WRITINGS

“It was an innocent-faced maid” (1906)

It was an innocent-faced maid who stood at the postoffice window Saturday and asked in the tone of one seeking a bargain, “Have ye any postage stamps?”

“Certainly,” replied the obliging clerk. “How many?”

“Let me see them, please,” was the answer, and the stamps were produced for inspection. “I don’t quite like the color of these,” she said. “Don’t you have any two-cent stamps of a lighter shade?”

“Only one kind of two-cent stamps are made, Miss.”

“Then I think I shall take one-cent ones. I like green better than such a bloody red. I am a Quaker, and it is too suggestive of war. Can you sell me six for five cents?”

“No, indeed, Miss, the price of stamps is fixed regularly.”

“Then I shall try elsewhere. Please don’t be offended. I will come back here if I can’t get them cheaper anywhere else.”

And still with the bargain-hunting air, the innocent-faced maid took her departure.

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“A man entered a downtown street car” (1906)

A man entered a downtown street car one day last week. The car was full, and he was obliged to hang onto the strap and ride in the midst of a crowd of good-looking girls, most of whom were either “would-bes” or “has-beens.” The conversation soon started in his direction, and in secret tone, just loud enough for him to hear, they discussed the new arrival.

“Hasn’t he the most lovely hair?” one of them exclaimed in a whisper that was halfway between awestruck and tender.

“It couldn’t be Nicholas Longworth, surely. No, I know it isn’t, for Longworth is baldheaded. He must be some great actor—or—politician,” said another.

“Oh, he is just my ideal,” put in a third. “For twen—no, I mean three long years I have sought just such a one, for such a one alone could I love and trust.” Young and innocent Jennie was evidently studying for the stage, and she continued: “He must be some great musician. What if he were Pa—”

But just here the car stopped, and as the patient-looking passenger prepared to get off, a frowzly head popped out the door of a tumbledown dwelling close by the track. The head was quickly followed by a red Mother Hubbard, and a shrill voice called in far from pleasant tones: “Git off o’ that car, and come on here an’ git a few o’ these kids still. You’ve loafed roun’ in them good clothes an’ flirted with girls on street cars enough for one day.”

And as the sad-faced passenger wearily left the car, a sigh escaped all the girls at once. Alas! the course of true love never did run smooth.

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The Modern Grandmother (1915)

The Boy: I stopped in to tell you that my grandmother—

The Boss: Well, I suppose your grandmother has passed away and is to be buried this afternoon about time for the game.

The Boy: Oh, no, sir! My grandmother is coming by to take me to the game, and I want to know if I can get off to go with her.

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The Opportunity and Peril of the Writer (1918)

We have grown accustomed to consider history as being made by the decrees of kings or by the power of invading and defending armies. These things are, however, only the instruments of the one really compelling social force. That force is the power of public opinion. History is made by those who direct and control it. This is the reason for the power of the pulpit, the platform, and the press. Of these three, the power of the press touches the largest number of people. The writer sends out an influence which reaches to the ends of the earth.

This fact points the way to a conception of both his opportunity and his peril. His opportunity is the direction of a power which not even kings can long dare to defy. His peril is that he may fail to direct it into the right channels. He may guide it in such a way that it can carry the race steadily toward a day of complete justice for all. On the other hand, he may listen to some lesser voice than that of truth, or seek some lower aim than that of right, and thus lead the thinking of the world astray. The opportunity is glorious and the peril is serious, because men will become what they think, and the world will conform to what they become. Thought life is fundamental.

In the midst of an age of war, the world is struggling for peace. The law of the jungle ceased to be the recognized principle of history, and war lost its standing as a means of obtaining justice because of the efforts of a man to guide public opinion by means of a book. No one could have conquered militarism with a sword in the old days, and it is doubtful whether it can be done now, but the strong silent force of enlightened opinion can do it.

The history of modern international law as a basis for the preservation of peace among nations really began with the publication in 1625 of a book entitled De Jure Belli et Pacis. It was written by a Dutch publicist by the name of Hugo Grotius. This book came from the press in the midst of the Thirty Years’ War, and it began a process of leavening the popular mind with the idea that justice can be obtained by peaceable means. The end of that process will yet be the complete triumph of international law over international strife. It was the pen of a writer which was used as the original instrument for the blazing of the path to an age of concord and fraternity.

The great literary need of the present day is for a man who can snatch the torch from the dead hand of Grotius and bear it a little farther. He will not receive high praise from the militaristic camp, but his efforts will be appreciated by those who really love their country enough to desire its preservation from the blasting blight of war. Some gifted pen will yet inoculate the popular mind with an ideal of peace and brotherhood which will make war forever impossible.

No one will ever be able to measure correctly the influence which the pamphlets of Thomas Payne had in the crystallization of the sentiment which held the early American patriots to their cause. The historians have not neglected, however, to give them large credit in their final reckonings. They provided a sort of mental artillery, making possible the work of the advancing sword of a Washington.

The break between the sections was healed with mortar which was mixed not only with the blood of the soldier, but also with the pen of the writer. The one thing lacking for years was the decision of the popular will to settle once for all the difficulty between the states. One day in June of 1851 there appeared in Gamaliel Bailey’s paper, The National Era, the first installment of a story entitled Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly. It was written in the spare time of the busy wife of a theological professor, and she herself did not take it very seriously at the time of its publication. The result was, however, that in less than a decade public opinion had crystallized, and the sections were ready for the test. The rest of the story needs no telling, but the memory of Harriet Beecher Stowe deserves to have it said that the history of America in that time of crisis was largely moulded by the hand that held the pen.

Several years ago a Federal investigation disclosed a highly unsanitary condition in the large packing plants of the country. The lack of sufficient pressure in the form of public opinion left Congress very slow to take definite action concerning it. Then Upton Sinclair’s story, The Jungle, came from the press. As soon as the public had read the book a great popular clamor went up, demanding that something be done. The result was a system of pure food rulings which has been very satisfactory and far-reaching in its results. A great industry was cleaned up, and the health and lives of thousands of people have been saved by the work of a wielder of the pen. The sword can only destroy, but the pen can do a better thing. It can save.

Germany has long recognized the power of the writer in the moulding of history. She has made a large use of it in her attempts to build the history of the future to suit herself. This is evidenced not only by the fact that she has flooded the world with mischievous and deceptive propaganda during the present war, but also by the fact that such was her policy long before the beginning of the war.

Nearly a decade ago a German professor published a book which emphasized the horrors of war. It was profusely illustrated with pictures of the bloody scenes of the battlefield and of the inevitable hardships of the military life. It was an evidence of an undercurrent which runs even in German thought, but which only the bolder few ever allow to go to the extent of public expression. The result of the publication of the book was the prompt suppression of it by the German government.

Shortly afterward another book dealing with the subject of war was published in Germany. It was written by the Crown Prince who is now fighting so anxiously for his own future. It likewise was highly illustrated, but its pictures emphasized the glories of war. They were of dress parades and the more pleasant aspects of the life of a soldier. The publication of this book received every encouragement the government could give it. It was, of course, an official expression of the militaristic policy of the government itself.

There is a sense in which literature mirrors life, but there is also another sense in which life mirrors literature. Social conditions and new historical epochs are always the outgrowth of the popular thought and spirit. One of the firmest hands upon the floodgates which control these things is that of the writer. He can produce an age of unrest or an age of calm contentment. He can make a period of faith or one of unbelief. He can mould an era of mortality or one of unrestraint.

It does not matter what is the form of his work. It does not even matter whether it is serious and pretentious. It affects the thought and, therefore, the life of the world. A printed jest once determined the result of a national election. A derisive term applied by the editor of an enemy paper once elected a man president. The recorded and unrecorded history of every age is full of just such instances.

The writer accepts a momentous responsibility. It is desirable to receive editorial checks, but his work means vastly more than that. The people will read what he writes; many of them will believe it; at least some of them will act upon it. It will travel to unsuspected places, and it will affect the lives of those whom he will never see either for weal or woe. His pen is an instrument of fate. It is highly essential that he use it with a careful hand and with an honest purpose. He dare not fail to be a mouthpiece of truth.

