NUGGETS FRON A WELSH NINE
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NUGGETS FROM
A WELSH MINE
SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF
JENKIN LLOYD JONES
MINISTER OF ALL SOULS CHURCH
CHICAGO
Words are the most lasting of all things that
humanity deals in Transient as they seem, they
outlast temples, palaces, kingdoms, races f
CHICAGO
UNITY PUBLISHING COMPANY
1902
COPYRIGHTED
BY
OLIVE Ë. WESTON
1902
PRINTERS
UARSH, AITERN &. CURTIS COMPANY
CHICAGO
DEDICATED
TO THE UPBUILDING OF THE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENTRE
How this little book came to be may interest
those who are so favored as to possess it. For
many years Jenkin Lloyd Jones has been
the leader of Study Classes in All Souls
Church, Chicago. Under his tuition I formed
the habit of observing the "nuggets," as he
called them, which we found in the books we
studied. During the past year while confined
to my room by illness, I have enjoyed reading
many of Mr. Jones' sermons and other writings,
published and unpublished, and found myself
collecting the most suggestive sentences and
paragraphs. Now, like a band of fairies, they
have lured me to the woods and the fields to
contemplate Nature; now, like a flock of birds in
springtime, they have lifted me to the treetops
and the skies; now, like a marshaled host, they
have led me to duty; and now, like the silent
voice within, they have closed the doors of the
outside world and left me to meditate upon the
soul, its relation to the universe and the Divine
Cause. Often pain was forgotten and sorrow
V
dispelled by this occupation. Then it occurred
to me to prepare a collection of these nuggets
for the pleasure and profit of others. Week
by week it grew until I was surprised at the
mine I had discovered.
The selections are taken chiefly from the two
books in the Bits of Wayside Gospel series
entitled, "Jess" and "A Search for an Infidel,"
as well as from his sermons and other articles
published in "Unity." They are all literal quo¬
tations and I take no credit to myself except
for the collecting of the material. For the
prayers I thank Mrs. Annie Laurie Kelly, who
from time to time was impelled to take them
down stenographically for her own inspiration,
as they came from the heart of Mr. Jones. To
Mrs. Bertha E. Jaques I am indebted for sug¬
gestions and held in planning the construction
of the book. After the book was ready for
the printers, it was submitted to Mr. Jones for
his consent to use the matter, which consent
he kindly gave after the manner of his generous
Welsh nature. I hope the reader will take at
least one nugget a day for thought-food.
Olive E. Weston.
vi
AN INVOCATION
"Morel More!"—Oliver Twist.
No, not for more of Love's store do I ask.
Be this my task:
More to give as I live,
Without heart stealth of that wealth
That is thine ere 'tis mine.
I would so be, that to thee come the sight
Of the strong might
That I find in thy mind;
For I do ride upon a tide
That bears me into thy sea.
For thy dear sake I would take thy rebuking
As thy caressing.
Until I heed the world's great need,
So that thereby thou mightst supply
Its better part through my heart.
Then let me lay, if I may, at thy feet
Service meet;
So that the more thy love may pour
Through my soul till the whole
Of what's mine is ever thine.
J. LI. J.
vii
The works that rest upon rectitude ^ the thoughts
that impinge upon truth, the deeds etnbalmed in
love. Father, Thou dost establish. 0 Father, help
us to realize that in so far as aught that is precioiis
and tender in the years gone by is lost, it is lost
through selfishness ; and in so far as it abides to us
redolent with life, pidsing with hope, it comes on
the zvings of disinterestedness. They who toil for
their own gain are forgotten, are lost in the onrush-
ing stream. They who toiled that others might be
more joyous, who testified that others might be more
free, still live in song and story ; they still live
enshrined in the hearts of the multitude ; their names
are emblazoned upon the imperishable tablets of
history. They live most of all in a world made better
by their living. So out of the year thai is gone, help
us, 0 Father, to gather this one precious, sacred
lesson for the year to come,—that radiance ever
rests upon the brow of one that loves ; that joy ever
quickens the feet of those who serve ; that strength
ever engirdles the soul that is willing to spend and
be spent in the service of its kind.
At this threshold of a new opportunity we humbly
pray that we may be equal to our opportimities, that
we may be consecrated to our privileges, that life
may receive an onward azid upward impettis
through our divine reachings and outpourings.
Amen.
viii
NUGGETS FROM À WELSH MINE
THE INDIVIDUAL
Beware of those things that blunt your
primary enthusiasm.
The individual soul is the unit of measure
and the source of power.
Character is built like a house; each
action rests on one foregone which
made it possible, though the one fore¬
gone be forgotten and buried in the
earth.
The law of sacrifice is as fundamental
and universal as the law of gravitation.
If you would raise fine apples, you must
prune the tree, cut back the super¬
abundant growth, pour the energies of
the tree not into superfluous branches,
but into fruit-making directions.
2
THE INDIVIDUAL
Wisdom of soul comes no more swiftly
than does grace of body.
If you would help a soul bear its present
sorrow, introduce it to a greater one.
The demands of ethics are, in the main,
simple. Conscience at its highest is
direct, imperative; its decisions are
immediate.
You may not be able to affect society
perceptibly, but it is within your power
to affect immensely one element of that
society—you can reconstruct yourself.
The man who rests on the eternal prin¬
ciples of justice always finds before him
a turnpike road. Whither it may lead,
he cares not and knows not; he trusts
it and consents to walk therein.
Do your duty, else no knowledge, beauty
or love will ever lead you to the peace
of God. He who says, "I may not be
great, I may miss all peace, but I will be
true," stands at the altar from which the
divine benediction is ever pronounced.
THE INDIVIDUAL
Inebriety is just as degrading when you
take your liquor from cut-glass decan¬
ters as it is when you take it out of a tin
pail.
No door swings open so readily to the
man void of worldly goods as that door
which opens into the Treasure House of
the Soul.
Any standard of purity, modesty and sim¬
plicity, economy and self-denial that is
binding on the woman is equally bind¬
ing on the man.
Were manuscripts all untrustworthy and
traditions all extravagant, we should
still be justified in estimating the dimen¬
sions of a man by the shadow he casts,
as we calculate the height of a tree.
Social prestige, the gilding of wealth, the
arts of the tailor and dressmaker are
all absolutely powerless to make a gen¬
tleman out of a sordid spirit, or an
intelligent woman out of an empty
mind, and a shallow heart.
THE INDIVIDUAL
Do what you can to think high thoughts,
to love true things, and to do noble
deeds.
Each one's share of the world's work is
simply to do all that he can, in every
way that he can, in every place he can,
all the time he can, to help the world
along.
If you would magnify the happiness of
the individual soul, cultivate an imme¬
diate conscience. The great ones of
earth have taken counsel, not of expe¬
diency, but of principle.
The inspirations that move the soul to
noblest action come in two ways: First,
prolong your look backward; see how
resistless has been the onward sweep of
truth and justice there. Second, pro¬
ject your noblest dreams on the canvas
of the future. Gather there the tem¬
perate lives, intelligent minds and beau¬
tiful copartnerships of souls that are
your heart's desire. Let that dream be
your inspiration.
THE INDIVIDUAL
5
Let your soul shine through the flesh and
make it beautiful beyond the power of
gems to decorate.
Life enlarges and deepens mostly through
experience, not through the lore of
books, but by the discipline of life.
God writes his name upon the hearts
of men with his own tools.
Man, braving the dark, wrestling with
foes carnal and forces elemental, a
spiritual gladiator in this storm-tossed
world, is a magnificent picture. What
artist can mold for us in one figure
Hercules and Apollo? Such an one is
the giant of modern civilization.
To be willing to die for a great cause, to
carry one's life in one's hand, so to
speak, in the face of tremendous issues,
is noble; but to want to die rather than
be laughed at, to grow pale at the
thought of being unpopular, to be
ashamed of being found out because
of being in the wrong,—-that is the char¬
acteristic of a small soul.
6 THE INDIVIDUAL
The ultimate sanctities are in the soul
itself.
The purity of your language is a measure
of your refinement.
It is splendid to have a cause to live for
as well as to die for. The most pitiable
life is the aimless life.
One's duty to home, self and race are in¬
separable. Be a good workman and
you will be a good citizen; be a good
citizen and you will be fitting yourself
for heaven.
Make yourself brother or sister to every
struggling soul, rich or poor, young or
old, black or white, and you will have
done the very best thing you can do for
your own soul.
There is something deficient in the train¬
ing which our times give when the
scholar and the business man, the stu¬
dent and the executive so seldom stand
in the same pair of shoes.
THE INDIVIDUAL
7
Enlarge the individual soul by seeking a
mellow heart.
Of two thoughts, always accept the larger
one; of two fellowships always seek the
broader.
Alas for the man who so deceives himself,
who is so untrue to his inner nature
as to forget that he helps, if he helps
at all, not by what is peculiar in him,
but by what is universal in him.
There will be personal misfits in the
future as in the past, but history will
go on a long time after you and I are
dead, and it will take what of us is
worth while along with it.
It is noble to stand alone, when no man
will stand with you, for the cause you
hold dear. But it is ignoble to stand
alone when others like-minded with you
need your cooperation, reach out their
hands to yours, and are ready to take it
without asking a question or making a
condition.
8
THE INDIVIDUAL
Sparrow and hero are worth to God just
what they are worth to truth and beauty,
reality and right,—and that only.
It is eternally true that personality is the
greatest factor in progress and that no
great thing is achieved without leader¬
ship.
History proves that it is oftentimes easier
to stand nobly in the front of the enemy
than to stand wisely in the face of one's
friends.
The vision of things to be done breaks
upon the mind long before a way of
doing them appears clear; but woe to
him who distrusts the vision.
The spontaneous conscience is the electric
flash released from the storage battery
that lies beneath consciousness, charged
with the wisdom of the accumulating
centuries, released at the favorable mo¬
ment when circumstances make the con¬
nection good between present necessity
and past resource.
THE INDIVIDUAL
The soul that hesitates in the presence
of a great duty is lost.
No wealth, however honestly accumu¬
lated, can be an apology for an empty
head or a cold heart.
Although you may be too busy to audit
your accounts to-day, you may be sure
the footings will be revealed to you
some day.
That only is consecration which is rooted
in sacrifice. The easy service is no
service at all. The thing you give and
never feel, you do not give at all.
Science is compelled to assume the exist¬
ence of an atom which no one has seen,
an indestructible unit that cannot be
divided; and upon this assumption it
works out its chemistry of nature.
Some such unit of measure suggests it¬
self to me in a self-centred soul, a
directing will, a conscious river, a
stream with a memory, a tide of life
with a hope.
THE INDIVIDUAL
He who reads everything that comes
along seldom knows much.
The only way to keep up the high life is
to keep high things to live for before
our minds and in our hearts.
The calculating soul is never the one that
is intimate with the Over-Soul; the
halting habit is the habit of degeneracy.
Oh, how unmindful we are of the well-
being of those we love ! The cruelty of
thoughtlessness is that which the great
world confronts with helpless hands.
Your logic takes counsel of the few things
you know and can arrange. Your
intuitions spring out of the many
things your long line of ancestry have
known to their bitterness and joy.
The Lord of the harvest is asking you
what you are doing to inspire the dis¬
couraged,'to renew the lagging faith of
men and women, and to revitalize the
wasted and wasting spirit.
THE INDIVIDUAL
The most despicable man in the com¬
munity is the man with a long purse and
a short conscience.
The difference between the bigot and the
sage is one of modesty, one of humilia¬
tion of the spirit.
