Living Problems in Religion and Social Science by Thomas Dixon Junior

NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES
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ZIZ
3ixorj.
Living Problems
IN
Religion and Social Science
BY
THOMAS
DIXON,
I
Jr.,
M.A.,
PASTOR OF THE TWEN'TY-THIKD STFÊET BAHTIST CHl'RCH, NEW YORK CITY LATE OK THE DUDLEY S IREET CHURCH, BOSTON.
NEW YORK
CHARLES
T.
DILLINGHAM
Broadway
.
,
,
(successor TO LEE, SHEPARD & DILLINGHAM)
Nos. 718 AND 720

1889
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBR4HY
604897
ASTOR, LENOX
AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
Copyright,
1889,
By
THOMAS DIXON,
All Rights Reserved,
Jr.
FREES OF
THE PUBLISHERS' PRINTING COMPANY,

157-159 WILLIAM STREET,
NEW YORK.
JpjcxlicatjetC
TO MY WIFE
IN
WHOSE DEAR PERSON THE DAY-DREAMS AND IDEALS OF MY BOYHOOD

LIVE AS
THE SWEETEST REALITIES OF MANHOOD,
THE INSPIRATION OF WHOSE LOVE,

AS
THE VOICE OF GOD,
CALLED ME
FROM THE VALLEY OF THE WORLD's AMBITIONS
TO THE HEIGHTS OF NOBLER AIMS,
UNTO HER, WITH TENDEREST LOVE, THIS BOOK
BRING,
A SHEAF FROM THE FIRST FRUITS OF THAT BETTER LIFE.
PREFATORY NOTE.
These condensed sermons and
are given
to the public, with the
addresses
hope and
prayer that they
may prove
as helpful to a
wide
circle
of readers as they
first
seem
to have
been to those who

extempore.
heard them delivered

I
The treatment
have tried to
make
fresh and suggestive, rather than proI
found, or exhaustive.
thinkers of ancient
owe much
to the great
and modern times; but

I
what
have used from them,
trust has
of,
first
passed through, and become a part
my
own
heart
and
life.
The
addresses on cur-
rent questions of Social Science were delivered
before
mass meetings
in
Boston
and
New
York.
T. D., Jr.
New
York,
Oct. lo, 1S89.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
1.
2.
The Mission of the Church, The Minister's Sphere,
3.
4.
5.
Man
vs.
Fate,
......
. .
...
.
.
.
27
50
71
The Question of Hell,
Miracles and Robert Elsmere;

Presumption Against a Miracle,
The
.
S^
6.
Miracles
and Robert Elsmere

.
.
The
.
Question of Evidence,
7.
97
The Mystery of
Progress,
Pain,
.110
129
of
8.
9.
Playing the Fool; Or, the Problem

Folly,
144
10.
What
is
Love
158
.
11. 12.
13.
The Temperance Problem,

Jesuitism,
167
189
211
.
14.
The School War, The Southern Question,
244
LIVING PROBLEMS
In Religion and Social Science.
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH.

As
the Father hath sent me, even so send
I
you.
John,
XX. 21.
The
last act
of our
Master on earth was
thus to lay the mantle of his mission on our

shoulders.
Sublime honor
it
is,
and yet one
freighted with sublimer responsibility.

Christ says to the
Church
struments of
my
will
the
came
You are the inmedium through

"
which
is
shall operate
on the world.
I
My
work
your work.
I
What
into the world to
do
is
leave unto you to complete.
My
mission
your mission."
work, then, we turn,

ter's life
To understand our own for a moment to the Masof His mission.
and learn the import
We
lips.
will
I
take these definitions from His
own
take several of the principal ones given
LIVING PROBLEMS.
In John,
xii.
in the record.
47:
"I came not
to judge the world, but to save the
worlds
In
Luke, xix. 10:
'*
The Son
of
Man came
lost."
to seek
and to save that which was

ii.
In Mark,
17:
"I came
not to call the righteous, but the
sinners."
In Matthew, xx. 28: ''The Son of
Man came
minister."
not to be ministered unto, but to
You
in
observe
in
these definitions certain negafirst
tive facts.
Let us
remove these negatives

give a clear conception
order that
we may
"
of the positive elements of our mission.
John
Christ
and Mark say:

''
Came
is
not to judge the world,"
not to
:
call
the righteous."
That
is,
says
"
My
I
work
I
constructive rather than
destructive.
life,
am
the way, the truth and the

harsh, censorious judg-
but
do not
sit in
ment on your acceptance or rejection of me. The Father is now judge. I am not come to
judge, but to save."
So he says to
us:
Judge
not, but preach, proclaim, work, for the night

is
coming.
As
fill
the Father was then the judge

is
not Christ so Christ

we
are to
his
now
the judge, while
former place.
And
if
he did
THE MISSIOM OP THE CHURCH.

not come to
call
the righteous,
it is
impossible
that his Church should be a ferryboat specially
chartered to take a specified number of the

fortunate elect from this world to the next.
Nor
is it
a special car chartered for the special
purpose of transporting the saints to heaven

without contamination from the world.
simple as
is
Yet,
this lesson,
it
seems to be one of
Yes,
the hardest for our churches to learn.

all
of us,
from the
little
mission church up to
the
great stone
pile
on the corner of the
avenue,
the idea that

give.
up
all
more or less impregnated with we are here to get rather than to That we are here to collect, to hoard the good we can out of the world, rather
are
we
than to give out to struggling, dying sinners

health
and warmth and
light
and
life
and
the
strength and love
that
:
we may make
world brighter and gladder because we are

here.
Again, says Matthew
''
The Son
of
Man
we
came not
ter."
to be ministered unto, but to minis-
And
yet the majority of us think
are here to be ministered unto.
Here
is
some-
LIVING PROBLEMS.
body who brings a letter to the church and joins, and in a month or two is ready to go
elsewhere.
What
is
the
matter
''
Well,
came
to the church
two months ago, and nous,
body has been to see

any attention
no one has shown us

at all! "
any consideration
?
So
you want to go
into
Well,
may
joy go with you

for
if
and peace reign behind you,

the
you came
be
church to receive
attention, to
petted, to be ministered unto, the sooner
you
go the better
for
you and the better
for the
church of Christ. These are the sort of people
who make up the adherents of a church. How adherents have you ? " we sometimes many hear asked. The Lord save the church from
*'
adherents!
ship
All that
ship
is
necessary to sink a
any
ploughs the
the mightiest Cunarder that to allow a sufficient waves

is
number
of adherents to
become attached
to
be,
her sides.
Very
little
barnacles they
may
but enough of them will sink her as surely as

if
you had cut a hole
in
her bottom.
Then how many of our dear, good church members think that we are here to be fed simply.

Their religion consists
in being fed.
And
they
want
it
done
just right, too.
napkin adjusted about their
They want the Sunday clothes,

fresh.
and then the milk administered with a spoon
condensed
They want
ine
I
it
milk, too,
just so
all
cream and
But
warm and no warmer
not hot; just so cool
not cold.
to
imagIsrael
hear some good old patriarch
in
saying:
don't
"So,
so,
my young
He
brother;
*
but
the
Master say
you,
Feed
my
And
sheep?'"
Ah,
yes.
does exactly!
how do you
feed a sheep?
When you
in a
feed a
stall,
sheep do you back him up
cushioned
carefully seat him, put a napkin about his neck,
and feed him on milk with a spoon
never
saw
it
after that fashion.

in
No.
The shepherd
fields,
took his flock out
the open
carpeted
with rich grasses; on the hillsides and mountain tops,
where they browsed on the budding

sufificient
shrubbery, so that
exercise
is
is
taken
eaten.
to properly digest and assimilate
what
So should the pastor lead

Book.
his flock to this great
Here are broad,
rich fields
and smiling
meadows, through which runs the laughing
LIVING PROBLEMS,
lies
brook; yonder
the long range of
hills,
and
yonder
lies
the mountain crag, whose summits
the eye of
lost
lie
man cannot measure,

still
for they are
amid the azure blue
of heaven, while
below
green pastures beside
and beautiful
waters.
eat.
Here
is
food
in
abundance; take and
Having thus
ments,
set
aside these negative ele-
we come
to
the positive ones in

mission.
the
Master's and our

ing elements
own
The remainbe
in these
definitions can all
condensed into a single positive proposition,

to
which
is
let
us
address ourselves.
What,
then,
the positive mission of the Master, and,
therefore,
our
mission?
^^The
Son of
Man
ca7ne to seek aiid to save that
which
is lost
to
save the zvorldT

I.
The
first
element
often
The Son of Man came to
seek,
Alas,
how
we
forget this.
is
it,
Most
of
us seem to think our active duty
done when
we have
built a church, paid for
opened
its
doors and invited the lost to come by writing

a sign over the door and an advertisement in
the paper.

Let us see what the Master says
:
certain
man made
a great feast and issued the pro-
clamation, Come, for
But they began to

bought a
field,
now ready. make excuses. One had

all
things are
the other a yoke of oxen, and

;
another had married

seats at the supper.
and there were empty
Then, said the Master to
the servants, "
Go
out quickly into the streets
and lanes
poor, and
" It
is
of the city
and bring
blind."
in hither
the
said,
maimed and
And
they
is
done, Lord, and yet there
room."
Then go out into the highways and hedges and constrain them to come in that my house may
be
filled.
on the Lord's Day?
Are there ever vacant seats in this church Then it is your fault.
of Jesus crying.
Hear the voice
Go
out into the
highways and hedges and constrain them to
come in how soft

!
care not
how
beautiful the house,

it
the cushions in the pews,
is
not
pleasing unto
with throbbing
God unless those seats human hearts. And
are filled
you, the
if
rank and
file
of the church, are responsible
It is so, for this
commission was given to the
'
LIVING PROBLEMS.
file,
rank and
Hevers.
the
common
priesthood of be-
Constructed on some modern ideas of church work how would the parable of the lost sheep
read ? Somewhat thus And when he found that some of
:
a certain man,
his
sheep were
built a
lost,
went out near the wilderness and

shelter,
lost
if
handsome sheep
the sign, "
and on the door wrote
Any
sheep straying near this
wilderness hard by,

dentials,
he
wîll
present his cre-
and give good references to the com-
mittee in charge, will be admitted to shelter

after
due deliberation and examination and
consultations."
Did
the
Master say
this ?
No
"
But the shepherd went out on the moun-
tains wild
and bare, And although the road was rough and steep, He goes to the desert to find the sheep.
But none of the ransomed ever knew How dark was the night that the Lord passed through Ere He found His sheep that was lost. Out in the desert He heard its cry, Sick and helpless and ready to die.
'
Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way. That mark out the mountain's track ? They were shed for one who had gone astray Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.
'

But
all
through the mountains thunder-riven,

the rocky steep,
And up from
'
'
There arose a cry to the gates of Heaven, Rejoice for I have found my sheep And the angels echo round the throne, '" Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own
!
Such was
his divine mission
such
me
is
yours.
The Son
lost
!
of
Man came
to seek that which
was
"
I
As
the Father hath sent
even so
send
you."
Remember
that Christ
spoke
that sentence not to the twelve apostles simply,
but to
all
the disciples assembled

you.
to the whole
church,
this
\.o
Do
not think that you can do
work by proxy.
Some
people think that
they hire a minister to do their duties to God.

It
cannot be done,
my friend. You
cannot dele-
gate your own personal duties to some one

else.
I
cannot perform the duties of the least
child in
my
church.
Each one must

I
give an
account of himself unto God.
have
my work,
save that
and you have yours.

II.
The second element

is lost''
''And
to
which
Yes,
it
would
be a pity to bring
them
in
from the highways and hedges and from
the mountains, and then let them perish, let
lO
LIVING PROBLEMS.
starve.
them
So
this
church of Christ
to
is
to be
a saving church.
quality
it
And
have
this
saving
must be a praying
cJmrcJi,
whose
their
members know how to bring their burdens,

joys, their sorrows to the Lord,
and
tell all life's
stories to
Him;
in
whose hearts and
lives
the
Holy
Spirit dwells because they are

;
ready to
its
receive the Spirit
a church that answers
then asks
own prayers as far as human power can go, and God in faith to do the rest, and He does. He never does anything we can do our-
selves.
When
arus he
Christ stood before the grave of Laz-
commanded
those
men
it
it
to roll the stone
away!
Why
did he not roll
himself by su-
pernatural power? Because

natural power.
could be done by
Then he
called forth the
dead
and
said,
''Loose
that
the grave
clothes;" again
commanding
call forth
man do
that which need not
supernatural
effort.
So the Lord
never answered the prayer of the old sinner
his
who prayed that He would feed the poor, when own corn crib was bursting with grain and
he would not give a nubbin.

The saving church
church
is
always the sacrificing
ready to sacrifice money and manhood.

God
is
Money!
universe
is
not poor.
The wealth
of
of the
His.
Not because
His poverty or
weakness does
He command
it is
us to give, but for a sweet privilege.

in
our own benefit, because
A
one
poor widow lay dying the other day

of the
back streets
soul
of
one of our great

her
little
cities.
The only
near was
ragged boy, and as he gazed into the dying

face, she said, "
Do
not be afraid,
"
!
my boy, God
all
will take care of
you
Two
days later that

that time,
boy,
who had
not tasted food in
stood shivering and gazingappealingly into the

faces of the throng that hurried by.
He
asked
a gentleman for a penny, told
him
his sad story,
took him by the hand and led him down into

the squalid homxC where the dead body lay on
a pile of rags.
The gentleman took

for for him, but
the
boy
hon-
home, adopted him and cared

own.
him
as his
God had cared
He had
ored that
man by making him

So does
a co-worker in us with
a divine mission.
He honor
the privilege of giving.
12
LIVING PROBLEMS.
The man who

Christ
is
refuses to give to the cause of
not a Christian.
He
need not
about
his religion
he
has none.
has faith in God will invest in who is converted is ready to help on the work. What would you think if a man were drowning out in the
river,
tell me man who God. A man
and you should

time to
set out in
your
boat to rescue him, and, pulling with might
and main, reach him

boat and save him.
him, "
I
in
lift
him
in
the
am
tired
Then suppose you say to and weak from the heavy

please take an oar and
?
struggle.
Will you
help as
says,
*'
we
pull for the shore

I
"
And
the
man
free
Excuse me.
thought
"
this
was a
salvation.
let
You
a
put
me
!
you row me ashore
do with such
man
now I'll What ought you to What could you do exin this boat,
cept seize him by the nape of the neck and the

heels
and plunge him

?
as near the
bottom as
you could
you
?
Save such a
man
How
could
Nothing there to save!

is
But money
not the only thing or the most

called
important thing we are
on to
give.
Money,
after
all, is
easy to get, but the thing

that counts and that
things else
is
13
all
God demands above

your
your manhood and womanhood,

living, throb-
your
individuality, yourself,
I
bing personality.
ion
know
man worth
hands
it
a mill-
who
at the
beginning of the year draws his

dollars,
:
check for a thousand
to his
church treasurer and says
"
Take this, do what
you please with
it
but
don't trouble
me any
you,
in
more
this
year about anything!"
I tell
my
friend,
God does not want your money
that way.
care,
He wants
you!
Your
is
time,
your
your personality.
then the saving
And
great
church
one that
knows how
to use the Word. This Word is the weapon given you by which the world is If you do not know how to to be conquered.
wield
it
how can you

Paris
of
dare enter?
Two
fools
met near
recently and
fought a duel.
of
Suppose one
them had known nothing
the use of the sword, you
would have pro-
nounced him mad

the sword
?
with
ity
?
Do you know how to use Do you know how to parry a blow it ? Do you know its temper, its capacDo you know how to strike ? How to
!
14
LIVING PROBLEMS,
defend yourself, and

ing blade into the
how
to thrust
its glitter-
marrow of the foe ? To be a saving church we must know something of

this.
III.
The
third element
is lost.
what
is
is
to be saved
That which
to seek
is
"
The Son
of
and to save that which
Man came lost." What
lost?
What
word
''
an atmosphere of horror clings

lost," to its accent, intonation,
to that
every letter!
The human
heart leaps in pity
and terror
at the sound.
Lost/
A few
that a
years ago the news was flashed over
the wires to the uttermost limits of the earth

little,
curly-haired
boy named Charlie

was
thrilled with
Ross was
lost/
And
in the
a world
!
horror at the thought
Oh, how
many
loving
mothers woke
faces of their
filled
morning, looked into the

little
own dear
eagerly
ones, while a tear
the eye as they thought of that desolate
we read the papers, watching and waiting for some news from the lost one. Lost/ Each letter drips with conhome!
densed horror!
How
What
is
lost
Lost
a world!
Swinging somewhere
in
space
between the
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH

planets
15
Venus and Mars

girl,
lost
a world!
Not
noble
simply one boy or
but millions of brightgirls,
eyed boys and
girls,
noble boys and
men and women,

ness of
sin,
lost,
wandering
in the wilder-
exposed to a thousand dangers of

out in the deserts, bleak and
body and
sick
soul;
bare; on mountain crags, wild and trackless;
and helpless and ready to die!
God,
can
Thy
children be indifferent to such a mis-
sion!
How
the thought should thrill the soul

!
with divine heroism
Can any man slumber

?
with such a work upon him

to save the world
If it is to
?
But how are we
be done the slumbering power of
our churches must be developed.
The whole
simply the
church must be up and doing

little
not
church
within
the
in
church.
There
is
always an old guard
every church, on which
the pastor can always depend, and they generally
do nearly everything, but

is
if
this
mighty
work
to be accomplished
file
it is
to be
done by
in
the rank and

conflict.
all
bearing their part

it
the
How
long would
take the Baptist

if
churches alone to take the world for Christ
LIVING PROBLEMS.
each one of us who profess His name should

bring one
new
soul
into
the
kingdom each
bring one soul
yet,
if
year
to
little
thing to do
just
Christ in a whole year.
And
we
could only do that, the Baptist churches alone
could take this world for Christ

nine years
in less
than
yes, every continent of earth, every

!
island of the seas, every nation, every tongue,
every tribe that inhabits the globe
Yet,
how
few of us do
this
Oh, how
many church
beneath
members we have who
are buried
cushioned pews and gilded walls; buried beneath stone and cement and glittering spires;
buried! and buried alive!
If this
Oh, the crime of
it!
work
is
to
be done we must
is
realize,
too,
that
Christianity
revolutionary and
means war, and work. You have entered upon

a tremendous conflict!
your
ners.
belief
is
as terrible
The very mission of as an army with ban-
You
all
should go forth to this battle armed with head erect and eye fixed
and
in trim,
foe.
upon the
of heaven
Go
with the conscious tread of
a conscious conqueror knowing that the Lord
and earth
is
at
your right hand.
17
This Christian warfare can never be waged

successfully on the hospital idea.
What army
its
ever achieved victory that

the foremost portion of
its
made
hospital
work.
Suppose
terrific
Gen. Grant, during those

carnage, had said to his
"
I
last
days of
detail the flower of this
army of 2CX),ooo men, army to hospital
service.
We
have 10,000 men who have the
measles and the mumps, and several thousand
wounded.
We
will
is
now
nurse them before

I
any more
fighting
done.
will
spend
my
time tying up stubbed toes and picking

ters out of
splin-
pitals!"
men s fingers! Charge on the hosHad you run the Northern army
it
on that principle
would have taken Lee
just
about ten days to have dictated terms of peace
from the White House
steps.
is
Some
is
of us think that the church
built
for purposes of defence simply.
The church
no
fort
behind which shivering cowards are

It
is
to crouch.
not built for defensive but
aggressive warfare.
During the battle

an
ofificer
of Manassas,
field
it is
said that
passing over the

2
found a sub-
LIVING PROBLEMS.
ordinate crouching behind a haystack trembling from head to foot.

spot, he asked
for you, sir
?
:
Coming up
to the
is
"
What
sort of a place
that
"
*'
eager reply,
When he was greeted with the Do why, do you really think

come through
?
the bullets can
"
In the thought
lost
of personal safety the
poor coward had
the conception of the very object of his commission.
Sometimes weak-kneed Christians
come
to
me
?
with the question,
'*
Do you
think
am
safe
through
wall
I
?
? "
Do you What
I
think the bullets can

?
come
come through the church

tJiink
No,
it!
do not
anything about
off
it.
knozv
The
devil
can get you
this
front seat just as easily as from the back one
can take you out

as off the
of the pulpit just as easily
door
steps.
To accomplish
as well as
such a mission means work

work, some of
it
war hard
dirty
work.
know some
Christians, though,
who
are the nicest sort of people, but they do not
want
Oh,
to soil their
hands with the rough work.

hands!
those
dainty
live
Lord
help
us.
Crows, here we
spending our time smooth-
THE MISSIO.V OP THE CHURCH.

ing our dark feathers.
are,
19
Crows, we
know we
and yet expect to some day suddenly

in
blossom out
ingales
heaven
in
the shape of nightcelestial hosts
and astonish the
with
its
our wonderful voices.
The
choir will cease
divine melody, while one angel looks at the
other and exclaims, "
What
is
that? "
am
afraid Christians are not translated into
heaven
by
I
that process.
am
afraid
something
is
the matter
if
we
and
are too nice to do the Lord's work!
For there
was a day when
Christ, the
King
of kings,
Lord
of lords, descended
from the royal throne
of the
Heavens,
laid
aside His
diadem that
wicked
outshone the sun,

of the universe,
laid aside the
jeweled sceptre
this
and came down to

all
old world,
down through
grades of society
He
came, from the highest to the lowHest, shedlife
ding joy and light and
as
He
came.
He
stooped to save even the lowest wretch
yes
down
in the lowest
cell
depths of
life's
darkest and
meanest prison
He
came, and then reached

"
out His hand to the guilty, tattered wretch
who
lay there and said
My
Brother,
have
"
26
LIVING PROBLEMS.
all
come
you
!
the
way from heaven
to earth to save
What
1.
sort of church
would we have
?
if
these
principles
were carried out
Such a church would be
liberal.
A mean,
man couldn't stay in it. There would be much bustle and stir, energy and power in short, too much life. It would shatter his nerves. He never could stand it. He would have nervous prostration. He would leave so easily you wouldn't know he had gone. He
stingy
would
steal
2.
fold his tent like an
Arab and
silently
away!
Such a church would be united always,
standing shoulder to shoulder with a single
grand thought ever before them, and moving
toward that end

unity,
too,
in
solid
phalanx.
would be genuine.
Such Not such a
unity as an old deacon once affirmed of his
church.
factions
They had been

and
divisions.
distracted
by
terrible
His friend asked him
one day: "Well, deacon, how are you getting

on,
now?"
it
"Well, we are united at
last."
"Is
possible.
How
did
it
come about?"