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The Message of the Washington Monument (1919)

A few minutes from the South Portico of the White House, overlooking the majestic sweep of the Potomac, stands the tallest piece of marble masonry in the world. It commemorates the life and deeds of the Father of His Country. At its foot is a good place to stand and think for a while, as I did one spring afternoon.

The architect who planned the Washington Monument could not have more fittingly characterized the man of whom it stands as a memorial. Every line of its vast form, stretching from the ground to more than six hundred feet above the level of the river, breathes the spirit of the statesman and soldier whose leadership is an essential part of our early history.

That long stretch of Maryland marble, capped with its apex of aluminum, does more, however, than to memorialize and interpret the character of Washington; it outlines the essential qualities of our people. They were well typified in Washington. They are, therefore, well typified in a monument which symbolizes his nature. It is at once a picture of their past and a prophecy of their future.

It combines simple plainness with rugged strength. One cannot look at it without thinking of the spirit of the pioneer. The picture of the pilgrims facing the dangers of an unknown wilderness, that of the embattled farmers at Concord, and that of the men who have borne the burdens of the Republic throughout the years each rises into view. We have had hard tests in the past. We are facing what may yet be harder ones in the future. No other spirit than that of simple, rugged Americanism could prove sufficient for either those past or those to come.

The strongest point of America has always been the spirit of her people. She has amassed a national wealth which has become a wonder to the world. She has built up a great army and a magnificent navy. She has gained a place in the councils of the great world powers. She has never reached a place, however, where she can afford to place such reliance upon any other power as upon that of the spirit and ideals of her people.

American guns were only an incident in the Revolution. They would have been failing weapons in the hands of many. They won their cause, however, because they were carried in the hands of men whose souls were throbbing with the power of a great conviction. They had the toughness, the courage, the bravery, and the nerve of the pioneer, but they had more than all these. They had the consciousness of a worthy cause. They knew they were fighting for all that was dear to them. They had homes to defend, a principle to vindicate, and a future to achieve. These things enabled them to show the world how men can fight when all that they are has been staked on the struggle.

We still need guns and armies, but we need never hope to graduate from the fundamental necessity for sturdy and courageous men. The kind of men who have been our salvation in the past and who are our hope for the future are always found where habits of plain and rugged simplicity prevail. However sophisticated our thinking may become, we need to ever cultivate the kind of physical frames which are developed by plain living and high thinking. Where Rome placed softness and self-indulgence we must always keep the simple and wholesome ideals which proved so mighty in the lives of our fathers.

Another thing to be noted about the Monument is the fact that it stands foursquare to all the winds. Its ideal of plainness decreed that it should be so. There are no tricky twists in its plan. Its architecture has no place for merely decorative turns. There is not a deceptive line nor a hint of anything superficial.

The habit of being real deserves a place among the chiefest of all virtues. No one ever gained anything by any measure of pretense and unreality. No nation ever bettered either itself or the world by any process of deception and sham. We can no more outgrow the necessity for truth and honor than we can outdistance that for plain living and high thinking.

In accordance with this long-standing characteristic, America is leading the world in its stand against shady intrigues and secret treaties. When that principle has been vindicated in the conduct of the nations we shall begin to be able to feel that Mars has been left behind the chariot of civilization forever.

Another thing to be noticed about the Monument is the fact that it reaches high but it is founded deeply. From just beneath its aluminum cap the ground seems very far away. From the base its apex seems to be pushing itself through the clouds and piercing the sky beyond them. It is a connecting link between earth and sky, between the common and the lofty, between the practical and the ideal.

Two people fail to get more than half the meaning and the joy of life. One is the star-gazer, so enraptured with his visions that he is blind to life’s practical realities. The other is the extreme realist, so fearful of the fanciful that he will not lift his eyes from the mud at his feet and take a look at the glories which hover about the hill of vision.

The American viewpoint is represented by neither alone. It is represented, rather, by a combination of both. As the Monument stands with its feet firmly planted in the clay, but with its top among the stars, the national spirit is best typified by the man who keeps his plans firmly fixed among practical things, but who also keeps his thinking at the high level of splendid dreams, worthy ideals, and inspiring visions.

We have achieved such marvelous progress as a nation largely because we have busied ourselves with real things. We have taken hold of things and conditions as we found them, and have made the best of them. We have been the better able to do so, however, because we have not forgotten the things of the unseen world about us. Our dealing with practical things has been blessed by the treasuring of spiritual ideals and the following of worthy dreams. Our place as a nation is largely the result of this union of hope and thing, this combination of dream and realization, this blending of the ideal and the practical.

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The Post-War Outlook for Literature (1919)

The true writer is a sort of social seismograph, sensitive to every change that takes place in the life of the race. Literature is, therefore, the record in which is told the story of social movements, the mirror which reflects the history of the ages. The peace and strife, the faith and unfaith, the love and the malice of all the past lives in the literature which it has produced.

The great war was preceded by a period of fermenting stagnation. It was a period of suppressed restlessness and hidden fears. The little eruptions on the surface of its seemingly placid literature bespoke the deeper feelings and hidden gropings of the time. At length the pent-up fury of things burst into a volcano of war.

The war produced a literature of its own. It ran like a golden thread through the vast mass of ordinary war propaganda. Most of the propaganda was of mere brain origin, but the real literature of the war was born in the depths of the tried souls of men.

One day I had occasion to mention to a friend the spiritual cost of the war. I remarked that in addition to all that the struggle had cost us in money, and even in blood, we had paid an unutterable price in the loss of brains that were born to think, souls that were made to dream, and lips that were fashioned to sing. She promptly replied that, while this was true, the war had awakened a great many minds to thoughtfulness, taught a multitude of souls the magic secret of weaving the fabric of dreams, and put a song into many lips that had hitherto been dumb.

She was right. Many singers and tellers of tales went down in the crash of things, but out of it came many others who had been reborn. The war has invigorated literature for a long while to come. We shall not soon see another stagnant age.

Having had a war literature, we now face the period in which is to be born a post-war literature. It is a common thought among people everywhere that during the years between 1914 and 1918 the elements melted with fervent heat. The old world has been done away, and all things are ready to be made new. The outlines of seas and continents are the same as before, but the viewpoint, outlook, and general consciousness of the race are totally changed. It could hardly seem more so if we had been bodily transported to another planet. The new age will express itself in a new literature—a reconstruction literature.

The literature of pre-war writers already seems to belong to a very remote time. Scott, and Thackeray, and Dickens will never lose their literary excellence, but the time has already come when their work seems to belong to another world. The fundamental principles of life have not changed, but our attitude toward life and our application of those principles have changed mightily. A broader interpretation of them is now a necessity. This service must be rendered by the pen of the writer.

Writers can now turn their attention from the production of propaganda and concern themselves more vitally with the real mission of the author. The world will warmly welcome, be it also said, a time when it may feel that the writer of its reading matter had no axe to grind in the writing.

The German Empire offered an instance of the sad extent to which the pen can be prostituted for propaganda. Education, Science, Philosophy, and Literature were all made to serve the selfish ends of a party struggling to build a super-state upon a foundation of self-interest. At such a time, the soul of greatness dies from any land. Those who usher in such periods dig the grave of pure literature by the purchase of its makers.

The wielder of the pen is now able to face the problems of life and deal with the principles of truth with an open mind. This has not been true with most since the war began. The weakness of human nature overcame many minds which before the war had manifested commendable poise and evident sincerity. In Germany and in almost every other country as well, erstwhile careful thinkers seemed to cast to the winds all the calmness of reason and temper of soul they had ever possessed. There was a perfect Babel of efforts to prove that all the right was on one side and all the wrong on the other. Butchers were whitewashed into angels, and champions of justice were caricatured into buffoons by pens which were supposed to be dedicated to the telling of the truth.

During the year 1916, a German anthropologist published an article in which he proved, to his own satisfaction, that to be a Frenchman necessarily meant to be a moral degenerate. During the same year, a French anthropologist proved, with equal fervor and with equal satisfaction to himself, that to be a German necessarily meant to be a criminal lunatic. So long as such conceptions prevail in the minds of thinkers and investigators, there can be neither literature nor science of any dependable sort.