If you would succeed in life, seek noble
intellectuality; be interested in some¬
thing besides your business; feed your¬
self with that bread that makes vitality.
Seriousness is impossible without sin¬
cerity; and sincerity implies a single-
mindedness, a consecration to duty, a
devotion to ideals.
One loving heart, one throbbing brain,
one enkindled soul is worth more in
education, in politics, in religion, and to
the city, than a million dead dollars.
Herein lies one of the distinctive charac¬
teristics of the prophet: he is the man
who stands ahead of the line and against
the crowd.
THE INDIVIDUAL
Confess your poverty in order that you
may be rich in self-respect.
Our moral and spiritual growth have not
kept pace with our material triumphs.
The one man to steer clear of in these
days is the man who is cock-sure he is
right.
Curiosity and philosophy alike are anx¬
ious to know the antecedents and the
surroundings of a great life.
Human life is worth more than a bank
note, and the most precious capital that
civilization knows of is the capital rep¬
resented by the trained hand and the
skilled eye.
The true citizen should ever seek judicial
poise, and his sympathies should be at
least wide enough to love and admire
whatever is excellent and noble within
the boundaries of his own country,
whether they belong to his own party
or not.
THE INDIVIDUAL
Prosperity without a passion for improve¬
ment and a determination to consecrate
it to high purposes, is disastrous.
The endowment of individuals, the ex¬
ploiting of soul, the strengthening and
extension of personality, is an industry
too much neglected by capitalists.
History has been able to save little that
is interesting or reliable out of the story
of the past except the personalities of
humanity's prophets, sages and saints.
Wealth is a cross too heavy for mortal to
bear unless his backbone is stiffened
with conscience and his spiritual sinews
vitalized by love and disinterestedness.
The man who is afraid to do good, or
even to do right, who hangs to his mini¬
mum and his meanness for fear the
next generation will not be equal to his
highest, believes not in God, distrusts
spirit. He represents the only kind of
fatalism and materialism that is to be
dreaded.
THE HOME
Love is the only safe and justifiable basis
for a home. All Bibles, as well as all
stories, all philosophy and all experi¬
ence assert this.
While mother loves babe, and father
guards both mother and child, there
will remain in the world the holy fam¬
ily,—^Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus.
Go to housekeeping, and, if possible, to
house-building. Do not be outdone by
the beaver. Do not sink lower than the
bird, who builds its own nest, making it
strong without and beautiful within.
That home alone is home where love gen¬
erates generous impulses, noble pur¬
poses. True love will breed heavenly
plans, nurse world-redeeming schemes,
and enlist all the forces of earth in the
interests of heaven.
14
THE HOME
15
There is no home where there is no com¬
mon toil.
The world is the larger home. The child
must early learn to feel its dependence
on and its obligation to this larger
home circle if it is to grow noble.
There are no furnishings to a house that
really convert it into a home, which
have not won their places, one by one,
in the heart and brain of the housewife.
Civilization rests, not primarily on the
court-house, or the college, or the public
school building, or the post-office, or
the railway station, or yet in the club,
but in the home.
The trouble with our young people is
not that they are too poor in material
things to make for themselves a home,
but that they are too poor in spiritual
things to confess the poverty which
might enable them to lay the founda¬
tions of a home, humble but altogether
holy.
i6
THE HOME
Happy is the man who might live in a
mansion but prefers to live in a cottage.
Heredity is as beautiful as it is solemn, as
encouraging as it is terrible; for it not
only prolongs our weaknesses, but it
also perpetuates our virtues.
From the rude mother of the savage to
the Madonna of the fireside is a great
stretch, but there is no break; there is
only the difference that exists between
the mosses on the face of the ragged
rock and the pine, beech and oak in the
forest. There is nowhere a line. Man
cannot be severed from the universe to
which he belongs.
That is the most perfect home, the truest
state, the most finely organized society
and the most spiritual church where man
and woman find their equal counter¬
poise in an individuality equally sacred,
a personality equally defined; each pos¬
sessing a spiritual nature committed to
the same laws, bound by the same stand¬
ard and judged by the same code.
THE HOME
17
The economic problem of to-day is not
how to make money, but how to save it.
Plain living, like high thinking, is the goal
of culture, the test of intelligence, the
measure of refinement.
On the road to perfection a woman's
home lies near the gates of paradise.
Domestic serenity may give to a cot¬
tage home more radiance than all the
social accomplishments can carry into
the palace hotel.
Simple things are the permanent things;
simple truths are the universal truths;
the simple needs are the imperative
ones, and supplies for these needs are
exhaustless, else progress is impossible
and life will promptly become extinct.
As domestic architecture is the highest
and latest development of art, so house¬
keeping, skilful, delicate, thrifty house¬
keeping, represents the latest, rarest,
and most beautiful accomplishment
within the reach of any woman.
i8
THE HOME
That which we longed for but missed be¬
comes the endowment of our child; our
ideals, its blessed destiny.
Simplicity is a gospel because it distin¬
guishes between the transient and the
permanent, between things extraneous
and things internal. In morals, simplic¬
ity is opposed to duplicity.
The glow of heaven should be on the
brow of a woman who offers the world
a babe, for in that offering there may
lie the salvation of men, through the
triumphs of art, science, learning; or
still more sure, though humbly, the
triumphs of the fireside.
There is a piety of the table, which, if
heeded, will bring much needed rest
to the weary and sleep to the dis¬
tracted. The joys, as well as the eco¬
nomics, of life are wickedly violated in
our lives and homes by the extravagant
elaboration, foolish combinations and
wasteful anxieties concerning what we
shall eat and what we shall drink.
THE HOME
19
Woman stands primarily for the altruistic
element in life. Science, history and
philosophy agree in rooting love in
motherhood.
The matter of dress is a matter of relig¬
ion. Everything, from the shoe to the
ribbon on the hat of man or woman, has
an ethical bearing, a gospel of signifi¬
cance.
Wise nurture will do much to correct the
imperfections of birth, but no amount
of descent can counteract or annul the
degenerating influences of defective
surroundings, fallacious tuition, ill-
directed impulses.
Whatever the origin of Thanksgiving
may be, it has become the great home
festival of American life; and the great
problem of the United States to-day is
epitomized in the problem of Thanks¬
giving Day, namely; how to preserve
the core of seriousness with the grow¬
ing circumference of pleasure, merri¬
ment and material affluence.
20
THE HOME
The restless Eve, and not the indolent
Adam, is the parent of civilization.
Valor is not a masculine prerogative,
neither is tenderness a feminine monop¬
oly. If woman would live more in the
life of the intellect and man bask more
in the sunshine of the heart, it would be
better for both men and women.
The child has a right to be well born.
Not regeneration but generation is to
be the chief concern of the new ethics.
When religion shall sanctify all that
pertains to the perpetual incarnation of
the divine in human form through
birth, our preachers will have less to
say about second birth.
Every babe put into a mother's arms is,
I take it, more of a surprise to the
mother than to anyone else; and
though it be a blossom that budded on
her own life, still she knows that the
mystery lies farther back, that her veins
were the channel through which an un¬
created life flowed.
THE HOME
21
There is a time in the life of motherhood
when it is her privilege to lose herself
in the ecstasies of love.
The woman's heart is darkly clouded in
which there is no holy thirst for mater¬
nity. The man's soul is impure who
desires to evade the joys of fatherhood.
I believe in woman's equality; but she
will never reach her equality until she
recognizes that the state begins in the
household, and that political economy
has its starting-point in the kitchen.
Woman, self-reliant, truth-seeking, open-
eyed, who broods on the problems of
the state while she rocks the cradle,
ponders upon the deep lines of the
master-poets while she nurses the man-
child at her breast, is a figure magnifi¬
cent. Who will paint for us a Madonna
and a Minerva in one picture, mingling
the sweetness of the one with the in¬
telligence and sagacity of the other ?
Such an one will be the mistress of this
age.
22
THE HOME
Self-consciousness and self-seeking are as
bad in women as in men, and no worse.
These are the days when woman is trying
to assert herself, and it is well; but
nothing is well that belittles the sacred
ofhce of motherhood or tends to
cheapen or distort the holy privileges
of maternity.
When we find scholarship, business sagac¬
ity, executive skill, inventive power,
aggressive virtue in a woman, we may
be sure she has attained to these only
as man attains to them: by study, per¬
sistency, self-denial, self-conquest and
self-direction.
Through the help of our educated women,
under the lead of our graduate-mothers,
under the inspiring and elevating influ¬
ence of the co-educational class-room,
boys are to learn the ways of refine¬
ment and women are to master the
principles of the economic life, that,
together they may lead the way into
the simplicities of religion and morals.
THE HOME
23
The inheritance of children is the great¬
est trust of nature. The man or woman
who dares accept this trust assumes the
most solemn, binding and awful re¬
sponsibility possible to a finite soul.
The beautiful heron, mad with a maternal
love, blind to all dangers from without,
bent only on protecting her brood, giv¬
ing her life to her little ones, was killed
by the woman who wears the graceful
aigrette—that marvel of Nature's em¬
broidery woven for a nuptial robe to
the gracious bird. She and none other
is responsible for that life, for it was for
her sake that the bloody deed was
done.
One of the greatest phenomena of the
nineteenth century is the Woman's Club
movement. Its wide distribution, its
apparent strength as measured by its
members, its enthusiasm, time, strength,
and money devoted to it, make, as it
seems to me, a movement scarcely
paralleled in history.
24
THE HOME
Let women become the partners of their
husbands in the high business of home-
making.
"Is it well with the child ?" is the momen¬
tous question of all times. It is the
ultimate question in the life of the
home, the church and the state.
There is no position occupied by mascu¬
line energy or ability in any walk of life
toward which woman has not turned
covetous eyes, and won her place in de¬
fiance of tradition, public prejudice, and
the combined oppositions represented
thereby.
I know of but one thing that seems to me
more foreign to the true inspirations of
this industrial, democratic, rational and
religious age than the average gather¬
ing of society women, dressed, not as of
old to court the smiles of men, but for
the less inspiring and far more exact¬
ing and costly modern purpose of rous¬
ing the admiration or envy of one
another.
THE HOME
25
In so far as the triumphs of the twentieth
century are to be more mental than
physical, more spiritual than material,
in so far must woman become more
and more a contributor to the wealth
of the generation.
It is for woman to give to society the
dignity of matured speech, epic power,
Shakespearean terseness, Miltonic
grace, the rhythmic freedom of Tenny¬
son, the hearty frankness of Browning,
the honesty and directness of Em¬
erson.
The preceding centuries boast of great
women. Royalty, science and letters
have their isolated women who have
made for themselves a place in the esti¬
mation of the world, but they stand
unique, unrelated. Their preeminence
is granted them grudgingly or patroniz¬
ingly. But in the nineteenth century,
woman appears as an inevitable and
staying factor in the work, thought and
life of the world.
20
THE HOME
If the cradles of our land do not hold in
embryo clear heads, warm hearts and
strong wills, it goes for but little what
the present resources of the state may
be.
In the child, history is betrayed or ful¬
filled. The future is endowed or de¬
frauded as the administrators, the father
and mother, prove themselves worthy
or unworthy the trust.
"Whisper the word of God to the child"
in the presence of the near beauty, the
familiar graces, the homely sanctities,—
the pansy, the swallow, the purring cat,
the faithful dog, the gentle horse, the
sleeping babe, the father's hug and a
mother's kiss.
The inconsistency of the modern woman
is displayed nowhere so painfully as in
the frequent flat contradiction between
her club life and her church life. In the
one she is aggressive, independent, in¬
tellectual; in the other quiescent, con¬
formant, sentimental.
