234 CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND ANCIENT CULTURE to us today of sectarianism are the names of the various Protestant sects, must it be said that Christianity is dying out? I think not. That which divides is no part of Christianity. I do not mean to say that the Reformation was wrong and out of place. If Christianity had never been perverted there would have been no need of reformation. But the work of Martin Luther was more political than theological; and Protestantism and Catholicism are the same ethically. Certain forms and ceremonials went by the board, but the creed was little changed by Luther. There is extant a Catholic book that Protestants as well as Catholics revere and that is dear to all Christians. It is entitled "Imitations of Christ." Like the Sermon on the Mount, its teachings are accepted by all as Christian truth. So there is a ground of union not just of Protestants with Protestants, but of Protestants with Catholics-not on hair-splitting dogmas, mediaeval in their origin-for these only divide. How then may it be? The key is found in the writings named above the Sermon on the Mount and the Imitations of Christ. And I contend that all of Christianity is summed up in the teachings of these, yea, of the first pre-eminently-the accepted creed of Christendom. I do not affirm of the second that we should imitate Christ as a parrot the sounds of the human voice. But, possessing "the mind" of the Great Teacher, that as true disciples we must, we will do as he did spontaneously and not imitatively. The mind of the Master includes the heart of him. The lover does not “imitate" other lovers; but his actions are in nowise different from theirs. Love is the same in manifestation as it was a thousand years ago precisely-yea, ten thousand years ago— among the dwellers in castles now, as among the dwellers in caves then, if genuine. Christianity is not the fruit of ignorance; but of the highest culture. It arose in an age of light and learning-none ever more enlightened then were the sages of Athens and Alexandria in the year one of our era. And Roman culture had then reached its highest stage. Christianity is bottomed on the broadest, the most transcendental philosophy, culminating in the sublime teachings of the Sermon on the Mount-grander than Plato ever reached. There has been decadence. A thousand years of profound darkness intervening the "dark ages"—when the moral truths of the great Charter of civilization, the teachings accredited to Jesus were not understood or practiced generally. How far forth may we affirm that the world has emerged from that blight? In darkest Russia not any distance at all. Mediaeval conditions prevail yet as a rule in that land of ignorance and total darkness. But she has produced a prophet of the new day-Tolstoi. If our religion had been born of Superstition and Ignorance and not of Enlightenment and Learning—the fruit of the tree of blindness and not that of knowledge-it would soon pass away as the world becomes enlightened. Not until we have reached a higher stage of learning and culture than ever the Greek gained, either at Athens or Alexandria; and greater thinkers than the wisest of Greece or Rome have given us greater light than shone in the old time, will the Sermon on the Mount be a back number-out of date. Then may we look on Plato, and Socrates, and Demosthenes and Cicero and Seneca as barbarians. That, however, can not be short of milleniums of years hence. Soon the moral truths of the Sermon on the Mount will be better comprehended. Then "resist not evil" will be the law. All men will obey it overcoming evil with good will supersede imprisonment and the gallows. THE MAELSTROM OF LIFE-EFFORT YE 173d LESSON. The Maelstrom of Life-effort. 235 We see to-day that our progenitors of the period of the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar were barbarians. But they were not conscious of that fact. And now we are not what man shall be. Diseases the most destructive (smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, black death, etc., and the most dreadful of all-consumption) science, it is believed, will some day render harmless. Though in the line of endeavor (the aesthetic) that gave pre-eminence to the most advanced of all ancient peoples, the Greeks, we are a thousand years behind, while we have gone far in advance in other pursuits. There is plainly an unfinished state belonging to our so-called enlightenment. Wherein are we especially unfinished? It is in the essential. What is that? A right conception of our duty. "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." And, too, he has said more than this that is foolish. "Life," he has said, "is of little importance." And this saying is as far wrong as the first. If wise, he would have said: "There is a God and I am his son." It is more to be a son of God than to be the first born son of king, kaiser or czar; and not a matter of prideful pomposity either, but of obligation and duty. To whom? To one's self directly to become fitted for our God-appointed office. What is this great office? It is one next in importance to the one held by God himself. The son is next to the father. We pray: "Our Father which art in heaven * *thy kingdom come." Here is made clear the office of each son and daughter of God. It is to help, with all one's heart and soul and mind and strength to bring in God's kingdom. * I marry a wife. Why so? I say "I will do my manly duty as my fathers did theirs. That is right. But in this age how do married men go about to do this duty? They reach for a wife as for a pipe or cigar or a glass of beer or an oyster supper or club meeting or cards or billiards a thing of pleasure. They show their wives no respect. Sons of God surely! "I am," says one of these, "Sir Oracle!" And is this the high-water mark of "divine sonship" in this twentieth century of the Christian era! It is savagery. Not many years hence the standard will be higher. Then when a man and woman marry it will be to leave all else behind-“forsaking father and mother they will cleave