It may be some time before the squint of prejudice is entirely removed from the thinking of the various peoples involved in the war. Gradually, however, it must necessarily relax from its violence. Thinkers should now do their best to work with only truth for a standard. The saner our reconstruction writings prove, the more potent they will be. Nothing but truth can ultimately prevail.

While the war, as is always the case with wars, has caused much violent prejudice, and has led many talented people to defend a cause in forgetfulness of truth, it has at the same time performed one great service to literature. It has served to bring the work of writers on the various subjects down from the ethereal heights of mystical theory to the solid levels of plain thinking and everyday living.

In order to produce the materials and solve the problems necessary to the winning of the war, Science was obliged to turn its work into the most practical channels. No thoughtful person will insinuate that Science is useless since it has helped us in so many ways to save the day in a great national emergency. The completeness of the abandon with which scientific investigators and writers gave themselves to war problems is evidenced by the fact that at the 1917 meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, almost every address dealt with some problem incident to the war and the needs of the nation.

The trends in Philosophy and Theology were alike profoundly affected by the wartime spirit. In no single year of the past have these two departments of thought made such progress in their efforts to get down where men live and to deal with the problems which are real to people as they have made during either of the past two years. As a result, they are more intelligible, more helpful, and more widely adapted for vital use. Imaginary problems and arbitrary arguments have been largely laid aside. The literature of these least tangible subjects has come to deal with them in the most tangible way. It considers more and more the problems of everyday life and work.

There has been sown into the literature of the various nations a certain moral and spiritual element which is very indicative of the trend of human thought and desire. An unusual number of dramas, for instance, are dealing with moral and spiritual themes and principles. The situations with which the war brought men face to face caused some of life’s great questions to demand an answer. People who had long put those questions aside came to face them squarely. Out of our late experience, probably most people came with some intelligible attitude toward the supreme questions related to living and dying. Neither are we any longer afraid to face them either in books or upon the stage.

The literature of the new age may not be reflective, but it will be vital. The prophet of truth never faced such an opportunity as now.

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Free Verse (1921)

We generally think of free verse as being a modern literary creation. Such is not really the case. That form of free verse which is now most in vogue, namely the form commonly called polyphonic verse, may be a comparatively new thing. At least it has been commonly familiar only during the last few years. The fundamental form of which it is but a variation is quite an old one.

Walt Whitman was a writer of a form of free verse in a literary generation now vanished. His “Blades of Grass” was the most unconventional thing done either in his period or those prior to it. This verse varies from our polyphonic prose of the present time, yet the spirit and general form are much the same. Whitman’s work awakened an abundance of discussion and criticism in his day. It survives because he had a message, and compared with the message of a poem, its form is only an incidental thing.

The blank verse forms, which are as venerable as they are familiar in our literature, are variations of the same general poetic pattern. As a rule, the most conservative of us are fond of holding up Shakespeare as a literary model for the centuries. We seem to have been about right in our estimate of him too, for his work certainly has evidenced a remarkable measure of immortality.

Yet the great body of the work of Shakespeare was of the unconventional type. It differed, of course, from the free verse of today, yet it was a forerunner of what is now being produced. Shakespeare contributed largely toward giving blank verse a lasting good name. He ventured to pay little attention to rhyme in an age when England was a nest of singing birds, and most of them were singing in rhymes and stanzas. He preserved his rhythm, it is true, but our modern free verse does that also.

It has a still older pedigree than Shakespeare. It appears in the earliest beginnings of the poetry of the English and of still more ancient peoples. The literature of the Hindus and Semites is full of it. From the earliest snatches of song recorded in the sacred writings of the Hebrews, the Bible has a wealth of poetry which suggests the modern form. Moses, David, and Solomon all used it. The Magnificat of Mary and the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon are both worthy of an honorable place in a modern magazine of free verse.

Rhythmic prose is, then, quite an ancient literary institution. It appears in two distinct grades and types. One is the simple, childlike, elemental form which marks the early stages of the life of a people. The other is the more polished form which represents the later period of culture.

The first is found in the early lore of most races, savage or semi-civilized. The American Indian had an abundance of it. The beginnings of the poetry of what are now the most civilized races also include a great deal of it. It represents that time in the life of a people when human feelings burst spontaneously into song. In such an age practically everyone is a singer, though not everyone can fashion fancy rhymes and stanzas.

Of the second form, we have abundant examples in our large and growing store of fine poetical work. We have simply swung back toward the freer forms which gave opportunity for the expression of the feelings of our earlier forefathers. We may have done so because we had feelings to express that seemed to demand such forms. We may have done so simply for the sake of variety. At any rate, we have done so.

This fact does not argue that any violence has been done to the quality of our poetic output. The present movement has simply changed the favored poetic form, for the time being at least. It may be that we have gone backward in some other things, but there is little to indicate that we have done so in relation to our poetry. The general run of American poetry today is of a very high order. Generally speaking, poetic art in America stands today at its highest level thus far.

The rhyme and the stanza belong to the period of highly studied form. They are ornamental, and, like fine lace, the weaving of them calls for great skill if it is to be well done. They often express commanding thoughts and emotions, but the outstanding thing about them is their form. Of course, if their form were their only value they would still be worth while. We cannot get on without beauty. It is true, however, that in the case of formal rhymed verse, the thought and message cannot so easily be at their best. Thought must often be limited and truth stilted by the necessities of form.

The free verse form offers an opportunity for the poet to break largely away from these narrowing limitations. It has been said that the prose writer is master of his materials while the poet is the slave of his style. Many a versifier has unintentionally fallen into a vein of grandiose expression which could hold little of sincerity and truth.

The intermingling of prose and verse qualities which we find in free verse makes it possible for the poet to be true to the finer shades of his message and its meaning. He is not bound by any fixed necessities of rhyme and meter. This probably accounts for the fact that we have seen expressed in this form the most rugged sentiments and, at the same time, the most delicate shading of artistry.

I once enjoyed a conversation with the late James Whitcomb Riley, wherein he spoke of the desirability of naturalness in poetry.

“Poetry should not sound stilted and constrained,” he said, “but natural and sincere. It should run along the same even and normal course that a high grade of every-day conversation does. One should not say, ‛the rippling brook along.’ He should say, ‘along the rippling brook.’”

One may notice in Mr. Riley’s work that the best of the poems he wrote during the period of his most serious work have just this quality. Consequently, they are rather free in their form. He does not break entirely away from rhyme and meter, but he does make them secondary.

This kind of work seems to hold its place longest. Probably the reason is that the message and not the form is the immortal part. Out of the past we have preserved a few high-sounding poems for their lilt and rhythm, but they are few and probably will be long outlived by others sounding a more genuine note. If anything of their kind was produced in the days of Moses or David, it has long since perished. Yet the great sentiments that swelled from the souls of these men and burst from their lips are still treasured among us. After all, it does not seem to be to the advantage of the poet to be abjectly the slave of his style. He seems to be all the better remembered when he is the master of his materials.

Some have the idea that free verse belongs in the same category with jazz music and cubist art, but it is not so. Free verse is no oddity. It is one of the best outlets poetry can ever offer for the expression of the moods and thoughts of the human soul. It is not the only form of poetry we should cultivate and preserve, but it is one that will have a real place in the great future of letters.

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Music and History (1921)

It is often said that a nation’s life is mirrored in its literature. This is necessarily true because it is the mission of literature to express life. Even if such were not its purpose, the spirit of an age would naturally find its way into the writings of the period. Literature cannot but be a true reflection of the age which produces it.

The same is true of music in an approximate, if not an equal, degree. It also mirrors the life of the age from which it springs. Literature is a word picture of the life of its time. Music is a tone picture of the same thing.

A musical composition images the state of someone’s soul at a given moment. That condition of soul is a part of the great composite which we call the spirit of the times. It might about as well be called the personality of the age. It largely determines the thought, motive, and action of the period. It is the chief factor in the making of history. When one sees it spread out before him, he can almost write from it the story of the period represented. The issues of life have always proceeded from the heart, and the heart of any age expresses itself in its musical productions.

The great general types of music are all representative of either phases of human life or periods in its history. The age of great passions and majestic emotions produced the symphony. The day of calm devotion and religious faith gave us the oratorio and the hymn. The time of quiet ways and simple joys contributed the pastorale. The age of love brought us the lyric and the ballad.

