Part 16 (1/2)

Paul says, you know, that the law was made for wicked people, for the disobedient and the disorderly, not for good people. How many people are there in New York to-day, for example, who are honest, who pay their debts, who did not commit a burglary last night, who do not propose to be false to wife and home, on account of the law, the existence of courts and police? The great majority of the citizens of America to-day would go right on being honest and kind and loving and helpful, whether there were any laws or not. They are not kept to these courses of conduct by the law. They have learned that these are the fitting ways of life that these are the things for a man to do; and they despise themselves if they are less than man. In other words, this governmental order, which exists as an outside force, at last gets written in the heart and becomes a law of life.

Now precisely the same process is going on in other departments of the world: it is going on in religion. And now let me come to religion, and ill.u.s.trate the working of the law here. The old types of religious thought and life and practice, the first ones that the world knew, are long since outgrown. We regard them as barbaric, as cruel.

We have learned that there are not a million G.o.ds of whom we need stand in awe. We have learned that G.o.d is no partial G.o.d. We have learned that G.o.d does not want us, as universal man once believed, to sacrifice the dearest object of our love. We have learned that he does not want us to sacrifice our first-born child, as the old Hebrews used to, and the remains of which custom are plainly visible throughout the Old Testament everywhere. We have left behind these old types of religious thought and life; but the world has lost nothing in the process. The world has not left religion behind. The whole process of growth and development in the sphere of the religious life and the development of man has been one of outgrowing crude and partial and inadequate thoughts and feelings about the universe and G.o.d and man and duty and destiny.

We do not care so much about ceremony as the world did once. The most civilized people in the world are not so given to these things in their religious development. We do not care so much about creed as they did a thousand or five hundred years ago. We do not believe that G.o.d is going to judge us by our intellectual conceptions of him and of our fellow- men. And I suppose it is true, always has been true as it is to-day, that the adherent of any particular form or theory of the religious life has the feeling that, when that is threatened, religion is threatened; and he defends it pa.s.sionately, fights for it, perhaps bitterly, feels justified in opposing, perhaps hating, those he regards as the enemies of G.o.d and his great and sacred and religious hopes. And yet we know, as we study the past, whether we can quite appreciate it as true in regard to the theories which I am voicing to-day, that the truth has never been in any danger, and the highest and finest and sweetest things in the religious life have never been in any danger, are not in any danger to-day.

Let me indicate in two or three directions. There has been a cla.s.s of thinkers, which has done a good deal of talking and writing in this direction, who are telling us that the poetry, the romance, the wonder, the mystery, of the world those things that tend to bring a man to his knees and to lift his eyes in awe and reverence are pa.s.sing away; that science is going to explore everything; that there is going to be no more unknown; and that, when we have completed this process, one of the great essentials of religious thought and feeling and life will have perished from among men. I venture to say to you that there has never been a time in the history of the world when there was so much of mystery, so much of wonder, so much of reverence, so much of awe, as there is to-day. We are apt to fool ourselves in our thinking, and, when we have observed a fact, and labelled it, to think we know it.

For example, here is this mysterious force that we call electricity, which is flas.h.i.+ng such light in our homes and through our streets as the world has never known before. The cars, loaded, are speeding along our highways with no visible means of propulsion. We step up to a little box, and put a sh.e.l.l to our ear, and speak and listen, and converse with a friend in Boston or Chicago, recognizing the voice perfectly, as though this friend were by our side. We send a message over a wire, under the deep, and talk to London and all round the globe; and we have labelled this force electricity. And, instead of getting down on our knees in reverence, we get impatient if our communication is delayed two minutes or three. We fool ourselves with the thought that, because we have called it electricity, we know it, we have taken the mystery out of the fact. Why, friends, do you know anything about electricity? Do you know what it is? Do you know why it works as it does? I do not; and I do not know of anybody on the face of the earth who does. The wonder of the ”Arabian Nights” is cheap and tame and theatrical compared to the wonder of this everyday workaday world of ours, in the midst of which and by means of which we are carrying on our business and our daily avocations. The wonder of the carpet that would carry the person through the air who sat upon it and wished is nothing compared with the power of electricity, steam, any one of these invisible, intangible powers that are thrilling through the world to-day. There never was so much room for mystery, for awe, for poetry, for romance, as there is in the midst of our commercial life in this nineteenth century.