unto each other and be one flesh," as of old. Not another thought will either have but of home, family and the common good. That is the maelstrom of life-effort-swallowing all, sinking everything else in its vortex. Above all the other selves we will think of our own family and be always "at home" literally wrapped up in these-perfecting the units which if done and not neglected what a civilization will result! How neglected? Seeking to have a "good time"-the mother is connected with a "social set" outside, doing fool's errands. Boys on the street asking every man they meet for a match to light a cigarette, "having a good time"; the girlswhere are they? The mothers do not know-at the dancehall most likely. An earnest life is the only proper life. There is no happiness outside of nature's pathway. Every man is Adam and every woman is Eve. As it was in the beginning, so it should be now. If divorces were according to God's plan, a multitude would have been at first created (as of armed men when Ducaleon tossed the stones behind him) instead of the single pair. Where would Adam have found a mate, Eve divorced? "In the land of Nod," do you say? This is hazy. The domestic unhappiness of our age and divorces galore have resulted from a bad social order. Right this and all will be well. "All crimes will cease and ancient feuds will fail; Peace o'er the world her olive branch extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend." Yes, white-robed Innocence, God's favorite angel, will then come down from heaven and make her abode on earth! And truthfully “We need thee, O, we need thee, good angel, we need thee." Not just in the cabins of the poor; but particularly in the homes of the rich. Funereal corteges wend their way daily to the cemetery-long trains of carriages. We find there a final resting place-a narrow bed. What have we left behind us that is permanent? A world made better, wiser and happier for our having lived in it or we have left nothing having lived to no purpose. Let each of us add daily, while we live, to the happiness of our own home especially and to the common well-being generally. "You will do the greatest service to the state (says Epictetus) if you shall raise, not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens; for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses." YE 174TH LESSON. Co-operation and Monopoly. Co-operation is another name for Christianity. Monopoly is another name for Paganism. "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's weal," defines Christianity. Let every man seek his own and no man another's weal, defines Paganism. To say that we are Christian in the sense that Jesus, Paul or James or John were Christian is to utter an untruth. To say that we have any higher ideal of duty toward our neighbor than had peoples prior to the Christian era is to utter an untruth or than have the Hindus, Chinese and Japanese. Our Christianity, viewed in the light of the New Testament, is not Christianity at all. What you believe about the trinity and the "plan of salvation" is still the essential requirement as in the dark ages. Primitively it was "sell all thou hast and give to the poor-love one another." How much of "credo" does the Sermon on the Mount contain-or is found in any words of "Him who spake as never man spake”? Not an iota. The only creed of the Master was "Go about doing good." The Christianity of creed is "chaff that the wind bloweth about." The Christianity of "doing good" is the winnowed wheat. He is an heretic we declare still that doesn't say "I believe" certain mediaeval dogmas. The millionaire is the leading church magnate. The doctrine of to-day is "Scarcely can a poor man enter the church." We are ruled in church and state by the rich alone. Who add to their wealth by letting houses for immoral purposes? There would not be a whisky hell, nor a house of shame, nor a gambling hell but for that class of rich men. "Let the hells be segregated," they say. Of course. So are the churches segregated along with the hells. It has been but a little while since more than thirty rooms were rented to prostitutes within twenty rods of six churches and one synagogue of Des Moines. The prostitutes paid a mulct tax of ten dollars monthly into the city treasury for police protection. A leading church member rented those women pianos. This was not done that they "go sin no more," but for their ill-gotten money. Co-operation is Christianity. Christian Socialism is religion-the Christian religion. I do not mean political socialism. But I do mean having "all things common." Why not every man's house be open and table free to all comers as were the houses and tables of the oldtime pioneers of the West and of Southern planters of pro-bellum days? No man ever asked for food or shelter in my father's house that was turned away unsatisfied. What he had was free as was the air we breathe. And I am proud to say the same of my own home. THE PULPIT AND THE PEWS Every man's door ought to be open to the wayfarer. 237 That would be the re-inauguration of primitive Christianity. We should do literally every day and at every meal as did the "master of the house" of oldhave brought in from the streets and lanes of the city "the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind"; yea, go to the highways and hedges and "compel them to come in." This (and this only) is Christianity. There is no occasion for stinginess in America where there is so great a superabundance of the essentials of life. Any man that takes pleasure in holding a place of comfort above his fellows is a despicable heathen and pagan. He is not as highly civilized as an Indian of the stone age. A true twentieth century man will refuse to have and hold more of the bounties of nature than his equitable share and will demand that each and every one have as much as he. Ready to be shot to death on the field of battle for our country's good, but too mean and contemptible to share alike with all others of your fellow men, which would surely be for your country's good! Where to-day is the millionaire that