" Frozen
!
21
frozen through from top to bottom,
solid as a rock."
No, not such a unity as

is
that,
but a union such as
made by
laying one
piece of red-hot iron on another, and striking
across the anvil until welded as one piece that

will
stand the suns of summer, the winds and
snows of a thousand winters

3.
Such a church,
too,
would be a joyous one.

a joyous relost
It
would not be
filled
with moping, shivering,
doubting Christians.
ligion,
Have you
my
friend
If not,
go bring some
sinner into the fold and taste and see that the
Lord
is
good.
have not been
in
the service
long, but nothing can rob
me
of the joy of
night,
some
I
of
its
hours.
remember one
when
room
sixty.
first
entered the work, and was preaching
in Raleigh, there
came
into the inquiry
after the
sermon an old man of about

else but
He was
a stranger to me, and apparently to
everybody
an elderly gentleman who
accompanied him.
distress imaginable.
He seemed
I
in
the greatest
began to talk with him

of
life.
and try to show him the way
He
,groaned and turned from side to side as though
22
LIVING PROBLEMS.
he were choking or smothering.

exclaimed,
"
At
last
he
O my young
this "
friend, I've
been
I
working on
can't see
it
!
problem forty years and

I said,
"
it
Well,"
"
you have been

it's
working on
forty years,
can't
it
and
it
too hard a
problem
you
work
out.
let
Suppose,
now, you give

it
all
to Christ,
I
and
Him work
him and
out for you."
turned and
left
had not walked

as he
five steps
before he leaped up
with a shout that

fell
made
the very building ring

his old friend
I
on the neck of
and
cried like a child for very joy.

yet, with the great tears rolling
can see him

his fur-
down
lit
rowed cheeks,
from
his
his
gray locks streaming back

face, that
upturned
seemed
by the
never
light of heaven.
He went
out from that room
into the darkness of the night,
and
saw him again
but no power on earth can rob
me
I
of the joy of that
hour or
its
memory,
for
expect to meet him some day within the
golden gates.
Christian friends, will
you not consecrate

?
yourselves to this glorious work
There
is
work
for you.
Be up and doing.
Ah, you
THE MISSION- OF THE CHURCH
23
say you are weak and timid and unfit for the
Master's service.
Not
ness and helplessness
so Your very weakGod makes the instru!
ment through which He

and majesty.
will display
His power
Besides you are not too weak
the smallest child, the feeblest old
woman
has
her work.
An
old
negro washerwoman was walking
along the railroad track near Louisville, Ky.,
one morning Just after daybreak going to her

day's work,
when
just in front of her, she ob-
served the bridge that spanned a deep ravine
had burned away
in the night.
The
rails
only
remained stretching treacherously across the

gulf.
She remembered that the early express

all
was about due, and with

to the
little
haste started back
station a mile
away
to give the
alarm.
She had not gone more than a few

of the
hundred yards before she heard the roar
coming
her.
train,
and
in
moment more
the great
engine swept round the curve just in front of
She
tried to tear her
apron from her waist
for a signal
the string seemed never so strong

at last she tore
it
and stubborn as then, but
24
loose and
LIVING PROBLEMS.
waved
it
frantically,
determined to
stand on that track and die or stop the train.
At
last
she was seen, the engine reversed and
brought to a stand only a few feet from her.
The engineer
the matter
?
thrust his head out the cab, and
cried, " Well, old

"
''
woman,
sah,
are
you crazy
what's
burned
Oh, sah, de bridge
is all
if
down, 'deed
on
!
it is,
you'll be lost
you go
and
"
The engineer leaped from
his cab,
the passengers from the cars, and there before
them saw the awful death they had barely escaped. Friend embraced friend, and mothers
fell
upon the necks
of children as they realized
their great deliverance.
The
old
woman,
as
she saw their tears and joy, began to dance
and shout
for joy herself.
her and offered her their
They drew near money and jewelry,

for
but she refused to touch a thing, saying she
was
afraid
it
would take her joy away

to do,
what she had been able
and went her
way, with a light heart, to her day*s work.
You
can do at least as
the track of
life
much
as that old
woman.
Down
there comes thundering
toward you some reckless man or woman.
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH,

You
least
25
see the bridge
is
down, and the gulf yawns

see
it
before them.
They do not
perhaps
at
you can stand on that track and with the
blood-stained banner of Christ flag the coming

train
You may be weak and

ness or strength, but on
timid, but
remember
little
that success does not depend on your weak-
God!
in
child
by touching a screw can

blaze.
an instant flood a
great building with the glare of an electric
But what makes the

is
light
The
child
No. But there

sends from
at the central station a great
dynamo, perhaps
its
of
500 horse power, that

fire
throbbing heart the pulsing
throughout the length and breadth of the
city.
When
mite
it is
the excavations at Hell Gate were
completed after years of work, and the dynaall in
place and everything in readiness,
said the engineer in charge called his little
bright-eyed daughter to the table in his office
and told her to explode the great mine.

pressure and
The
at
tiny finger sought the black button, a gentle
Manhattan Island trembled
the
terrific
shock, as the great boulders rose
26
LIVING PROBLEMS.
lifted
and
heavenward a mountain
of
foam-
capped water.
So the tiny hand

feeble, uplifted to
of a child,
though weak and

touches the
God
in prayer,
dynamo
of the universe
and may bring an an-
swer that shakes the earth.
God
help us to
remember Thy power and our duty!
THE MINISTER'S SPHERE.
27

"
Whom we
in all
proclaim, admonishing and
teaching every
man
wisdom."
CoL.
I.
28.
The
just as
so-called " sacredness " of the office has

I
never and never will oppress me.
am worth
as a
much
as a minister as
I
am
man,
and no more.
weigh just as much as
my
heart and brain and personality weigh
when
put into the scales and weighed

more, not an ounce
that
its
less.
not an ounce The letters REV

add nothing to
are
title
men put
before
my name
weight.
They mean nothing; they

were possible to put that
nothing.
If it
into a concrete particle
and place
it
under a
microscope that magnified a million diameters,

the eye of
man
could never find

it.
it, if
given
eternity in which to look for
It
seems to
me
that Beecher that here
is
surely right
when he maincounts.
tains
manhood only
My
man-
office is sacred,
but sacred because
my
28
LIVING PROBLEMS.
is
hood
sacred.
If I
am mean and
small and
stingy and vicious, the sacredness of the office

I
hold in no wise furnishes a refuge for

If
my
weaknesses.
there
is
a deacon or a
humble
member
of this church
who has
a bigger heart,
a bigger brain and a greater personality than
the pastor, then he

I
is
more sacred man than

divine right of that
am, and
is
entitled
by the
manhood
can wield.
to wield a greater influence than I
But
let
us go simply to the text for the true

of
definition
the scope and function of the
Christian minister.
Whom. We have in this first word, " whom,"

outlined the scope of the office.
We
see at
once from the personal pronoun the very obvious fact that the substance of the message to
be delivered through the minister
is
not a creed
or fine-spun philosophy, but a person

sonality of Christ the
of mankind.
the per-
Son
of
God, the Saviour
life,
then,
the divine revelation;

for
it
we have, embodying and we do not search

life
in
any mysterious system of metaphysics,

thus revealed.
but in the depths of the
29
We
tion,
it is
are to preach, then, the personality of
Jesus Christ
His
life.
His death, His resurrec-
and
all
that clusters around
Him.
Now,
precisely the purpose of the whole epistle
to the Colossians to set forth this marvellous
personality in
all-sufficient
its
completeness,
its
fulness, its
power.
The church
in
at
Colossae
had become befogged
the fine-spun theories
of would-be philosophers in their attempts to
bridge the chasm between the material and

the spiritual.
They had peopled

their
spirit,
earth and
semi-
heaven with
angelic,
mysterious
half
beings,
half
matter.
Paul
now
comes and with the hand
of a master brushes
these useless creatures aside, and boldly sets

forth Christ as the connecting link between
matter and
the
spirit,
earth and
heaven; Christ
;
way from
of
his
earth to heaven
Christ in the
light
divine-human
personality, filling
;
the universe, material and immaterial

all
Christ,
and
in all,
whether of things on the earth,

it.
above the earth, or beneath

conception.
ality
Such
is
Paul's
He
sees this
wonderful person-
encircling the world, touching the per-
30
sonality
of
LIVING PROBLEMS.
man
at
every possible point of
contact, and reaching
up
until
He fills all heaven

at every
and touches the personality of God

possible point of contact.
therefore,
things,
is
To preach
Christ,
all
to preach that
divine.
which concerns
human and
?
We.
Whom does Paul include

He
in this plural
pronoun
Evidently those humble Christians,
whoever they were, who had carried the Gospel to Colossae.

self
does not arrogate to him-
any
special prerogatives or privileges beoffice,
cause of his
but simply places himself

less distinguished
first
on the same level with those

followers of the Master
who had
carried
the glad tidings to the Colosslans.

tionably, Paul seems here to have
Unqueshad a clear
conception of the
lievers,
common
priesthood of be-
and does not make any pretensions to
the office of a papal legate, cardinal, or bishop.
He
speaks with authority
the
authority of
one who knows the mysteries of the glories of
supreme truth
but does not claim to have any

truth.
If,
special patent on that
when men
in public
say the ministry should not Interfere
THE MimSTER^S SPHERE.

affairs,
%l
they mean a class clergy, an aristocracy,
an ecclesiastical hierarchy, bound by

oaths for the advancement of their
I,
common
ends,
own
of course, agree at once;
but not upon the
ground
of the sacredness of their office, but
on the ground that they are a dangerous nuisance to the
common
weal of a nation of free
men.
Proclaim.
us to the
first
This
\y or d
proclaijn introduces
division of the definition of the
function of the minister.
He
go
is
to proclaim,
to utter, to tell out a message.
Not mumble
idiotic
mysterious
ceremonies,
through
services in an
sacrifices,
unknown tongue; not

in
to offer
utter-
masses, mummeries, or give
ance to vague whisperings
dark corners; but

all
to openly proclaim a great message, before
men and under

has always said
all
circumstances.
My
heart
amen
to Prof. Phelps's hearty
exhortation to his students,
when he
let
says:
let
"Preach;
other
let
other
men
govern.
Preach;
other
men
organize.
Preach;
men
af-
raise funds
fairs.
and look after denominational

;
Preach
let
other
men hunt up
heresies
32
LIVING PROBLEMS,
Preach;
cleri-
and do the theological quibbling.

let
other
men
ferret out scandals
and try
cal delinquents.
Preach
let
other
men
solve
the problems of perpetual motion, of which
church history
is full.
Then, make a straight
path between your study and your pulpit, on
which the grass
shall
never grow."
To
pro-
claim, then, with tongue

is
and
life
this
message,
the
first
function of the true minister of

is
Christ.
This
the
work
of
the messenger.
The boy who

right to alter,
brings
me
the telegram has no

it.
add
to,
or subtract from
So
with him
this
who
utters the fundamental truths of
message.
These truths are simple, plain

for all needs.
and yet ample

ister
But
is
the min-
simply a telegraph boy, and does his duty

?
cease with the delivery of this simple message
If so, Paul should have closed his sentence with this word " proclaim." This he does not
do,
and we take
it
that in
what follows he
will
further qualify and define the duties of the

as we find he does. The next words, "ADMONISHING and TEACHING," open a new field of action. This work
oflfice,

of admonition
ZTi
and teaching
is
is
one of trans-
cendent importance and
a vast expansion of
the work of proclamation. In the

first
place, a
monishes must be a
man who faithfully adman utterly fearless of
mortal or devil; one was does not hesitate to

tell
those about him whether they are right or

in
wrong, and that too
monosyllabic English,
and without any attempt primarily to please

the subject warned.
pleasing
Says Paul: ''Am
still
men
If
were
still
pleasing men,
?
would not be the servant

is I
of Christ
"
If
there
man,
woman
don't
or child in this church
whom
am
trying
I
personally in
my
is.
ministry to
please,
know who
it
No
minister
of Christ has
a right to attempt to please any
man
or set of men.
this
The preacher who should

fool
attempt
would be a
on general
it is
princi-
ples, for the
simple reason that
impossible
to please
man.
And
"
I
then the word admonish blends the

of the
Old Testament conception
watchman
have set watchmen on thy walls,

3
Jerusa-
lem, and they shall never hold their peace,
day
34
or night "
!
LIVING PROBLEMS.
The watchman
is
one who ad-
monishes.
He
is
watching, warning, and giv-
ing the proper signals to those over

is
whom
he
set as
guardian
he should be sleepless, vig-
ilant,
with an ear attuned to every sound, and
an eye whose keen vision sweeps the whole

horizon from hour to hour.
I
''
know
good
woman who
child of
recently said:
had rather a
mine would be a hod-carrier than a
clergyman!"
The statement
I
struck
me
as an
interesting one.
was curious to know what
her conception of a clergyman was.

a subsequent conversation with her,
I
And
think
in
I
caught her conception of an ideal minister.
She was describing one
whom
she had once
known and very much admired.

" he
The
closing
characterization of her sacred hero was that
was such a good man]
"
And
she tenderly
and reverently accented the word good with

lengthened sweetness long drawn out.
wâs her notion of
That
like
?
an ideal minister.
'^
I felt
asking her
in haste,
Has he made
his will
He
will die
soon
he
cannot be long for this
world!"
Alas, he had been dead
some
time.
35
When
life
a minister has reached the period that
such an expression accurately describes his
and work,
it
is
time for him to go
he
is
too good to live here

of
sin
in this rickety old
world
and devilment.
I
For a goody-good
a sublime
in this
preacher
have always entertained only pity
and contempt.
What
calling, in-
deed, to go up and
down
everybody on the back with

everything's
all
world, patting
*'
It's all right,

all
right,
everybody's
right,
you're
I
all
I
right
the
in
devil's all right!"
Yes.
to
think
old
had rather
farm
my
boy would go back
the
North Carolina and grub

hoe corn, and plough a
than be such a
stumps, maul
rails,
mule as did
his father once,
man
he would be doing more for

God and
the
his country, his
human
race.
Paul was not a goody-good preacher.
He
generally raised a row in the tovms he entered.
They beat, they put him

citizens seized
in prison.
The enraged
dragged and
him by the
'^
:
throat,
pounded him up before the magistrates with the

accusing exclamation
turned the world upside
These men who have down have come hither
36
also
!
LIVING PROBLEMS.
^
and they demanded
their
immediate exhe had been
pulsion.
They
desired to kick
him because he
If
had turned things upside down.

a
^^good'^
man
to
only, they
would have had no
objection
him, simply because be would
have amounted to nothing.
Nor was
Christ,
though
He was
of the
the impersonation of love, in
any sense
word a goody-good preacher.
He came
the blade
not to bring peace but a sword; but,
He
wielded was the surgeon's knife,
not the cimetar of the Saracen.
stood before the scribes and Pharisees,
When He He did
not give them honeyed words.
They were
made very
clearly to
understand that they
were hypocrites and scoundrels.

once mince matters with them.
"
He
did not
Hear Him:
Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypoye are

like
crites! for
unto whited sepulchres,

beautiful, but inwardly
which outwardy appear
are foul of dead men's bones,
and
of all unfaith-
cleanness."
fully
Christ
never hesitated to
admonish, when admonition was necessary.

tell
He
did not
them
certainly that they were

all right.
all right,
everything and everybody
THE MIiVISTER'S SPHERE.

There are many people
ject to this last
in this
37
world who ob-
phase of the preacher's work.

objects to being taught,
is
Here
is
man who
because, as he says, he
business;
an expert
in his
own
it
and, therefore,
knows more about

in the
than any impertinent parson

"
country.
?
What do you know about my

Have
I
it ?
business
"
he
indignantly asks. "

in
not spent a lifetime
How
dare you interfere with your im?
pudent criticism
"
So says the skipper
to
Paul when reminded of the fact that he ought

not to have loosed from Crete.
I
imagine
can hear that captain say:
*'
What do you
know about navigation, you miserable land lubber ? " Now, the words Paul uttered were in nowise impertinent. He did not say: You have no sense in the management of this boat!
^'
That
ney
sail
is
not set right!"
He
merely said:
"You ought
at
not to have started on this jour-
such a time."
He
did not
of
its
sit
in judg-
ment upon the technique

simply gave an opinion of
navigation, but
relation to the
world without
matter of which he
may
have been a better judge than the captain, as
38
LIVING PROBLEMS.
in fact that
subsequent events showed

for the result
he was,
was they were wrecked and he

of the
had to take charge
whole thing.
the stock ex-
Here
Sing.
is
young Napoleon on
change, starting on the road that leads to Sing

I
warn him that he

:
is
gambling.
Hear
his indignant reply
*'
Gambling, indeed!
?
do you know about stocks and bonds

do you know about
I
What What
which
this great business in
am engaged
exchange
?
What do you know, you

commerce
I
sacred fool, about

of
I
or the
mechanism
"
reply, not
much, perhaps.
know much about the mechanin order to know the difference between an honest man and a thief or a gambler! To judge the technique of your
don't need to
ism of exchange
trade,
have neither time nor inclination, but

right,
do have the
and
take the time, to judge
of the relation of
your business to the world

I
of morals,
and here
do claim to be even a
I
better judge than you, for

interested.
at least
am
dis-
Men
I
complain sometimes that the
preacher
is
too personal.
That
if
is
just
what
am
here
for.
am
nothing,
not personal.
THE MINISTER* S SPHERE.

I
39
always try to level the old musket so as to

something.
if
hit
never shoot blank cartridges,

hit
and
do not
I
somebody every
try.
fire, it
is
not because
do not
at
Why
should
stand
up here and shoot
nothing from Sunday to

in
Sunday?
No!
propose to shoot at you

life,
every relation of
and you need not try to

your trades your hamyard
dodge amid the

and shake
at
technicalities of
me your
sticks,
mers, or bank books.
J.
H.
Mills, while editor
of the Biblical Recorder in Raleigh, gave in his
paper a severe criticism of an amateur musical

performance, which so enraged the director of
that eventful night's
work that he retorted

public
card,
''
to
the
criticism
in
a heated
and
wound up
his tirade
with the taunt,

!
It
was
better than you could have done " the unruffled editor replied:
To which "Granted. Your
remark
this
is
true,
but irrelevant.
^^'g.
I
Any hen
in
country can lay an

feat
;
cannot per-
form that
I
but
fearlessly maintain that
am
in
still
a better judge of eggs than every
hen
North Carolina." The answer was com-
plete.
40
I
LIVING PROBLEMS.
do not know the process
I
it
of preparing beef
steak, but
do know a good piece of steak
when
see
and taste
it.
do not underflour,
stand the process of making
but
do
know good bread when

good dinner
see
it.
do not unI
derstand the process of cooking, but
know
when
all
get to
it.
And
it
do not
hesitate to inform
I
my
I
cook
if
is
not right.
do not know
the mysteries of banking
and currency, but

never read
Mill, or
do know the difference

Christ had
J. S.
between honesty and dishonesty.
Adam
Smith, or Ricardo, or
even Aristotle and Plato.

necessarily about the
He
did
of
not
know
mechanism
exchange, but he did

turn the tables of the
know enough to overmoney changers in the

its
temple and drive them from

cincts.
sacred pre-
Here
is
a politician, well fed, large
in
cir-
cumference, red nose, and luminous eyes, and
loud breath.
He
has credentials of scores of
delegates to a convention in his unhallowed
pocket and
obtained
them by
fraud.
He
manipulates things to
suit himself,
panders in

his
41
platform utterances to the lowest and vilest

life,
element of our
vote
for
his
and coolly demands that

his
man and
principles,
and
threatens to forever cast out of the synagogue

all
heretics
I
who
refuse to obey his
supreme
will.
say to him, you are a

for
villain, sir!
He
replies with lofty scorn
my
inexperience
and ignorance.
politics
?
**What do you know about
What do you know about caucuses and conventions ? What do you know about
is
the machinery by which this great govern-
ment
about
run
"
Well,
don't
know
a great deal
caucuses,
primaries,
I
conventions
thief
I
and
legislative bodies, but
do know a
and a
cut-throat
when
is
see him.
And
have the
right to stand before
him and
his misdeeds.
Then
there
a large class
hear abstract truth uttered, but

personal application
;
who delight to who shy at a

That
and one of their pet cant
phrases
is,
is
"
want to hear the GOSPEL."
they want to hear a theoretical Christianity
preached, and
make
the
application to
some
as
other fellow at their leisure.
They swallow
a sweet beverage the abstract, but fight like a
42
child
LIVING PROBLEMS.
over medicine at the concrete.
it,
They
shut their teeth and refuse to take

first
and the
opportunity shout,
*'
want you to preach
Christ!"
claimed,
They want
the fundamentals pro-
but not applied.

tell
They
of the
''
will
weep
little
with you while you
them
one
ewe lamb, but when you

art the
say,
David, thou
the
man
"
they are sad.
They wrap
drapery of a freezing dignity about them and

retire,
and send you word indirectly through
a friend that they want to hear the " Gospel
preached."
It
has been well said that the gospel
is
the
multiplication table of the science of religion.
Here
is
our professor
in
mathematics.
The
class reaches this table.

