note what quaint, naive ideas possessed the minds of people at that time. Satan did not know that Jesus possessed a divine nature, and that, consequently, he could not beholden of death; and so, when he entered into this bargain, he was cheated, he found out to his dismay that he had lost not only humanity, but Christ also, had been defrauded of them both. This was the doctrine of the atonement that was preached during the early centuries of the Christian Church, at least in certain parts of Europe.

But later there came another doctrine, the belief that the sufferings of the Christ were a substitute offered to God for what would have been the sufferings of the lost. He was made sin for us, he who had known no sin, as the New Testament phraseology has it. So that he, being infinite, in a brief space of time during his little earthly career, during his suspension on the cross and his descent into hell, was able to suffer as much pain as all the lost would have suffered throughout eternity. And this suffering of the Christ was supposed to be accepted on the part of God as the substitute for that which he would have exacted on the part of the souls of those that for his sake were to be saved.

There is still another theory that I must mention briefly, that which is called the governmental theory, that which I was taught during my course of theological instruction. The idea was that God had a moral government to maintain, not only on this earth, but throughout the range of the universe among all his intelligent creatures, and, if he permitted his laws to be broken without exacting an adequate penalty, then all governmental authority would be overthrown. In other words, men took their poor human legal devices, their political ideals, and lifted them into the heavens, made them the models after which it was supposed God was to govern his great, intelligent universe.

So they said that God would be willing to forgive, he would like to forgive, he was loving and tender and kind, but it was not safe, safe for the interests of his universal government, for him to forgive any one until an adequate penalty had been paid in expiation of human sin.

You see, according to this theory, it does not apparently make much difference who it is that suffers, whether it is the person who has committed the sin or not; but somebody must pay an adequate penalty, and Jesus volunteered to do this, to be the victim, and so to deliver man from the righteous deserts which he had incurred as a transgressor of the law of God.

Gradually, however, as the world became civilized, as wider and broader thoughts manifested themselves in the human mind, as tenderer and truer feelings took possession of the human heart, these theories receded into the background; and there came to the front I remember the bitter controversies over it in my younger days what was called the Moral Theory of the Atonement. The originator and sponsor for this theory was the famous Dr. Horace Bushnell, of Hartford. He taught that God did not need the punishment of anybody to uphold the integrity of his moral government. He taught that God was not angry with the race, and did not care to exact a penalty before he was ready to forgive human sin. He taught that the inner nature of God was love, and that in the Second Person of the Trinity he came to earth, was born, grew up, taught, suffered, died, as a manifestation to the world of his love, of his goodness, of his readiness to forgive and help, and that the efficacy of the atonement as thus wrought on the part of the Christ was in its revelation to men of the love and saving power of righteousness.

This was the moral theory of the atonement. It was not supposed to work any result in the nature of God or his disposition towards men. Its effect was to work along the lines of human thought and human action: it was to affect men, and make them willing to be saved instead of making God willing to save them. This was the moral theory of the atonement; and you will see how it gradually approaches that which intelligent and free men, it seems to me, must hold to-day in the light of their careful study of human history and human nature. It is almost the theory which is being held by the freest and noblest men of to-day. The difference between it and that which I shall in a moment try to set forth is chiefly that Dr. Bushnell confines this work of the atonement to the person and history and character of one man instead of letting all men share in this divine and atoning work which is being wrought out through all the ages.

Let me now come to set forth what I believe to be the simple and demonstrated truth. My objections against this old theory are threefold. I will mention them, and have done with them in a word.

In the first place, the supposed origin of sin in heaven seems to me so absurd as to be utterly unthinkable. This idea of war in heaven, rebellion against God, smacks too much of the Old World traditions, of the mythologies of Greece and Rome and of other peoples. Jupiter could dethrone his father, the god Saturn, because Saturn was not almighty and all-wise. These gods of the ancient time were merely exaggerated types of human heroes and despots. There could be war among them, and one of them overthrown; and Jupiter could divide the universe, after he had conquered and dethroned his father, with his two brothers.

All this is reasonable, when you are talking about finite creatures; but try to think for one moment of an archangel, a pure and clear-eyed intelligence, deliberately choosing to rebel against Omnipotence! He must have known it would be utterly, absolutely, forever hopeless! Intelligent creatures do not rebel under conditions like that, particularly when you combine with the absolute hopelessness of the case the fact that he knew he was choosing misery, suffering, forever.

As I said, the whole conception of the origin of evil that implies the rebellion of a spiritual being who knew what he was doing is inexpressibly absurd, so absurd that we may dismiss it as impossible. If there were any such rebellion, if you waive the absurdity for the moment and consider the possibility, God would be responsible; for he made him. The whole theory is not only absurd: it is unjust in its implications towards both God and man. And then, and perhaps we need not say any more about it, we know that it is not true. It did not even originate in the Bible, it did not even originate among the Jews: it is nothing in the world but a pagan myth imported into Jewish tradition just a few hundred years before the birth of Jesus. It is of no more authority in rational human thought than the story of Jason or Hercules, not one particle.