This element of religion, then, is in no danger. We know nothing ultimately. Who can tell me what a particle of matter is? Who can tell me what a ray of light is, as it comes from a star? Who can tell me how the movements in the particles of air striking my eye run up into nerve and brain, and become translated into thought, into light, into form, into motion, into all this wondrous universe that surrounds us on every hand?

Then take the element of trust. People used to think they could trust in their G.o.ds. Rebecca, for example, stole her father's G.o.ds, and hid them in the trappings of her camel, and sat on them. She thought, then, that she had a G.o.d near her who would care for her. The old Hebrew, with an ox-team, carried his G.o.d, in a box that he called the ark, into battle, and supposed that he had a very present help in time of need.

But we have the eternal stability and order of the universe, a G.o.d that never forgets, a G.o.d on whom we can lean, in whom we can trust, who is not away off in heaven, but here, closer to us than the air we breathe, a G.o.d in whom we live and move and have our being.

And has this evolution of the religious life of the world threatened the stability of truth? There never was a time on earth when there was such a pa.s.sion for truth as there is today. What means all this intense activity of the scientific world? these men that devote their lives to some little fraction of the universe which they study through their microscope, not for pay, to find one little fragment of the truth of G.o.d; these critics that are rummaging the dust-heaps of the ages in the hope that they may find one little, bright-glittering particle of truth in the midst of the rubbish? There never was such a pa.s.sion for truth as there is here and now.

Are we going to lose the sense of righteousness which is the very heart of religion? There never was a time since the world began when the average man cared so much for righteousness, when he laid so much emphasis on human conduct, on kindness, on help, on all those things that make this life of ours desirable and sweet. The ideal of character and behavior has risen step by step from the beginning, and is higher to-day than it ever was before. Not because men fear a whipping, not because they are threatened with h.e.l.l in another world, not because a G.o.d of vengeance is preached to them, because they have grown to see the beauty of righteousness, because they know that obedience to the laws of G.o.d means health, means sanity, means peace, means prosperity, means well-being, means all high and good and n.o.ble things. This righteousness is not driven into one by blows from outside: it blossoms out from the intellect and the conscience and the heart, as the recognized law of all fine and desirable and human living.

What are we losing, then, as the result of this growth of the world in accordance with the law of evolution? Are we losing our hope of the future? The form of that hope is pa.s.sing away. We no longer believe in an underground world of the dead, as the Hebrews did. We no longer believe in a heaven just above the blue, as Christendom has believed for so long. We no longer believe in a heaven where all struggle and thought and study and growth are left out, where there is to be only a monotonous enjoyment that would pall upon any living rational soul. The form of it is pa.s.sing away; but there never was a time when there was such a great and inspiring hope, not simply for myself and my friends, not simply for my neighbors, not simply for my particular church. There never was a time when there was such a great hope, including humanity for this world and for the next, as that which inspires us now.

Nothing, then, in religion that is of any worth has the world forgotten or is it likely to forget. All the old reverences and loves and trusts and inspirations and hopes and tendernesses are here intermingled. They are in the highest and n.o.blest people; and they are being carried on and refined and purified and glorified as the world goes on.

And now let me suggest one thought more that may be of comfort to some.

A great many people have been accustomed to a.s.sociate so much of their religion with the forms of their religious expression that they fancy that the world's outgrowing these means that religion is being outgrown. I said, you remember, when touching upon government as an ill.u.s.tration of the working of the law of evolution, that governmental forms were being outgrown just as fast as the world was becoming civilized. If this world ever becomes perfect, government will cease to be, in the sense of these external forms, simply because there will be no need of it; just as you take down a staging when you have completed a house. So I look forward to less and less care for the external forms of the religious life. I believe they will remain, and they ought to remain, just as long as they are any practical help to anybody; but, because a person ceases to need them, you must not think that he has ceased to be religious. When the world gets to be perfectly religious, there will be no need of any churches, there will be no need any more of preachers, there will be no need of any of the external ceremony of religion.