THE HOME
27
There is more God in a mother's kiss
than all your words can convey.
The child as a theme for poetry and an
object of study is a very recent arrival.
The children are our divinely appointed
executors for the future. What are
their claims upon us ?
From the Madonna arms of woman ever
proceeds the king that rules the world,
that decides the destiny of generations.
The child is the perpetual embodiment of
life's miracle and revelation, the mys¬
terious ray of divinity in the lump of
clay.
The child trusts father or mother because
in them it discovers a power it cannot
understand; it rests upon that reserve
force it cannot imitate or measure.
A good body is not to be realized without
a recognition of a second condition of
the healthy child, namely, a healthy
mind.
28
THE HOME
The child has a right to a training that
will enable it to take care of itself.
Home is not the house; it is the mind's
equipment and the heart's furnishings.
The little child brings with it the love of
ages, before which the true mother
stands in awe.
The child does not grow primarily into
happiness, but into usefulness. Given
that, and happiness will follow as day
follows night.
0 child! what a joy, and yet what a
care; what mystery, and yet how simple
and artless I How carelessly do we toss
thee about, and yet how perplexing a
problem thou art 1
1 believe that man and woman are com¬
pounded of the same clay, beset with
the same limitations and endowed with
the same possibilities, and that the high¬
est domestic felicity is to be found by a
frank recognition of this fact.
THE SCHOOL
The highest task that life holds for men
and women is the choosing of an ideal
to grow toward. It should be suffi¬
ciently far away to require a whole life¬
time to pursue it.
It has taken a hundred years of agony
and study to prove even in advanced
America a man's right to his own body;
a woman's right to her own soul; and
the child's right to the development of
his mind as of his muscle.
I plead for the true perspective in the
training of your children. I believe, of
course, in good bodies, comfortable and
beautiful clothing, generous houses, and
all the learning of the schools; I believe
in intellectual joy and all the powers of
thought, but only when they are subor¬
dinated to high affections and strong
wills.
30
THE SCHOOL
There is a power at work in the world
that estimates gifts, not by the amount,
but by the purpose that dictated them.
The kindergarten contains the seed of the
gospel for children in its terminology
when it seeks to develop the child by its
"occupations."
The nineteenth century was a century of
analysis in the academic world; maybe
the twentieth century will give itself to
the synthesis that must follow analysis
if the analysis is to be justified.
In our catalogue of forces, the influence
of permanent surroundings upon char¬
acter is great. The environments of
hills, valleys and rivers, the influence of
climate and altitude have power. But
stronger than these is the influence
upon the inner life, of the man you once
saw, the speech you once heard, the
book you chanced to read, the woman
that once smiled upon you, the man
whose lips touched yours.
THE SCHOOL
31
Words are counters of ideas, symbols of
thought, and as such they should be re¬
garded with religious awe, and dealt
with reverently.
Emotionally the child is a weakling and a
barbarian who has not known the thrill
that goes with an adequate apprecia¬
tion of the stories of martyrs and saints.
Ethically the child is an imbecile who has
never been swayed with a Christ-like
longing for purity and a Pauline passion
for usefulness.
Intellectually the child has been cruelly
neglected who is allowed to grow up
ignorant of the literary treasures of the
greatest spiritual epic in the library of
humanity, the story of Judaism con¬
tinued in Christianity.
The true measure of a university, like
that of a nation, is the measure of the
noble men and women it produces; the
mental, moral and spiritual power it
generates.
32
THE SCHOOL
The culture that increases one's wants
while it reduces one's powers to meet
those wants is a curse to be avoided.
It cannot be that the mind which can ad¬
just a machine to its physical task is
unable to adjust itself to its human and
spiritual environment.
The question, not of higher but of better
education, is the quest of statesmanship,
and it is a non-partisan problem in
American politics to-day.
The question of education, in the United
States at least, is ultimately a question
of,statesmanship. All experience shows
that education must become more and
more the gift of the state because it is
its bulwark.
Intellectual training is not sufficient.
Knowledge does not save. Informa¬
tion, even of a high and valuable kind,
does not guarantee character, does not
even save the soul from degeneration
and degradation.
THE SCHOOL
33
Speech is the primal inspiration; words
are the most enduring product of the
human mind.
Next to fighting anarchy with fairness,
we must fight it with education. Intel¬
ligence is the lightning-rod that will
take the electricity out of the cloud
before an explosive charge is gener¬
ated.
Teach the children to respect their neigh¬
bors; to revere the historic revelations,
not only of Christianity, but of all the
religions of the world. Such things will
have a tendency to humanize the com¬
munity, to make ethical the church and
spiritual the pulpit.
The dominance of emotion, the supremacy
of the feelings, the fundamental wealth
of the affections, the mastership of the
heart must be recognized. It is only
as these are developed that life is de¬
veloped; as they are trained, life will be
noble or ignoble, generous or selfish,
loving or sordid.
34
THE SCHOOL
The hand that goes with an uncultivated
mind must ever remain a paw.
There are four elements in successful
teaching, namely: the power of impart¬
ing information; the power of holding
attention; the power of making an im¬
pression; and the power of moving to
action.
We must begin to educate at the centre.
Patriotism and morality must become
the required studies in our primary
schools. Humanity and philanthropy
must become the essential purpose of
our churches. Simplicity and refine¬
ment must be the domestic genii at our
firesides.
No brawn can make hoe or ax, pick or
shovel of any use to employed or em¬
ployer except in so far as it is subserv¬
ient to and dominated by brain; and no
work of nerve is so independent of
muscle that its activity does not either
exhaust or strengthen the other as the
adjustment may be.
THE SCHOOL
35
Knowledge is not a matter of words, but
an acquaintance with things.
Beauty, however interpreted, must be
concerned with man's attitude to the
universe, his relation to God and not
his passing relations to man.
Every noble biography is a bugle blast
summoning young men and women to
similar nobleness. Every noble deed is
a challenge to the disinterestedness in
some other soul.
As the rivulet scoops out the valley,
molds the hillside, and carves the moun¬
tain face, so the stream of time sculp¬
tures the soul into grace and smoothes
the human heart into tenderness.
The soul can be trusted on its Godward
side if it is only developed on its man-
ward side. Give the spirit its freedom
and it will fast enough use its wings.
Teach the mind to think and it will soon
enough discover that it is thinking
God's thought after him.
36
THE SCHOOL
The heart is kept pure by knowledge and
not by ignorance. Love is safe where
judgment is active, and even the deep
affections of the heart are legitimate
and safe subjects of study.
The value of a technical education is fully
established; but the school that is
shaped to practical ends only will soon
prove impractical. Boys and girls must
needs be educated to live rather than
to get a living.
The beautiful and the good are not differ¬
ent, much less antagonistic, verities;
but they are different sides of the same
reality; different phrasings of the same
gospel of love in life and life in Jove;
God in man and man in God.
Here, then, is the great problem of
teacher, preacher and parent: how to
increase, direct, elevate, organize the
masterful emotions, the fundamental
affections, the conscience and the will,
which represent the dominant propor¬
tions, the decisive elements in life.
THE SCHOOL
37
We are here to cultivate the open vision
and acquire the poise of mind and
sense of justice that will enable us to
see beauty in what the world calls ugli¬
ness; harmony in things that appear
grotesque; life in death.
The best in literature is none too good
for the children, and the handsomest of
books that fall short of the standards of
literary excellence are a menace to the
intellectual life of the child, however
elegantly printed, beautifully illustrated
or fantastically bound.
No man ever gets joy and strength out of
a library that he buys in bulk, or from
his shelves when furnished by the yard.
He only has a library who has struggled
for it, bought it a book at a time, add¬
ing volume after volume in the alcoves
of his brain as he puts them on the
shelves of his bookcases.
THE CHURCH
Not what will pay, but what is profitable;
not what will draw, but what will edu¬
cate and improve, should be the ques¬
tions considered by church officials.
The church is an instrumentality to help
the soul to reach the spiritual heights of
moral excellence; to attain a divine
character through reason and effort,
through feeling and work.
The church is the academy of conscience,
and it thrives in the blacksmith shop as
well as in the counting-room. Con¬
science grows in the alley just as vitally
as on the avenue.
The church has no place in society unless
it can make good its claim to the best
intelligence, the noblest study, and the
most active work of the members in
its community.
THE CHURCH
39
The institutional church, with its varied
activities, its wide sympathies, its spirit
of helpfulness, is a hopeful sign of the
times.
The church must become institutionalized
morality; an industry for the manufac¬
ture of righteousness, for the distribu¬
tion of justice.
If you have no money to contribute to
the church, you have a personality to
invest, a presence to contribute. You
have hands to consecrate, feet to dedi¬
cate.
The twentieth century cathedral, like that
of the thirteenth century, will be a spirit
before it is a building. It will not be a
thing of columns and of arches, how¬
ever necessary these may be, and how¬
ever beautifully they may ultimately be
developed. Before that it will be a
spirit of freedom—the freedom not of
toleration, but of appreciation; not of
endurance but of sympathy.
40
THE CHURCH
It is the business of the church to be a
leveling power, leveling upward, how¬
ever.
There is a growing sanity in our churches.
They are beginning to become guar¬
dians of morality, centres of ethical
instruction.
The church must have a care for the
bodies of men as well as for their spirits.
It must have a thought of society as a
whole as well as of the individual.
Growth lies not in the result but in the
process. Reverence lies not in the ac¬
ceptance of dogma bequeathed to you,
but in the receptive spirit, the truth-
seeking attitude.
Religion asks of Reason to find it a church
whose corner-stones will be tasks to do,
rather than dogmas to defend; a church
whose only hope of salvation will be
found in its practical recognition and
actual exemplification of the universal
brotherhood.
THE CHURCH
41
The church must become a clearing-house
for the good intentions of its members.
Duty, not pleasure; truth, not ease; right,
and not society; a chance to be and to
do rather than to have and to get, is the
true motive of the church and of church
going.
The kingdom of God as a celestial city in
the clouds, unrelated to the present
needs and hopes of this world, has lost
its power of inspiring high thought and
noble'action.
Science, which is the ordered thinking of
the highest intelligence, the system¬
atized knowledge of the world, scarcely
recognizes in the church, as it is to-day,
an ally or a friend.
Woe to the minister who treads upon
people's political toes; but more woe to
the church the minister of which never
offers a shoe that pinches and never
disturbs the complacency, prejudices or
preferences of his listeners.
42
THE CHURCH
Unthinkable creeds, theological errors,
have never been "disproved" ; they are
always outgrown.
So long as truth is reached through suffer¬
ing, and right triumphs in defeat and
death, so long will the cross symbolize
a more sacred reality than the crown.
There never have been any false doctrines
in the world except belated ones.
They are all true so long as they are
vital. They are all false when they
become impotent.
Are you comfortable in your creed-house
that shuts more out than it shuts in ?
Away with all doors that shut out
thought, human hearts or the inquiring
spirit.
The growth of thought, the amelioration
of dogma, the triumphs of scholarship,
must be followed by a mitigation of the
sectarian spirit, a cessation of denomi¬
national warfare, a coming together on
the essentials of the spiritual life.
THE CHURCH
43
We shall have a restored church when we
have a restored theology which will in¬
clude an illuminating sociology.
The church destroyed by thought must be
restored by more thought. Let science
restore what science has destroyed.
Slowly will grow the true American church ;
democratic in organization, progressive
in spirit and hospitable to all forms of
religious thought; cherishing the relig¬
ious beliefs and forms of the past, but
keeping itself open to all new lights and
higher developments of the future.