" Well,
The
professor says
gentlemen, we have reached the multi-
plication table this

table,
it
morning
it is
a marvellous
is
the key to the whole kingdom of

It
mathematics.
true.
It
is
never changes
it
is
always
the same yesterday, to-day and
Each given proposition is the impersonation of an eternal truth. So marvellously

forever.
true
is
this table that I
have decided that we

will repeat
it
43
forever.
We
will
not try to go
it
beyond
this
we will simply repeat

that professor
forever."
Of course
sition,
would
lose his pofor
and so do a good many preachers,

I
about the same reason,
fear.
As we
press
the multiplication table into the realm of algebra,
geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and apis
plied mathematics, so
the gospel of Christ
to be pressed into every phase of
human
life,
and
its
eternal standards of truth and right

all
applied to
developments of human thought

I
and conduct.
tist
know an
old deacon of a Bap-
church
who
in
seriously objects to applied
mathematics
$30,000, and
the pulpit.
He
is
worth about
gives fifty cents a year to his
church, and loans his pastor
money
at eight
per cent interest.
If
it
his
pastor preaches a
sermon on
giving,
lands the old
man
in
the
middle of a spell of sickness.

a dollar so tight
till
it
He
how
can squeeze
feels like a dime.

tell
is
He
to
never
tires
hearing you
ten times ten
make
him.
dollar,
a hundred
that
is
glorious, sweet
But when you say ten dimes make a

and a dollar
your share
of the bur-
44
den,
LIVING PROBLEMS.
my
brother,
falls
you hurt
his feelings.
His
countenance
ten degrees below zero, and
the sorrow of his countenance makes you wish
you had not

turns in his
said anything.
He
just
is
hurt.
He
mind to the choir and asks them

is
to please sing, and there
one song to
which
his
wounded
spirit
turns,
and that
is,
"I'm glad
salvation's
free!"
in
He
wants the
free:
whole chorus to come
on that word
He
wants to hear the
bass, tenor, soprano,
and
alto just there, together with all the
wind and
and
full
stringed instruments.
Just there he wants the

in,
cymbals, drum, and bass viols to come

the trombone
man
to let out his horn
length
I
is
know another member
of the church,
who
always sighing and crying for the "pure
gospel."
He
drinks.
He
keeps a demijohn
at home under the bed all the time, and takes Let his pastor preach it when he feels like it.
on temperance, and you
will
hear from him!

in
You
up
will
hear his voice crying
the land for

sit
the "
pure gospel."
That
is,
he wants to
in the
amen
corner, fold his
arms and watch

his pastor
45
make
the fur
fly;
but he does not
want to furnish any

see
it
of the fur.
He
wants to
fly off
common
sinners, while his

fine as
own
grows long and silken and

the
I,
*'
he feeds on
pure gospel."
of
course, agree that
the gospel
is
the
thing to preach, but

this
we
are to
remember that
gospel
encircles
at
the material universe,
touching
tact,
man
every possible point of con-
and
fills all
heaven with
its
glories.
As
sur-
minister of
it is
this
glorious gospel of Jesus
Christ,
my
right
and duty to take
my
veyor's compass and chain out into the fields

of the world's activities, survey
by the unerrfor
ing magnet the

himself,
pathway man marks out

him whether
it it is
and
tell
straight or
crooked, whether
is
narrow and mean, or

It
is
whether
it
is
broad and generous.
my
work
to drop the
plumb
line of
God's truth
down over
and by
the foundations of your character,
my
applied sacred mathematics to

it
tell
you whether
is
square or crooked.
By
far
is
the most important function of

this application
my work
of
fundamental gospel truth
4^
LIVING PROBLEMS.
life
to your every-day
and character.
In what
have
no right to preach anything with which the

gospel
pel
is
not concerned.
?
is
the gos-
concerned
is
Anything and
everything
is
that
either right or wrong.
Then,
there
a single thought or deed possible to
man
?
with
which
this gospel
has nothing to do
have
yet to hear of the principle, deed, or thought

to which this gospel cannot
then,
apply.
Surely,
we
are not to be goody-goodies.
What
I
is
Paul's form of congratulation as he closes his

life
work
Does he say:
gentle
!
''
Thank God,
kept
have
never made an enemy;

m.odest
have always been

within
and
"
and
my
"
!
sphere
No
But hear the language of the

"
I
veteran soldier
have fought a good

fight a
fight
So
is it
my
duty to
good
the
fight, flesh,
and not
and the
to sugar-coat the world,

devil
Such a work, therefore,

lined
acter,
is
as
is
here
its
is
out-
also necessarily preventive in
char-
for
the
watchman who warns

its
one
ap-
who
gives the danger signal at

I
first
proach.
bought a copy of an evening paper

the other day, as
first
I
47
returned home, and the
thing upon which
my
eye
fell
was a
dis-
patch from Providence saying that a drunken

brute had gone
home and demanded
of his
wife two dollars of her hard earnings, that he
might return to the grog-shop and complete

his drunk.
This she refused, and thereupon,

fell
with the ferocity of a beast, he
upon her
*'
and beat her to death

Father
and, as she lay dying,

:
she turned to her child and said
My
boy,
run for
Finnigan,
to
quick!"
;
Father
she died
Finnigan
hastened
come
but
before he reached the house, to go through his

cerem.onies over her dead body.
are those
Now, there
ceremonies
re-
who
think that Father Finnigan's

his
I
duty began and ended with

over that body, but, as for me,
ligion that begins its
demiand a
work before the autopsy,

I
or not
at
all.
If
cannot comie into the

I
house before the undertaker, then
will
not
come
I
at all;
will quit the business.
look around
me and
see the devil

life.
mount
I
the driver's
box
of our national
see
him draw the
reins over the arched necks of
"
48
LIVING PROBLEMS.
the political steeds harnessed to the national

chariot.
Each horse acknowledges the grip
of the master.
He
lifts
high those reins and

of his
brings
down
to
his lash
on the bare backs
high-tempered brutes.
obedient
his
Forward they dash, command. Madly onward
they plunge, as the lash descends again and

again.
less
On, on they leap over throngs of helpTheir bodies
men, women and children.
are ground beneath the wheels and iron hoofs.
Hear
blood
their sighs, groans,

in
and shrieks
as their
dark pools stains the pavements!

at the horrible sight, I cry
Dismayed
"
aloud
?
My
God,
cannot
something
be
done
About that time, I hear the squeaking voice of some little preacher as he hastens to say:
"
No, you can't do anything!
Nothing can be
Besides, man,
done!
You must
stand out of the way, or
you
it
will get
run over yourself.

of place for
would be out
of that!
you to attempt to
apart!
do anything.
You
are specially set
Think
coat!
Just think of the cut of your

style of
Think of the
your
collar
"
!
In
reply, I feel like crying: "Silence!
You keep
THE MINISTER'S SPHERE,
49
me from my
quiem
wear a
of the
thoughts.
If that is all
you have
only
I
to say, let Nature's stillness be the
re-
dead that
lie
around
us.
never
collar that
chokes me.
as to
When my collar
gets so high and

barrier
stiff
form an impassable
between
me and
the cause of humanity
and God, then

if it
I will
cut
my
I
collar
down
it
and
off
can't be cut
down,
must take
will
not wear a collar
I will
go out of the
business."
A
may
it
hard work
it is
often to
wound
life
that
;
you
but
heal, to slay that life
may
be given
is
the crowning glory of a

to such a work.
to be called
of
God
LIVING PROBLEMS,
MAN
So then each one of us
God.
vs.
FATE.
an account of himself unto
shall give
Rom.
xiv. 12.
Christianity
Chaldeans
lives.
is
yet burdened with the leg-
acy of pagan theology.

is
The astrology
of the
still
a potent force in too
many
their
The Greek and Roman Fates wove accursed threads not only into the web of
life,
ancient
but through literature, philosophy,

three
old
and
religion, those
hags are
still
spinning, weaving,
and
cutting
the tangled
threads of
human
destiny.
Christ
lest
came and
found the world trembling
they frown.
We
are not yet freed from their despotism,

in the
though
teaching of Christ
we have
the
dignity and glory of the individual soul fully

revealed.
I
once heard such a
fatalistic
sermon by a
Christian minister.
He
magnified the sover-
eignty of
God
until the part that
man
played
MANin salvation
VS.
FATE.
51
is, it
was
less
than nothing, that
was antagonistic rather than cooperative.

justified his position
He
by assuming
that before
the foundation of the world, some such scene

as this occurred
:
Let us imagine
the council
office
chamber
in Paris.
of eternity to be
M. Pasteur's
The anteroom you
find full of the
victims of hydrophobia
four quarters of the globe
they come from the the peasant, bitten
by the mad wolf in the wilds of Siberia, ladies from London snapped by their pets, victims of
the vagrant cur sulking along street and high-
way, children from free America

children,
men, women,
from the
huddled together,
all
fleeing
same hideous nightmare,

same horrible thought!
veys the scene, and
only
treat
I
all
starting in their
beds at night choking and smothering with the

Pasteur enters, surI
says, "
believe
will save
I
five of
you.
The
rest
I
can go,
might
so.
you
if I
would, but
choose not to do
will save these five for no special reason, ex-
cept
my own
good pleasure, the
rest of
is
you
I
need not say a word.

never change.
My
decree
fixed.
You need
not ask
me
to save
LIVING PROBLEMS.
you."
And
with slow step and backward-glanc-
ing eyes, with breaking and broken hearts, the
sad procession
files
out
they
!
are lost
amid
the turmoil of the world, sighing, groaning,

raving, dying without
hope
What
a travesty
on the name of God!
Upon His
I
love, justice,
mercy
upon every attribute of divine nature!

!
Perish the thought
know
such
not, nor
want to
the
know, such a God

Bible.
No
Plainly and clearly
God lives in are we taught

there
is
hu-
man
responsibility
so plainly that
it.
no
is
such thing as escaping
For salvation
**
proclaimed universal and conditional.
Come
unto
me
all
ye that labor and are heavy laden

'*
and
I will
give you rest."
God
so loved the
worldy that
he gave
his
only begotten Son,

perish."
in
that whosoever believeth should not

**
God
is
no respecter of persons, but

"
every
is
nation he that worketh righteousness
ac-
cepted of him."
He
is
the propitiation for
our sins and not for our sins only but for the
sins of the
whole world."
it
**Ask,
and ye
"
shall
receive,
knock and
shall
be opened."
Wholife
soever will^ let
him take
of the water of
MAN
freely."
VS.
FATE.
is
53
The
invitation
world wide.
Salva-
tion
is
offered as a free gift.
But
It
it
must be
not be
this
accepted to be efficacious.
forced on any one.
condition
lies
will
Compliance with
solely within the
power
of the
human The agnostic argument

will.
will
not avail to
re-
lieve us of this responsibility.
No man
I
in
Christian land can say
*'
:
do not know whether

or a Hell.
there
is
a God, or a
Heaven
have
no such knowledge and from any responsibility
am
in
therefore excused
the matter."
Such
For
in
ignorance does not excuse, because the means

of positive
knowledge
is
within grasp.
John
vii.
17,
we
find, " If ayiy
man
willeth to
do
his will,
it
he shall
KNOW of
Here
the teaching whether

the simple
experi-
be of God."
test.
is
mental
Any man who

God has
I
wants to know,
can know by making a practical test of religion,

of Christ.
thus pledged himself to
give light to every soul that submits to His will
and asks
If
it
for light.
fail,
have never seen
it
fail.
ever does
I
then the
in
New
Testament
is
failure.
met a man
an after meeting
54
LIVING PROBLEMS.
one night who had not accepted the invitation

to confess faith in Christ.
I
asked him why,

" Well, the truth
is
and when pressed he repHed,

is,
don't
know whether
I
if
there
if
any God.
have
my
doubts."
asked
he was willing to
give
it.
receive the light
God would
He said
when he
of John,
he was.
told
him to take
his Bible
went home, read the Third Chapter

kneel and pray this simple
will
is
prayer, "
Lord,
my
me
at
thine, reveal thyself
unto me, show

"
the truth, give

first,
me
light
He
refused
but finally promised.
That night he did
as he promised,
and the next evening he was

baptized him a few weeks
earnest,
knozu,
it
the
first
man
to leap to his feet to testify to

I
his faith in Christ.
later
and he
If
is
now an
consistent
is
Christian.
you do not
simply
because you do not want to know

Is
it
not true, then, as our text implies, that
in the last analysis
every
man
is
alone personhis character,
ally responsible for his life
and
the crystallization of
life ?
Could we make any other power responsible

?
MAN
human
life
VS.
FATE.
55
There are only three forces that operate on

and character
the
human
will,
or
the creating and governing power within man,
the force of circumstances or environment, and
supernatural power, or
If
God
the Creator of
all.
we
could therefore shift responsibility upon
environment or upon God, we easily escape.
Let us see
I.
if it
can be done.
creature of
Man
is
the
circumstances,
does he not then cease to be a free agent?

Hardly.
is
For we must remember that truth

Clip either, and the
a bird with two wings.
bird
comes down.
It
may
be true that
it is
man
is
the creature of circumstances, but

true that he
I
is
equally
the master of circumstances.
would not underestimate the part played

in
by circumstance or environment
This part
is
a most important one.

is
human life. The charby

their
acter of animals
habitat.
largely determined
The
upon
polar bear gives witness to the
fact that the

its
realm of everlasting snow has set

his hide
seal
and become a part
of his
his
very
being.
The
Bengal tiger borrows

in
stripes
from the variegated jungle
which he
56
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Climate,
prowls.
we know, has
ever
made
its
imprint on character, whether in animals or
men. The philosopher understands

ple
this princi-
when he devotes
himself to the study of
Sociology, or the environment of man.

Christian understands
its
value,
So the when he comes
out from
fluences
among wicked companions and inand unites himself with those who love
truth and righteousness.
is
God and
Yet
this principle
after all a secondary
one when applied

sponsible
to
man.
Man
his
is
distinre-
guished from the mere animal

for
by being
the
results
of
habitat, or
environment, on
character;
because he has
the power to choose his own surroundings, to
change
fit.
his
environment as often as he sees

the power, he
If
evil,
he does not change from that which
is
when he has
responsible
becomes
that
solely
follow.
for
the evil
results
Besides,
man
has shown
in
if
the past that he
can master circumstances
he will; that he
can transform, make, and unmake his surroundings.
To
believe a thing impossible
is
to
make
MAN
it
VS.
FATE,
57
to elimi-
impossible, but
when man chooses

"
nate the word " impossible
from
I
his dictionary,
he begins to work miracles.

first
remember the
time that
of
ever went through the
mounI
tains
North Carolina, the nearer
ap-
proached the higher and more impassable the

Blue Ridge seemed to loom
until
at last
up before me,
cliff
the great dark
seemed to
''
stand directly in the pathway and say,

far shalt
Thus
But
thou come, and no farther
"
pressing
gracefully
on
and on,
found
the
the
turnpike
wound around
impossible
'*
cliff
and passed
out upon the other side.

possible the
in
!
So do men make
everyday
life,
by
simply saying,
will
"
and
at
the
utter-
ance of these words mountains become mole

hills.
Men
will.
say they
can't,
when they
can,
if
they
of
In the war with Mexico a
company
at
Texans were captured, and marched
double
quick speed for twenty-four hours, and at the
dawn
of the
second day they were nearly dead
from fatigue and exhaustion, and could go no

further, but
when
the order was issued to shoot
58
all
LIVING PROBLEMS.
who dropped by
the wayside, they started

it
off at a lively gait
and kept
up
all
day.
paralytic
Alexander H. Stephens was a
little
a
of
life-long invalid.
How
?
could such a
man
achieve success in the rough Fnd tumble arena
American
at
politics
Yet he
of
for
did.
That big
Nation's
invalid's
chair
was a part
the
furniture
Washington
generation.
Weak and
feeble in body, racked with
many
an ache and pain, yet to the day of his death

the crook of his finger was power.
Men knew
that back of the pale face, shrivelled hand, and
dwarfed body that lay so lightly
in that chair,
all
there was caged the spirit of a lion, and

v/ho
knew
him, loved, feared, or
respected
him.
He mastered circumstances. When Wm. Lloyd Garrison started

him and
in
his cruall
sade against slavery, circumstances were

against
his
cause.
He was
*'
hooted
life
I
and
hissed
Boston.
His very
said,
was
take
threatened.
Yet he simply
I
Here
my
stand.
will
not extenuate.
I will
not
excuse.
I will
I will
not retreat one single inch

"
!
and
In the
be heard
And
he was heard !
MAN
thunder of
VS.
FATE.
59
artillery that
!
shook the world, he
was heard
Amid
the carnage of those four

!
years of blood and death, he was heard

the shout of four millions of slaves
!
In
made freemen in a day he was heard He made circumstances made and unmade the men and
His physicians told Douglas Jerrold that he
measures of generations.
was dying.
nouncement,
exclaimed,
little
''
The
old
man
started at the an-
lifted himself
on
his elbow,
and
What, man,
!
die
and leave these

I
ones
helpless
cannot.
will not
die
"
!
He
lived three years longer.

will
His
in-
domitable
throat and
years.
had
grasped
Death by the
hold him at arm's length three
Upon the other hand we see the contrast in the man who did not bring his will to bear on circumstances, in a soldier who was sentenced to be shot. He was placed beside the
open grave with the guard drawn up
in
front.
The order was countermanded

balls
all
at the last
moof
ment, and blank cartridges substituted for the
The guard
fired,
and to the surprise
the
man dropped
dead.
Not a paper wad
6o
LIVING PROBLEMS.
even had touched him, but he died

thought he was dead.
because he
own
lives
He had
loosed his grip
on
his will
power.
all
We
can
remember times
in
our
when we stood
face to face with
some
crisis,
and realized with
startling vividness our indi-
vidual responsibility
swift
realized
it
by an
intuition
and unerring, and that always stood con-
firmed
by the
sternest logic.
I
life.
shall
It
never
for-
get such a time in
my own
I
was
in
early college days.

faith to fate.
I
had begun to pin
my my
had
my
star.
My
heart was
set
I
on several
prizes.
Instead of hard work,
line books.
mused and dreamed and consulted the SybilAll was propitious. Success was
I
sure.
saw the new moon a hand's breadth

leaf
above the eastern horizon unobscured by

or twig.
The zephyrs whispered
to the leaves
and told of success

it.
the
stars all proclaimed
Shall
ever forget that night in June,

crest, I
when
with fallen
walked out of the
brilliantly
lighted hall, with that awful decision of the
judges ringing in
my
ears!
found that the
stars had been talking about another man, and
MAN
low
all
VS.
FATE.
6l
fel-
the zephyrs had whispered about another

entirely,
!
and the moon had proven

I
false to
her vows
lay
down on
the grass beneath
the kindly shadow of a spreading oak, and
cooled
off
for an hour.
That night
all
the
idiocy of fate and fatalism, signs and wonders,
oozed out of
my body
I
and passed
off
harm-
lessly into the earth.
had an interview with
myself, took stock, and

resolution to
year.
I
wound up with
the
did,
work seventeen hours a day next and was never afterward troubled
his environ-
with the moon, or the stars, or the zephyrs.
Even where man cannot change

ment, and when
is
it is
fixed,
dark and cruel, he
yet master of the situation.
He
is
endowed
with a faculty by which he can transform darkness into light, and can
make even
the terror
of his surroundings tributary to the glory of

his character.
Antilles
is
little
The most wonderful bird in the humming bird. He revels in

nature,
side,
those gleaming solitudes of tropical
where danger lurks on every

most venomous
insects,
among
kills.
the
and among the most
mournful plants whose very shade
He
6^
LIVING PROBLEMS.
amid the
foliage of the deadly manchi-
darts
neal tree and builds his nest
among
its
poison-
ous boughs.
He
boldly crops and eats the
fruits of this fearful tree, thrusts his
long beak
down
into the depths of this
venomous flower
and the
and draws forth the pigments with which he

paints his
sinister
crest
the
rich vermilion,
green with which he gives the metallic
lustre to his
triumphant wings, and from their

his shrill cry
burning poison acids derives
and
the everlasting agitation of his angry moments.
What
tion,
this bird
does with poison,

jails,
man
has been
able to do with poverty,
cruelty, persecu-
and torture.
life
As
this
bird
transmutes
poison into
and beauty, so man has taken

life,
the direst elements of

glorious therewith.
and made character
Milton's blindness revealed
to the world a Paradise Lost.
Bedford
jail
gave us Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress

Circumstances, then, have not mastered
men
re-
when
II.
the
human will has God made man.
asserted
Is
its
power.
not
God then
?
sponsible for man's worthlessness
Hardly.
himself
God
did
make man, but man makes
MAN
also.
VS.
FAT&.
is
^Z
Character
is all
there
to
man
that
is
worth possessing, and God does not make

man's character by any direct creative
Character
is
act.
will.
the product of the

to
human
this
is
Will power
God gave
man, and
the
instrument with which

It is useless
man makes
himself.
and senseless to whine about the
existence of
evil.
it.
God does
power
not permit
evil.
He
cannot help
Having endowed man with a

of choice
free will, or the
there
could
be no alternative
evil was a
to
necessity of this
the highest possible creation from the divine
hand.
To have removed
the possibility of evil

of
would have been

choice,
destroy the power
and hence, to have destroyed man.