These types of music we still have with us, for music is a permanent record. As we have them today, they tell us what the people of other ages have thought, felt, hoped, joyed, and suffered. We are now as busily engaged in building up a musical record of our times as they were in the making of a volume of work by which others might know their story when they were gone.

The Elizabethan period is outstanding in the history of English literature for the quantity and quality of the lyric verse which it produced. It has been said with entire truthfulness that during that period England was a veritable nest of singing birds. Among those who helped to produce that volume of song are William Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, and Christopher Marlowe. Thus far, the work done by the poets and singers of that period has successfully met all the tests of immortality. It is both read and sung throughout the English-speaking world.

The reason for the outstanding quality of the songs of that period is simply the fact that it was an amorous age in England. Love is the great inspirer of this type of poetry and song. Love is an elemental instinct, and rhyme and rhythm are the elemental ways of expressing things. Therefore, love finds its most suitable expression in lyric verse. Lovers must sing. If their suit is successful, their song is gay. If it meets with temporary or permanent disappointment, their song is grave. In either case, they must sing. Whenever the day of the lover comes in any day or time, and it always does come, the period during which he reigns will be an age of song.

After reading or hearing the songs of the Elizabethan period in England, there is little in the history of the times that needs to occasion surprise to one. The writers of that period were simply representative of their time. Therefore, they expressed its spirit in their singing. The soul of the England of their time breathes in their verse.

We have developed our distinct types of music in America. Each of these is also representative either of a period in our history or an element in our national spirit.

It was in the stirring days of the revolutionary period that the American spirit was fully awakened. That consciousness naturally found expression in a type of song. It was such songs as “Yankee Doodle” that gave it voice. In the heat and fervor of our next great war was born the majestic national anthem to which the recent trials have given a new meaning.

The fraternal strife of the Civil War naturally required two sets of songs to express its spirit. The North sang its courage up with “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the Boys are Marching,” “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” and “Marching Through Georgia.” At the same time, the soul of the South was speaking in the words and music of such songs as “Dixie,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” and “Maryland, My Maryland.”

The Spanish-American War and the World War just ended each brought its contribution of song to the lore of our times. Those who come after us will long be able to recall the spirit of these two periods by singing their songs again.

We have also had our lyric age in America. The quality of its output does not even suggest comparison with that of the Elizabethan work, but we have had it. The crude backwoodsmen who occupied the stage during the earlier days of our wilderness life were normal people. They not only had their loves, hopes, joys, and sorrows, but they also sang about them. The result was often pitifully sentimental, but it was sincere.

Down to a recent time, there was more militarism in the American spirit than most people realized. We had a goodly supply of the courage of battle left over from our several wars and their corresponding victories. America found expression for that spirit in the work of such men as John Philip Sousa, and others of similar, though less widely recognized talent. For a long while, the sound of the stately march has served as an outlet for our patriotic feelings. We now share the general decline in militaristic feeling, but the march will remain. If war dies from the earth, as so many fondly hope it will, our stirring marches will still be treasured as tone pictures of the days that were.

Particularly is the folk song a page from the history of a people. One might gather more of the spirit of the old South from hearing a collection of its songs than from the reading of many pages of its story. The same would be true of any section of any land.

Ragtime and Jazz represent two successive steps in the development of the recent world spirit. It was a spirit of nervousness and restlessness, a spirit willing to go to any length for the sake of novelty and action. It helped to make the world war possible and is still keeping the planet in a turmoil of restlessness and dissatisfaction. Jazz has been defined as animalism expressed in tone. It might also be called the anarchy of music.

There are those who hope for a calmer day in the world’s temper and feeling. When that time comes, its spirit will express itself in a renewal of dignified and stately music. We may assume this to be true because the thought and action of any age, whatever its spirit, is traced upon the long scroll of time in the form of a golden thread of song.

We have noted only the products of the lesser musical ability of America. To fail to call attention to the fortunate exceptions would be to fail to do justice to the better culture and taste of our country. The fact that we have had some real masters is one not to be overlooked. Our Cadmans and MacDowells bear testimony to the fact that our faces are forward. There is a spirit of culture in America, and it has found expression in some of the finer and more enduring forms of musical composition. It has obstacles to surmount, but it makes progress. America has a national future. It follows that she has a musical future. The one vouchsafes the other. The other expresses the one.

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Correspondence (1929)

Two important influences go out from an office. One is that of the representatives who make outside personal contacts. The other is the stream of correspondence that issues forth into the outside world. The second is no less important than the first.

As good correspondence is an art, so a good correspondent is an artist. He is not easy to find. It is as surprising as it is regrettable how few people have taken the trouble really to master the use of the English language. One can more easily find a master of mechanics than a master of words any time. Yet each person owes it not only to his language but to himself to know how to use his native tongue correctly and effectively.

In all writing, and especially in writing letters upon which great interests turn, two things are important. One is to say the right thing. The other is not to say the wrong one.

The president of a great bank once said to me: “I write my own advertisements and dictate my own letters, not necessarily because I know better than anyone else what to say, but rather because I probably do know better than anyone else what not to say.”

The other day I saw a series of collection letters supposed to have been prepared by an expert. They were verbose and flowery. They were supposed to be seasonal—something about which both collector and collectee care exactly nothing. They had a jollying and blarneying tone which is always nauseating. The clear, courteous, definite letter is the one that wins.

I once saw an irate letter that came to the director of a money-raising project for a philanthropic interest. It told him plainly that the writer objected to the whole scheme, and would consider it an insult to be asked for a subscription. A secretary answered the letter patiently, courteously, and explainingly, but without asking for a subscription. Return mail brought a letter from the erstwhile objector enclosing a subscription for fifty dollars. The right kind of correspondence will contribute largely toward the success of any business.

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The Sabbath Desecration (1910)

We are sometimes accustomed to make rather gloomy comparisons between our days and those of our fathers. The ground for our doing so is oftener grounded in sentiment than fact, and yet there are some differences which are deplorable. This is especially true with reference to the observance of the precepts laid down in our religious teachings. We feel painfully lacking when we reflect upon the sturdy faith of the pioneers who blazed the way not only for our economic but also for our religious advancement. Perhaps nowhere do we feel that there is more discouraging contrast than in the matter of Sabbath observance. A little girl in one of our large cities heard the minister say in his sermon, one Sunday, that in heaven every day would be like Sunday. She told her mother, upon arriving home, that she expected to find heaven a grand place, for if every day were to be like Sunday, then the ceaseless round of theaters, cards, and ball games would certainly be delightful. Between this conception of the Sabbath Day and that of the stern Puritan who refused to allow his children to play and be happy on Sunday, there lies a long distance. Both are extreme views and neither could be said to be altogether desirable, but if American life continues in its present direction, the one may become as real as the other once was. We do not want our Sabbath Day to be a season of agonizing gloom and long faces. Nothing could be farther from the apparent attitude of Jesus toward it. Neither do we want it to be a day of selfish pleasure and frivolity. But we do want it to be a day of meditation, prayer, and quiet service. To keep the day holy does not necessarily imply absolute passivity, but in a Christian land, the Sabbath Day should be a day of rest. And yet the doors of many business houses are wide open; petty amusements reap a harvest of small coin, theatrical performances are given, and often the authorities fail to close even the saloons. Not only must we face these facts, but also that many so called Christians fail in very questionable ways to keep the day sacred. We may well ask whence this great difference between our age and that of the preceding generation. We are so justified by the fact that every effect has a cause.

The tempter has many ways of accomplishing his purposes. He can not only quote to his purpose, but he can also utilize the social forces to his own advantage. Where such a force is the cause of men doing that which they should not do, we can best do the work of our Lord by fighting the force and not the act. We can not kill the dragon by cutting off the heads; we must strike at the life-giving root of the evil.