Pitiable is the spirit that is afraid of con¬
tamination by contact with a spirit of a
different creed from its own, a mind
with a different philosophy from its
own, a man or woman who walks a
different social round from its own.
Most pitiable of all is the soul that is
afraid of another soul encased in a skin
more white, or black, or yellow than its
own.
44
THE CHURCH
History is full of ecclesiastical ruins.
Churches, like everything else, die when
they cease to be useful. There is no
inside work for a church that is not re¬
lated to the outside wants of the world.
Jesus wrote no creed, appointed no bishop,
organized no church and taught no
trinity. He framed no scheme of com¬
mercial atonement or sanguinary salva¬
tion to compromise the dignity, to
impeach the justice, or to deny the love
of the great God of the universe. Yet
all these things are part and parcel of
historic Christianity—so much a part of
it that, taking these away, you have
instead of Christianity only a blessed
humanity left.
THE CITY
The intelligence of any community must
be guarded by the intelligent of that
community.
Here are problems, the very magnitude
and fundamental character of which
ought to impress us to highest citizen¬
ship: how to scrape the political bar¬
nacles from the ship of state; how to
make the favored bear their share of
the burdens of taxation; how to give
labor its just place as a factor in na¬
tional prosperity, as an element in prog¬
ress; and how to so shape our schools
that they will be equal to the high task
of eliminating ignorance, assimilating
the foreigner, exposing shoddy in cloth
and in character, bringing the vulgarity
of riches into condemnation as well as
inspiring in the poor the control and
sobriety that are the essentials of char¬
acter.
45
46
THE CITY
The most impudent assertion ever thrown
in the face of an honest man is that he
throws his vote away when he votes for
his convictions.
The unsolved problem of modern civiliza¬
tion is the government of great cities.
If democracy breaks in America any¬
where, it will break at the municipal
centres.
The state that rested on the bayonet is
either dead or dying; the- state resting
on the brain and conscience of the indi¬
vidual has come or is coming in its
stead. The realm no longer belongs to
the king and queen, but the king and the
queen belong to the realm.
It is the lack of civic consciousness, of a
sense of responsibility for the whole
municipality at least that makes private
comfort more commanding than public
duty; makes a man more solicitous for
the condition of the lawn which is his
own luxury than for the alley which is
everybody's necessity.
THE CITY
47
The wisdom of many must often be for¬
mulated by the few.
The truly free man must know the free¬
dom of worship, the joy of aspiration,
the flow of gratitude.
The only way we can count one in this
world is to be loyal to this unit, the
inner self, the permanent self, which is
in such danger of being overlaid by the
selfishness of time.
The subtle sympathy ordained by Nature,
which should and must exist between
man and woman, can be trusted only
when they meet as equal partners in
the business of life; equally responsible
in the home, in society and the state.
Let no one insult the Infinite Justice with
a petition that is not a consecration;
with a prayer that is not backed with a
ballot, whenever a ballot is possible;
with the deed, which is more mighty
than the ballot, whether a ballot be
possible or not.
48
THE CITY
If there ever was a period in the world's
history when two political wrongs made
a right, that time has gone by.
There is a neglected temple. It is the
temple of sobriety, of public spirit, of
the commonwealth, built out of and for
the things we own, love, and cherish
together.
What can I do about it ? The first ade¬
quate and final answer of morals and
religion is, win the right of honorable
protest. Put yourself in a position
wherein you will have a right to speak
because your own conduct does not con¬
tradict your word but does reenforce
your ballot.
The kingdom of God on earth is now the
quest of religion. The kingdom of God
in the life is coming to be the test in the
church. The kingdom of God is now
the demand of the citizen as well as the
saint. For this the true devotee must
vote as well as pray.
THE CITY
49
The highest achievement of nature is
human nature, and the greatest out¬
come of human nature is the complex
life of the city.
The city is a teacher of humanities as the
country never can be. It is in the city
that the poor, beaten, bruised, blistered
horse most often needs a friend. It is
in the city that the greatest solitude
overtakes the human soul.
The lowest law of self-defence commits to
the state the guardianship of all its chil¬
dren, and it is for the state to do for
its children those things which can be
more efficiently done by cooperation
than by individual or home effort.
In the city at least, the state must help
plan for the full activity of the child;
not simply for the pauper or the mal¬
formed, but for the well-housed and
the well-born child which must depend
largely on the state for that normal
activity which will secure its best
development.
50
THE CITY
The man or men who take a back step,
espouse a reactionary movement, flinch
in the presence of a high perplexity in
the interest of a church, a school, a uni¬
versity or the state, may do but little
direct harm, but they do an indirect
harm quite beyond the reach of figurçs
to estimate. They check the divine
momentum forward; they blur the pro¬
phetic vision of their day; they retard
the car of progress, and above all they
dampen the enthusiasm of the noble,
chill that "passion for humanity" which
has been well characterized as the very
essence of Christianity, as it certainly is
the spirit of religion.
THE NATION
Governments are the products and not
the foes of civilization.
The wage fund of a nation and its pur¬
chasing power bear a constant and
inevitable ratio to one another.
Unless our politics can eventually make
holy alliance with statesmanship and
the office be permitted to seek its man
rather than the man his office, our gov¬
ernment will prove a failure.
The ways of politics are devious and
oftentimes dark; the tricks of our poli¬
ticians are numerous and oftentimes
vain. But our statesmen, "guiding their
steps by the stars," are willing to trust
the welfare of state and nation in the
greater welfare of humanity, the frater¬
nity of nations, knowing that that can¬
not be "good for the bee that is not good
for the swarm."
5 I
52
THE NATION
The continued prosperity of a country is
in the hands of the prosperous.
The more intelligence, the more govern¬
ment. The more liberty, the stronger
government. The more justice, the
more inexorable government.
You cannot wipe away the cruelties and
barbarities rooted in centuries of igno¬
rance, political tyranny and religious
prejudice, by wiping away a govern¬
ment.
The American people will forget at their
peril the clear lesson of history, that
prosperity is no measure of a nation's
strength, commerce is not the ultimate
of life, and business must never become
a substitute for religion and moralit}^
The danger to the republic lies in the
low estimate of human life, in the over¬
estimate of the value of force, in the
trusting to armed power rather than to
the principles of justice and the methods
of peace.
THE NATION
53
The growth of highways runs parallel
with the growth of nations.
Violent words are the seeds out of which
violent deeds grow. The patriotism
that reveals itself in bitter phrases and
passionate denunciation is a menace to
the country it professes to honor.
Every great question before the Ameri¬
can people to-day is a world-question,
and must finally be settled at world-
tribunals and according to everlasting
principles that obtain in all nations,
underlie all ages and overarch all
righteous courts.
So long as the question of personal fitness
is subordinate to party interests, so long
as loyalty to a party is held above
loyalty to character, and men ask not
what is the worth of the man but what
party badge does he wear, so long will
the destiny of these United States be
uncertain, and our national life be one
of shame, degradation and ultimate
defeat.
54
THE NATION
It does not matter much that you do
not believe in slavery; the question is,
do you believe in freedom ?
The President of the United States be¬
longs to all the people. Only in so far
as he carries the burdens of the whole
people on his heart, is he great or
equal to his position.
Some questions have been settled by the
bitter experience of obliterated millions
who gave their lives to the discovery
and administration of the answers.
Among these settled questions are the
sacredness of property rights, the sanc¬
tity of law, the dignity of government,
the duty of obedience to law.
Government must be based upon the
consent of the governed, and all other
governments, however stately or
wealthy, will fall to the ground. The
attempt to civilize any part of the world
by changing governments from without
is one of the absurdities that will go
with standing armies.
THE NATION
55
No city or nation was ever made great by
individual wealth or by the preeminence
of the few.
Internationalism, fraternity, universal jus¬
tice and democratic rule for all; this
must become the direct aim of the gov¬
ernments of the world; and faith in a
universal religion which appeals to all
men as men.
Our country's claim to respect and confi¬
dence is measured, not by her bank de¬
posits, but by the enthusiasm, unity and
lofty aims of her people; the harmony
that obtains between the favored and
the less favored; the equity that binds
together the employer and the em¬
ployé.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
Nothing in this great world stands alone.
Our lives are fragments of the perfect
whole; if we invert or pervert them we
mar the whole pattern.
If you want to put your money where it
will do the most good, put it at the serv¬
ice of human sympathies.
Man must learn that he holds no mon¬
opoly of Nature; that he must fall
in with the procession or he will get
run over; he must move on or be left
behind; conform or be crushed.
The nineteenth century ends with the
emphasis on the community, the social
unit; and it will take another hundred
years to work out the corporate con¬
science, the corporate love and the cor¬
porate wealth.
56
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 57
The first step in the cure of anarchy is to
understand it. The second is to be fair
to it.
Not the "burden of the white man," but the
burden of humanity is our great inherit¬
ance, in which lies our right to be and
our hope for the future.
There is no independency in the world.
We are all of us dependent creatures
and every onward step in civilization
increases the complexity.
Human nature is the last fold in the mani¬
fold life of this world of ours. Man has
to fight no more and no different ene¬
mies than have beset the horse, the bird
and the worm.
Perhaps the highest delight that a vaca¬
tion brings to a busy, overworked
people, is the opportunity of feasting
the eyes once more on the beauty of
common things; of tuning the ear to
detect the music there is in the life of
ordinary men and women.
58 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
The latest methods of religion all lead to
cooperation; to a concern for the whole
—a practical togetherness.
The time has gone by when an individual,
a state or a nation, can claim a release
from the responsibility of the world.
The human soul on its way to its power
and its nobility has passed through the
successive stages of the solitary, the
family, the tribe, the clan, the state, into
world-consciousness.
The only wars in the history of our cen¬
tury that command a moment's respect
to-day are the wars that wrought for
human freedom, and which have been
exponents of human thought and
human progress.
Anarchy is the child of tyranny, monar-
chial severities, and social injustice. It
was born out of bitterness. Historically
and psychologically it thrives on hatred.
It can out-hate the most vigorous hater
that confesses allegiance to law.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 59
The story of civilization is but the story of
expanding brotherhood.
Industrial war, like all other war, is born
out of the mistakes of men; it repre¬
sents the misunderstandings, not the
understandings of life.
The highest use of wealth and the ulti¬
mate justification of the same is that
which makes of it a fulcrum under the
lever with which society as a whole is
raised.
Commerce, art, learning, religion, are not
the achievements of any one man, na¬
tion or age; but the accumulated solu¬
tions, the aggregated deposits of all
lands and ages.
Progress in ethics, as in travel, consists in
our ability to profit by the experience
of those who have gone before; in our
readiness to trust the wisdom be¬
queathed us by those who have been
over the road and left their mark
behind.
6o UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
The tests of war are severe, but the tests
of peace are more severe.
War is deplorable in any aspect, and the
existence of it is an arraignment of
humanity and a reproach to the relig¬
ion that tolerates it.
You cannot build too confidently on the
future if you build along the lines of the
needs of humanity, and if you build
according to the inspirations of gener¬
osity and love.
Gentleness and sympathy are not volun¬
tary graces which the soul may accept
or refuse at its pleasure. They are the
exactions of the universe. He who re¬
fuses them a place in his life cheats God
and debases his own soul.
One thing is proved over and over again:
that the grimmest of circumstances,
small wages, ill health, severest pov¬
erty, are powerless in breaking down a
cheerful spirit, in defeating an inquiring
mind or in circumventing a helpful soul.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 6i
Most of us can tell the right and the
wrong when they touch our personal
interests.