he would have been simply a brute, or
That
is,
an automaton
not a man.
Evil
is,
therefore,
a necessary incident to the creation of
man
is
and to charge God with the existence

to charge
of evil
him with the crime
of creating man.
Shadow
shadow.
is
an incident of sunlight.
We
do not
charge the sun with the responsibility of the
Neither do we charge the existence
of evil as a crime against the
Godhead.
This
64
LIVING PROBLEMS.
infinitely
world would not be better, but

without
evil,
worse
since to
remove
evil
would be to
moral agent
carries with
remove the
possibility of good.
Good
must be
it
is
the result of choice.
free.
The very word moral

in the
the absolute necessity of freedom.

is
This
freeis
dom
found
power
of choice.
Will
the power of choice.

perfect will.
Every
is
will, therefore, is
Choice
absolute.
We
either
choose, or do not choose.
He, who has not
the power of choice,
is
not a
man he
" strong "
is
de-
prived of the essential function of manhood, or
moral
agency.
The words
and
" weak," therefore, cannot be correctly applied
to will in
its
essence.
But could not God have made man so that

he could not
sin?
Yes,
God
animals incapable of
sin,
make many but we call them

did
monkeys, horses, cows, and

men.
such
like,
not
con-
But
could
not
God have
so
structed
possible
?
man
that sin
would have been im-
Yes, but he would have thus
made
good
equally impossible.
prevented slander by creating
He might have man without a
MAN
tongue, but such a
VS.
FATE.
65
man
could not have sung
songs in praise of his Creator.
You
can pre-
vent a frolicsome boy from mischief by tying
him hand and
foot,
but you cannot send him
on an errand of mercy while thus tied

equally incapable of good.
he
to
is
The power,
do that which
then, freely
is
to do,
is
or not
to
right,
essential
the
existence of moral quality in any action.
For
evil
God
to
have removed the possibility of
would have been to

choice,
free
destroy the power of
which
is
the distinguishing feature of

or
moral
agency,
manhood.
Let
me
repeat and emphasize this point.
There can
was
be no such thing as moral quality asserted

of an action unless the
power
of choice
exercised by the agent.
To
illustrate this:
Some
years ago a heavy
passenger train was slowly puffing

the steeps of the Alleghanies.
its way up The great engine panted as if its strength were failing. The track was little more than a shelf cut in the rocks,
cliff
with a
below.
upon one
5
side,
and the precipice

of
The scene was one
wondrous
66
LIVING PROBLEMS.
beauty, and while the passengers were enrapt
with the sublime views that

burst
evêr
and anon
of the
upon them, suddenly the whistle

its
engine uttered
sharp cry for
down
call.
brakes.
The brakesmen sprang

plied
all
to their posts
and ap-
their strength to
obey the
to
What
had happened, or was about

one knew.
happen, no
With nervous
questioning, people
thrust their heads out the windows, or rushed

to the platforms.
The sharp eye
of the en-
gineer had seen an awful peril
a train of movit
ing freight cars descending the m.ountain side
upon
his track
For a moment
was
in plain
sight dashing
around a curve
life.
no
?
engine, no
brakesmen, no sign of
inevitable.
A collision
He
seemed
thought
The
loss of life
would be simply
horrible
of a
What
should he do
all in
hundred things
a m.om.ent, but
none
in-
seemed practicable save one, and that he

stantly decided to try.
whistled.
"
''
Down
In a
brakes
"
he
"
!
Free the engine from the train

"
he shouted to the fireman.

Avas done.
Now jump
for
moment it your life " The

!
fireman leaped and scrambled to his feet again.
MAN
''
VS.
FATE,
"
!
67
Now
fight the battle for us
exclaimed the
engineer as he opened the throttle valve and
sprang from the steps.
Freed from
its
load,
the iron monster darted up the mountain side
alone to meet the coming foe

streak of
A long
gray
smoke marked the way

it
as with the
speed of the wind

cliff
dashed around curve and

!
and on to the mortal combat

the track in
full sight
Meanwhile
cars
down
came the wild
at a speed so fearful that, as tliey
rounded the
curves the wheels rose from the track and
down with
mighty
a resounding crash.
came Then with a

!
tiger-like rage,
they flew at each other

hills
air,
!
The crash shook

of
the
roaring cloud
steam burst into the

a
and then the shatquivered and
tered cars,
grinding, crackling mass, rose

until
it
higher, higher, higher
tottered for a
moment
The
were
in
at its base, reeled

in
and
the
went thundering down the embankment

ravine below.
near.
grateful passengers
draw
the
There
the
splintered
ties,
deep ugly furrows

rails
the road-bed, the broken

of an utter
and the nameless fragments
wreck.
The
gallant
engine was a hopeless
68
ruin.
LIVING PROBLEMS.
There
it
lay like
some noble wounded

its
animal, with
its
its
iron ribs broken and crushed,
brass lungs burst, and

!
great heart torn
out
It
had fought a battle
in
which hundreds
at stake,
of lives
and untold interests were

It
and
had won.
had died that men might
live
in-
And
yet, that grateful
throng never even
quired the nam.e of the engine.
They
reared
no monument to
its
memory there.
it
And why ?
hence no
Because the engine had no power of choice.

It
was compelled to do what
did,
moral quality could be attributed to the deed,
though
simxilar
in
character to the supreme

itself
!
tragedy on Calvary
But with tears
of
joy and gratitude they blessed the engineer
whose quick
wit,
daring plan, and instant exe-
cution had saved
them from death.

because he
did.
He was
cannot,
the hero of the hour

to do, or not to do,
had the power
what he
We
then,
make God
conclusion
responsible for our sins or
worthlessness.
The
is
overwhelming that upon
every man's head rests his
own
blood.
Men
who
who
profess a belief
in fate, in destiny,
MAN
VS.
FATE.
all
69
reach any success, always comply with

conditions of the sternest success.
the
Napoleon
Bonaparte had
his star, his fate, his destiny,
but he worked nineteen hours a day and slept

five!
He
believed in fate
in himself
!
but
is
he was fate!
the
he believed
fool!
Fate
God
of a
Every thinking man recognizes that
truth.
with me a moment back into your life down memory's halls. Let us turn aside into those secret chambers. You do not want to
Go
go
for
in
Why
of
it,
!
not
it
If
all
;
you are not responsible

right.
any
it
is
You
could not
in those
help
You
hesitate
you know that

of
rooms there are the ghosts
dead hopes,
lost
capacities, noble aspirations,
and dark
spirits
flapping from out their condor wings invisible
woe
You know
that these walls are
all
hung
with tapestry wrought by your
own
no
fingers;
know,
too, that the shuttle of
fool's fate
ever shot athwart those tangled threads.
You
spun them, wove them, hung them

all
they are
your own
No, God
will
not lasso you and drag you
70
into heaven.
LIVING PROBLEMS.
He
will
not bind you hand and
foot against your will

into the courts of
and carry you captive
glory!
He
lets
down
at
your hands the rope of salvation by

will
first
faith.
He
not lash you to

seize
it
it
by
force.
You must
and swing
off
The law
is
of the land, statutory
and common,
ruled by
it,
above the individual.

it
He
is
and cannot violate
yet he has the right to
dispose of himself and of his property as he

pleases.
He makes
is
his will,
it
and
if
the signa-
ture to that will

of the land,
genuine,
becomes the law

of justice
in
and the highest tribunal

it
cannot, dare not, set
aside
So do you
the royal chamber of your soul write your
will,
and dispose
tal future.
of an
immortal soul and

of
its
immor-
The law
God
is
above you, and
rules you, but
your will becomes the law of
God
Heaven's highest court admits to pro-
bate that will unquestioned.
THE QUESTION OF HELL,
71
THE QUESTION OF HELL.

*'
"The And
soul that sinneth
it
shall die."
Ez.
46.
xviii. 20.
these shall go
away
into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life."
Matt. xxv.
infidel
Says a distinguished
*'
:
honestly
in
believe that the doctrine of hell
was born
the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils
watching for their prey.

in
believe
it
was born
was born
the yelping and howling and grovelI
ing and snarling of wild beasts.

in
believe
in
it
the grin of hyenas and
the mait,
licious chatter of
I
depraved apes.
it."
I
I,
despise
defy
I
it,
and
hate
So do
it,
but the fact
that
despise, defy,
and hate
has nothing to
do with the bald question of

glittering
its
existence.
The
eyes of snakes, the growling and
snarling of wild beasts, the grin of hyenas and
chatter of depraved apes, are horrible facts in

nature; but the horror with which
we regard
;
them can
in
nowise blot out the facts
and
it
72
is
LIVING PROBLEMS.
simply childish nonsense to go into hysterics
over the horrors, and think that thereby
we
un-
may
discredit the facts.

I
hate
hell,
and for
I
that very reason must
be careful
lest
derestimate
its realities.
The
is
religion that consists in a desperate athell
tempt to escape
and squeeze into heaven

is
a poor religion
so
the one that seeks to
frighten
folks into
being good by a bloody
picture of torment.
sists in
Yet the
religion that conhell,
wind and exclamation points on
and savage attacks on orthodoxy, offering the
hungry human heart nothing

poorer
still, is
in its stead,
is
is
infinitely
meaner,
utterly con-
temptible!
I
do not believe
in
Dante's Inferno
it; I
the
Bible does not contain
do not believe
fire
necessarily in a hell of literal

stone,
is
and brim-
any more than
believe in a heaven that
a square walled city with gold brick pave-
ments.
The
inspired writers exhausted the
resources of
human language
be
all
in
the effort to
of hell's
convey the idea of heaven's glory and

woe.
I
may
wrong
in
my
conceptions

of heaven, but its joy
73
and glory
will
be none
the less real for that reason.

ceptions of hell
Orthodox conless
maybe
all
more or
wrong,
less
but
its
horror and misery will be none the
real for that reason.
But the question as to

life
the materialism of the future

to
has nothing
in
do with the discussion of the question
hand.
is
The
point of discussion
now
before us
?
a very simple one.
Does Hell
in the
exist
There
is
an impression abroad
minds
of
many
that
we have to-day
new theology
that has
annihilated hell.
No
graver mistake could be
made.
Unitarianism and Universalism main-
tain the existence of
an awful
hell.
The
so-
called
New Theology does

its
not touch the ques-
tion of
'*
existence, but merely puts the query:
Will not those

it
who have
?
not heard the Gospel
here, hear
after
"
death and have another

It
chance of escape
that borders
remains for an atheism
upon insanity alone to enter an
absolute denial.
And
yet
it is
curious to note
tricked with
a denial
how many
sensible people
are
such puny sentimentalism. be maintained for a
Can such
moment within
the bounds
74
of
It
LIVIXG PROLLEMS.
human
reason, to say nothing of revelation
can not.
We
look about us and are con-
fronted on every hand with facts that over-
whelm
this
us with the conviction of

at its
its
reality.
Appalled
horror
we walk round about

''
awful fact of eternity and try in vain to

It
escape.
of the
stands confirmed
of
by the nature
mind
God, by the moral forces of the

of
universe,
by the prophetic menace
the
all
human
law."
conscience, and by the analogies of
So that we are forced

is
to believe that:
in
Hell
of
not a dogma, born
the imagination
cunning priests and used to terrorize childinto
hood and coerce manhood

est necessity of the universe.
I.
submission
not a dogma, but a necessity, the saddest, stern-
It is
a necessity of Immortality.
He who
must
said as to
believes in the immortality of the soul
believe in hell.
Whatever may be
all
the abstract question of immortality,

a fact that in spite of
it
remains
doubts and fears we

This belief
do believe
is
in
man's immortality.
a part of us
woven and interwoven into the

itself,
consciousness of personality
and
is
in-

separable from our being, to say nothing of
75
its
confirmation
in divine revelation.
The human
in material-
soul instinctively cries:
"Believe
ism
lief
if
you
as
will,
but
am
immortal, and
my
be-
is
much
higher and nobler than yours,
as
is
the eagle, whose proud wing beats the air
as he
mounts toward the

lives
sun, higher than the

of a cellar."
toad that
upon the vapors

in
Then,
if
you believe
immortality you must

all
believe in hell.
After death we must
go
somewhere.
place.
We
cannot
all
go to the same
all
Certainly
we cannot
go to heaven.
To
hell.
thousands, heaven would be worse than

I
know some people who, when they

hell,
reach the other shore and find no
v/ould
make one in
form
it
short order.
And
arrival.
if
you put them
off into a section of
heaven, they would trans-
into a hell
upon
The old
story
illus-
of the
men
in
the
wrong boat admirably
trates this truth.
shore to catch their boats.

for a prize
fight,
They were rushing to the One was chartered As

the whistles
the other for a Methodist
camp-meeting
excursion.
sounded the prize
fighter rushed
on the camp
76
LIVING PROBLEMS,
meeting boat, and the Methodist leaped on the deck among the prize-ring thugs. When they
had
started, the
his
good brother with
his Bible
under
arm began
to look for his friends,

villain-
but could find only groups of profane,
ous-looking men, cursing, drinking, and playing cards.

his
With
tears he told the captain of

off.
mistake and begged to be put
It
was
a hell to him.
The
prize fighter
find
wandered
about the other boat and could

of joyous
only groups
men and women

in vain for
singing sweet songs,
reading the Bible, and talking about religion.
He
sought
something to drink, for

He, too, sought
congenial
companionship.
the captain, and, cursing the whole establish-
ment, offered
off
all
the
money he had
to be put
anywhere
on
a desert island
on a
rock
anywhere that
he might escape those songs

It
and such companionship.
was a
hell of tor-
ment to him. Here is a man whose

from day to day.
soul
is
going down,
down, down, into deeper depths of infamy
He
dies.
Will his soul cease
to descend and begin to ascend
yea, turn in
THE QUESTION OE HELL.

its
77
downward
flight
and leap into heaven?

pinnacle,
re-
Can the stone dropped from the

pause of
itself in
the descent, and, turning,

?
mount
to greater heights
incident.
Death
is
mere
physical
Can a physical
?
incident
work such a moral transformation

say
it is
No, we
absurd.
A mere physical
change does
not work a moral revolution.
Souls, then, that
are descending at death, are expected to con-
tinue that descent.

at death
II.
Souls that are ascending

rise to
may
expect to
greater heights.
Philosophers,
It is a
necessity of Law.
great and small, have ceased to maintain that

this
world was born of chance, or that
it is
run
by chance.
preme
to
in
The
spirit of
the age
bows before
reigns su-
the universal
reign of law.
Law
the physical and moral worlds. Chaos
no longer broods over Nature.
We have come make nature and law almost interchangeable

We realize
that Nature acts with fear-
terms.
ful
uniformity.
but Nature never.
God and man may forgive, The name of Vengeance, of
Nemesis,
is
Nature!
So must the moral universe be subject to
7B
LIVING PROBLEMS.
There
is
the reign of law.
no such thing as
is
law without penalty. very definition of law
Penalty
itself.
a part of the
Law
that
is
vio-
lated with impunity ceases to be law.
Nature's
laws violated wreck vengeance on the violator.
Moral law wilfully and persistently violated
must impose
its
is
penalty or cease to exist.

If
That penalty
is
hell.
there
is
no
hell there
no such thing as moral law, which no sane

can maintain.
Is there
man
no justice
for the
past?
Has
there been and will there be no

?
adjustment of the wrongs of the ages

the dismantled
cities,
Will
crumbled empires, en-
slaved nations, lost tribes, and dead races cry in
vain for justice
Will the cry of the weak, of
the oppressed, of the wronged, of the down-
trodden, in the past, the present, the future,

forever ascend and find no ear to hear, and no
heart to pity
yes,
If
chaos rules the moral world,
if
law, then a thousand times,

is
no
III. It
a necessity of Love.
It is curious to
note the uses
God is love." men have tried

''
to
make
of this sublime revelation.
There
is
class
of sentimentalists that play forever
on

this
79
one
string.
They reject
all
the plain teaching
of the Bible
on the punishment of the wicked.

sensible theories of
They seek
inspiration
Bible,
to destroy
in
fact
in
they absolutely reject the
and yet
!
the next breath, proclaim a
universal pardon for the race, because,

is
love "
?
love
Where did they learn that They did not learn it in their ov^m
is
God God is
''
souls,
for an
avenging conscience
there telling of
righteousness and judgm.ent.

learn
cruel
it
They
did not
is
in
the
book
of
Nature.
Nature
and
pitiless.
in
That revelation can be
found nowhere
the universe save within the
lids of the Bible,
and
"
this
Book
is
of
books they
life rests
have spurned.
Their hope of eternal
upon the sentence,

be found only
this
in
God way
love," v/hich can
His Book, Vvhere alongside

the
of
declaration,
eternal
life
is
marked out and made

and the penalty
so plain that a wayfar-
ing man, though a fool, need not err therein,

of hell hurled against those
who
wilfully reject this way.
Even an
Ingersoll hopes!
star,
''
In the night of
death hope sees a
and listening love hears
8o
LIVING PROBLEMS.
;
the rustle of a wing," he says

that the star he sees
is
and yet forgets
the Star of Bethlehem,

hears,
is
and the
tle of
rustle of the
wing he
the rus-
the angel's wing o'er the broken sepul-
chre!
God
is
love; but love
is
just.
is
Justice
is
the
foundation of love.
to be love
Love that
unjust, ceases
sentiall
and becomes a mere maudlin
mentalism.
The
Bible does not teach that
who
sin are to receive the
same punishment
to be pitchforked into a burning cauldron and

stirred
up together.
It
teaches that some shall
be beaten with few
stripes, others
with many,
and that
this
punishment
will
vary
propor-
tion to the light each has had.
The judge who

his country,
ster,
loves his people and loves

just.
must always be
When Webfor his atro-
the murderer of Parkman, was brought be-
fore
Judge Shaw to be sentenced
cious deed, he stood face to face with his old

friend and schoolmate.
The
judge, as he gazed
upon him, was overwhelmed by the memory

of those years of
companionship and
love,
and
while the great tears rolled
down
his cheeks.

he pronounced sentence of death.
8i
Was
?
that
sentence inconsistent with the highest love of
humanity
then
it
Was
it
it
right, or in
its
wrong
If right,
was subHme
righteousness.
If
wrong, then
was
infinitely
damnable.
this
God
is
love,
and because of
hell.
very fact
there must be a
If
God
is
;
love, those
who
know God, must know love who do not love cannot go

In
therefore those
to
God.
They
is hell.
must go somewhere, and where they go
East Boston a short time ago a

his
man
named Tom Rowland took

went
throat her
loaded revolver,
into his wife's room,
and seized by the
whom
he had promised to cherish,

for,
to tenderly care
and
love,
and sent two
bullets crashing through her
bosom.
As
she
lay at his feet

in
upon
the floor dying, weltering
her blood, the love of
woman
rose trium-
phant o'er the awful wrong, and looking up

she feebly said: " Kneel
let
down
here,
"
!
Tom, and
His only
me
tell
you how
forgive you
answer was to curse and kick her as she expired.
He
his
then turned
and sent a bullet

fell
through
own
brain and
dead.
Where
82
LIVING PROBLEMS.
?
did that infernal brute go
He
died with
curses lodged in his clinched teeth, with the
scowl of hell upon his brow, with every drop

of his foul blood boiling
and hissing with
eter-
nal hate
fiend of
I
it
God
!
is
Love.
He was
?
the incarnate
Hate
hell,
where did he go
it is
hate
but
an awful
it
fact.
As
a fact
If
confronts
us.
As
a fact
must be met.
I
could bridge hell with doubt

it.
would gladly
do
would rear a mountain where the

I
chasm now yawns!

traveller
cannot understand
all
the dark mysteries of that world of woe.
The
bends o'er the unspeaking precipice

its
and drops a stone to sound

listens to
depths.
He
hear the thud

returns.
in the valley
below.
No sound He drops
this
Only dead
heart.
I
silence reigns.
another, and listens and hears only
the throb of his
own
So
approach
unspeaking precipice.
its
try in vain to
sound
depths.
There comes no response,

its
save that in the deep of

written in letters of
fire,
black gloom
!
see
woe
WOE
"
!
MIRACLES A AW ROBERT ELSMERE.
MIRACLES AND ROBERT ELSMERE.

The Presumption Against a Miracle.
If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if do them, though ye believe not me, believe the works.
I
John
x., 37, 38.
The
It is
age
in
which we
live is a stirring one.
an age of stern questioning.
All things
are being cast into the crucible and tried

fire
by a
glad
it.
seven times hotter than usual.

I
I I
am
of
I
it.
am
in
glad
I live
in this age.
like
rejoice
the widespread
interest
mani-
fested in such a
book
as "
Robert Elsmere."
life
Out
of
such conflicts always come

I
and
growth.
am
of
not afraid Truth will
suffer.
Conflict only burnishes the shield
and sharpens
the sword
Truth, and
she
comes forth
I
brighter and
more radiant than
ever.
do not
nurse
wind.
will
my
If
creed as a tender babe, jealous of every
my creed
cannot take care of

If I
itself it
have to
suffer, that is all.
am wrong
4
I
LIVING PROBLEMS.
it,
want to know
and the sooner
know
it
the better.
The purpose
of this
book
is
to eliminate the
or,
supernatural from our religion,
in
other
words, to destroy Christ

Christianity.
in
order to preserve
The book
is
is
founded on a supposition that

namely, that there
is
not a fact,
an over-
whelming presumption against the

of a miracle, so
possibility
overwhelming that the ordinary

a purely gratuitous supposition
laws of evidence will not hold good to try the

case.
This
is
and can be
easily
is
proven to be
''
false.
A miracle
known law
defined to be
an event or an
occurrence which cannot be explained by any

of nature
;
a deviation
from the
es-
tablished laws of nature."