One reason why the Sabbath is less a day of rest than formerly is probably to be found in the fact that this is more an age of idleness than was the former one. Our fathers appreciated and observed their day of rest because they could not help but feel their need of it. They worked hard in the woods or fields from the early morning till late at night, and moreover, their work was of such a muscular nature that their evenings and Sundays found them both weary in body and hungry in mind. The Sunday rest would relieve the one, and attendance upon Sunday services would satisfy the other. Thus, it was apparently to their own advantage to live the day unto the Lord. Not only this, but the father did not toil out his days to maintain his sons and daughters in lives of idleness and profligacy. Every member of the family had his or her share in the work of making ends meet. Thus, the whole family found itself weary enough to be ready for rest and prayer on the Sabbath. It is but natural that one who loafs the week away or goes on a continual round of pleasure-seeking should fail to realize any need for rest and relaxation on Sunday. They are the people who are usually found complaining that the preachers and Christians want to make a man sit still all day Sunday and do nothing. The argument that laboring men want ball games and other amusements to occupy themselves on Sunday is fallacious. If they work on week days as they ought to work, they will not be found complaining of too much rest on Sunday. Then, in this case, it is not so much against Sabbath desecration as it is against idleness that we need wage our war. If we can remove the cause, its effects must disappear. A sermon on honest week-day labor is really a sermon on Sabbath observance.

But all Sabbath breakers are not idlers. Some of them work as steadily as the sturdy pioneer ever worked. But the occupation is of a different nature. Where our fathers toiled with their hands, men now toil with their brains. Our fathers wore out their bodies, while men now shatter their nervous systems. Tired limbs induce rest, while weary minds and unstrung nerves only hinder it. It is easy when evening comes to let go of the ax or the plow, but it is not so easy to forget the knotty business problem or perplexing professional difficulty. The need of such toilers is recreation. We need to get such men to take down the almighty dollar from its place as their guiding star and hang the higher and better things of life in its place. In this case, a sermon against the “ambition which o’erleaps itself” is a sermon against Sabbath desecration.

The two facts mentioned above as causes of Sabbath breaking contribute to making this an extremely nervous age. Humanity is restless. It wants to be about doing something, and it seems not to know just where to direct its efforts. People seem to be afraid of themselves, and hence the quiet chamber and closet of secret prayer is often unappreciated. If we chance to feel a serious thought coming upon us, we get afraid, and at once seek the crowd for fear that it may mature in our minds. We forget that great visions must be seen in solitude and then carried out among the crowd. Our lonely Sinais must precede our deeds of leadership. Every Calvary is preceded by its Gethsemane, and quietness and solitude are not to be despised. We need to learn the lesson of Isaiah, “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength; in returning and rest shall ye be saved.” Only small minds are always tossing upon a sea of restlessness. Great lives know how to be tranquil. Such hearts know how to keep the Sabbath holy. Thus, when we preach and work against restlessness, feverishness, and worry, we preach and work against Sabbath desecration.

If we can but induce men to so toil that they will become body-weary and soul-hungry, we shall not only further God’s creative plan, but we shall also help humanity to really understand the worth of a Sabbath Day of rest. The anxious nervousness of the masses and the cupidity of enterprising amusement promoters spring to meet each other as by magnetic attraction. When the masses learn to love the quiet of the home and sanctuary and no longer so persistently seek that which does not satisfy their nameless and misunderstood hunger, then such cupidity will no longer be sustained and encouraged. When we learn the habits of health, and life, and work that helped to make our fathers strong, then shall we have back again the faithful observance of the holy Sabbath Day that helped to make our fathers good.

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The Light (1915)

The bringing into existence of light had an early and important place in the creation of the universe. It has held an important place in all the age-long continuance of the creative process which has been going on ever since that early day—so much so that it has marked the Creator as essentially a God of light, neither in whom nor in whose purposes is there any darkness at all.

In the different realms of life, light must take different forms. In the physical universe, it takes the form of the illuminating ray that makes daylight out of darkness. In the life of man, it takes the form of the knowledge of the truth which makes him free. Wherever the influence of God goes, it carries with it the illuminating agency of schools, teachers, and books. No land remains ignorant under the sway of the gospel. The Christianization of a land is simply the carrying of the creative process on into new realms of life, and early in every such creative process is heard the majestic edict: “Let there be light.” The answer to the edict is ever the same: “And there was light.”

God permitted darkness as a stage in creation, but never as a permanent condition. He may permit the darkness of ignorance or sin or both—for they go hand in hand—in a life as a stage in its development. But wherever a continuance of the conditions is insisted upon a day longer than necessity requires, the results must be disastrous.

There is a certain life-giving strength in light. There is a wide difference between the pale and twisted plant that grows under a board in the garden and the plant from the same parent that has had the good fortune to grow in the sunlight. Much the same difference may be observed in the case of two lives between which there has been a similar difference.

There is nothing in the purpose or the kingdom of God that needs fear the light. What will not stand the light is not of His designing. The best that His gospel and His power can ask is to be investigated and tested. There need be no fear of what will happen when all men investigate for themselves.

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The Yoke (1915)

There seems to exist a general misconception of the purpose of a yoke. Because of it the command of Jesus to accept and wear His yoke is often much more dreadful than there is reason that it should be. We often fail to catch or refuse to believe the added assurance that “the yoke is easy.” This assurance is true both in figure and fact.

Anyone who has been personally familiar with the working of oxen under the yoke is sure to understand that the yoke is used not to increase the burden they bear, but to furnish them with a means of bearing the burden they already have.

A yoke does not demand the use of more energy than would otherwise be called into play. The beast of burden would expend the same amount of energy in a day’s time. If that strength were not expended in the performance of a useful task it would be wasted. The yoke concentrates the energy at command to the performance of a task worth while. The burden-bearer is no wearier, neither has it borne any greater burden. It has only borne the same burden with greater ease and to better purpose.

Laziness is often a harder taskmaster than industry, and sin is always a harder taskmaster than righteousness. Each life will, in the course of its passage through the world, exert itself to just about the same degree, whether it works or plays. Nature and life are sure to lay upon it some burdens to bear, and it must bear them whether it is willing or not. Whether the life takes its mission seriously or frivolously, the amount of energy expended will be about the same. However, the life has its choice between finding that expenditure difficult or easy, useful or useless.

For, early in its days, the Yoke Giver comes to it and offers His yoke as a means of bearing its burden more easily and usefully. It is pitiable how often the offer is misconstrued as an attempt to increase the burden when it really amounts to an offer to help in carrying it.

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The Crowded Inn (1916)

If I were to try to paint a picture of that night in Bethlehem, there is one thing I would be sure not to omit.

I would paint the rifted sky, opened to release the mingled praise of angels. I would depict the shepherds, listening in their wonder.

I would hang the wondrous star in its place in the sky—heaven’s sign of hope to a broken world. The peaceful village, the lowly manger, the quiet cattle in their stalls—all these should have a place.

But somewhere in the distance I would set the inn with its lighted windows, its gayety within, and its crowded space—a house with a closed door, a place with room for all except the family of an artisan who was to be trusted with the rearing of a King.

Through the centuries this has been a most tragic story. It has been the most tragic because it has represented the most widespread condition. It has been the saddest because it has been the least realized.

Some have tried to drive the King from the world with violence, but no violence has even been able to match the strong, sweet, silent influence which pervaded His life and which He set adrift in the world, and which, in spite of opposition, grows from more to more.

The violence which sought His annihilation only aided Him in the fulfillment of His mission. There need be no fear of those who go out with swords and staves against Him.

There have been those, too, who have tried to banish Him from the world by persecution. They, too, have failed. Faith was never stronger nor did ever more immovable convictions burn in the hearts of His people than when they fled from the hand of persecution or perished for the faith before the eyes of scoffers.

From the Israelite down, the people of God have thrived on persecution. The real problems of Christianity arose after, and not before, the Roman state became its ally. Better far had been the bread of bitterness which they had eaten than the reduction to a system and a tool which they then suffered. The persecutor only speeds the day of the King’s dominion.

There have been those who have tried to drive Him from the world by argument. This, likewise, has been of no avail. Atheism, agnosticism, and skepticism all fail before the living fact of the power of His presence in the world.

One clear case of regeneration or one well-defined overruling of providence is sufficient to dispose of every argument of mere premise and conclusion which can be constructed against Him. The only argument against Him is an unfaithful follower, and that is refuted by a follower who is true.