Organization, cooperation, combination is
the law of progress in science, art, relig¬
ion and finance.
There are a thousand successful money
makers where there is one high and
wise money spender.
Every strike is a confession on the part of
employer and employé of their incapac¬
ity to understand one another; of their
unwillingness to be just to one another,
of their inability to play fair at the
game of life.
The seething of the social caldron to-day
is the present form of the creative tur¬
moil once expressed in the volcanic fires
which gave birth to iron mines and
copper beds. It is a part of the turmoil
that once rolled molten nebulae into
worlds, and condensed fiery vapor into
ordered planets.
62 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
The post of honor in God's army is the
post of responsibility and of danger.
Wealth is a trust given to the man who
has it to administer, for the ennoble¬
ment of life, the enlargement of society,
the advancement of humanity.
The weal of the millionaire in his ceiled
house on the avenue is inseparably con¬
nected with the well-being of the hectic
toiler in the sweatshops on the alley.
The nineteenth century has been called
the century of the machine; and ma¬
chinery is the prolongation of the
human arm, the multiplication of the
human fingers—making the skill of one
man the resource of many.
That social condition that reduces the
incentives to house-owning to the mini¬
mum, and raises the difficulty of such
possession to the maximum, is a social
condition fraught with dangers to the
state, and one which brings degeneracy
to the individual.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 63
History is the surest cure for pessimism.
Those causes need us most that are least
recognized.
The best way to overcome an evil is to
replace it with a good.
War is destructive of law whether it be
carried on by one man or by a hundred
thousand men; whether it strike a peas¬
ant or a president.
When our labor unions begin to turn out
the dissipated and the vicious from
their orders, and break with the saloon¬
keepers, they will begin to grow in¬
vincible.
Government is going to become more and
more a self-surrender of minor benefits
in order that there may be mutual en¬
hancement of major privileges. Society
is going to ask for the subordination of
the individual to the whole, that thereby
liberty, instead of being curtailed, may
be vouchsafed.
64 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
The aim must never be success, but prog¬
ress; not the triumphs of time but of
eternity.
The long, long struggle of judgment, the
age upon age of selfish quests, brings
man at last to realize that selfishness is
death and disinterestedness is life.
The "unearned increment" in the fortunes
of our day is an element which the
requirements both of a rigid political
economy, as well as of a righteous moral
standard, must take account of.
The word that is at once the inspiration
and the menace of this age is the word
"practical." This is the demand of the
highest among us; it is the excuse of
the meanest among us.
Many of the best things said and done
have passed into the safe treasury of
the human soul where forgotten things
are preserved in lives made better—pre¬
served in minds quickened and hearts
softened.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 65
The employé of to-day may be the em¬
ployer of to-morrow.
Only that which in some measure meets a
social need can gain a tenacious hold
upon social life.
Great wars have sometimes been won by
men who, when measured by the severer
standards of peace, turn out to be small
men.
There are other slaveries than the slavery
of body. It is great to be free in mind
and conscience, free from bad habits,
coarse desires and selfish motives; but
freedom, like wealth or beauty, is good
only when you do good with it.
In morality the voices of the prophets
blend and the chorus is to become
audible throughout the world. In
ethics all religions meet. Gentleness is
everywhere and always a gospel. Char¬
acter is always a revelation. All wri¬
tings that make for character are sacred
scripture.
66 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
Life is measured by its yield of content¬
ment, inspiration, usefulness; not by its
tax rolls or bank account.
It is not always brave to impugn the brav¬
ery of those whose ways differ from
ours.
Liberality is no fixed quantity, and is not
a question of geography or names; its
antithesis is illiberality.
There is no generosity that is not grounded
in justice, and certainly you cannot be
just without being generous.
It is better to fall crushed under the
wheels of the car of progress which we
are trying to move forward, than to fix
that same car by our complacent weight
to the place upon which it stands.
Every advance on the bewitching roads
of life, every ascent toward any of
the alluring ideals is made possible only
by turning away from many other roads,
by refusing many other ideals.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 67
If we forget, let us, if possible, cultivate
our memory by suffering the incon¬
venience of our forgetting.
Crime is more largely a matter of oppor¬
tunity than we can realize. Remove
the opportunities, make crime shelter¬
less, and a large percentage of it will
cease to be.
The philosophy of evolution is beginning
to work in the moral interests and social
sympathies of men so that the appeal
to history begins to have increasing
weight.
We are impatient only when we forget
the infinite patience. We are petulant
when we turn away from the unresting,
unhasting stars that move in their un-
impassioned orbits in darkest nights.
The difficult thing to do is to realize, not
only the extent, but the variety and the
beauty that are packed away within the
reach of anybody—within the being of
everybody.
68 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
Nothing will bring great returns but great
demands.
Society does not need organizing so much
as it needs reorganizing.
Our quest should be for truth, not com¬
fort; for right, not pleasure; for power,
and not popularity.
The vices of life are interchangeable as
well as its virtues. Sins are trans-
mittible as well as graces. Moral
bluntness in one thing dulls the con¬
science in all directions.
I believe that what God hath joined to¬
gether no man can put asunder; that
however capitalists and laborers may
quarrel, capital and labor are one being
and his name is Civilization.
It is as unjust as it is unphilosophic to con¬
found the anarchist whose weapon is a
bullet with the anarchist whose weapons
of defence and offence are the beati¬
tudes.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 69
Whether all men are equal or not in en¬
dowments, they are entitled to be
judged by one standard.
The golden rule is but a wayside shrine
leading to the cathedral of character,
the high altar of saintship farther up
the heights.
The interest in ethics, the passion for jus¬
tice, and the study and admiration of
the great religious movements, men and
classes, are steadily on the increase.
Put your small grievances into their
proper perspective and they cease to be
grievances because you have removed
the stumbling-block.
The problem of the future is purely an
ethical one. Happiness and plenty are
commodities no longer to be measured
by the physical resources or possibilities
of earth. They are absolutely the re¬
sults of spiritual condition, whether we
study the life of the individual, the
city, the state, or the world.
70 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
The consumer is responsible for the con¬
dition of the producer and the nature
of the production.
Possession is, other things being equal,
self-augmentation. It is the enlarged
soul; it is what you are to-day plus what
you have been able to save from yester¬
day.
You cannot delegate to another the kind
word, the helpful smile, which you alone
must administer. At the polls of God,
as at the voting places of the state,
proxies are not allowed.
We cannot convert the science of ethics
into the art of morality until we learn to
work together consciously and recog¬
nize that we are moved by the same
spirit.
Even the squirrels, in the long days of
summer, provide for the severe days of
winter. Foresight is forever a measure
of life's intelligence. Thrift belongs to
the wise.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 71
Life's inspirations come not from the
classes but from the masses.
All the gratifications of life are dependent
upon wise and heroic denials.
He who halts when conscience bids haste,
who is silent in the presence of acknowl¬
edged evils, compromises with death.
Capital is the storage battery which con¬
serves the surplus energy of one day for
the unexpected necessities or the emer¬
gency of another.
There are times when the clasp of a
human hand—aye, the echoes of a
human voice—the challenge of a human
soul flashing from eye through eye to
another soul, alone can save the day.
We can ill afford to distrust the poor
attempts of the human heart to realize
a truth-seeker and a truth-teller so long
as these attempts do not violate the
methods of the universe or throw dis¬
credit on the laws of God.
72 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
You cannot help your brother by bread
alone, or save your own soul by alms¬
giving.
There are woes that cannot be soothed by
being analyzed; inspirations that cannot
be produced in the laboratory.
In so far as the capitalist represents cap¬
ital in its legitimate functions, he is not
the foe but the friend of the laborer.
You cannot compass the moral law by a
seventh day sanctity. Ethics is not a
vicarious gift but personal attainment.
There are but two methods of settling a
dispute: one is by war, the other by
arbitration. The arbitrament of the
sword is passing; the arbitrament of
reason—aye, of love, is coming.
Would you find the greatest industrial
slavery, the most pathetic dependency,
the most horrible drudgery, the fewest
amenities of life known in the life of to¬
day ? Go to the modern sweatshop.
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD 73
All life, as all thought, is but a more suc¬
cessful fitting of the part to the whole,
of the individual to the universe.
There can be but one justification for war,
and that is liberty, and the justice and
the chance that go therewith. That
war is noblest that secures the highest
results in these directions.
In the complex life of to-day, the intricate
economic interests of modern society,
no man can say that his business is his
own if it is a business that has in it any
public value or is rooted in any public
needs. Only the gambler and the thief
have a business all their own.
War is a corporate expression of the bar¬
baric element still left in civilization.
Meanwhile, let us frankly admit that
there are conditions more dire than
war; that liberty, justice, honor, are
more valuable than life, and when these
cannot be won or maintained in life,
they are worth purchasing by the blood
of the noblest, the lives of the best.
74 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
The demands of right are written upon
the tablets of human experience.
The word of the primitive man was
"might"; the word of the coming man
must be "right."
Wealth is no condition upon which to
found the aristocracy that has always
been in the world—the aristocracy of
excellency, the rule of the competent.
There is no foundation for real heroism,
no courage except that which is planted
in the thought of the eternal and the
universal.
' ' Be our strength in hours of weakness^
In our wanderings be our guide ;
Through endeavor^ failure^ danger^
Father^ be Thou at our side. "
May we know that wherever there is a hunger
for truth and a desire to do the right; wherever the
heart swells with a love we canmt control or may
not understand, there Thou art. In the sincerity and
frankness of open souls, we would lay bare our lives to
Thee by offering them to the inspection of one another.
We would offer Thee the sincerity of our hearts by
speaking out of that sincerity this holy hour. Amen.
75
PERSONAL
Abraham Lincoln brought to a distracted
nation a conciliatory spirit, a steady,
strong will, a prophetic mind.
Draw a line from the head of George
Washington to that of Lincoln, and no
head will intervene to break the line.
His greatness is proved by his measure¬
less contribution to liberty.
Of all modern writers in English liter¬
ature there are only four of whom I can
say, "I have read and studied every
available published line, many of them
over and over again, and personally I
find nothing in any of them that I can
spare." One of these four is a woman.
Two of them are American and two
English. And now abideth these four:
Emerson, Browning, George Eliot,
Lowell; and the greatest of these is
Emerson.
76
PERSONAL
77
Great men give us the truest measure of
ourselves. By them we are able to see,
not only what we are, but what we
ought to be. A great soul is a land¬
mark showing where the tide once
reached.
Nature and human nature conspired to
bring forth excellence in Ralph Waldo
Emerson. Harvard College had
shaped his brain cells with an aptitude
for learning before he had ever opened
his eyes on this wonder world. He was
ordained not only to be great but good.
Abraham Lincoln is no longer to be
classed with the politicians, nor the
statesmen, nor yet as an American.
He is a prophet of religion and morals.
He is a great heart throbbing with life.
He will be at home in any age and in
any clime. He belongs to humanity
because his soul was profoundly relig¬
ious, in league with justice, dedicated to
that love which is not only human but
humane.
78
PERSONAL
In Robert Browning the head and the
heart were well harnessed together and
he drove them abreast.
Emerson was great in his acquaintance
with literature. His intimacy with na¬
ture was delicate and profound, but he
was greatest as an exponent of the
moral law.
Horace Mann, Lloyd Garrison and Abra¬
ham Lincoln perhaps represent the
noblest, as well as the most unique, con¬
tributions of the United States to the
twentieth century during the nineteenth
century.