Is there, then,
an overwhelming presumption
?
against the possibility of a miracle

I.
Certainly the uniformity of nature cannot
be legitimately used to prove that a miracle

not occur.
It is
very
may common now, however, to

all-sufificient
have
this fallacy
presented as an
argument.
In fact, this seems
now
to be the
85
principal stock in trade of our so-called scientific
free-thinkers.
is
This
battle
an old
conflict,
and the ground
of
has shifted with every age.
Celsus,
in-
Porphyry, Julian, and Hierocles, the great

fidels of
the
first
three or four centuries, each
attacked the miracles of Christ, but each on
grounds so antagonistic as to destroy the force

of their
work
as a whole.
it
From
Hierocles to
Spinoza and Mill
was popular with the windy
philosophers of that age to dogmatically assert

that a miracle was impossible, and that, therefore,
no amount of evidence could establish
one.
The philosophy
of
Spinoza and Mill
placed a quietus on this sort of idiocy, and
now
our philosophic gymnasts are cutting somersaults over the continuity of natural law or the
uniformity of nature.
The
form.
universal postulate of science

will
is
is
the as-
sumption that nature

This postulate
be found to be uni-
the boundary line of
the outermost horizon of the scientific world.
Of that which does not conform
to the
known
laws of nature, science can give no information,
86
LIVING PROBLEMS.
its
because outside of
as such, can never
realm.
Science, then,
acknowledge a miracle, can

Sci-
never prove a miracle or disprove one.
ence can only admit that, so far as the evidence

goes, an event has
its
happened which
lies
outside
province.
The
fact that the alleged mira-
cle
breaks the observed uniformity of nature

its
could never destroy the grounds of

bility,
credi-
unless
we maintain
the absurd position
that
all
the ultimate secrets of the universe are
contained within the province of the

laws of nature.
now known
as-
The uniformity
If
of nature
is
merely an
sumption based on a number
of observations.
the miracle be true, then uniformity, in that
far,
could not be asserted.
Therefore, to plead the uniformity of nature

against the possibility of a miracle
is
simply to
the uni-
beg the question.

formity broken
? "
The
issue
is,
''
''
Was
it
To
assert
is
No,
was not
broken, because nature

form,"
cle, to
is
observed to be unicir-
to walk forever in the lost man's
come back each time
to the place from
which we started, and to prove or disprove

nothing.
87
For
if
the evidence establish the fact
of the miracle, the alleged uniformity ceases to
be a
fact,
and we must look

It
is
for a
new law
or a
higher law.
an impossibility, therefore,
raise
that science can
now
an overwhelming
presumption against the occurrence of a miracle.
It
has become
popular nowadays with a
certain class of people to
crown the
scientist
with a halo of
infallibility,
and to accept
as an
is
established fact that what he does not
know
I
not worth knowing.

fer to
it,
believe in science,
deis
love
it;
but the realm of science
as yet a very small one,
and man m.ay know

sci-
and does know many things that are not

entific.
Within
his
province
acknowledge
the right of the scientist to speak with authority.

life
Here, say,
is
man who
devotes
all
his
to the study of the
anatomy
of a gnat.
He
has
caught
gnats,
harnessed gnats, trained
gnats.
He has butchered gnats, dissected them, fried, and parboiled them. He has particularly and generally analyzed gnats. On
roasted,
the subject of gnats
agree at once that he
88
LIVING PROBLEMS.
But he
is
an authority, an expert gnatist.

satisfied to stay within his
not
domain.
He
longs
to
make
wild generalizations from small preleaps
mises.
strikes
He
a
I
upon the lecture platform,

attitude,
dramatic
and
exclaims:
"Behold!
miles
see a gnat on yonder mountain,
away!"
This would not be so bad, but

the
when he solemnly swears he cannot see mountain, we beg here to draw the line
Besides
still
this,
within his realm the scientist
is
man
liable to
be mistaken.
Mr. Bobart,
the director of a scientific garden at Oxford,

it is
said,
found
in
the
museum one day a dead

head,
feet,
rat.
tail,
He
took this
rat, split its
and
drawing them
it.
in
peculiar way, and

in
pressed and dried

tion,
When
to a
proper condiof scientists
he submitted
it
group
for classification.
They labored
for days over
the puzzling problem, and at length
made
their
report, declaring the specimen to be a dragon!
They wrote
about
this
learned essays and even

surviving example
rat
!
poems
of
long-lost
species.
cat
would have known
better.
No, we cannot yet accept the dogma
MIRA CLES AND ROBER T ELSMERE.
89
of scientific infallibility even within the limits

of science proper.
But
religion has
no
real quarrel with science
over miracles.
miracles, else the
The scientist must believe in domain of science itself beIndeed, so far from
comes
a hopeless riddle.
the scientist being able to eliminate miracles
from the universe, he takes the student by

the hand, leads him up face to face with a
miracle,
and leaves him there.

granting, for the sake of argument,
is
Even
that evolution
an established
scientific fact,
the working hypothesis of the theory of evolution involves three miracles.

First, the
life.
transformation of dead matter into

is
Spontaneous generation
a bubble long
since exploded.
No respectable scientist
life.
holds
Life
first
that
life
spontaneously grew from death.
comes only from

spark of
the
life ?
Who
supplied the
No man
has ever yet bridged
chasm that separates dead matter from
live matter.
The chasm yawns,
as deep, as
dark, as unfathomable as ever.

finite
From
its
in-
depths
man
has
ever heard but one
90
LIVING PROBLEMS,
voice
the
of
voice of Almighty God, Creator of

!
Heaven and Earth

miracle
the
Here, then,
is
the great
that
ages.
We
know
dead
matter has become
live matter,
and that some
power
"
which cannot be explained by any

of nature
;
known law
formation.
all
a deviation from the
established laws of nature," caused this trans-
Mr. Spencer and Mr. Huxley and

"
the hosts of science, lead us here and stand
dumb
did
in a
it
before this miracle of miracles.
How
reply
happen
:
'
cries the world.
They
"
!
whisper
" First
Cause
"
!
''
Force
They
" First
have
renamed
"
it
''
God,
and
call
him
Cause;
they have renamed the supernatural,

Force." That
is,
and
call
they have reached
the precipice, the outermost limits of the world

of science.
To make
their
in a
own laws
intelligi-
ble they
must believe
higher law, and yet
they
content
!
themselves
by juggling
with
words
Again, the supposed transformation of the

vegetable into the animal has never yet been
explained.
How
the cabbage-head
became
monkey
is
yet an unsolved riddle.
" It
cannot

be explained by any known law of nature;
certainly
is
9
"
it
" a deviation
from the established
laws of nature."
Here, then, science leads us
up
to a second miracle,
and the man who
beit.
lieves in the
theory of evolution must accept
And
speare
then
how
the brute the
a mystery.
is
How
became a man is yet monkey became a Shake-
an unsolved riddle.
How
the whin-
ing brute became the proud, erect, God-like
man, with a heart that throbs with the joys
and sorrows
of ages, past, present,
and future,
of
''cannot be explained by any

nature."
known law
This consciousness
of personality;
this throbbing,
immortal soul that yearns for
the eternal and infinite, whence
come they
Here, then,
cle.
we
are confronted
by
a third mira-
How,
then, can science raise
any presumxppresumption
tion against the occurrence of a miracle, to say
nothing
against
of
its
an
overwhelming
possibility!
is
n. Every rational man
every day a witness
to the occurrence of a miracle within the bounds of his
own
personal consciousness.
Every sane
man
is
conscious of the exercise of a free will.
92
LIVING PROBLEMS.
actions of a free will " cannot be explained
of nature."
*'
The
by any known law
They are known laws of nature." deviation from all the Science can never hope to reduce all phenomena to absolute unity, so long as a whole class
of observed
phenomena, mainly
all
those that
will,
belong to the action of the
human
is
are to
be excluded from
sequence.
its
postulate of invariable
So
is
far as science
concerned the
science, therewill ?
human
fore,
will
a miracle.
is
Can
prove that there
no such thing as
The human
will every day interferes with the

If a
law of nature's uniformity.
human
will
can thus interfere with the law of uniformity,

as every child
knows
that
it
does,
is it
not more
than probable that behind some phenomena
may
lurk the interference of

?
some other
will,
will
higher than man's
In the
human
we
are
confronted with a fourth miracle.

III.
The experience
of millions of reliable
witnesses testifies to the occurrence of another

miracle,
namely, the transformation of the

spiritual
natural
sion.
man into the The conversion
of a
man converman from sin and

selfishness to love
93
and
holiness,
from the things

is
he delighted
in
*'
to those that he hated,
mystery
that
cannot be explained by
any
is
known law
but
of nature."
How
the desperado
transformed into the saint we do not know,
we do know
is
that the
way
in
which
it
is
done
" a deviation
from the known laws of
nature."
related
Take the case

by Dr. Pierson.
noted toughs of lower
Rowdy Brown, as He was one of the New York. He was a

of
large, strong, bold fellow, tality of a
who
united the bru-
savage with the ferocity of a wild
beast.
Passing a
man who was
seated on the
forecastle of a Liverpool packet quietly read-
ing his Bible, Brown, in pure malice, kicked
him so violently
his teeth
;
in the
mouth
as to
knock out
and
this ruffian
had
killed
men
of
in
California.
Hearing of the conversion
one
of his sailor-mates at the
Water
Street Mission,
if
he swore that he would go down there, and

that fellow should get up to talk, he
would
force open his jaws and
empty a
bottle of whishis bottle.

resist-
key down
his throat.
He went with
But there was a power there on whose
94
LIVING PROBLEMS.
ance to his devilish plot he had not counted.
While waiting
strangely
violent
for his time to
moved
himself; a
come he became new sensation, a

him.
trembling
flee
;
overmastered
He
could not even
the crowd was too dense,
and
old
his strength
was gone.
By
the time his
chum wâs giving his Brown was ready to faint

to
testimony.
;
Rowdy
at the
and when,
close of the testimonies, inquirers
were invited
come forward, he startled the whole company by dropping on his knees and crying,
'
Pray
for
me!
'
The excitement was
intense.
He
his
yelled and groaned for mercy, while his
awakened conscience rocked and racked even

huge frame.
Two
nights of tempest passed
before he heard the voice that speaks the soul

into calm.
But when he did get peace, he

his shouts of praise.
leaped from bed at midnight and roused the
whole house with
Rowdy
Brown no sooner found

work
save
for
Christ than he found
Christ.
In his intense passion to

actually pick up bodily and
men he would
carry some sailor to the mission and set

the astonished
down
man on
the anxious-seat, and
MIRACLES AKD ROBERT ELSMERE.

then plead and pray with him
his
till
95
the heat of
into sub-
own ardor and
fervor melted
him
mission to Christ.
Whence came
this
this
desperado
?
it.
new power The miracle
in the life of
of conversion
alone explains
What
known ?
else
can explain the
self-sacrifice
and
devotion of a thousand Christian lives you have
We
are told that a Greek architect
was commissioned by a Roman emperor to

build a great colosseum.
cess in the plans
He was told that suc-
tune.
meant for him fame and forThe plans were perfected, the building erected, and the Emperor was charmed with
the work. the
On
all
the day of the grand opening

rose
Emperor
before the multitude and
pronounced
honor upon the architect.
To
celebrate the occasion he ordered Christians to
be brought forth from their prisons and fed to
hungry
lions
and
tigers.
When
the
shouts
in
over the bloody scene had died away,

of the galleries the
one
Greek architect arose and

''
:
shouted until the vast assemblage heard

too,
I,
am
a Christian!"
They
seized
him and
9^
LIVING PROBLEMS.
his
threw him into the arena and

into shreds!
body was torn
There must have been a marvel-
lous change
somewhere
in
the character of
that
Greek some power other than human

lifted
must have
that day!
him from
his seat of
honor
Yes, in the conversion of a soul

to face with a fifth miracle.
we
are face
The
ence
facts in the case, then, are that experi-
testifies to a
miracle every day for nearly

Per-
2,000 years in the conversion of a soul.
sonal consciousness
testifies to a
miracle in the
human
will
every day since the morning of

first
creation,
when man
said
''
:
will."
Sci-
ence leads us up to at least three

miracle, then, has certainly
m.iracles.
happened some-
where, and
if
a miracle has ever occurred any-
where
it
may
occur everywhere.
How,
then,
can there be any presumption against the possibility of a
miracle?
97

The Question of Evidence.
"
I
and the Father are one."

in the first
is
John,
x. 30.
We
have seen
examination of
this subject that there
no overwhelming prob-
abiHty against the occurrence of a miracle.
The ordinary laws all that we need to

argument
faith of
of evidence, therefore, are
try the case.
But the key

the
which
is
apparently
overturns
our hero
Wendover's new theory of

is
testimony.
His theory
that testimony
is
science that has only reached a condition of
order and credibility
in
modern times;
that
early witnesses being unacquainted with this

science did not
cally,
know how
to testify scientifi-
and,
therefore, lied.
is
That expert, or
to
scientific
testimony alone
be believed.
reasona-
At
ble.
first
glance this theory

a second glance
it
may seem
At
it is
obviously absurd.
At
a third glance
becomes nothing short of
9^
LIVING PROBLEMS,
According to such a theory,
a monstrosity.
Plutarch, Csesar, Tacitus,
Xenophon, and Herour day.
odotus, are not credible witnesses, because for-
sooth they did not

to such a theory,
live in
According
and crown Zola,

faction;
we would crucify Xenophon the modern apostle of putrePlutarch, and can-
we would outlaw
The
truth
nonize Ingersoll as a teacher of

utterly absurd
!
men
How
" testi-
is
''
expert
mony may be the most utterly worthless testimony given in any court of justice, or inquiry.
Put two experts on the witness stand representing different sides of the same case and ask
them
for information
about the same thing.

is
When
they have finished, the court
usually
of
lies.
overwhelmed by an impenetrable fog
The simple man who does not know how to The tell a lie, is the most credible witness.
author only saves Wendover, the character
who advances
this theory,
is
from utter contempt
by intimating that he
with insanity as
its
the product of a streak
of hereditary insanity.
And
yet this theory,

is
apology,
allowed to an-
nihilate Elsmere's religion without a struggle.
MIRA CLE S A ND R OBER T EL SMERE.

The next main argument
the facts of history.
in
is
99
likewise based
on assumptions that cannot be established by
We
are told that the age
which Christ wrought was an age of mira-
cles
and wonders.
That the
air
was teeming
That no great man appeared whose name was not surrounded by such a halo, and
with them.
that the people
faith
in
held the simplest child-like
the supernatural.
This
;
is
not true.
it
The age was

far
a superstitious one
but
was
was,
from being an age of simple
faith.
It
on the other hand, an age characterized by the

decay of
all
faiths.
The temples
''
of
Greece
and
Rome were
a rock.
deserted.
Stoicism had bein
come
filth."
Epicureanism was wallowing
Infidelity, atheism,
and scepticism were

o'er the
everywhere rampant.
And
crumb-
ling ruins of the religions of the ancient worlds,
Pilate peers into the face of Jesus
and
asks,
''What
is
truth?"
If so,
miracles?"
And did the air teem with why were none wrought in
If so,
the childhood of Christ?

a
how
it
could such
like a cy-
man
as
John the Baptist sweep
clone over the country and yet
should be
604897
loo
LIVING PROBLEMS,
foe, "
recorded of him by both friend and
John
wrought no miracles."
The question then

dence
in
arises,
What
is
the evi-
hand
We
have historic documents,

not questioned, which
whose genuineness
and His
is
contain the direct testimony of Jesus Christ

disciples to the fact of these miracles.
this testimony,
We
must accept
provided the
is
remaining body of their testimony

consistent with
truth,
found
of
and the character

test.
the witnesses can stand the severest
A
al-
witness stands or
falls
upon the whole
of that
to which he testifies, and that whole
must
ways
rest
upon character
is
for a foundation.
Tes-
timony that
thus consistent and harmonious
as a whole, given
by one whose character
is
unimpeachable, must be accepted as the truth
by
all
fair-minded men.
Unity and character, therefore, are the two
elements of credibility
It
in
personal testimony.
requires no argument to prove that the

of Christian doctrine set forth
body
in
by Christ
is
person and through His disciples

It
uni-
form and consistent.
stands confirmed
by
MIRA CLES A ND ROBER T ELSMERE.

the testimony
uries.
of
more than eighteen
cent-
What,
of the
then,
is
to be said of the character

?
witnesses
Let us take the central
figure, Christ himself.
On
the
examination we find the known facts
in
life
of Christ present us with a character
of spotless purity
and a personality absolutely
unique
indeed the supreme miracle of history,
a miracle that
makes more than probable,
yea,
proves
I.
all
the other miracles of the gospels.
All men, believers and unbelievers, unite
in testifying to
His goodness, to His perfection

the highest and holiest, and
that
noblest
He was
man
this
world ever saw.
n.
He
never worked or claimed to work a
miracle for show.

naturally in the
They were always wrought course of His ministry. They

of
were
the natural outflow
the divine
life
within Him.
They were prophetic and symand were conceived
bolic of a world's salvation,
and animated by the noblest purpose.

not peep and mutter
tions, or jugglery.
in
He
did
the dark, use incanta-
He
unstopped the ears of
I02
LIVING PROBLEMS.
th^ deaf, and the world turns to
Him
to hear
the words of eternal

of the blind that
life.
He
opens the eyes

;
man might
not stumble
cures
stills
the sick, feeds the hungry for pity's sake;

the sea to calm the fears of those
who loved Him; raises the dead, that He may wipe the These tears from the eyes of those who weep.
miracles were as clearly not the product of a
superstitious age, as that
modern jugglery and

of the gospels.
necromancy are not the product
He
declared that
He
did these works
by
diful-
vine power.
filment of
He
declared that
He was
the
prophecy and law
the
*'
promised
Messiah.
He
declared that
Father are one."

not as the scribes.
I and the He was God. He spoke with authority and
He was
world.
insane.
either insane, an impostor, or Jesus,
the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the
No man
has ever claimed that
Friend and foe agree that
He was He was
the
If
good, that
He was
upright, that
He was
truest and noblest
man who
ever lived.
He
was a true man, then
He
could not be an im-
MIRA CLE S A ND R OBER T EL SMERE.

postor.
103
The conclusion
is
is
overwhelming, then,
that
He was what He
He
of
it
claimed to be.
a miracle that proves
HI. His character

His claims, and
cation.
is
Himself His own vindi-
Think
suggest
for a
moment.
All great
men do
row
still
with their greatness, narthe inventor,
individuality.
Watt suggests
of
Napoleon the warrior,

Christ was the
Pitt the statesman;
but
Son
man the
His
birth.
highest ex-
pression of the universal genius of humanity
this, too, in
spite of
The Greek
has his national characteristics and weaknesses

so the
Roman, and
of all
the Carthaginian.
The
in his
Jew was
men most pronounced
race prejudices and characteristics.
The world
There
has forgotten that Christ was a Jew.
was
in
Him
the mysterious and perfect balance
of severity and gentleness, of purity and yet
the power to mingle with the impure.

purity was not of the
His
at-
human
sort, for
He
tracted instead of repelling the impure.
His
magnanimity and
self-denial
were
god-like.
He
first
taught the world to love an enemy, and

in
His sweet voice
the agonies of Calvary yet
I04
startles the
LIVING PROBLEMS.
world as
He
exclaims
" Father,
forgive them, they
know
not what they do!"
Such
a character has never before or since be-
longed to mere man.
He must
have been
more than man.