For Him the sword has no terrors. He never will flee persecution. There is no danger that He will ever be driven out. If there is any danger for Him today, it is that He be crowded out.

There is one thing and one thing only which can defeat His purpose. That is the unwelcoming life, the closed heart, the master of the inn who says, “No room.”

Let us not blame the innkeeper of the long ago. He did [not] know whom he was turning from his doors. He did not act in the light which twenty intervening centuries have given us. He was simply an innkeeper to whom business was business, and whose preference was naturally for the richest guests. Let us be moderate in our censure of him. Let us turn to the present. Let us find whether the doors of the throne rooms of our own hearts are open.

Not many say they hate the Master or His Kingdom. Not many say they do not believe in Him. Not many are disposed to persecute. Not many even care to argue. But many say, “I haven’t time.”

Lose what else we may in this busy time, we must find a place for Him and His words and His ways. A good watchword for this day of opportunity might be: “Make room for Jesus!”

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The Price of Liberty (1916)

On the old battlefield of Sempach, where in 1386 the Swiss won a notable victory over the Austrians, there stands a monument of recognition to Arnold von Winkelried, a Swiss peasant, who on the day of that battle gave his life as the price of victory for his country.

The Austrians were massed together with presented spears—“A living wall, a human wood.” There was only one hope of breaking through the armed line and that was for some one to dash against the phalanx and make an opening—at the cost of his life. Suddenly there was a cry: “Make way for liberty,” and Arnold von Winkelried rushed forward, gathering an armful of Austrian lances into his own breast, but opening a breach through which his comrades poured themselves against their foes.

The Swiss marched to victory that day, but it was over the dead body of a man who loved them and their cause even unto death, a man who was moved by the love which lays down its life for its friends.

There is another spot—a place unmarked by any monument—where earth’s supremest hero yielded up His life to make way for the liberty of His people. He gathered the wrath and the sting of a great world’s sin into His own heart, and led the way where others dared not tread.

In the hour that Jesus died, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the breach was made through which every man might make his way to the feet of his God and to the glory of the eternities. The tragedy of Calvary opened up the way to liberty—the liberty of the truth, the liberty of pardon, the liberty of eternal life.

So through the ages His people have been marching to the supreme hour of joy in forgiveness and assurance, to success in the conquests of righteousness, and through the gates of glory at the last. Each step of the way they have found full of joy. But it has all been over the dead body of one whose love was too great to know a fear, and whose devotion was unfailing even in the hour of supreme agony.

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Paul’s Ideal Sufficient (1918)

It is as easy as it is dangerous for those of us who have upon our hearts a work of reform to become victims of fads. When new principles, directly or indirectly related to religious work, are discovered and announced, it is not difficult for our appreciation of their worth to become so enthusiastic as to eclipse everything else in our system of reform with an overdeveloped sense of their importance.

They usually are important as having bearing upon the great problem we work to solve. The world, however, is apt to wonder if we know just what we are about when we lay one fad aside for another, just as we had laid earlier fads aside for the one, and it does not always place the most liberal construction upon our enthusiasm.

As a way out, we should properly appreciate and use each new discovery which has bearing upon our task. We should not, however, allow it to assume the proportions of a fad so far as we are concerned. Our attitude toward our ideal and its realization must be broad enough to take in more than one side of it at once.

So far as the Church and its task is concerned it will be found that the ideal Paul had for it is not likely to receive a successful addition. Each social institution has one task to perform, and it will be found to be unable to perform more than that one task well. We have agencies for the various forms of service to society. Not one of the others, however, approaches closely the field which the Church was designed to fill. Its ministry is purely spiritual and when it leaves that field and takes its stand in any other it is not only overlapping upon the work of other social agencies, but it is leaving undone a work which there is no other agency to do.

In other words, the Church will probably not be able to define a higher mission for itself than that expressed in one of the letters to Timothy—a pillar and ground of the truth—a stay and foundation of that which is everlasting.

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The Religion of the New Age (1919)

The world is being torn down like an outworn and antiquated structure. When the work of wrecking it is completed, it will be built over. The result will be a world the builders of which will have tried to profit by the mistakes and experiences of the ages. A Bible prophecy heralds a new heaven and a new earth. The postbellum reconstruction period will help to realize at least the latter part of that hope.

It is already apparent that religion will share in the general readjustment. The war has stimulated the world’s thinking. It has seen, as it did not take time to see in the old days, the needs in the religious field. Any reform is rapid when men once get to thinking. The case is hopeless so long as apathy and lethargy prevail.

We probably need not look for any revolutionary change in the fundamentals of religion. These do not change. Being rooted and grounded in the truth, they are fixed and permanent. It is not with either the substance or the mission of religion that the difficulty lies.

The difficulty lies at the points of interpretation and application. It is possible for these to advance with growing knowledge, and the new world will unquestionably see to it that they do so. The earth has always been round, and it will remain round as long as it exists. Men have not, however, always understood the fact of its roundness. There was a time when geographical authority insisted that it was flat. Then there came a time when better knowledge existed. The fact had not changed in the least. Only human interpretation had undergone progress. The facts of religion can not change, but humanity can achieve progress in rightly interpreting them and in rightly adapting itself to them.

It need not be supposed, either, that the religion of the new age will be a denatured one. It bids fair, on the contrary, to be a positive and vital one. It will probably be less and less the fashion to parade moral laxity under the false banners of liberal thinking. The coming period will not be superficial. It will need a religion of power and significance. It will try religious principles to the limit, and if such a religion can not be had, it will have none at all. Fortunately, a definite and positive faith can be had. The people who are really living want a religion which is more than a fashion or a convenience. It must include a working program which means something and is not too easy.

The new religion will be composite, because it will be unified. Only in the reactionary centers is any real difference now apparent between Protestant Christian bodies. Now, under the unifying influence of a great common cause, Protestant, Catholic, and Jew are combining forces for the religious good of the soldier. That unity will probably increase and continue.

Most carefully thinking people stand together on the things which are really vital. All understand that no ecclesiastical body can possess a monopoly of the truth. We go on and work faithfully, each for his own church household, but we all understand that both good and bad and both truth and error dwell in each of our many camps.

All the world has been searching for the same God. Different peoples have called the Deity by different names and sought him in different ways. It is not the name or the method, but the spirit and motive that count most. Various peoples have reached various stages in their search. Probably all will, sooner or later, find the world’s one perfect image of the divine Father in Jesus. We must be patient, however, with those who are only on the way. In the finished faith, the chaff of all the world’s beliefs will have been cast away, and the abiding in them all will remain. There is nothing in the spirit of the cross to violate that which is good in any of them.

The new religion will be a religion of practical standards. It will find its expression in terms that men know about, and its form will be one which can really be adapted to the needs of everyday living. The tendency in this day of human problems is to bring each line of human thought and investigation down to earth. It is with religion just as with science or philosophy. The demand is that it shall be practical in all its standards and methods.

The world has not found the theology born upon a study table sufficient. The cry is for a theology based wholly upon the facts of life. Truth does not always follow the processes of formal logic. The tests of faith are not to be found in the syllogism but in life’s great laboratory. The authority of the great Teacher came largely from his fixed habit of talking about real things in practical terms. His only theology was life. In conforming our religion more and more to this principle, we shall not be getting away from Jesus. We shall rather be getting back to him.

The new religion will be a socialized religion. In this, it will but bear the fruit of agitation which has already been going on for years. Religion can not be worth while without a definite object. Its object is not the appeasing of an arbitrary Deity. It is rather to bring the touch of a tender Father’s grace into the lives of his children. In other words, the object of religion is humanity. For the good of men are all laws established, all warnings issued, and all promises given.

The achieving of the present and future salvation of people demands not the successful performance of some mystical process of indoctrination. It calls for the actual application of religious principles in everyday thinking and action. It has not achieved its end until testimony to its power and blessing is borne by all social life and by every social institution. It is nothing until it has come to be expressed in terms of life. Without surrendering any of its hope in the promise of a world to come, the religion of the future will lay a larger emphasis upon the life of the world in which we dwell. More and more men are realizing that the only hope we can have of gaining any other world depends upon our treatment of this one. The path to heaven lies directly through the earth. Two attitudes toward this world can never fit in with a thoughtful and reasonable faith. One is the attitude that this is a world of selfish opportunity and sensuous pleasure, and that the highest object of life is the satisfaction of the flesh. The other is the attitude that this is only a vale of tears to be endured, despised, and neglected until such time as we can get out of it into a happier realm. This is a life of opportunity, to be lived out with full appreciation and emphasis upon the sweetness and the worth-whileness of each day and hour. Real religion will strive to make it more and not less beautiful.