The great names of the nineteenth cen¬
tury, Goethe, Wordsworth, Emerson,
Browning, Darwin, Herbert Spencer,
Lincoln, Victor Hugo, Mazzini, Glad¬
stone, Ruskin, Tennyson, Tolstoy,
George Eliot, Harriet Martineau, Eliza¬
beth Barrett Browning, Susan B. An¬
thony, Florence Nightingale, Clara
Barton, Dorothea Dix, are the names
by which we measure the centuiy.
PERSONAL
79
Robert Browning was preeminently the
poet of humanity. He was an inter¬
preter of modern life in its best phases.
He was a poet of culture, a poet not
afraid of science, a poet of the city.
Whitman's poems are like persimmons.
They leave an uncomfortable pucker in
the mouth, and still one goes on eating
the bitter-sweet stuff for a reason quite
impossible to analyze.
If ever there was a peace-making spirit
and a lover of harmony it was Abra¬
ham Lincoln. This man who was ever
interceding for his enemies, doing good
to them that hated him, and speaking
well of them that despitefully used him,
carries us back to that patriotic form of
government of primitive times, and for¬
ward to that paternal government,
which some of us dream of as lying in
the bosom of the future, where the
state will be a loving guide, inspirer and
friend to every citizen within its bor¬
ders.
8o
PERSONAL
James Russell Lowell was a splendid
manifestation of power. He was noble
with an ideal nobility. He was a proph¬
ecy and a promise of that coming Amer¬
ican for the production of whom the
best forces of the civilized world are
to-day being compounded. His love of
poetry did not interfere with his being
an ardent citizen. He was a tireless
delver among books, none the less a
constant student of men. He was a
great home-lover and home-maker.
Lincoln's greatest glory lies not in his
gentleness, though there was that in his
nature which made him a masculine
mother to the suffering and discouraged.
It was not on account of his mercy,
though I know not where you will find a
man to whom was given so much power,
who wielded it with so much magnanim¬
ity. It was not his strength of will,
though that in its final test was ada¬
mant, but it was in that holy instinct for
justice which is ever suggestive of the
divine.
PERSONAL
8i
Ruskin began life as a representative of
culture, wealth, and the aristocracy sug¬
gested thereby. He ended his life as
an advocate and interpreter of the
artisan, a lover of nature, a prophet of
simplicity, a democrat of the democrats.
Ruskin, Morris and Tolstoy, the three
men who in their generation did most
to expose the false uses of wealth, were
themselves very wealthy, considering
the time and place in which they lived.
They felt the bitterness of over-toil, the
dreariness of unilluminated and uncom¬
pensated labor.
Lincoln did many things commendable,
acts that would merit the gratitude of
individuals, win the confidence of his
associates, and arouse the enthusiasm
of his army; but he did one thing that
will merit the plaudits of mankind as
long as the scroll of history is unrolled
before an intelligent eye, and that was,
he wrote the Emancipation Proclama¬
tion and signed it.
82
PERSONAL
Michael Angelo is one of the mountainous
characters in history.
Perhaps there is no more characteristic
thing in the poetry of Robert Browning
than the benignity with which he in¬
vests death. Death is not merely the
covered passage that leads through
darkness into light, but death is the
interpreter of life and the living.
Robert Browning is so human, so heroic,
so tender, so genial for all classes and
conditions of men that no one knowing
him can help loving him. He had great
patience with the shortcomings of men,
because he had a great trust in the re¬
demptive resources of the human soul.
Let the white life of Lincoln, the man
who, through unpopularity, won renown,
by fidelity to an ideal became powerful,
loyalty to justice making him a savior
of men, point us to the open road that
will make us the more worthy of Lin¬
coln, the truer guardians of his great
bequest.
PERSONAL
83
From a study of George Eliot through
her works, these are my four inferences:
she was eminently a scholar; a profound
philosopher; an earnest reformer and a
devotee—a devout soul.
In Walt Whitman's devotion to the indi¬
vidual, which was very sweet and beau¬
tiful, he did not fail to measure the
interests of the whole. He always tried
to mend mortal hurts with immortal
thoughts. He applied mental medi¬
cines to physical pains.
Herbert Spencer gave to the world the
law of evolution, which is the life of the
universe, in which all thought, love,
hope and duty inhere, out of which they
grow, to which they tend. This is the
cement of the spiritual universe which
makes remote beings kin, antagonistic
forces companions, and writes, for the
first time, in letters of divine light
across the face of the sky and athwart
the blue depths of history, the word
Unity !
84
PERSONAL
Measured by his fame, the scope and
power of his work, the many-sided and
many-handed character of his genius,
Victor Hugo stands out against the
horizon line of history like some colos¬
sus—gigantic, sublime.
Michael Angelo was a great man before
he was a great painter. He was a
great loyal heart before he was the
matchless sculptor. He was a true,
thoughtful, loveful soul before he was a
great architect. Aye, he was all of
these because of those.
Charles Darwin is a name still held in
more awe than love. He is still clad in
some stately robe of scholarship, and
the word "scientist," or perchance
"philosopher," is given him; but the
dearer words of "friend of man, a lover
of nature, a companion of dogs, a cham¬
pion of the bird, a gatherer of flowers,
and a loving student of the worm," are
not given to him in the unstinted meàs-
ure he deserves.
PERSONAL
85
Other philosophers have pulled to pieces,
but Herbert Spencer has put together.
He has justified his title of "Synthetic
Philosophy." Starting with a few fun¬
damental principles discovered in the
nature of things, not created in the
chambers of his own brain, he has trav¬
ersed the field of biology, psychology,
sociology, ethics, and religion, and found
all coherent—no lapse or break any¬
where, no room for miracle, because
law is everywhere.
In death we may couple together, with¬
out indignity to either, the names of
Robert Ingersoll and Dwight L. Moody.
In the long perspective of eternity they
hold more in common than in difference.
Both loved their fellow men; both be¬
lieved in love more than in hate; both
sought to ameliorate the woes of life;
both hoped for greater benignity to
the human soul in the future and
worked for a greater destiny for the
human race.
86
PERSONAL
Whatever may become of his theories, the
life of Herbert Spencer is an ethical in¬
spiration. He has been found on the
noble side of every question; he re¬
buked the dishonesties of trade, ex¬
posed absurdities in the church, labored
for the poor and pleaded for the wicked.
The sympathy which Whitman had with
nature was touched with the scientific
spirit of his age. He almost sings the
song of evolution. But it is with the
world of men that Whitman has most
to do. Nature to him, as with Brown¬
ing, was the palace-house of human
nature.
NATURE
Nature preaches the gospel of largeness.
He who puts his ear close to the bosom of
Mother Earth and listens to the simple
tunes of the insects, or studies the cir¬
culation of the fern frond, will, in due
time, hear the approaching tramp of
the human army that makes for civili¬
zation and peace.
Take from me the beauty and the attend¬
ant joy of outward Nature, revealed in
form and color, if you must; only leave
to me the melody of the human voice,
the merriment of children's laughter,
the solicitude of woman, and the
strength of man as vocalized in tone;
aye, the melody of Nature, the sym¬
phony of wind and thunder, for they
best suggest the timeless things; they
carry me nearest to the throne of the
invisible heart of the Eternal.
87
88
NATURE
Nature is a school of faith.
The country is the home of the spirit, the
cradle of the emotions, the teacher of
the heart.
The new intelligence rests not upon the
theories of the masters, nor the state¬
ments of the texts, but upon the facts of
Nature.
The sea prostrates the human soul with a
sense of its helplessness only to lift it up
again with a comforting sense of com¬
panionship.
The voices of the night make of this roll¬
ing earth but a little ball swinging in its
little orbit in an out-of-the-way corner
of the astronomic infinity.
The output and uplift of all Nature is in
the spiral pull of the clinging tendril.
The climbing vine testifies to the divin¬
ity of earth and the fulness thereof.
It is a part of the mystery of the wild-
wood.
NATURE
89
Certainly one of the gateways into the
citadel of thought and feeling is the
ear. Sound is the more profound inter¬
preter of nature.
We are committed to the gospel of the
star and the daisy; to the sanctities of
the field and the forest; to the estab¬
lishment of a church of man, a kingdom
of God on earth.
The cultivated mind feels deeper than it
can reason, and it is hard to analyze the
charm of the country; but perhaps one
large element lies in the peace which
seems to brood over field and forest, in
the stability of elm and oak, in the
patience of the pine.
There is nothing in the whole story of ani¬
mate nature more mystic, surprising, and
marvelous, than the great tides of bird
life that twice every year sweep over
our country, southward in autumn and
northward in spring; and most of this
shy flying army in feathers passes in the
night.
go
NATURE
Human nature is itself Nature in its high¬
est manifestation.
Nature, on the surface at least, is dispas¬
sionate, very deliberate. Even the in¬
tense temperature of the hottest days
Nature endures without scolding.
The hills work on long lines. The
achievements of the marsh are the
results of investments far back, and
their worth will be determined only in
the perspective of the long eras of time.
Nature, as well as human nature, has eco¬
nomic uses for a dead tree. As the sap
recedes, the line of life advances, and
our dead tree becomes a veritable
metropolis of life in which countless
residents enjoy palatial comforts.
When humanity disappoints, the moon
holds; and from its regularity there
rises in the heart of man a tide of confi¬
dence in the eternal as surely as the
waves of the ocean turn their tidal front
toward its beckonings.
NATURE
91
The night soothes the feverish pulse
which the day excites.
To be "near to the heart of Nature" is to
be far away from the friction, the con¬
tentions, the poisoning jealousies of
life.
It is a great deprivation to be blind, for
thereby is the world shut out; but it is a
greater calamity to be deaf, for thereby
is the soul shut in.
The deliberation of Nature is balanced
by its diligence; by that persistency
that is never balked or discouraged,
but pushes toward some far-off un¬
known goal with energy unfaltering.
The sea ignores and overlooks the mean
distinctions that affect terrestrial society.
The only sermon that can be preached
on mid-ocean, away out there on no-
man's-land and everybody's-water, is
the sermon of the universal needs and
sympathies.
92
NATURE
The great forces of heaven, as of
earth, are silent forces. The great
accomplishments of spirit, as of matter,
are wrought in the dark. The silent
drip in the everlasting darkness of the
cave creates the alabaster columns and
crystal pendants.
On the water the thinking mind finds its
flag rimmed more or less distinctly with
that white band with which the Peace
Society would fain teach us to rim every
flag; a recognition of the truth that
wherever the centre may be the circum¬
ference includes all.
Let the sick or the despondent lie awake
in the night on mountain top, on the
breast of the hill, in the cradle of the
valley, anywhere where Nature is, and
find the indisputable truth that Nature
is alive; that it is doing something; that
life and not death is the law; aye, that
joy and not sorrow is the dominant
strain.
ART
Art deals with the permanent forces of
life.
Art rests in simplicity and never violates
the principles of fitness.
That cannot be beautiful that does not in
some way justify itself by its utility.
When into labor is introduced an element
of art, then it begins to sing. Labor
becomes gracious when it grows grace¬
ful.
The beautiful has its indestructible mes¬
sage to the world. Art that made
Greece glorious is yet to crown the
heights of religious consecration.
The cathedral at its noblest is the best
outward symbol of the spiritual nature
of man, as it is also the most suggestive
measure and prophecy of the corporate
life of man.
93
94
ART
Poetry is a great leveler, and culture is
cosmopolitan.
The open church to-day means the church
where poets are allowed to testify and
art is invoked as a helper.
Art is the hope of the toiling multitude as
it is the joy of the cultivated; it is one
of the highways that lead to God.