IV. History has established the truth of His
claims;
for the supernatural can be the only
fol-
possible solution of the results that have
lowed His
life
and death.
its
Circumstantial evi-
dence thus adds
weight to an invincible
personal testimony.
We
born
remember
that
He was
born of obscure
Judea.
parentage
in
in a little village in
He was
His
poverty and obscurity, and was never
given the advantages of an education.

ministry only lasted about three years, and
He
was
crucified in disgrace at the age of thirty-
three.
fies
And yet
Mr. Lecky, the historian,
testi-
that the love
mankind has borne Him has

all
been one of the wonders of

Yes,
generations.
tri-
men have
loved
Him
with a love so
umphant
that they have walked bare-footed
and blind-folded over burning ploughshares

for His name's sake.
They have gazed
into
MIRA CLE S A ND ROBER T EL SMERE.
05
the eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, and
with joy exclaimed,
*'
Lord
am wheat
to be
ground
for thee
"
They have
died in crack-
ling flames with songs of

their lips!
triumph and glory on
Lecky further
acted on
all
testifies that this
power has
ages, nations,
and temperaments,
and has ever been the highest incentive to

practical virtue
known
to the world;
that
it
has marched victorious through the centuries

of trial and struggle, and that the Church of
Christ,
when
it
has become degenerate and
corrupt, has ever
shown within
itself
the power
of regeneration and
new
Ifie.
Only thirty-three years did this obscure workingman from Nazareth live. His active
period of work was only three years, and yet
these three years are the pivot on which turns
the history and destiny of the world.

in
Reared
proverty and obscurity, with no rank or
title,
and no great man as His

yet
friend, hated,
driven out and crucified in disgrace by His people
and
He sways
is
the world!
The very
of crea-
calendar of time
His.
The morning
"
I06
tion
is
LIVING PROBLEMS.
forgotten in the joy and glory of the
day on which the shepherds heard the words,

"
Peace
on earth,
good-wîll
toward
in
men
'*
I
Kings baptize their children

Cathedrals,
His
name.
poems
in
marble,
rise to
His honor
and glory, while

age of millions!
He
receives the grateful
hom-
The
story of
all
the nations
that have not heard His voice can be told in a
footnote on a single page of history!

nations of the earth are His inheritance
!
The
How
man?
life
could these things be recorded of mere
The only
natural solution
is
the supernatural
yea, the only possible solution of

must be the supernatural.
V. Most convincing of
all
such a
He
is
now, toEighteen
personal
since.
day, the living Saviour for millions.

centuries have
passed away.
life
All
mementoes of His
cannot
claim
:
have perished long
His birth place. Calvary, and the sepulchre we

find,
''
and yet countless hosts to-day exhaving not seen we love

fills
!
Whom
He
is
the unseen presence that
and
thrills
their lives with faith,
hope, and
love.
During
one of Napoleon's wars, a soldier was under

the surgeon's knife.
107
The blade was

little
cutting
near the heart, when the sufferer looked up
and said:
*'
If
you cut a
deeper, surgeon,
you
of
will find the
Emperor!
"
There are scores
men and women

if
before
me
now, who so
their hearts
love Jesus, that

out,
you should cut
you would
is
find
Him
there!
He
rates,
our refuge and strength, our hiding

Soc-
place in time of trouble and distress.

it
is
said,
had a dream.
He
dreamed,
young dove took refuge in his bosom among the folds of his tunic, until his wings were grown and feathers all full fledged. And then he rose, and soared away higher and
that Plato as a
higher, until lost in the azure blue of heaven!
This dream has been the sweetest reality for

those
who have
fly!"
loved Christ.
Thousands have
sung
" Jesus, lover of
my
soul, let
me
to
Thy
bosom
till
In His
life
bosom they have

mounted
nestled
the storms of
have passed, and then on

to purer worlds
untiring wings have
on high!
As they have
felt
rested in His bosom, they have
the caressing touch of His loving hand,
lo8
LIVING PROBLEMS,
is
and there
a
no other touch
like it!
During
In
his
the Civil War, there lay in one of the hospitals
young
soldier, in a
dangerous condition.
his
delirium he
called
and
called
for
mother.
She was summoned by telegraph.
When
she arrived the surgeon in charge said

*'
to her:
You cannot go
I
in
now, madam, the
shock of your arrival

ately fatal."
fear
would be immediat
So she stood
listening.
the doorway,
watching and
She heard him groan,

silently
and with tears begged that she might go and take the place
of the nurse
by
his side,
promising not to speak or make herself known.
She went.
He
lay with his face to the wall.

in pain,
He
groaned again
and the
all
instincts of
the loving mother overleaped
caution.
She
bent over and tenderly placed her hand on his

fevered brow.
sigh
:
Instantly he exclaimed with a

like
"
Oh, Nurse, how

"
!
my mother's
is
touch
was that
felt
We
know Him because we have

like
His touch, and no other hand

think ye then of Christ
of history.
?
His!
is
What
Himself.
He
the
supreme miracle
He
authenticates
The only
natural and possible solu-

tion of His
natural.
life
109
and personality
separate
is
the super-
You cannot
the truth!
His miracles
from
his personality,
they are a part of Him,
and
He was
There
is, it
seems to
me, no middle ground.

tic
He was
either a gigan-
fraud, or the incarnation of truth.
You
must crown
Him
or crucify
Him!
His witness
to miracles stands confirmed
by His personal
testimony, consistent, a unit, and based on a

spotless character,
and by the mystery of His

its
personality (inexplicable unless divine) in
triumphant march through the centuries!
no
LI VING PROBLEMS.
THE MYSTERY OF
"
.
.
PAIN.
I will
My
soul
is
weary of
my
life.
say unto God,

?
show me wherefore thou contendest with me
"
Job
x.
I, 2.
A YEAR or two
mitted
ago a brutal murder was comLouis.
in a hotel in St.
The murderer
Pacific
It
fled across the continent
and put the

his deed.
Ocean between him and

that he
all
seems
but escaped.
He
not.
thought that he
had escaped, but he had
The strong arm

and dragged
cell
of the law reached across the sea
him back
to justice
to a murderer's
sin.
and
a murderer's scaffold, and Maxwell paid with a broken neck the penalty of his
suffering, pain as penalty,
Sin and
terms so often linked
together
in
human
history!
Law
violated,
vengeance and penalty follow as the necessary

sequence.
That
is
a simple problem.
It
confronts you
upon every hand. The
child that tries to play
THJ^
MYSTERY OF
fire,
PAIN.
it
HI
will
with the blaze of

not do.
soon learns that
Nature's law violated always strikes

All that
back, be that law physical or moral.

is
necessary for a
is
man
open
to fully comiprehend the

his eyes,
fact
to simply
and
if
he has
any sense
must see
it it
certainly he exercise reason, he and yet how many do not see

if
it.
Now
v/e
is
not to
this
phase of suffering
are
brought by our study of Job; but

the
we stand before
has suffered.
this story,
is
man
of
integrity
who
tells
And
the book of Job, that
perhaps the most unique piece of
literature, sacred or profane, extant.

is
Where
the scene founded

;
Some
it
scholars say in
Idumea
region,
It
others say in the great Arabian Desert

still
and
others fix
It
?
in
Mesopotamia.
for all places.
has no place.
was written
W^hat
long
it
When
book
?
did Job live
is
the date of this
Some
say
before
after
Abraham. Abraham,
Others maintain that
was
and some say

poet
date
in
it
was written by an inspired

It
Solomon's day.
has no time
no
it
was written peculiarly

it ?
for all times.

it,
Who wrote
One
says Job wrote
another
112
says,
LI VING PR OBLEMS.
Elihu was
its
author, and
others say
It
Moses, and some a poet of later years.
has
no author save God, so

edge extends.
far as
its
human knowlworld
author,
No
place,
all
locality the
its
no date,
It
its
time,
times;
God!
stands forth in the dim twilight of
human
history, the dramatic revelation of the scene
wherein
instruct
God meets
him
the creature and begins to
in the first letters of the
alphabet
of
life.
The problem
that confronted Job as
he thus staggered beneath the providence of
God is the problem before us. What is, then, this higher mission
lessons that have been
of pain
Passing by the innumerable inferences and
drawn and truthfully

of this book,
drawn from the teachings

vital
we
ob-
serve in perfect outline three answers to this
question Job would ask of God.

rises
As
the
curtain
and
falls,
and scene
succeeds
scene
triarch
in
rapid succession,
bewildered^
we
see the old pa-
enlightenedy
and crowned.
Or
it,
to slightly change the figure,
we
see
him
take
broken up, emptied, and then

therefore, that
it
filled.
We
must have been the pur-
THE MYSTERY OF PAIN.
113
pose of God to thus bewilder, enlighten and

crown, to thus break, empty, and
I.
fill.
We see
of
him
life
first
bewildered.
All his con-
ceptions
utterly broken
complete
wreck.
Job's position had been one eminently
satisfactory to himself.
of an ideal
We
see the picture
Eastern home.
in
He
had been a
upright
model man
many
respects,
and
honorable, industrious and wise, and because

of this
had accumulated a vast fortune.

with himself and began to
We
have every reason to believe that he was well

satisfied
feel that
he had about mastered most of the ultimate

secrets of
life.
He had
reached the period of
self-congratulation and satisfaction.
His sons
and daughters held
their feasts in celebration
of their prosperity every night,
and over the
revelry of each feast the old patriarch threw
the mantle of a father's prayers.
But
in
the midst of these days of piety and

is
prosperity. Job
of adversity.
is
suddenly stricken by a storm

all
In a single day
his
his
property
swept
away and
8
children
killed.
He
still
holds fast to his old faith, and comforts
114
LI VING PR OBLEMS.
himself with the grim philosophy:
"Naked
came
out of
my
mother's
womb, and naked

of
shall I return thither:
the Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name

the Lord."
But adversity touched him again.
This time his body was prostrated, each nerve

torn open and
made
the pathway on which the
scorching feet of pain travelled to his inmost

soul,
and
at last, all his old conceptions of life
are utterly wrecked.
In anguish he curses the

it
day he was born and prays that

blotted from the calendar of time.
may be
In poverty
and
sickness, feeling that

is
God and man were

we cannot wonViewed
overwhelming
against him, he
led captive to despair.
He becomes
a pessimist, and
der that he does with the light he had.
from a purely human point of view, the captivity of the
world to sorrow
of
Is
to the
mind
man.
We
seem to be captive
to blind forces of unrelenting cruelty.
Nature around us
smiles, threatens, curses,
and commands, but never weeps.

receives men's
She
rises in
a thousand forms of beauty and sublimity and
homage, but never stoops to
THE MYSTERY OP PAIM.

sympathize with a sinning, stumbling
US
child.
She knows no sympathy.

prayer, no heart to pity, no
She has no ear
for
arm
to save.
She
acts with fearful uniformity through laws as
stern as fate, as inexorable as death, as merciless as hell.
The
for
terror-stricken sailor
climbs into the
rigging of his
doomed
the
ship and cries in vain

in
mercy
to the
wind that shrieks
demoniac
glee through
cordage about him.
The
wind does not
care, the
waves do not hear.

in the
The
victim
who trembles
is
grasp of an
earthquake need not pray to mother earth,

her only response
to
an open grave that yawns
be
filled,
while from the depths of her
bowels comes the roar as of a hungry, mad-
dened
lion.
The storm king

pestilence at
in
remorseless
fury pauses not for cry, or groan, or tear, or

prayer.
The
whose subtle touch
thousands
fall,
laughs at man's calamity.
single frost
might stay the bloody work and
bind again the blessed seals that held in manacles the monster's hands.
The
frost
does not
come.
No!
Mother's hearts
lie still!
More
li6
lives
LIVING PROBLEMS.
must yet be drained
still
!
And
its
for
many
morning
"
the rumble of that dreaded cart

as at early
!
must be heard
dawn
Over
driver cries,
"
!
Bring out your dead
Bring out your dead

all
Nature does not

fields of
care.
the bloody
our Civil
War Nature
never shed a
tear.
The
grass grows only the richer for the
blood that was shed.
Nature only smiled the
brighter from the nutriment of such rare food.
The
sunlight steals through the

it,
window
of
the sick-room and lights
but
falls
on the
dung-heap with
just as glad a smile,

coiifin
and plays
dead with
on the burnished
just as
care.
lid
of the
merry a twinkle.
The sun does not

along that fatal
The water slowly
rises
dam
on the South Fork, higher, higher, higher, adding every inch ton on ton of pressure against
man's weak masonry.
Not one
jot or tittle of
her rights did Nature suspend.

of hydraulic pressure to
Every pound
which she was entitled
she remorselessly demanded, until at last with

millions of tons gathered in her
arms she leaped

it
upon the puny
structure, crushed
like a toy,
THE MYSTERY OF
and with the roar
death!
PAIN.
117
of a Niagara
plunged down
the mountain gorge on her wild mission of
Shriek and groan rend the

lest
air!
She
does not heed, but

lights
any should escape,

No, nature did
up the awful scene with conflagration
piled
upon the seething
flood.
not care!
The view of the flight of woe through time is even more fearful. When we think that half the human race die in infancy; when we remember how delicately and exquisitely the human heart is strung to love, and that beside
each one of those
little
graves two hearts have

is
beat in anguish, and that this scene
repeated
of
by unnumbered thousands with each wave

humanity that breaks on the shores
the thought
is
of time,
appalling!
We
hear the race
through
all
the ages of the past, marching,
tramp! tramp! tramp! to the music of sighs and tears!

music
is
And
all
the
throb of that muffled
overwhelming to the soul!

were
I
If this
know
of
human
life,
would say
scroll, seal
too, with Job, Roll

it
up the accursed
it
forever and hurl
into oblivion
1 1
LI VING PROBLEMS. have none of

it
!
will
But the heart of man
has ever refused to be content with such a

view, and in this bewilderment of despair the
soul instinctively cries to
God
for light.
''
So
I
does Job.
He
seeks God's face.
Oh, that
I
knew where I might find Him, come to His very seat."

n. In answer to
this
that
might
cry for light,
God
comes ment is
there
to enlighten.
first
The process
of enlighten-
an emptying process.
self
Job must
be emptied of
is
and self-importance before

to
come in. " Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without Where wast thou knowledge ? " says God.
room
for
God
*'
when
est?
laid the
foundations of the earth?

if
Who
determined the measure thereof,
thou knowit?
Or who stretched
laid the
the line
upon
Where-
upon were the foundations thereof fastened?
Or who
sons of
corner stone thereof:
when
the
the morning stars sang together, and
all
God shouted
for joy
? it
Or who shut
brake forth, as
I
up the sea with doors, when

if it
had issued out
of the
womb; when
made
the cloud the garment thereof and thick dark-
THE
M YS TER V
OF PA IN.
it,
11
ness a swaddling band for

for
it
and prescribed
my
decree, and set bars and doors, and

"
?
said,
Hitherto shall thou come, and no further;

shall
and here
thy proud waves be stayed
We
do not wonder that Job must exclaim

''Behold,
I
in
answer,
am
of
small
account!"
This was important knowledge for the patriarch
knowledge
God now
life,
in
which he had hitherto been
sadly deficient.
reveals to
his
him a new meaningf to
and puts into

that
mouth
view.
new prayer
in
harmony with
new
Job had been a

His
man
of
prayer;
but of family prayer.
horizon was limited to his
own
acres,
and
broad though they were,
his
world was a very
small one, and his prayer a
weak and poor one

wife,
a prayer of about the import of our old man

who
prayed,
"
Lord
bless
me and my
my
son John and his wife, we four and no more.
Amen!
God
"
their wives
So Job had prayed for his sons and and his daughters and sons-in-law.
instructed
him now
to
pray for
his friends,
or more correctly speaking, his tormentors.
Thereupon we are
told, ''And the
Lord turned
I20
LIVING PROBLEMS.
the captivity of Job

friends."
when he prayed for The world was larger now than

his heart
his
his
own
plantation, and
and
life
were
larger because they
saw a larger world.
There
sits
a broken-hearted
mother beside
and
her dead.
She rocks
herself to-and-fro,
talks about the little bright-faced girl that lies
cold in death.
She says
the
little
it
was
all
she had.
She
tells
''
how
thing had just begun
to say
big,
mamma "
I
so sweetly,
and through the

.
hot tears she looks up and says
"
Oh,
what have
so
?
done that God should punish
"
Nothing, perhaps,
my
sister.
me God may
not be punishing you, but enlarging your heart,
and giving to
life
a deeper, sweeter meaning.

;
Your
life
was no larger than that cradle there

child in the world for
was but one
you
but
now
the world will be a

little
much broader one and
every
urchin you pass on the street cor-
ner will be kin to you
"And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends AND GAVE HIM TWICE AS MUCH AS HE HAD BEFORE," fourteen
in.
next see Job crowned.
We
''
THE MYSTERY OF
PAIN.
12
thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and

a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand sheasses."
Enlarged capacity
wealth.
is
necessary to enlarged
room.
To receive a blessing there must be Any man is poor who lacks the capacand you cannot make him
out,
ity to receive wealth,
rich until
it.
you dig him
and make room
for rich
There are some men you cannot make

have no place to put
millionaires.
it.
they
and
There are
give
many poor
You might
them
still
the wealth of Croesus
they would be poor

The Duke
of
life
they would
live a
mean, and narrow,

Brunswick
of a
cold and selfish
life.
possessed his millions, but lived the
dog, in a miserable kennel he built, in which
he dwelt, keeping watch day and night over

his
money and
his
it,
jewels.
Says Jeffers:
"He
bed
is
keeps
diamonds
in a thick wall, his
placed against
that no burglar
without
killing,
or at least waking him.

in his
may break in He
has but one window

sash
is
bed room, and the

of a dozen six
of stoutest iron.
A case
barrelled
revolvers,
loaded,
lies
on a table
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Could any one be
within reach of his bed."

fool
enough
to think such a
man
is
is
rich?
The
that
nameless cur that prowls through street and
highway
in
search of bread
richer in
all
makes
life
worth the having!
Why
did not
God
give Job this great
numin
ber of sheep and camels and oxen and asses

the beginning?
He
certainly had plenty.

of
The
Lord was not short

never has been
then did
oxen or
asses.
He
doubtless never will be. Why

?
He
not give them to Job
Simply
re-
because the patriarch had no capacity to

ceive so
much
wealth.
He was
for
too small a
to take the
!
man.
It
was necessary
God
in
pick-axe of sorrow and dig out his heart
And
full
when
this
was done, He poured
the greater
is
blessing.
We
truly say that there
no
man who had not tasted sorrow's cup, for he who has known no sorrow is apt to be filled with the consciousness of his own good fortune and to have little room for anything else.
"
Tvlost
wretched
men
are cradled into poetry
by wrong,
They
learn in suffering,
what they teach
in
song."
So does God enlarge the capacities
of the
THE MYSTERY OF PAIN.

individual and the nation sometimes.
to think that
I
123
love
fair
God
Out
is
thus to bless
my own
South-land.
of the
sorrow and anguish
of the sad past, out of its darkness
and gloom,
out of
its
wreck and
ruin, there
is
rising to-day
a South richer and fairer than even the dream

of the old
!
So that
in tears of
joy
can ex-
claim with Father
Ryan
"Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb.

There's a grandeur in graves, there's a glory in gloom;
For out of the gloom future brightness
is
born,
As
after the darkness
looms the sunrise of morn! "
We
in
see the light of a
life
apparently go out
the darkness of the night of sorrow, but on
the
morrow
rise
again brighter for every tear
that has been shed.

root, will still
The shrub
cut to the very
put forth a fresher, rarer shoot
on which
will
blossom flowers of sweeter perold.
fume than the
Even the Master was

"
made
" perfect
through suffering
*'
we
are told,
and so we can truly sing
In the cross of Christ
we
glory!
"
So we must conclude that chance and
acci-
dent do not rule the world, though a class of
124
LI VING PROBLEMS.
professed thinkers used to maintain that chance
was the author
of the world
and
its
sole despot.
But when people examined that philosophy

they found that
sort of a world
it
would be hard to run any

Because
if
on that principle.
chance
rules,
it
the sun
may
If
rise
to-morrow
morning or
whether
it
may
not
altogether
a
owing to
across
does or not.
man jumps
the gutter he
may land on
the other side or he
he
may go spinning and plunging through space till strikes the moon. Horses may be born
leg, or
with one
two
legs, or
maybe
all
three, or
possibly four.
these
When
this
was
exploded,
same men began
to cut somersaults over
the eternal fixedness of nature, her unchanging laws

of this
maintaining
is
that everything outside

suffer
mere chance, that the good
and the
evil likewise.
But we learn here that

seen of
is
God
end.
is
looking on from the beginning to the
Every motion made by Job
is
God.
Every breath that he breathes

and
noted,
every word that he speaks heard.

near him, watches and
listens,
God walks
at the
proper
time speaks His message.
THE MYSTEkV op PAIN.
125
We
side.
ought, therefore, to be better able to
endure pain, knowing that God walks by our
surgeon had a dangerous operation
to perform
" I
upon a
child.
He
told the father:
cannot perform the operation unless that

it.
boy's whole soul shall brace him up through
You must
and
eration.
explain
it
to
him and get

will die
his full
free consent or
he
under the op-
The
father went in and as best he

if
could told the child and asked
he could en-
dure
it.
With blanched
can,
face
and trembling
lips the little

''
fellow looked
I
if
up and replied
will
Yes, Father,
you
stand by
me
as
and hold
my
hand."
And
he did.
And
flesh
the glittering steel, with caustic, sicking touch
severed nerve, muscle, sinew, and
the
brave
little
heart never faltered.
So should
you remember that a loving Father holds your
hand
in the
darkest hour of woe, and that
strength and health

that operation.
come out
of the pain of
We
learn,
too, that
God never
strikes
child in anger, but always in love,
and through
the pain leads up to higher good.
Such indeed
126
is
LIVING PROBLEMS,
the universal symbolism of pain as expressed
in various
forms of the thought of the world,
and
in
the work of nature, for through the

life
is
agonies of maternity
world.
ushered into the

is
When
common man
to be elevated
to the dignity of knighthood, he receives three
heavy strokes of
thought that
monies, and
is
the sword.
in
Such
the
of
is
the
interwoven
rites, cere-
initiatory observances
your
various lodges, fraternities, and secret societies.
This great truth
is
a real part of the higher
and purer thought
of the world to-day.