The new religion will be one of optimism. It will understand that nothing is so easy as cynicism and nothing so cheap as the continual discounting of other people. It will find its strength not in emphasizing the badness of people, but in believing in them. After all these years, it will come to realize that Jesus saved by believing in sinners. Whoever follows in his footsteps will certainly have to learn to do the same. The human heart shrivels under accusation. It blossoms under the radiant influence of someone’s confidence. The new religion—an evolved form of the old—will count the roses and forget the thorns, and it will strive to emphasize the divinity in every man.

The new religion will be the old reduced to its simplest and most workable terms. God will be upon its throne. Jesus will stand as his perfect expression in the flesh. The cross will overshadow all. It will be a religion of service, for there is much to do. It will be a religion of sacrifice, for this is a needy world. Reasonably interpreted, the Bible will be its message. Its aim will be to bring out the divinity implanted in all things, and its test will be its product.

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Christianity and Americanism (1920)

Religion plays an important part in the making of any nation. The spirit of faith and the spirit of patriotism seem to have a genuine affinity for each other. The national hope of Israel was born in the heart of a man whose name has been handed down as that of the father of the faithful. It was finally realized under the leadership of a man chosen of God as the mouthpiece through which the law was given. Long before nationality was an achieved fact, the love of God and the hope of a country were intermingled in the hearts of the sons of Jacob. This is probably a chief reason for the deathlessness of the race.

Through the fabric of American history, the Christian religion is woven like a golden thread. Many things have contributed to the glory of our past, but nothing else has contributed quite so much as has this fact. Many things enter into the making of our hope for the future, but this is the most important among them all.

The Pilgrims came seeking a spiritual refuge. It was on bent knees that they first greeted the country which they had chosen for their home. Their memory is perpetuated by a monument which stands near the place where they landed. It carries five symbolic figures, representative of Pilgrim qualities. It is appropriate that the central one among them is the figure of Faith. It was in the spirit of faith that they laid the foundations of American life in their section of the country.

What was true of the northern settlements was true of the southern ones as well. Practically everything that was a part of the old Jamestown settlement is gone. It is significant that one of the most abiding of the old landmarks at Jamestown was the ruins of an old church in which the colonists first lifted their voices in the praise of God.

Among the American people, the church and state have always been organically separate, but they have always been spiritually united. The state has guaranteed protection to the church. In return, the church has given moral and spiritual support to the state.

The state can well afford to maintain such an attitude. It has no other bulwark so strong as is the church. The perpetuity of the state depends most largely upon the very things for which the Christian religion stands. Among them are virtue, loyalty, and fraternity.

Statesmanship is a necessity in the activities of a nation, but it is not the fundamental necessity. Diplomatic shrewdness may often be helpful, but it is not a foundation upon which rests the existence of any country. Rich economic development, splendid cities, cultured citizenship—all these are things that enter into the highest grade of national life, but they are not the fundamental requirements of existence and strength. The hardy virtues that make good men are the foundation stones upon which any sound national life must be built.

This is true because it is from the people that the national life flows. It does not come from executive offices, legislative chambers, nor judicial tribunals. These are only instrumentalities in the carrying on of its affairs. Its essence depends upon the people who make the state. It roots in the places where they live and work. It is never any better nor any worse than they are. It is tempered to the home life, the industrial life, and the social life of the land. It is as good as human virtue makes it, or as bad as the lack of human virtue leaves it. It is, therefore, more largely dependent upon Christian agencies than upon any other one influence.

Without the Christian church, the land would never have had these qualities that make life sound and strong. Deprived of the Christian church, it would soon cease to have them. With their departure, the sanctity would die out of family relations, the spirit of mutual helpfulness would perish from community life, and citizenship would be deprived of the attitude of loyalty to flag, country, and law. While these virtues are maintained, the state stands strong and firm. When they decay, the state goes to pieces as a barrel falls to staves when the supporting hoops are removed.

This is sufficient to indicate that the state can hardly place too high a value upon the church, and that it cannot place too high a value upon the faith for which the church stands. A few words should be now said to the point that since the church and the faith have served the country so well in years gone by, they cannot afford to miss the present supreme opportunity to serve it.

America is passing through a great transition stage. No one can say just what the outcome is to be, but every one recognizes the presence of a national ferment which is certain to result in something positive in the not distant future. There is probably small ground for alarm. Ours is a nation of thoughtful people. Whatever they do in the end will be tempered with wise judgment. As it has been in other days, they will choose the wise course, and we shall only find ourselves better situated than before. The fact stands, however, that we are now in a transition period. The whole world is entering into a new period in its existence.

It is desirable that this new period shall be really an evolution of the old. The best of the past should survive, having added to it the best thought and talent the new age can furnish. Those revolutionary minds who think the new order will be some sudden substitution for an old one wrecked by the hand of annihilating violence are in the hopeless minority. Sound judgment will prevail, but a change is on the way. In fact it is already partially realized.

In such a time of social unrest and upheaval as this, it is easier than at other times to make blunders. Other lands have felt this fever before ours, and some of them at that time wrote pages into their history which they have spent all the years since wishing they could erase. Just now the popular mind needs in an unusual degree the steadying influence of a great faith. The Christian faith is sufficiently conservative to be careful, and sufficiently progressive to be fearless in the face of vision. It is, therefore, supremely adapted to meet the needs of the times.

The Christian Gospel is the great solvent of modern problems. The problems of the age are ethical and social. Fundamental to ethical and social problems are spiritual conditions. The Christian Gospel is an ethical and social message based on spiritual principles.

The Gospel should, therefore, be spread to-day with such an earnestness as its prophets have never known before. From pulpit, in Bible school, and by means of printed page, it should be given the freest possible course to the minds of men. It should certainly be made a more common topic of everyday conversation. Let no one think it is unwelcome. The human race realizes its present situation, and it is anxious to hear about anything that holds out any hope or promise. The world is strangely Gospel hungry at the present time. It is impatient of substitutes, but anxious for the real article.

In years past the forces of the Kingdom have been an incalculable support to the government. The church has carried the interests of the nation to the throne of grace. When necessary it has given men to defend the flag. The Bible and the flag have advanced together. It is safe to assume that in the present time the nation will find all the old-time help in the church and in the religion for which it stands.

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The Christian Program (1920)

Jesus loved to set forth the nature of the Kingdom in terms of growing things. He likened it to a grain of mustard seed which grew into a tree, and to a lump of leaven which leavened the whole of three measures of meal.

These are both apt pictures of the Kingdom and His plan for its growth. Its realization depends upon the germination and final fruition of the truth. It therefore depends upon the passing from one to another of its master secret.

The dream of Jesus was a pretentious one. It meant not only the conquest of the planet but the conquest of it at its most difficult point. In such a conquest guns and navies are helpless. A greater than a military program is necessary. Jesus chose the greatest of all plans—the passing of the message from lip to lip through the channels of everyday conversation. Under his plan, each person is charged to be a witness of what he knows.

The result of any problem in progression is startling. It is surprising how quickly a whole planet could be evangelized if the message grew in its sweep according to such a mathematical law. If each person who knows Jesus passed the knowledge of his experience on to two others, the outward rim of things could be touched in a little while. Such a plan is not only numerically adequate, but it is the only plan which is numerically adequate.

The Christian program tends to the making of more and better Christians because the plan of personal evangelism makes every believer an evangelist. One is a little more wholly committed to the gospel he has passed on to others. A philosophy of words is very apt to become a philosophy of life. The sense of being a witness has steadied many a trembling Christian to a new strength and resolution. Responsibility is a wonderful tonic.