If art is related to truth, the artistic
material is near by. Its inspirations are
rooted in science, its exhibits consist of
the life ever near. In short, they only
can interpret art who interpret truth,
and the interpreters of truth are only
those who live it.
Beautiful buildings, gracious streets,
benignant societies, cannot be created
out of the rag-ends of wealthy men's
fortunes. They must be the result of
an enlightened community; of a public
spirit that is democratic; of a public
development that is unconsciously
enamored of art.
ART
95
The cathedral is the spired climax of four¬
teen or more centuries of Christian
prayer and aspiration. It inspired and
still holds and represents the supreme
achievements of man in nearly all the
arts.
In the production of the cathedral, paint¬
ing, sculpture, architecture and music
climbed, like the Gothic arch which
inspired them, to their highest peaks,
their most perfect curves and most
graceful proportions.
Not until the spirit has a growing sense
of kinship with the beautiful and good,
not until the soul is taught to unfold its
wings and know something of aspira¬
tion and praise, does it become the soul
of a man—a soul indeed.
The call of the twentieth century is for
simplicity—not because the twentieth
century is to be indifferent to art, but
because it is to love art better; because
it is to increase the beauty of life and
make society more gracious.
96
ART
The finest of the fine arts is the art of
noble living.
Search for the harmonies rather than harp
on the differences.
The flute is the prayer voice of the
orchestra; the sympathetic and respon¬
sive outlet of the human soul on its
meditative and passively emotional side.
However art is defined, all will agree
that in true art are elements of har¬
mony, utility and simplicity, whether it
be architecture, poetry or music; the
discords must yield to harmony.
The law of rhythm asserts itself every¬
where. Poise and counterpoise shape
the direction of the atoms as they
group themselves in the perfect crystal.
All the play of the planets is accounted
for by this free movement of balance
and counterbalance. Everything from
the pulse of man up to the orbit of the
stars that swing through thousands of
years is a search after rhythm.
SCIENCE
Let reason and science deal with the
Bible, so that the dignity of soul may be
maintained and unstultified.
Science does not hesitate to say that Na¬
ture is better able to perpetuate the
good than the bad. Beauty and virtue
are the most persistent forces.
Not he who distrusts the methods of
reason, but he who follows every line of
investigation, finds at last all lines melt
into transcendent beauty, fade into the
hallowed mystery that is pervaded with
the peace of God.
Science is a God-revealer, but not all can
be tutored thereby. There are other
ways in which Nature, which may be but
a name for the great God-of-out-of-
doors, the reality that lurks in things,
may minister peace to all the troublous
hearts of men.
97
98
SCIENCE
It is all very well to prescribe to the soul
a diligent mind, a patient heart and a
prompt conscience. But what are the
inspirations that will move us in this
direction ?
Science the simplifier, science the organ¬
izer, alone can organize the industrial
world in such a way that there will be
the adequate balance between produc¬
tion and consumption.
There is no evading the laws of mathe¬
matics, which hold good in spiritual
trigonometry as in physical. The
shortest distance between two points
in either case is a straight line.
Science of the twentieth century must
prove the foolishness of war, the waste¬
fulness of sectarianism, the absurdity
of fashion, the vulgarity of unillumi-
nated, non-productive and unconsecra-
ted wealth, as on the other hand it will
prove the economy of peace, the joy of
common wealth, the pleasure of giving,
the plenty of the world, when it is honor¬
ably and fairly distributed.
SCIENCE
99
There is always a truth at the core of
every great assertion of humanity.
Sympathy and aspiration are scientific
necessities as well as scientific privileges.
The instinct to help along the hindmost
and protect the least competent, is
planted deep in the law of evolution.
In this age when words are being subor¬
dinated to things, when the fairy tales
of old are being outdone by the more
bewitching tales of science, the country
offers increasing inspiration to the
mind.
The ideal that God plants in every
human breast is a part of that great
creative law scholars call Evolution.
It is that something which, out of star-
dust, made stars and grouped them into
systems; the something that gave suns
their habitations and swung the planets
into their orbits; that fixed pathways
around those suns from which they may
not stray.
In our yearnings for truth and beauty^ we would
recognize^ Father, both the prayer and the ansiver.
In the lonely cry may we recognize that which
breaks the loneliness. When the soul is wrapped
about zvith a sense of solitude, there Thou dost rest
consciously; so we, Thy children, would fain attune
our spirits by high thoughts.
Give us a sense of Thy being breaking upon us
through the kindly tone, the loving eye, and the
helping smile of our fellows, so that we may feel a
little nearer to Thee. Lift our hearts by lifting our
thoughts, that we may justify our lives by living as
to Thee. Amen.
100
RELIGION
Religion is a verity best understood when
least defined.
Religion is the most prominent factor in
human conduct; it is the abiding need
of society.
Religion is becoming more and more a
necessity with the growth of science,
the development of art, the emancipa¬
tion of humanity.
Religion and ethics rest in synthesis.
They take their bearings by the stars;
they rise out of an appreciation of the
whole; out of a sense of the complete
aggregate.
Religion is that which consciously relates
man-power to the world-power; fits the
finite into the infinite; makes the human
aspiration cosmic; gives to the soul a
sense of its relation to the divine.
lOI
I02
RELIGION
Whatever religion is, it is one of the most
permanent and persistent elements of
human nature.
Religion, love, faith, duty are words that
baffle the highest skill of the lexicog¬
rapher; but what flies the dictionary
may lodge in a child's mind.
The message of religion to-day is not
vague, but it is large. It is not ambig¬
uous, but it is penetrating, like poetry,
love, duty, death—like immortality.
The finest line in every landscape is the
horizon line. On the border line of
thought lie the reverences. Where our
petty certainties end, there our holy
worship begins.
Through all the religious experiences of
the race there runs the common fibre of
duty as the supreme thing; of love, the
crowning law, binding us all to the nat¬
ural, which is the spiritual; to the real,
which is the ideal; to the common, which
is the divine.
RELIGION
103
The religions of the world are measured
by their expanding sympathies, their
widening alliances.
Religious institutions are most efficient in
their youth, most potent when despised,
most spiritual when friendless, strongest
in the days of their unpopularity.
The masterful names in the story of re¬
ligion are the names of the great lovers
of man: Moses, Zoroaster, Socrates,
Buddha, Paul and Jesus.
Religion has been and will be the force
that works on long lines. It will deter¬
mine the place not only of the indi¬
vidual in time and eternity, but of the
community and the nation in the history
of the race.
It is not the province of religion to ex¬
plain the ways of God to man; it is not
for me to apologize for the universe; it
is for us to recognize the facts. As we
discover these, religion helps us either
to bear or to change them.
I04
RELIGION
Religion is the life of God in the soul of
man.
The great triumphs of the world are un¬
demonstrative, even at the time of their
conquests.
The spirit revealing itself to-day, through
science and philosophy as well as
through art, literature and human ex¬
perience, gives to religion the regnant
place in human life.
All science, as well as commerce, art and
statesmanship, points to a cooperation
and combination which religion must
eventually sanctify and organize into
more magnificent expressions than any
of these other forces can.
The theologians have had a hard time of
it in trying to reconcile infinite justice
with infinite love. In their trouble they
missed the correlation. No more inti¬
mately wedded are light and heat in the
economy of the universal than are jus¬
tice and love.
RELIGION
The Christ is ever manger-born.
Faith is a disembodied thing ever seek¬
ing to embody itself in nobler forms, in
higher action.
Faith is that something that translates
life into courage; makes soul a verity
to consciousness; a fact in history.
Religion is the most natural of Nature's
products in the same sense that the
rose is queen of the flowers and the oak
is king of the forest, because it is the
superlative reach of Nature; the divinest
blossoming of the human heart, the
most magnificent branching of the
human intellect.
The spiral of religious emotions seems to
be: first, an anxiety to escape present
terrors; then, the fear of a far-off hell
beyond the grave; lastly, a conscious¬
ness of the hell on this side and a desire
to lift men and women out of it, or, bet¬
ter still, to extinguish the flames them¬
selves—to change hell into heaven.
io6
RELIGION
Distrust of the future results from short
views of the past.
The finite belongs to the infinite, and God
will claim his own in his own good
time, in his own high way.
I believe in immortality because God has
given me a prophetic appetite for it.
This law is always the compensation
and comfort of the poet.
In that great anthem, the Parliament of
Religion, that is to come, the discordant
notes of varying creeds and dogmas, the
distracting forms and ceremonies will
dropout. They will miscarry by means
of their angularities, while the rounded
notes of love, the superb tones of help¬
fulness, the great diapason of human
hopes and human aspirations, will carry
across the chasm of time and inter¬
vening spaces of sea and mountain.
Out of these will be formed the music
that will be the gladness of the world.
It will be a hymn of praise, a song with¬
out words.
RELIGION
107
A study of Nature is a study of God.
The true vocation of the Lenten season is
a quest for life and not for death.
Faith, whatever it is, is that which deals
with the imponderable; that which is
allied to ideas; that which rests in prin¬
ciples.
The first quality of mind we must reach
after is the quality of modesty, of humili¬
ation, of reverence—a sense of God's
immeasurable greatness.
The season of planting must ever be the
season of hope. The goddess of sun¬
shine must ever preach the gospel of
the deathless life in this large Easter of
Nature.
I know not what God is; neither did Paul,
"though he be not far from anyone of
us." But we do know that he is some¬
thing not smaller than the stars. The
infinity of worlds floats in the Infinite
Being.
io8
RELIGION
He who sees the matchless harmony, the
measureless power, and infinite delicacy
all around him, sees God. But he who
feels himself intricately dovetailed into
all this knows the peace of God that
passeth all understanding.
The wrong judgments of men hurt us not
if we remember that the balances of
God are justly poised. No thought of
ours is insignificant if we reverently
cradle it in the thought of God. No
plan of ours will be abandoned if we are
sure it is a part of the infinite plan.
Would you know the peace of God?
Realize that you are a part of that infi¬
nite majesty. Strive to catch now and
then a note of the heavenly melody.
Chant a stray chord of the infinite har¬
mony. Remember that everything
beautiful springs from a beauty that is
behind it. Every strong will rises from
a strength underneath. All your loves
are fed from the fountains of infinite
love.
RELIGION
109
The earthly impossibilities are the possi¬
bilities of God.
I know the defects of the churches, how
imperfect they all are, and yet the child
pleads with you for those helps which
churches alone do give, helps that can¬
not be catalogued. It is now a thought,
oftener an emotion; now the emphatic
pronunciation of the word "duty"; and
again the reverent utterance of the
word "God" in such a way as to rebuke
the profanity of the street and the flip¬
pancy of the playground.
Few are permitted to make large ex¬
plorations into the undiscovered fields
of Nature, but all can profit by the
modesty of him who does. All can par¬
take of the humility of those who know
that they are finite agents of an infinite
power tugging away at the hem of infin¬
ity; studying a few fibres at the outer
edge of that seamless robe, woven from
the top throughout by the shuttle of law
which we call the universe—which is
the mantle of the Infinite God.
no
RELIGION
Jesus is unintelligible except to him who
brings his human experience to the
study of his character, and to such study,
Jesus becomes a benignant spirit, a
sustaining master, a reclaiming and
redeeming spirit.
If there is a God anywhere in the realms
of being, he is most where God-like
attributes are revealed. If he be a God
of love, he reveals himself most in the
loving. If he be a just God, he is most
present where justice is most deeply
entrenched. If God is a God of law
and order, he is most revealed where
law culminates in finest effects, in
noblest potencies and fullest orb.