I
As
said in the beginning,

falls
speak of the
as thus being
pain that
upon the good
educational.
ish
it
God does
hate sin and does pun-
here and hereafter by merciless pain.
But
need not dwell upon
this
you
see
it
everywhere.
sin,
Look
into the
judgment
halls of
where God, man, and nature pronounce

"
sentence upon the sinner.
Lazar-houses reek-
ing with putrefaction and death, hospitals and
asylums swarming with maniacs, whose

echo with
sigh,
cells
and
shriek,
and groan
dun-
geons, cages, and grated cells where guilt rots
THE MYSTERV OF PAlM.

and
raves, these, all these,
127
and more, are but the

'
feeble echoes of
the
truth
Sin reigns unto
Death!'"
But we have here the higher mission
pain.
It
is
of
hard to understand
is
it
all
some-
times
there
din and roar and confusion as

us,
we look about
is
but we
If
the great end.
harmony you should go down town

that
know
into one of the organ factories,
you would hear
the grating of ponderous machinery, the din
and crash and roar of hammer and plane and

saw, as out of the rude
brass were being
wood and
steel
and
wrought the various pieces of
the instrument.
And
after
is
we think every
no music.
Mr.
thing
is
finished, there
still
Beecher, in describing the placing of the organ

in
Plymouth Church, says that when
in
its
place,
and you saw that every piece had been and carefully adjusted there was
still
skilfully
no music, though every part was perfectly

made, though every part was perfectly
fitted.
But the master
of
music comes with
his
tuning
instrument, sounds his key-note and touches
one of those pipes to see where
it
stands.
Off
128
it
LIVING PROBLEMS.
goes, howling and shrieking in the

it
wrong
until
it
direction, but he brings
down, down,
rings in perfect
harmony with
his note.
He
true
it
touches another and that one goes howling
and bellowing
course, and
off at right
angles from
that,
its
back
he
brings
until
breathes in solemn accord with the other.
He
touches another and that leaps
off in
the op-
posite direction screaming and shriekiHg in wild

discord,
child,
and back, back, back,

it.
like a
whipped
he brings
And
so with every key.
At
last
when
all
are tuned, and magic hands

rises
sweep those keys, there
and swells the

arch and corits
volume
of music
sweet and rich and clear and

wall,
full, until ceiling,
and
floor,
nice and moulding quiver and echo with
wondrous melody!
world.
hearts
So does God sometimes

is
educate His child and so
He
fashioning the
Lord, help
us,
though with aching

look
and
tear-dimmed eyes, to
up
through the tears and see
Thy
smiling face
PROGRESS.
129
PROGRESS.
'*
One
thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind,

to the things
Phil,
iii.,
and stretching forward on toward the goal."
which are before,
press
13.
Of
all
the Apostles, Paul attained the subof
limest
heights
Christian
to
life.
He had
perhaps,
greater
capacities
all
begin
with,
and he bent
the energies of his great soul
to the end to which he had consecrated himself.
In
this
sentence
he gives us the key
that unlocks the secret of his success.
He was
meaning
press-
the greatest of the apostles, and, therefore, this
maxim
of his life
must be ever
rich with
to the true believer.
He
counted not that he
had ever attained perfection, but he was

ing on toward the goal.
Do you
aspire to
noble attainments
this
in
Christian
life?
Then
inspired
record will
be pregnant with
meaning
I.
for you.
first
The
principle
enumerated here
in
130
Paul's
LI VINC PROBLEMS.
maxim
of progress,
''
is
found
I
in the first
clause of the text,
ONE THING
is
DO."
Concentration of purpose
absolutely nec-
essary to success here or anywhere.
The man
who would be
successful in the races laid aside
every weight that might beset him, and gave

every energy of soul and body to the race on
which he had entered.
The jack-of-all-trades is good at none. A man cannot serve God and Mammon. A man cannot have two masters. He must love or
hate one of them.
We
cannot carry Christ

flesh,
in
one hand, and the world, the

in the other.
and the devil
down in two chairs at the same time, sits down on the The man who gives two hours a week floor.
tries to sit
The man who
to the Lord,
and
six days
and twenty-two hours
to the service of the world or the devil, need not
be surprised
if
he find himself growing worldly

Success
in
or even vicious.
any business or
walk of
life
requires singleness of purpose.
The men who succeed are men of one idea. A young working man was one day bathing in
the river Clyde.
His eye caught the view of a
PROGRESS.
beautiful
hill
131
overlooking the river valley.

it
He
thought what a grand thing
would be to
determined
have a home on that
hill.
He
then and there to make that the one aim of his

life.
He
did,
and pressed eagerly forward
in
the race with his eye fixed on the goal.
magnificent residence
overlooks the
now crowns that hill and beautiful valley. The owner of

is
the Clyde steamship line
the master of that
mansion, the young working
man
of years ago.
A poor German boy once read of the
siege of
Troy, and determined to find the ruins of that

ancient city that had perished 3,000 years ago.
Through poverty and

got his vow.
slavish toil he never for-
He
procured books and learned
seven languages.
He became
and
a merchant and
made
on
his
a fortune,
at last started
eastward
expedition.
For
long, long years he
continued the search, and then startled the
world with the great discovery.
From
had
the
trealain
palace of the Trojan King, he brought

sures of gold, silver, and bronze, that
covered with sand for

ited
3,000 years, and exhib-
them
to
Europe.
Scholars of
all
the
132
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Single-
world are debtors to Dr. Schliemann.
ness of purpose was the secret of success.
fixed purpose we must have to master the
ebbing and flowing tides of

II.
human
life.
Oblivion of the past
is
the second princi-
FORGETTING THE THINGS THAT ARE BEHIND." The racer who is strivple of this
maxim.
''
ing for the mastery cannot afford to look back
over his shoulder.

behind.
i.
He must
leave the past
Past blessings and achievements

Paul's career had been a marfull
must be
left.
vellous one
of great achievements.
He
might with pardonable pride have contented

himself with what he had done, and laid claim
to the crown of sanctified perfection.
Well
might
lie
have paused at
past.
this period of his life
and reviewed the
Doubtless the vision
of the past did rise before
him
the
prisons
through which he had gone, the uproar at

Ephesus, the earthquake at Philippi, violence
at Jerusalem, trials with the churches, chains
at Caesarea, shipwrecks,
and
stripes,
while besit
fore
him passed the forms
of Gallio, Felix,
Festus, and Agrippa
yet he does not
down
PROGRESS.
and rake up the
toward the
inspiration.
still
133
glowing ennbers of so glo-
rious a past, but even in old age turns his face

light of the future for strength
and
is
Paul knew that Christianity

bliss,
not a condition of passive
but a throbis
bing
life,
and that
self-satisfaction
the fore-
runner of stagnation and death.

Congratulation and
traditionalism,
otry.
self-satisfaction
beget
big-
and traditionalism begets
The
Pharisees were once the aggressive
reformers of their age, but satisfied with their
achievements they drifted into traditionalism
and then into a bigotry that could imbue

hands
in the
its
blood of the Son of
God without
danger of
is
a blush
or a tear.
Such
is
the
this
blindly hugging the past.
Of
born that
conservatism which seeks to limit the horizon

of the
human
soul within the
bounds
of per-
sonal or ancestral experience, and has ever
been one of the mightiest foes with which

truth has been called to contend.
Christ's
It
was so
in
day.
Tradition was
persistent, the
the
most con-
stant, the
most
most dogged,
the most utterly devilish opposition the Mas-
134
LIVING PROBLEMS.
It
ter encountered.
openly attacked
Him on
armed
every hand, or silently repulsed His teachings.
Even the Samaritan woman He

than our father^ Jacob
"
!
finds
with the ancestral bludgeon. "Art thou greater

?
" "
Our Fathers worIt
shipped in this mountain

that nailed
was
this spirit
Him
to the cross and
mocked His
It
anguish on Calvary's dark mount.
has ever
human history. Progress has always been made by a life and death and strugbeen so
in
gle with tradition
and bigotry.
It
was
tradi-
tion that in
France held the
tiers ctat
by the
fit
throat, until the
maddened
giant in a
of
frenzy broke the grip and baptized the nation

in blood.
It
was tradition that burned Bruno,

a thousand m.artyrs,
stretched Galileo on the rack, danced a war
dance around the
fires of
and told William Gary, the apostle of modern

missions, to
It
is
sit
down.
so to-day.
The
in
traditional ideas that
dominate some of our churches form the greatest
stumbling blocks
the
way
of aggressive
Christianity.
in
Why
work
do we not make progress

as
the Lord's
we should ?
Not
be-
PROGRESS.
cause of ignorance
135
this is the
most
enlightof
ened age the world ever saw.
Not because
the increasing power of wickedness

is
the world
of agis
better than
it
ever was.
Not because
is
gressive infidelity
there
heart.
more
faith to-day
than ever, and the religion of Christ
just as
comforting, just as sweet, just as strong as

ever for the
human
What,
is
then,
is
the
matter
Evidently there
failure
some" Can't
where to adjust ourselves to the conditions
and
necessities of the life about us.

this
?
we do
"
cries
some wide-awake
That
voice.
"Well, hem!
like that here
it,
!
we never have done anything

" says Tradition.
settles
of course
What
never has been, never will

will
be,
and what has been,
ever continue!
How many
churches have
we
to-day that are
thus bed-ridden with ancestral rheumatism
The dear brethren

walls, rake
sit
down
it
within the solemn
up the ashes of a once successful

while the multitude
of its ex-
past,
and shiver over
without rush by the door, unmindful
istence, laughing, joking, sinning, dying!

2,
The mistakes and
sins of the past are to
136
LIVING PROBLEMS.
left.
be
Our mistakes we
are to use, but not
as millstones with which to drown ourselves.
Napoleon was the most successful general who It is said that he made more misever lived.
takes than any great general
who
ever lived.
But
his genius consisted in the rapidity
with
which he retrieved a mistake, and the certainty

with which he avoided
its
repetition.
The
man who
down
drops a glass bottle on the pavement

lunatic,
if
would be considered a
pieces, put
he should get
in the dirt, carefully collect the broken
them
in his
bosom, and hug them
there until the jagged points should pierce and

tear his flesh.
life
Yet many a man does

sinned.
this in
every day.
Yes,
I
You have
know, but you

sins.
I
should not stumble over these

friend, into others.
Christian
God
will
sin
says, "
will
cover
your iniquity,"
gressions," "
" I
blot out your trans-
Go, and
no more."
Peter sinned most grievously.

rageously.
He
lied out-
He
cursed and swore, and publicly
denied the best friend he ever knew, his Lord
and Master.
But notice Christ's way
of deal-
FJÔGRESS.
ing with this sinner.
137
Meeting the poor humilbut asking three
iated disciple after the resurrection, not a sin>

gle harsh
word does He
utter,
times for a declaration of his love
each denial
feed
sins,
once for His command was, " Go now and

Put your feet upon those
for this
my
sheep."
and more humble and true

forth
to
deep
experience, go
teach
others!
And
after
what a glorious sermon Peter preached

that on the day of Pentecost!
Upon
the other hand, Judas sinned, but no

Peter.
more grievously than
The mistake he
made was
looked
in
that he did not return to the injured
Master and ask for pardon.
He
turned and
upon
himself,
and remorse over-
whelmed him.
other result.
There could have been no

Could Judas have turned
and
his face
his
back upon
his sin,
toward Calvary,
at the foot of
"
!
and ascending that

the
cross
all
hill
bowed
Master,
and
cried,
"
forgive
we
must
believe that
He who
said to the thief
by His
in
side, "
This day thou shalt be with
me
tor-
Paradise; " that
He
who, gazing on His

"
mentors,
exclaimed,
Father forgive
them,
"
138
LIVING PROBLEMS.
they know not what they do!" would have

said to Judas, " Go, child, in peace
sinful
and
tell
world of
my
love for sinners!

life.
Paul had sinned grievously in his
He
had seen Stephen
die,
consenting to his death.

fires
He had
homes
shadow
Shall
kindled
the
of
persecution
throughout the land, devasted hundreds of
and made a thousand hearts
ache.
But he did not allow his dark record to overhis

life.
He
left
that at the foot of
the cross and pressed forward.
we cower
at the ghost of consistency?
Shall the sinner, conscious of his sin, continue

in
the
same path, because overwhelmed with

?
that consciousness
have sinned, and made
many
a sad blunder in
?
my own
use
life
shall
my
give up the fight
No!
But putting
feet
on those sins
shall
them
as stepping
stones on which to
life,
mount
to a higher, purer
I
and the knowledge
of those dark hours
shall use as a club with
which to beat out the
brains of the Devil in future conflicts.
HI.
''Stretching
forward
"
is
to
the
THINGS WHICH ARE BEFORE
the third
PROGRESS.
principle of our
139
is
maxim.
This
of
one of the
distinguishing principles
Christianity.
all
lonely old
prisoner
is
Paul life
behind
him, nothing before but death at the tyrant's
hand.
to,
The world
sees nothing to press forward
yet he sees the invisible, and with eager
footstep presses forward to the throb of un-
heard music, and the waving of unseen banners.
Such
is
the power of faith, to
make
desert blossom as a garden, and people the
darkness of a dungeon with hosts of angels.
So
is
the Christian thus in
harmony with
of
it,
that
higher universal language
creation
onthe
foot-
ward!
it,
The
river
murmurs
it
the wind sighs
the stars proclaim
in
the temple of the
heavens.
Such
is
the spirit of the ages
genius of the universe.

prints of God,
These are the
who walked with Enoch and
has gone on before

It is
not only the privilege, but the duty of
the Christian, then, to

that there
It
is
is
remember
that
in
the present
a future, and fix his eye

all,
upon
it.
the future, after
redeems the
present from contempt.
I40
I
LIVING PROBLEMS.
love to pause in the midst of the din and
roar of sorrow, that comes from Nature's great

tread-mill and listen to the music of a future,
whose throbbing harmony
will
not be broken
by
shriek or groan, or sigh, or cry of despair!
It gives
I
me
nerve to fight the battle of to-day.
look around
I
me and
see
wrong triumphing
by the
strong,
I
over right,
hear the cry of the weak and the
helpless as they are crushed
walk amid
streets,
the
thousands who
crowd our
and see written

sorrow and
in their faces in great
dark
lines,
sin,
poverty and misery,
wretchedness and woe, while they jostle and
crowd and trample each other to death.

with a
richer
love to think that the future holds another age

life
and purer, an age of peace

took an insurance policy to
and
of righteousness.
Last
summer
fifty
run until
years of age.
The
date of
its
maturity was 1914.

thought.
What
a strange date,
What
in
marvellous changes will be

civilization
wrought
our
within
those
twenty-five years!
And
as the vision of that

I
new world
rose before me,
could but ex-
PROGRESS.
claim, "
of
141
God, that
may
see the marvels

I
Thy
salvation here
wrought out!"
can
endure the present with a glimpse of a sweeter

future.
There are days
in
our individual experiences

that
when we
future.
are to
remember
there
is
Sometimes one
over
of those dark days will

hell itself
come, when the darkness of

to
settle all
life,
seems
and
devils
come with
into
grin
and
leer to
!
pound our aching bodies

Yes,
an iron casket
forward then.
we must
eagerly press
at
We
must look up steadily
the clouds and by-and-by as they drift

see a star.
we
will
A great
in
ship
was crossing the sea

captain was out on
and had been
clouds and darkness continu-
ously for four days.
The
deck anxiously watching to catch a glimpse of
some heavenly body from which

reckoning.
star
to
take his
There was a
But
rift
in the cloud, a
gleamed through
lost again.
for a
was
in that
moment and then moment his quick

where he was.
eye had caught the bearing registered by that
beam
of light
and he knew
just
all
He was
lost before
now
was
well.
The
142
star
LIVING PROBLEMS.
had disappeared behind the clouds, but he
his bearings
had taken
and asked no more.
He
we
steered with unerring accuracy and reached
his harbor.
So
in the
darkest night
if
we look
are sure to see the gleam of a star that will
give guidance to our lives, strength and assur-
ance to our hearts.
Let nothing crush you, then, to-day
tune
ears.
your ear to music unheard by
common
You remember
the Scotch lassie attached to a

in
Highland regiment
India,
who
languished
for-
on a bed of sickness within the besieged

tress,
where
all
were ready to perish from hun-
ger and exhaustion.

ish,
She was weak and
fever-
but her ear was keen and heart hopeful.

startled
She
'em
them
all
on one gloomy day by

" I
rising
on her elbow and exclaiming:

a coomin'!"
said.
"
hear
they're
?
''Hear what,
my
child
hills
they
"
The bagpipes
o'er the
they're a
coomin'
they're a
was
they
all
coomin'!"
They
told her no, that she
feverish
and
mistaken.
But presently some one thought

at last
they heard, and then
heard the
music echoing o'er the distant
hills
and then
PROGRESS.
the banners of the
salvation
143
army could be
Oh, for
seen,
and
was
at hand.
this gift that
enables us to see the invisible and to hear the

inaudible!
Friends,
single
?
is
your purpose
in
life
fixed
and
Have you shaken
off
the spell of the
past
Are you pressing forward

before
?
to that
which
is
Is the future full of
hope, and do you eagerly
press forward to
it ?
Or do you approach
it
cringing, staggering, driven
by the remorseless
hand
of time
144
LIVING PROBLEMS.
PLAYING THE FOOL, OR THE PROBLEM OF FOLLY.

" Behold
I
have played the fool."
Sam. 26-21.
How
to keep
men from
playing the fool
is
problem over which

thought and wept
saints
and sages have

It
is
in all ages.
a great
mistake to suppose that because
we can
is
boast
of an intellect that our chief staple
intellect.
One
half of
man
and
at least
in
is
heart, one-fourth
at least fool,
the remaining fourth intel-
lect plays a part of
more or
less
prominence.
This large streak of fool runs through the whole

race, has
been running since the days of Adam,

doubtless continue yet for some time.
it
and
will
Diogenes found
in his day.
It is said this
quaint old philosopher was once earnestly dis-
coursing on the beauties of virtue, and one by
one
his listeners
began to desert him, wherehis discourse
upon he ceased
and burst forth
PLAYING THE FOOL.

into a ribald song.
145
The people hastened
to
return and soon a vast throng stood listening
with open mouths.
The philosopher turning

:
upon them exclaimed

blage of fools! "
"
Behold the assem-
That same experience might
be duplicated to-day on a
much
larger scale.
folly,
There are various degrees of

not of the innocent foible
from the
It
is
laughable foible to the highest crime.

I
wish to speak now.

at
There goes the mild young dude,
whom
To
his
people wink and smile as he passes.
mind
all
the world runs to a centre, like the

is
spokes of a wagon wheel, and he
that centre.
will
People laugh, but then he
is
young and
grow, and so we pass such folly by.
But
in the case of
Saul
we meet with
folly,
a dif-
ferent species.
Saul had no right to be a fool.
Folly
crime.
in
him was no longer
but became
He was
of
the Lord's anointed.
He had
been called from a humble sphere to wield the

sceptre
an empire.
Upon
his shoulders
rested the burden of a kingdom.
He was
the
chosen leader and guide of hosts.
So when
of domi-
we
see
him plunging into a career

lO
146
LIVING PROBLEMS.
sin,
neering pride, conceit, and
there can be no
excuse for such
folly.
Let us make a brief study of Saul's career.
How
fool?
I.
did
he
most
conspicuously
play
the
He made
a fatal overestimate of his

first
own
strength.
The
great victory Saul achieved

his head.
seemed to have turned

herd
Shortly after
he was called to be king, as he was driving his
home from
the
field,
he received news
that the
Ammonites, under king Nahash, had

and that the people
his
aid.
laid siege to Jabesh-gilead,
were
in
dire distress
and implored
bloody
Instantly he slew a yoke of oxen,

in
hewed them
war-token
pieces,
all
and sent
this
through
the tribes.
Three hundred thou-
sand of Israel and thirty thousand of Judah
answered
the
summons, and assembling

in the early
at
Bezek, after a swift night's march they burst
upon the Ammonites
morning and
defeated them with enormous
loss.
This victory rallied the nation around Saul as
one man.
But the consequence was that Saul

of his
became puffed up w ith the idea
own great-
PLAYING THE
ness,
FOOL.
I47
find
and a short time
after this
we
him
hid-
ing
among
the caves around Gilgal with only a
handful of half-hearted followers.
him
is
to himself, for
He
''
cannot use a
puffed up with the consciousness
God leaves man who of his own

then
is
power.
Says Paul,
when
I
'*
am weak
strength
am
strong," because God's
made
is
perfect in weakness."
Conscious weakness
faith.
the basis of the mightiest
Conscious
power
is
menace
to
all
faith.
Peter seeing
also.
Christ walk
upon the water, walks
But
have
no sooner had the consciousness of

filled his
this
power
I
soul than he began to sink.
no doubt that Peter
as he began, elated at his

''
success, exclaimed in heart,
Oh, ye weak
dis-
ciples of little faith, observe
me now
I
"
He
"
!
continued to sink until conscious of his own
weakness he
cried, "
Lord, save or
is
perish
Conscious weakness
the frame of mind
God chooses
channels are
to use with greatest power.

all
The
empty
then, and nothing in-
terrupts the flow of divine force.
Peter again
*'
conscious of his strength exclaims:
Others
may
leave thee, Master, but
will
stand true
14^
LIVING PROBLEMS.
"
!
unto death
little
while afterward
we
see
him
in
the court
cursing and swearing and
denying that he ever knew Jesus.

those days of bitter weeping,
ity,
But after
in
deepest humil-
he hears the voice of Jesus, uttering no

''
:
rebuke, but saying
Go now and
in
feed
my
sheep," and he went forth clothed
another
strength than his own, and on the day of Pentecost, he
preached the sermon under which
three thousand were converted.
Knowledge
of
our weakness
in love
makes the
and power.
Father above bend down
So does weakness upon
rule strength.
There
sits
my
knee at evening time a laughing,
bright-eyed boy.
less so
He
is
utterly
weak and
is
help-
far as taking care of himself
cona
liv-
cerned.
ing.
He
does not help
me
to
make
He
I
has always been a care and expense.
But
tiny
life!
love him, and the very weakness of his
little
hand
rules all the strength of
my
So do men rule God.

for
weak
tence.
The cry of the help He always hears. The boasts of
the strong in no wise appeal to His omnipo-
PLAYIN-G THE FOOL.
1 49
Left thus to himself and fighting a losing

war, Saul refuses to genuinely repent of his
sins,
still
and return to God's ways.