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Contributed essay to a symposium on “The Church and Young People” (1920)

The status of the church in its relation to youth to-day is generally disappointing. Unless it is improved, the kingdom will become a victim of race suicide. In certain larger lines, the world seems to be advancing; in the simpler matters of personal ideals and moral standards, many people think it to be losing ground.

The origin of our problem is threefold. It comes, first, from a growing reign of carnality in the world—the seeking of wealth and pleasure at any cost. It comes, secondly, from the surrender of erstwhile righteous as well as indifferent homes to the notion that, since one is young but once, he should be encouraged to spoil the only youth he is to have. It comes, thirdly, from a condition in social institutions and community life which makes it difficult for one to live the better life without severing the social ties that bind him to others.

Young people cannot pass through the public schools of the average city without making a choice between being worldly and being wall flowers. It even seems that a young man cannot go through a great war for humanity without having the tobacco habit forced upon him as a part of a great propaganda for commercial purposes. Boys and girls can hardly attend a social function without seeing indecent attire and being invited to participate in things which deteriorate faith and ideals.

Our equipment for meeting the situation is generally inadequate. We have plenty of organization, but it is too general, too miscellaneous, and too much interested in funds and reports. We have too many young people’s organizations and too little life in any of them. This is a general trouble with Methodism. We would do better with one tenth of our present machinery and nine times more use of that one tenth.

Our program should probably cover the following points, all of which are old and simple: (1) A warm spiritual life and a high personal ideal for all. There are no exceptions for age or youth in the standards of the kingdom. (2) An emphasis on family faith and practice, with a revival of proper parental authority. If the children must rule, let the parents at least retain veto power in the interest of right living. (3) A program of community reconstruction which will ultimately make schools and other public institutions as respectful of the ideals of evangelical Christians as they now are of those of Jews and Roman Catholics. (4) Simple but effective organization for the recognition of the young people of the church as a normal social group and for their development along the lines indicated in the growth of Jesus—wisdom, stature, favor with God, and favor with man. There is no better program of training than that which includes mind, body, religious instinct, and social relationships.

Beyond this I see little that the church and its agencies can do. Nothing is to be gained by compromising with the mind of the flesh, which is death. We should get the right kind of attitude, organization, and equipment. We should use them at their best and then stand our ground. The right-minded will respond to nothing less than a Christian appeal. The wrong-minded we shall not win anyway—until a revolution has taken place in their point of view.

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The Message of an Empty Tomb (1920)

One Sunday morning twenty centuries ago a woman stood musing beside an empty grave. She had come there early in the morning to bring the tribute of a final service to a departed friend whose name was Jesus. He had died on a cross the preceding Friday. Being poor, his body had received the hospitality of a kind-hearted citizen of Arimathea.

The visitor at the grave of the Nazarene met with a surprising situation. She did not find things as she expected—if she really expected anything. Probably her thoughts were little more than vague impressions, and she was taking it for granted that the grave still claimed its own.

She did not find it so. The seal was broken; the door was open; and the former occupant was gone. The garden was silent, but not with the silence of the dead. Its stillness seemed rather to speak of life. It was like a battlefield upon which a great struggle has taken place, and a great principle vindicated. The very voicelessness seemed eloquent of victory.

Mary need not have been surprised. Jesus had often told his friends that such a thing would happen. His emphasis had never been upon dead people nor dead things. His life had been a message of life triumphant. He had even released others from the fetters of the grave.

The world has always had strange ways, however, of putting an indefinite construction upon the words of Jesus. Men often remark upon the wonder of them, but living the truth of them is quite another thing. People are willing to admit their beauty. Here and there are those who are even willing to admit their truth. They are not so many, however, who venture to take them for a life program.

The same old story was repeated in this case. The assurance of Jesus that the tomb should be but a temporary habitation had been listened to with respect, but it had not been really taken seriously. It had become a forgotten promise. Whether Mary disbelieved, or only failed to believe, she acted upon the assumption that Jesus was dead. Others had remained in their graves. She took it for granted that she would find him in his. She had not learned her right to expect marvelous things. She cannot be blamed much. She only did what most people do. To her credit it must be said that she learned that day that hers was not a dead, but a living Lord. It is to be hoped that others have learned as much.

The silences were eloquent, aided as they were by the shock of a great surprise. They spoke very clearly to Mary as she stood thoughtfully by the vacant tomb that morning. Indeed, they spoke so clearly that across all the intervening generations we can still hear some of the things they said.

They told her that life laughs at fetters. Whoever thinks to bind it with stones and seals plans the impossible. It is made for the universal spaces and for the everlasting years. The life of Jesus possessed altogether too much vitality to long remain hidden behind the stone walls of a sepulcher.

The world is strewn with graves. We have dug them in countless numbers, and departed generations made so many that the vast majority of them have long been forgotten. They are all as empty as was the tomb of Jesus that Sunday morning. We look at the earth and think of it as hiding those whom we have loved when we ought to look upward and think of them as in the keeping of another world. We look backward and think of their lives as belonging to the past when we ought to look onward and think of them as belonging to the boundless future.

The silences of the garden must have told her, too, that the Lord had reached one of the final points in his leadership of men. His was largely a mission of demonstration. For ages men had been frankly doubting that true godliness and actual immortality were possible. Jesus demonstrated the fact that the divine spirit fits normally into both the affairs of life and the experiences of the hour of death. He proved that it was possible not only to live like a god, but also to die like one.

He had led the way through the most trying experiences that life can bring. He had gone ahead into the valley and the shadow of death. On the first Sunday morning after his crucifixion he demonstrated his power to lead the world out of the grave as well as into it. Mary was the first witness to that demonstration.

A few days later he led the way to one still farther point in the ascending scale of human experience—the gate of glory. He gained each of these points in order to show men that it is possible to reach them. It is for others not merely to admire, not merely to admit, not even merely to worship, but to follow. Wherever Jesus has gone, he has gone that others might also come.

Not all the places by which his footprints lead may seem pleasant. They lie along paths of sacrifice, daring, and suffering. With an unfailingly majestic spirit, he faced whatever presented itself as incident to the fulfilling of a great mission.

A valley of pain matters much less, however, when a mountain of achievement lifts its head beyond. It seems an insignificant thing that one must follow him into the chill of the grave when one knows that he has already broken the way through on the other side. It is not a permanent condition. It is almost too swift in its passing to even be called a temporary experience. A sunset would be a tragedy did one not know that the sun will rise again. We cease to dread the twilight when we reflect that it is but the pathway to another dawn.

The silences of the resurrection morning said still another thing. They answered the old question as to whether the soul can exist when separated from the body. The physical frame of Jesus had seemed that of a dead man when it was taken from the cross three days before, and laid in the hospitable tomb of the kind-hearted Joseph. Now it was again inhabited by the same spirit which had shone from its eyes in other days.

This was no new miracle. Its like had been repeatedly performed by the power of Jesus. The body and soul of his friend, Lazarus, had been reunited after an even longer separation. Other spirits had been rewedded to the tenements which they had inhabited, each time by the wonderful will of this man who himself lived in such positive fashion and for such abiding things that the hand of death could not permanently enchain him.

Let it be as it will with these earthly frames of ours. The sooner they return to dust, after we are gone, the better. The human soul, however, was not made to perish. It is a thing of universal interests and eternal possibilities. It is life in its highest terms, and it was life with which Jesus was essentially concerned.

The silences were eloquent as Mary stood by the tomb that morning. They told her that immortality was not a dream, but a fact. They declared that everlasting life was not a baseless hope, but a wonderful reality. They gave an unspoken answer to an age-long question. They proclaimed the glorious fulfillment of a precious promise.

They spoke with a reminding voice, and it can still be heard across the years. They bid us not to think of the words of Jesus too vaguely. The greatest beauty of the gospel is its truth. The ideal of Jesus will remain unrealized until men have learned to accept his words at their face value, and to act upon the assumption that they are true. Faith knows no other testimony so worthy as that of obedience. The wonder of Jesus is the fact that his power so far outreaches the limits of our experience.

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The Laboratory Test (1921)

We may argue about the Christian faith all we will, but the only way to appraise its real merits is to apply the laboratory test. An ancient singer challenges: “Oh, taste, and see that the Lord is good.” This is an invitation to possess the knowledge of experience.