WORK
There can be no development, mental,
spiritual, or physical, except by exercise.
Through labor we become creators, co¬
workers with God. Labor can be trans¬
figured into a habit.
In the scales of the universe a day's work
will always weigh more than the dollar
that pays for that day's work.
The tradesman who strives to know all
about his own business and cares but
little about any other, will not have
much business of his own to absorb his
attention after a while.
Blessed word is that,—"occupation." The
new education is bound up in it. The
health of the child is contained in it.
The safety of the saint is repre¬
sented by it, and the progress of hu¬
manity is dependent upon it.
Ill
112
WORK
When labor becomes the pride of the
laborer, then he becomes fit object for
the envy of kings.
The most disordered explosions of pent-
up passions and unreleased power fol¬
low in the wake of enforced idleness.
There is no release from toil, and the only
escape from the burdens of labor must
come, not by its cessation, but by its
glorification.
There is an overwork that is killing; but
the danger from work, any work, all
work, is trifling compared to the greater
dangers of indolence.
There is always a large psychical element
in distances. It is always farther from
the breakfast table to the field than it
is from the field to the dinner table.
A simple, honest, honorable, justice-lov¬
ing class of manufacturers is a better
protection to Amercian industry than
any tariff law ever invented.
WORK
113
Action in its very nature is sanitary, and
labor is the first and last schoolmaster.
The Power that taught the bird to build
its nest, that surveyed the streets in the
ant-village, guides us. The progress¬
ive Teacher that instructed the wood¬
pecker to excavate a home in the rotten
tree, ripened in man his reason. The
granite palace and the public library
are diviner mysteries than the pine-tree.
Nature never gives to man her gold and
her gems but she says to him, "There
they are; if you want them you must
get them and pay the price therefor."
By the time he has picked the gold out
of the mountain, reared a house out of
the forest, and dug his fuel out of the
coal mine, he will have found, through
the exercise of skill, intelligence and
self-reliance, that which is more valu¬
able than gold or timber or coal.
INTELLECTUAL LIFE
Personalities fall out by the way, but ideas
continue.
Let the intellect be slow, but let the con¬
science be quick.
It takes intellect to make conscience, and
a strong mind is necessary to a strong
will.
So long as the mind of man thinks, the
soul will dare to hope by the grave-side
as well as by the cradle.
The intellectual life I ask for to-day is an
appetite for truth, a relish for reality, a
hunger for excellent things.
Let the brain fill every nerve with the fire
of thought, and the eye will become
brighter than any stone the lapidary
may cut.
114
INTELLECTUAL LIFE 115
By thought is the soul allied to the im¬
material forces of the universe.
The road of intelligence is a long one,
and sometimes a tangled and briery
one.
There is no total depravity but what intel¬
ligence will modify and culture amelio¬
rate.
The intellect enforces the demands of re¬
ligion by multiplying the witnesses to its
truth.
Thought is the road upon which the soul
travels to God, and to the intellectually
active it does not have far to go.
The imperishable creators of literature
are the stalwart characters who simply
declare the counsels of God as revealed
to them, and take the consequences.
There is no growth to the mind that is
afraid to look into any available realm
of the universe; to consider any ques¬
tion propounded; to investigate any
problem presented.
116 INTELLECTUAL LIFE
Oh, it is heart-breaking to see ignorance
consecrated and intelligence indifferent.
Centres of revelation we may discover,
but who dare set the boundaries of reve¬
lation ?
Let us propagate brains and engage in
the propaganda of love and justice in
the world.
Out of the solitude and silence of life are
born the immortal sentences as well as
the immortal deeds.
Criticism detects among the fogs and
mists of antiquity the stately figure of
a grand old leader lifted against the
sky on the frontier of Canaan. Tradi¬
tion has named him Moses.
There is many a professor in our colleges
droning over Greek and Latin roots,
who is intellectually dead; while many
a mechanic or busy accountant, alert for
a new truth, hungry for a fresh book,
going through the world with his eyes
open, is splendidly alive.
INTELLECTUAL LIFE 117
The high thinking of to-day is handcuffed
by the high thinking of the medieval
centuries.
Through the known the soul passes as
through a portal to the altar of the un¬
known, at which it gladly kneels.
Light, like water, is always a beautiful
symbol with nothing of grossness about
it. Intellectual light, as well as sun¬
light, purifies.
The most subtle inspiration is that re¬
vealed through language itself. Every
word uttered by human lips represents
a hidden emotion, an experience and
triumph of the soul known only to the
soul.
This age of steam has its dangers to the
intellect as well as its strain upon the
body. Too great a speed sometimes
paralyzes the spirit before the muscles
give out. Hurry benumbs the heart
more often than it exhausts the physical
vitality.
ii8 INTELLECTUAL LIFE
The perennial things in literature repre¬
sent the fundamental things in life.
Free thought is compatible with rever¬
ence. One can be tender and yet
strong, progressive and yet constructive.
The great minds of the world have been
fed upon the great literature of the
world, and they are best trained who
can never tell when their interest in
permanent literature began.
The intellectual life I plead for is not an
acquirement, but an attitude of mind;
not a position, but a movement of soul;
not what you do know, but what you
want to know, what you are trying to
know.
Literature is universal. It is distinguished
from the newspaper, in that literature
deals with the permanent elements of
life in such a way that its statements
have a degree of permanence, while
the other deals with transient matters
in a transitory form.
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Life is communicated by life.
I believe in spirit more than in matter; in
truths more than in institutions.
The spirituality most needed to-day is
that which reads the lesson of the spirit
in, not through, the facts of matter.
The oak, the pine, and the elm, are
trees of life.
I know not the whence nor the whither of
life; I am sure only that the one as the
other is mysteriously sheathed in divin¬
ity. The grave is no more inexplicable
than the cradle.
We are still enslaved in the feeling that
the material quantity is of more impor¬
tance than the spiritual quality of our
lives. We forget that it is not what
but how we do that determines our
character.
119
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Spirit should grow strong by radiation.
From the cradle to the grave, life is a con¬
tinual process of elimination.
Spiritual vision, like physical vision, is
not only a matter of eye but a matter
of light.
Incarnation is a fundamental law of the
spirit, and life must ever incorporate
itself.
Mortality will be dissipated on the shores
of eternity; the transient will give way
to the permanent.
Every life that lives to-day is a mighty
focus into which have been concen¬
trated the incalculable rays from in¬
numerable lives through untold genera¬
tions.
The heart has its hunger and the soul its
nakedness, and the feeding of the one
and the clothing of the other are condi¬
tioned by the same laws as govern
bodily diet and bodily raiment.
SPIRITUAL LIFE 121
The forces of the soul are bound together,
not by the external law of gravitation,
but by an inner chord of consciousness,
and this, as it seems to me, guarantees a
continuity transcending all the rounds
of matter.
It was the divine necessity that changed
the tombstone into a temple, wrought a
fear into a prayer, translated awe into
worship, and made morality a passion
and ethics the supreme quest of the
noblest souls.
Oh, wealth is a blessing worthy the best
energies of the best minds when it falls
into hands that are consecrated to
ideals; when it is entrusted to con¬
sciences that feel the commanding
power of the spirit.
The power of observation that makes one
equal to the perplexities of the forest
and skilled in the manipulation of Na¬
ture's elements, the thrift of the pioneer,
the sagacity of the hunter, are all of
them spiritual acquirements.
LOVE
Love is life itself; it is the burden of his¬
tory; it is that wheel of life "upon
which all being rides."
Sympathetic tenderness is one of the most
universal needs of the human soul,
because it is felt through all ranks and
conditions.
The remedy for violence is love. Life
will be held cheap and destroyed ruth¬
lessly as long as men believe that force
is more effective than sympathy; brawn
more protective than brain; hate more
persuasive than love.
The love that makes for the redemption
of man is divine love, whether we phrase
it in the language of philosophy, of sci¬
ence or religion; whether we study it in
the light of the facts of biology or the
experiences of humanity.
122
LOVE
123
The great tragedies of life are always the
tragedies of love.
Whatever love is, even in its crudest
form, it is something solemn and sacred.
Judged either by its present intensity
or future fruitage, it is momentous.
Love is a thing of demonstration, not of
argument. It is useless to promulgate
the eternal love as a doctrine unless it
can be realized as a living potency.
Man shows his love for his wife by the
nobility of his own living, the dignity
of his purpose, the manliness of his
thought, and the loyalty of his de¬
meanor.
In the night there comes to the listening
ear of man audible corroboration of
what science tells us: that earth, air and
water are loaded with life—organic life,
living beings, aye, loving beings, for the
sweetest song of the grasshopper, as of
man, is a love song.
124
LOVE
Selfish love is fantastic, but celestial love
is serene.
The best any of us can do for another is
to give ourselves.
There are no antagonisms in love, but
there are subordinations.
We need to-day the open heart that will
make room for people who differ from
us; people whom we think we do not
like, but whom really we do not know.
The power of differing is a cheap power
that we hold in common with the low¬
est of men. The power to appreciate is
a power that belongs only to the noblest.
The highest powers of the human soul,
the furthest reaches of the human mind,
the most sacred affections of the human
heart are but man-made plats of the
celestial kingdom. They are but the
cathedral which the child builds with his
toy blocks, compared to the rock-ribbed
mountains.
LOVE
125
Love belongs to the mathematics of the
universe.
Life, like the river, is deepened by dredg¬
ing. God's forgiveness is not revealed
by relieving us from consequences, dire
though they may be.
While there are tears left, while there are
yearnings unsuppressed and unrealized,
there is evidence of a divine love that
has not forsaken the human soul.
The heart of Jesus is the heart of human¬
ity, and humanity entire has sprung out
of the Eternal Heart that built the fires
of the sun and set the planets a-swing-
ing.
When we realize what strength has come
to the soul through the flood-gates of
tears, what persuasion there is in the
punishments of life, what nourishment
there is in the bitter-sweet food of the
spirit, we shall have made a beginning
in the discovery of the everlasting love.
When the wheels of life bear me dow7t for
the last time, I ask for no higher compli¬
ment, I seek no truer statement of the
work I have tried to do than that which
the white-headed old negress gave the
beardless boy on the hot Corhith cornfield
in 1862. Then, if I deserve it, let some
one who loves me say, "Here is a Linkiim
soldier who has done got rttn overP—ofie
who, like his leader, tried to "pluck a this¬
tle and placet a flower wherever a flower
woidd grow."
126
By ways of peace, through paths of love, we
would seek the way of understanding that leads to
Thee, 0 Father. We would be touched with the
beauty of the hour, with the benignant benediction
of the flowers that speak of the peace born ofpurity,
the peace born out of the spirit of holy helpfulness.
On every hand we are beset with the holy mystery.
Wherever we turn, we find the one holy lesson that
none of us live to ourselves and no7ie of us die to
ourselves alone. We are here to confess our glad
comradeship, not only with those who have shared
with us the companionship of thought, who have
felt with us the strong ties of mutual sympathies and
common aspirations, but we woidd realize our com¬
radeship with those we know not, with those who
differ from us, and with those whom, in our blhid-
ness, we may 7wt love. We would recognize the
subtle cord that bifids each to each and all to Thee.
Teach us to be diligent husbandme7i in the field of
the spirit. May we be shod with haste whenever
we feel the thrilling power of a new idea, that we
may run swiftly with the tidings to the waiting
world. In learning, may we ever more aiid more
acqidre the gift of loving. May we live in the
love that ripem into service, and by our deeds more
tha7i by our words, ascriPe to Thee all horwr, power,
and glory. Amen.
127
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