says "I have enough?" Only one -Andrew Carnegie. What better can he do than he is now doing under our present social order? Is he "selling all and giving to the poor?" He is, at least, going in that direction. He has a heart devoted to the common good. He is a Christian man of the twentieth century and would have been so written down in the first century when he shall have "given all." Annanias "kept back a part"-a bad step. It cost him his life. He that keeps back a part to-day will die the death of the ungodly. YE 175TH LESSON. The Pulpit and the Pews. The clergy are about to come out of their millenium of enthrallment, like the silk-moth from its cocoon. It is a marvelous transformationa going back to the condition of St. Paul-freedom to utter "the whole counsel of God"-to tell what God has said, speaking to the soul of each. There is no fear now of anathema. The clergy will not assail one another. It is only the pews today that coerce the pulpit. The coercion would be, not on account of metaphysical doctrine or dogmas of belief, but of just criticisms and denunciations of the evil doings of those seated in the pews. What a noise would the congregation make, if the tobacco vice and the fashion folly were made the subjects of scathing discourses from the pulpit, as they ought to be-if the minister declared that "no one can be rightly termed a Christian that sets so detestable an example before the youths as to defile his mouth with tobacco, and no woman a Christian that follows the fashions in dress set by the demimond of Paris." I believe the time not distant when all will look back to the day when the tobacco and fashion vices so generally prevailed as we look back on the state of society that existed prior to 1837, when the liquor evil was at its maximum, and the clergy raised no voice of protest against it, but set the example of consuming great quantities of both whisky and tobacco. Dare a minister today preach as did Savonarola, the great Italian who denounced the wickedness of the Florentines of his day and who was burned at the stake for it? It soon will be that the clergy will speak as freely as did he will stand in defense of the right as they see the right and in opposition to the wrong as did the early martyrs and as did Jesus the greater martyr and most exemplary teacher-the grandest that has lived and died for the advancement of mankind-a life and death to be coveted. Transition is the law of the present. It is a condition resembling anarchy. Grand theories of rights-(woman's rights, especially)—pre vail; wonderful progress in the field of invention is made, and discoveries of new forces, like radium and the X-ray. Bible criticism has done away with many old beliefs regarding the Scriptures, so that the "sacred book" is become, not the less sacred, but better understood;and the better it is understood the more sacred it becomes in the estimation of the learned and the thoughtful. The New Testament especially meets a more true and intelligent appreciation, as containing a philosophy of human duty most transcendental-the ripened fruit of more than four hundred years of deductive investigation by the greatest minds that have enlightened the world-the mighty sages of the Greeks, Athenian, Ionian and Alexandrian. Reconstruction of religions and of social manners and customs is the order of the day, while a loud cry for union is heard from all church denominations. "Let the prayer of Jesus," they say, "be at once answered, that all be one." And there is every reason for believing that soon it will be answered and a universal and combined movement of all Christian denominations will be made, lifting society out of the quagmire of vice into which it has so universally fallen and placing it upon the solid ground of uprightness. And instead of petty church corporations paralyzed by divisions, doing feebly the work the Master designed, the Kingdom of God will be manifest-a great Christian commonwealth-the state doing the work of Him in a masterful manner, under the guidance and control, not of slum magnates as now-gamblers, saloon keepers, brewers, distillers and the minions of the monopolies and trusts, but under the control and guidance of the religious and moral orders; and the altruism of the New Testament will become the law of the land. Then, as foretold, it will be said: "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people and God himself shall be with them and be their God." YE 176TH LESSON. The Positive and the Artistic. Minerva sprang from the brain of Jupiter, and hence the goddess of wisdom is ideal of the fancy-aesthetic. There was nothing Greek that was not so. Read Thucydides. How much is real? How much ideal, of his history? The speeches of embassadors were the invention of the historian, as much as were the speeches of the heroes of the Iliad the invention of the poet. Everything in nature was personified by the Greeks-made to live-took on forms of loveliness. The gods and goddesses were personifications of elements of nature or attributes of man. No learned Greek believed that the gods had real existence, except in art. They were artistic creations. There were Pythea-spiritual mediums-and, hence, the mythology of the Greeks, had connection with the "supernatural" and so satisfied the common people that gods took note of the affairs of men. But the Greek deities were fanciful-so regarded by all the knowing and thinking class. All was ideal-all their advancement was along the lines of deductive inquiry; and observation of facts was not the source of their inspiration. The Greeks reveled in the ideal. Poetry, painting, sculp ture, oratory, architecture and even philosophy-all flowed from the same fountain-the reservoir of mind. The Greek shut his eyes and meditated. Whatever is Greek is fanciful-ideal, not positive or real. Beauty was his god-"perfect symmetry" the supreme aim in what he created. Philosophy with Socrates was portraiture of the ideal in character-not physical but moral beauty. He the moral Phidiasstrove to portray the perfect character, shaping an image more per |