Let us now turn, then, to what we know, from the history of man and the scientific study of the universe, to be something approaching the reality of things. People have always been talking about the origin of evil. It is not the origin of evil that we have to face or deal with or explain at all. Let me ask you to consider for a moment the condition of the world when man first appeared on this planet. Here among the lower animals were what? All the vices and all the crimes that we can conceive of, only they were not vices nor crimes at all. There were all the external actions and all the internal feelings and passions; but they were not vices, and they were not crimes. Why? Because there was no moral sense which recognized anything better, no moral standard in the light of which they might be judged.

Here, for example, in this lower world, were all hatreds, jealousies, envies, cruelties, thefts, greeds, murders, every kind of action that we speak of as evil in man. And yet I said there was no evil there, no moral evil there, because there was no consciousness, no recognition, of the distinction between the lower and the higher. This was a part of the natural and intended order of the development of life, not an accident, not an invasion from the outside, not a thwarting of the will of God, not an interference with his purpose, all of this a part of the working out of his purpose.

Now, when man appeared, what happened? The origin, not of evil, but the origin of goodness. A conscience was born. Man came into possession of a moral ideal, in the light of which he recognized something higher than this animalism that was all around him, and became conscious of the fact that he must battle against that, and put it under his feet. 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 God to be accounted for, there is no need of any devil to explain the facts. He is only an encumbrance, 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 class 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 passions 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 God 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 God and men into one-ness with each other.

Now let me suggest to you a little as to the things that keep man and God 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 God, and when they shall love each other as themselves.

What is it that keeps man from God? First, it seems to me, it is ignorance. What man needs in order to bring him into oneness with God is first to have some clear conceptions of the divine, some high, sweet, noble thoughts of God, some knowledge of the laws of God 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 God as shall; make him seem lovable. You cannot make the human heart love that which seems hateful. The picture of God, 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 God the ideal of all that is noble 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 God, so that he shall naturally live out the divine love. Education, then, is all on man's side, you will see. God does not need to be changed: we need to know him, to love him, to come into conscious relationship with him. This is what we need, so far as our relation to God 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 passions 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 God 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 God and men into one- ness with each other.

Now let me suggest to you a little as to the things that keep man and God 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 God, and when they shall love each other as themselves.

What is it that keeps man from God? First, it seems to me, it is ignorance. What man needs in order to bring him into oneness with God is first to have some clear conceptions of the divine, some high, sweet, noble thoughts of God, some knowledge of the laws of God 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 God as shall: make him seem lovable. You cannot make the human heart: love that which seems hateful. The picture of God, 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 God the ideal of all that is noble 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 God, so that he shall naturally live out the divine love. Education, then, is all on man's side, you will see. God does not need to be changed: we need to know him, to love him, to come into conscious relationship with him. This is what we need, so far as our relation to God 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 God, 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 illustrating 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 accumulation 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 God, 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 God or man, they hold the ideal that he set forth and lived to be spiritually human and nobly divine. So Jesus is more and more, as the ages go by, helping us to one-ness with God, 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, illustrated again and lived out the sweetness of divinity and the tenderness of humanity.

As another illustration, human, simple, natural, just let me say a word concerning the act, the attitude, 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 God-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 God, 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 kinship with him, rise to the dignity and glory of the thought that we are sons of God 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 God, 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 God and the universal brotherhood of man.

PRAYER, AND COMMUNION WITH GOD

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 God? 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 fashion 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 God 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 petition. 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 assemble, 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 petitions.

I have heard it said a good many times that the fame of the Cunard line of steamships touching the matter of the safety of its passengers was to be explained by the piety of the founders of the line, and the fact that they prayed every time a ship sailed that it might safely cross the seas and land its passengers without accident in the wished-for haven. Are there no prayers for other lines? Has no one ever prayed on behalf of a ship 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 illustration 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. God 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 fashion. God had made it, indeed, in some sense, God 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 God. 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 petition to the Kaiser; and he will back that petition 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 petitioner? 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 God 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 worship 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. God 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 God, 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 God 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 God 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 God 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 ship 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 God 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 God is the soul, the mind, the heart of nature. The forces of the universe, acting according to their changeless and eternal laws, are simply God at work. And, when I pray to God 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 God 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 God, 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 God's goodness and love. There are heathen, they tell us, who have got a glimpse, from their point of view, of this fact about God. 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 gods, 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 illustrate 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 God is almost as good as you are?

If you are anxious and ready, do you think that God needs to be pleaded with and entreated and besought in order to make him willing, in order to make him kind, in order to bring some sort of pressure to bear upon him so that he will do the things for his children of which they most stand in need? No scientific difficulty, no question of theories of the universe, has ever affected my practice in the matter of prayer so much as this overwhelming, blessed thought of the loving-kindness and care of the infinite Father. He does not need to be informed, he does not need to be persuaded. Has not Jesus told us that your heavenly Father is more ready to give the things which you need than you are to give good gifts to your children?