You remember what the old seer says in the book of Revelation, as he looks forward to the perfect condition of things. He is picturing that ideal city which he saw in his vision coming down from G.o.d out of heaven. This was his poetical way of setting forth his idea of the perfected condition of humanity; and he said, speaking of that city, ”And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord G.o.d was the temple of it.”

The external forms pa.s.s away when the life needs them no more. Take, for example, the condition of things when Jesus came to Jerusalem. You know how they put him to death. And what did they put him to death for?

They put him to death because he preached of a time when there would be no need of any temple, no need of any priesthood, no need of any of the external things that they regarded as essential to religious life. They thought he was blaspheming, they thought he was an enemy of G.o.d and of his fellowmen, because he talked that way. He said to the woman of Samaria, You think you must wors.h.i.+p G.o.d on this mountain, Gerizim, and the Jews think they must wors.h.i.+p him on Mount Moriah; but G.o.d is spirit, and the time will come when you will not care whether you are in this place or that, but will wors.h.i.+p him in spirit and in truth.

You see it was just along these lines that Jesus was preaching and working in his day. So, when humanity becomes perfected, external forms, that have helped mould and shape man into his perfection, will be needed no more. They will fall off, pa.s.s away, and be forgotten; but that will not mean that humanity has forgotten or left behind any great essential to the religious life. It will mean simply that he has taken them up into his own heart, absorbed them into his life. He naturally drops them when he is no longer in need of external supports.

This law of evolution, then, is simply the method of G.o.d's progress from the beginning, the same method which was to be found in the lowest, the method which has lifted us to where we are, the method which looks out with promise towards the better things which are to come.

The one life thrilled the star-dust through, In nebulous ma.s.ses whirled, Until, globed like a drop of dew, Shone out a new-made world.

The one life on the ocean sh.o.r.e, Through primal ooze and slime, Crept slowly on from less to more Along the ways of time.

The one life in the jungles old, From lowly creeping things, Did ever some new form unfold, Swift feet or soaring wings.

The one life all the ages through Pursued its wondrous plant Till, as the tree of promise grew, It blossomed into man.

The one life reacheth onward still; As yet no eye may see The far-off fact, man's dream fulfill?

The glory yet to be.

WHY ARE NOT ALL EDUCATED PEOPLE UNITARIANS?

THE religious opinions of the average person in any community do not count for much, if any one is studying them with the endeavor to find out their bearing on what is true or what is false. This is true not only of popular religious opinions, but of any other set of opinions whatever; and for the simple reason that most people do not hold their opinions as the result of any study, of any investigation, because they have seriously tried to find out what is true, and have become convinced that this, and not that, represents the reality of things.

Let us note for a moment and I do this rather to clear the way than because I consider it of any very great importance how it is that the great majority of people come by the religious opinions which they happen to hold. I suppose it is true in thousands of cases that a man or a woman is in this church rather than that merely as the result of inheritance and childhood training. People inherit their religious ideas. They are taught certain things in their childhood, they have accepted them perhaps without any sort of question; and so they are where they happen to be to-day. If you stop and think of it for just a moment, you will see that this may be all right as a starting-point, but is not quite an adequate reason why we should hold permanently, and throughout our lives, a particular set of ideas. If all of us were to accept opinions in this sort of fas.h.i.+on, and never put them behind us or make any change, where would the growth of the world be? How would it be possible for one generation to make a little advance on that which preceded it, so that we could speak of the progress of mankind?

Then, when persons do make up their minds to change, to leave one church and go to another, it is not an uncommon thing for them simply to select a particular place of wors.h.i.+p or a special organization for no better reason than that they happen to like it, to be attracted to it for some superficial cause. How many people who do leave one church for another do it as the result of any earnest study, or real endeavor to find the truth? And yet, if you will give the matter a moment's serious consideration, you will see that we have no sort of right to choose one theory rather than another, one set of ideas rather than another, because we happen to like one thing, and not something else.