further into a career of
He
plunges
monumental consuicide.
ceit that
ends
in
madness and
thinks he
can circumvent Providence.
He He
thinks he can cheat almighty God.
Samuel,
the prophet had told him plainly that for his

sins the
crown should pass from
his
head to
mes-
a stranger.
But he refused to take

final.
this
sage from the Lord as
He
set himself
about to remove David
his successor,
God had chosen and

know, but
I
anointed.
"'
whom He mused
I
I
after this fashion, doubtless:
have sinned,
am
not a comm.on man, and
do
not propose to reap the consequences of that

sin.
I
Men
ordinarily do so reap, but
will not.
am
a king, seated on the throne, a giant in

I
physical strength, and
can remove this pigmy

I
who
dares to aspire to the throne.

a lucky star
was born
be thus
under
and
shall not
snuffed out."
In pursuit of this fool's resolve,

his life
is
on two occasions
spared by David,
and
at last
he awakes to his true position, and
150
LIVING PROBLEMS.
gives utterance to the words of the text, which
form a
fitting
epitaph for his tomb.

is full
Alas, the world to-day
of such fools
men who
think they can cheat
God
;
that they that
can sow tares and
reap
wheat
they
can sow nightshade and reap morning-glories.
They know
lows.
that other
men have
failed,
but
fel-
then they are cunning, shrewd, brilliant
They were born under lucky

lucky.
stars.
They always were

to lead a double
And
so they think
life,
and cheat God and the

will
world.
Outwardly they
have a whitewash
coat of morality, but deep beneath the surface

their heart's blood will circulate.
There every
nerve shall tingle with

pleasures.
life's
sweetest forbidden
There they
shall really live
life
deep and capacious, of license and licentiousness!
The pathway
of
human
life is
literally
strewn with the skeletons of such

still
fools,
and
the myriad hosts rush on where these have
fallen
See the devotees of

that door around
of thousands!
lust as
they crowd to
whose steps bleach the bones

it
They heed
not.
On
they
PLAYING THE FOOL.

go to a
fool's
151
grave, while thousands
more
prince
crowd
of
to take their places.
The crown
tried this
of an empire in our
own time
game
fear?
double
play.
What had
he
to
Wealthy, petted, the heir to a throne: and yet

this
man
died the other day in

the
shame and
dis-
grace,
died
death of
miserable dog.
his
Rudolph, Crown Prince of Austria, was

name.
I
do not marvel that Austria mourns
in sackcloth
and ashes!
Men must sow what

his
they reap.
The man who begins

enters
career of drink
side of
the broad highway on either
which have been dumped the reeking bodies

of the
tains
dead
of
until the
road
lies
twixt two moun-
putrid
clay,
and the awful stench

!
breeds pestilence for a nation
And
still
on
they go, cursing, crowding, jostling each other

for
precedence
in
the lines that press on to
death and hell
There goes a young man into a gambling

den
food
;
for sharks!
He
has heard of the
danger
yes, but
he
is
a " lucky boy."

right,
He was
born when the signs were
he says.
152
LIVING PROBLEMS.
fly sails
young
around the room and sees a

pauses to examine.
is
spider's web.
He
"
Why,"
says he,
" there
nothing very dangerous
about
this!
There seem to
of the danger, but
be handsome,
I
nicely-carpeted apartments in there.
have
it.
heard much
I've
it
don't see
fly
even heard an old green-bottle
describe
with terror
I
but
my
I'll
opinion
is
that he
was
in.
a coward.
believe
go
in! "
He
goes
There
is
a faint
little
buzz, and then you see
his legs
and wings pitched out the door, while

for the next fool.
the spider merely picks his teeth, crosses his

legs,
and waits
A young
day
in
rabbit
hopped
into a garden one
which a nice bed of cabbage was neatly
inclosed in a wire net.
He
and
looked at the cab-
bage and he looked

not look dangerous
at the net.
He had
heard
of the danger of traps
nets,
but this did
especially when he caught

cabbage within.
sight of the luscious
So he
slipped inside and began to eat.

ate the better he liked
it.
The more he
all
He
stayed
night.
He
lips
ate
cabbage
all
next day, and smacked his
and wondered what a dunce he had been

PLAYING THE
not
all
to,
FOOL.
153
have eaten cabbage before.
He
stayed
tfjen
week
two
weeks
three
weeks
and
thought he would run back to the old place
and see how things looked.

to
But when he went
go out he found that he had grown to be a
large-sized rabbit
at
and that the hole he came
in
had not grown any. So he did not get The owner of the garden came in that
the kitchen, and chopped his head
out.
day,
saw him, seized him by the neck, took him to

off.
Such
"
is
the end of a fool.

is
Be not deceived, God
not mocked,"
at
lit-
erally,
you cannot turn up your nose
God
he also
"
whatsoever a man soweth that
shall
reap."
II.
The
folly of
Saul was conspicuous too
in
the fact that he always failed in the proper

exercise of foresight
he
his
seemed to use only

"'
what might be called

*'
hind-sight."
The
text gives a fair sample of his conduct.

says,
Behold,
have played the fool "

!
He He
in
never seemed to be able to grasp the idea that
he was about to play the fool and stop

time.
His philosophy was always retrospec-
154
tiye.
LIVING PROBLEMS.
It is said
that there
is
a race of people
gifted only with
" hind-sight,"
and that when
they want to go forward they must turn around
and go backward.
Saul seems to have been
the forerunner of this race.
What
brought
a sad
to see
after
thing
it
is
that
men can be
by looking
it.
their folly only
backward
some
tragic exhibition of
off
Such are the men who put

their death bed, the
repentance to
unfit
hour most utterly
for repentance, of all the hours of life
from the
m.oment of birth to the expiring gasp.

saddest sight
I
The
ever saw was a

!
man
trying to
repent on a death bed
pray to be spared
many such
sights.
All in confusion
the phylife
!
sicians there, the loved ones v/eeping in terror,
angels and devils hovering near, eternal

or death quivering in the balance
fool,
oh
infinite
such a
is
Such
until
it
man the man who
neglects his pet sin

It is
has mastered and crushed him.
said an
Englishman once took a young

of India to his
it
tiger
from the jungles
home
grew
in
Lon-
don and raised
as a pet.
It
rapidly,
PLA YING THE FOOL.
155
and the big brindle thing followed him about

the streets to the terror of
all
who saw
him.
People remonstrated with him, telling him of

the danger to himself and others.
"
He
replied,
Oh, there
little
is
is
no danger,
have raised him
from a
cub.
He
has never tasted blood,
and so
master
sat
as gentle as a cat."
One day
the
fell-
asleep on the lounge and the pet
by
is
licking his hand.

like the teeth of a
The tongue
file,
of the
tiger
and
as the
last
tongue
passed rapidly over the hand at

skin
the outer
was broken, and then each stroke came

little
nearer and nearer to the blood until a
blood-vessel was broken and a few drops
of
blood were lapped upon the tongue of the

brute.
Instantly
all
the
fires
of
his
wild
nature were kindled, and in a
moment
the pet
of the
was transformed
Indian forest.
into the wild beast
Leaping back and crouching
close to the floor, his great eyes glowing like

balls of fire, his tail
waving slowly to and
fro,
he prepared to spring upon the throat of his

victim.
At
this
moment, strangely enough, the

realizing
his
man woke, and
awful danger.
156
silently
LIVING PROBLEMS.
drew
his
revolver and sent a bullet

of
through the
vitals
the tiger.
He
barely
re-
escaped with his

flected
life,
and more than once

folly.
on
his
stupendous
So do men
nurse their pet sins until destroyed by them!
Saul was preeminent
in
such
in
it.
folly.
He
it.
never
saw a hole
until
he
fell
He
never saw a
ditch until he
was up to
his chin in
He
never saw a precipice until a mangled heap at

the bottom he turned to see from whence he
had
fallen.
And
the generation of Saul
is
not
yet extinct.
Such a man was he who

into an
toiled a lifetime
his fortune all
it
and won a fortune, and putting
enormous diamond, belted

sailed for his native land.
about his
body and
On
to
board
the ship he exhibited his diamond in season
and out of season.

himself by tossing
it
He was wont
high up
amuse
and
in the air
catching
in
it,
while the gaping crowd looked on
wonder
at his
audacious
folly.
They begged
him
to stop, but he persisted the more.

ship's
it
He
pure
drew near the
edge with
it
and
in
wantonness tossed
up
there.
Higher and
PLAVIMG THE
higher
POOL.
^57
it
he threw
it,
each time catching
with perfect accuracy.
Higher than ever he

it.
threw
it
and caught
Again he threw
of the sea like
it,
when, lurch! went the great ship to one
side,
and down into the depths

loosed
stone!
beam With
of
light
darted
the
precious
pale cheeks and choking heart
back from
a miserable
the
bulwarks the fool staggered
pauper!
So
see
men
soul,
stand on
the edge of a precipice and in pure wantonness toss
up
their
immortal
the
gambling
treasure
its
with the devil!

flashes
As
precious
through the sunlight of God's word,
pure quality and enormous value are revealed.
Dying men and women, why should you be

guilty of such madness!
Such are they who utter those sad words,

" It
might have been

*'
"
claim,
God,
roll
!
Such are they who exback thy universe and
give
me
yesterday "
is
And
the only answer
that returns
the sad echo of their
own
wail-
ing voice!
ISS
LIVING PROBLEMS,
WHAT
" This
I
IS
LOVE?
we keep
his
is
the love of God, that
commandments."
John, 5-3.
The
tained
grandest conception of deity ever
at-
by heathen mind perhaps was the

It
Phi-
dian Jupiter.
was wrought
holding in
its
of ivory
and
gold, a carved figure, seated
upon
its
a throne
with majestic
air,
left
hand
statue of victory and in
right the sceptre of

in
empire.
*'
Says a great preacher

this
describing
it
So vast was
extraordinary work, that

it
sitting in the chair of state,

feet in height.
towered forty
Into no other figure and face
had
art ever
thrown such astonishing majesty.

pilgrimages to see
it,
Men made
and he was
on
counted unfortunate
the Phidian Jupiter.
who
died without seeing

festival
And when
days the priests drew back the purple curtain,

the vast statue, white as
snow and yellow

amazing
as
gold, shone forth with such
lustre that
WHAT
IS
LOVE?
159
the crowd were subdued to tears."
And
yet
no heart throbbed there.

those eyes.
No
light flashed in
it
Great as was
this conception,
**
was
far
below the Hebrew's idea of God.

majesty of
In
no carved stone, ivory or gold did he ever seek

to
express
the
Jehovah.
The
morning
light
was but the golden
fringe of his
garments.
lightning.
His slightest look they called the His lowest tones were the sonorous
bolts of the resounding storms."
Greater
still
than
all
these conceptions,
is
the simple declaration of the

''
New
Testament,
God
is
love!
"
And
love,
yet withm the scope of this magnificent
conception, within this vast empire of infinite
we poor mortals somehow
lose our
way
Reoften
at times.
We
embrace curious
definitions of
love, especially of
our love toward God.

love
joicing in the liberty of
we too
bound
Let us
into the license of

listen for a
mere sentimentalism.
apostle of love,
moment to John, the great who leaned his head on the
Saviour's breast and drew the veil from the

secrets of his inmost heart.
We live
in
an era
l6o
of preaching
love.
I
LIVING PROBLEMS.
when
it
is
popular to exhalt
rejoice in that fact.
But
is.
let
us be
sure
*'
we understand what
is
love
This
the love of God, that
we keep
his
commandments."
I.
Love, then,
It is
is
no mere
blissfulness of feel-
ing.
oneness of will with the beloved.

''
Says Christ,
If
man
that
love me, he will keep
my
words."
**
He
hath
it
my commandis
ments and keepeth them, he

me."
that loveth
Two
people
ca^nnot
love
each other
of
will
whose
wills clash.
The
conflict
pre-
cludes the beginnings of love, and will destroy
love that
is
begun.
Two
people whose wills
forever clash cannot live together in peace.
But love not only agrees with the expressed

will of the beloved, that
is, it
not only obeys
the commands, but runs before, and hastens to

anticipate the desires of the loved one.
Says
the true husband, "
What would
;
please her;
what can
will
do
for her
what can
give her that

"
?
make her
"'
heart beat with greatest joy

is
II.
Obedience, then,
the sure evidence of

that
love.
Hereby do we know
we know
WHAT
him,
saith
if
IS
LOVE?
l6i
we keep his commandments. He that I know him, and keepeth not his comis
mandments,
him.
verily
a liar and the truth

his
is
not
in
in
But whoso keepeth

is
word,
;
him
the love of
God
perfected
hereby
know
we, that
in
we
are in him.
He
that saith
he abideth
walked."
him ought
also to
walk as he
We
know
that the patriot loves his country

call.
because he obeys his country's

the bugle's
shrill
When
cry called him to do and die
for the flag, he came,
and when the command
was given to charge, he walked over dead

men's bodies and on into the very jaws of
death.
try "
lies.
The man who
says, " I love
my
coun-
and yet refuses to obey
his country's call,
The
to
child
who
says,
"I love
voice,
my
mother!"
and yet with a
wilful toss of the
head refuses
obey that mother's

says "
I
does not love.

refuses,
He who
love God," and yet
or neglects to obey his simplest

ceives himself.
is.
commands,
de-
He
does not
know what
is
love
Obedience always accompanies and

II
the
i62
LIVING PROBLEMS.
"
evidence of love.
that
This
is
the love of
God
we keep
will
his
commandments."
?
Do you
you
love Christ
If so,
two commands
that love
hasten to obey
"
to confess
^'
and to follow Him.
Every one, therefore,

I
who
shall confess
me
before m.en, him will
confess before
my
Father."
With the heart

salvation." If
himself, take
man
a
believeth unto righteousness and with the
mouth
confession
is
made unto
*'
man
his
love Christ he will

cross
deny
up
and follow."
There are some
people
who
are trying to squeeze into heaven

little
doing just as
as they possibly can.
They
on the
are
in
are never baptized
because they think they

it.
can squeeze
cross
in
without
"
The
thief
was not baptized," they

up on the
thief
say.
They
well
on the cross and lug
that solitary
example
of such a salvation in
season and out of season.
But
alas,
they
for-
get that he was a dying thief

thieves.
He
stole
from
they are living men they try to rob

is
God, and the difference

portance.
one of
infinite im-
The law
of
agency holds the agent responsi-
WHAT
ble not only for
IS
LOVE?
163
also for
in-
what he does, but
what he might
immortal
for that
do.
So does God who has

holds no
trusted to our care the priceless value of an

soul.
is
He
man
responsible
which
impossible;
He
holds us ac-
countable only for what

the
full
we can
do, but
up to
measure of
possibility.
Let no one deceive himself.

tion
is
Ecstatic emo-
not
religion.
We
must not lay too

Feelings are un-
much
life
stress
upon
" feeling."
reliable.
Sad indeed must be the Christian

faith rises
feelings.
of
him whose
and
falls
with the
is
fluctuations of his
affected
Mere
feeling
by
thousand
things,
that
have
nought to do with true
religion.
The weather
I
may
be the cause of joyous or sad feelings.

in
heard the son of a cobbler
my native
village
give his Christian experience.
In his descrip-
tion of his conversion the preacher

"
asked him
Well, Peter,
how
!
did
"
you
feel
"
He He
replied,
" I felt right soft
He
did feel a
it.
little soft,
and that was

hold out.
ing
soft.'*
all
there was to
did not
Religion does not consist in " feel-
Obedience
is
the evidence of love.
164
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Let the creed crank be not deceived.
may
hell.
be orthodox and yet be

five
lost.
He He may
hold the
points of Calvinism and yet go to
A man
may know
the Bible so well that

its
he could thrust a pin through

tell
leaves and
you what word on each page was puncit
tured by
faith.
and yet know nothing

devils believe.
It
is
of saving
The
It
is
not what a
man
saves.
believes
or
knows with
his brain that his heart.
what he believes with
"
ness."
With the heart man believeth unto righteousUnder whose preaching were you converted," was asked of an applicant for
''
baptism.
replied.
Under nobody's preaching," he "Under my mother's practising!"

''
No
"
questions need be asked about the genu-
ineness of her religion.

I
love
God and my
all
neighbor, and this
is
the
fulfilment of
the law," says a man.

all
If
he
does love
God with
his soul
and
his neigh-
bor as himself he surely will be saved.
But
he must not forget that love toward God implies
implicit
obedience to
His commands.
?
Have
these
commands been obeyed
Has he
WHAT
accepted Christ
to
?
IS
LOVE?
in
165
Is
?
he walking
If not,
obedience
is
His commands
then his love

is
mere hollow pretence.

God,
that
" his
This
the love of
we keep
still
commandments."
''
Pharnaces while
a rebel sent a diadem to
Caesar. Caesar, declining, sent the reply,
Your
obedience
in
first,
and then your
gifts."
man
open rebellion against God need make no
pretensions to love.
The hypocrisy
tals! " is
of the
man who
cries,
''
am
a philanthropist, but I'm opposed to hospi-
only too patent.

of the
I
What would you think

**
man who
cries
love
my
country, but
it,
can't give
any
of
my
that
time to
and cannot afford to expose
myself for the flag

!
some
is is
other
man must do
Whenever
but
if
there
a love-feast, count
I
me
in,
there
a fight,
have an engage-
ment elsewhere."
Such a
patriot
would be be-
neath the contempt of a respectable dog
who
claimed any attachment for his native heath.
Love always,
of will
then, manifests itself in oneness

Blissfulness of feeling,
and obedience.
morbid emotion, and extravagant language,
1 66
LIVING PROBLEMS.
be the effervescence of a fervid love, but
its
may
they give no assurance of
existence, for
they can flow just as violently from a weak

scntimentalism.
bears witness to
ters
The
this.
case of
Lord Bulwer
let-
His so-called love
to
idiocy.
letters:
Lady Bulwer attain the climax of Thus begins and ends one of these
''My Dearest and Kindest And Most
:
Bootiful Poodle
of Lords, etc.
''
Me went down to the House

darling,
Good-by,
Poodle,
my
my
angel,
my
life,
my
Oo own Puppy."
Do you wonder
riage that
that a few years after mar-
man was found

a
rushing upon his

?
wife with
carving knife
As he sprang
she
ex-
toward her with the drawn blade

claimed,
''
For God's
sake,
Edward, take care
what you are about!"

the knife, and wîth the
Whereat he dropped
ferocity
of
a tiger
sprang upon her and
bit a
hole in her cheek.
No, love
This
is
is
not mere blissfulness of feeling.
the love of
with His, that
God that our wills be one we keep His commandments.
THE TEMPERANCE PROBLEM.
167

Within the memory
work.
of a generation marvel-
lous progress has been
made
of the
in
temperance
The moral tone

lifted to
community has
Scarcely
been
mountain heights as compared
with the status of forty years ago.
longer ago than that, in one of the old thirteen

States, at a social gathering of Baptist preachers,
it
is
said that the brethren imbibed so

it
freely that
was impossible to close the evenwith prayer.

In an adjoin-
ing's deliberation
ing State about the same time, at a Methodist
Conference, a resolution was introduced to the

effect that
it
was the opinion
of the conference
that a minister should not be allowed to sell
ardent
spirits.
The
resolution
was voted down
by an overwhelming majority.
trast
What
of
a con-
with
the
present
attitude
these
churches!
In view of the progress that has been made,
68
is
LIVING PROBLEMS.
only hope and inspiration
in the future.
there
I
believe that twenty-five years from to-day
there will not be an open legalized saloon on
American
soil
from the frozen seas
of
Alaska
to the orange groves of Florida,
from Maine
to the Rio Grande,
and from sea to sea!

for
But the time has passed
mere sentiment
action
on the subject, for doggerel poetry and lofty

abstractions.
sistent,
The hour demands

remorseless,
perFor
Be-
systematic,
aggressive,
legal.
along
with
of
all
lines, religious^ social^
and
all
our progress, the total consumption

liquors
alcoholic
has yet increased.
tween the forces

of
of civilization
is
and the forces
intemperance there
an irrepressible consurvive the struggle
flict.
They cannot both
of another quarter of a century.
One must
go down.
The hour demands action along religious The temperance movement of this age lines.
I.
is
a religious
it
movement, and the
principles
that underlie
of
are the fundamental principles
Christianity.
Men
have said the church

If
has nothing to do with this question.

giant evil can
169
grow up thus
in
our midst, slay-
ing
its
its
thousands and tens of thousands, laying
impious hands with debauching touch on
the ballot and the legislator, hurling defiance

in
the face of society and the church, crushing
the hearts and
homes
of the
weak and
helpless,
all this
in
if
the church has nothing to do with

?
God's name, what are we here for
Every church should be
in
itself
a great
temperance organization, whose pastor gives

forth no uncertain sound on the subject.
This
day
ance
is
rapidly approaching.
The
is
minister of
the gospel
is
who does
rare bird,
not
now preach tempergetting rarer.
and he
You
see
him only now and then.
You
see
him
tree,
seated on the bare limb of
some dead
chattering about the good old
times of the
dark ages.
will find
He
will
in
soon be so rare that you

the cage of a dime mu-
him only
seum.
God speed
still
the day!
a few
There are
good brethren,
too,
who have
fallen
behind the procession, because
they have pinned themselves to some crotchet

or other, and out of pure stubbornness, or fear
I70
LIVING PROBLEMS.
do not investigate and turn.
embarrassing, but, brother,
if
of Inconsistency,
It
may
such
be a
little
it is
better to change
I
you are wrong.
To
all
would commend
for study the sin-
cerity of Brother
It is
Franks of North Carolina.
said that he went into the pulpit of his

in
country church one day, and

his services discovered that
the midst of
he had put on his
stockings
wrong
side out.
off his
He
by
at
once paused,
and began to take

right.
shoes to put things

said
A brother
sitting
" Brother Franks, don't pull off
your shoes
;"
here before the congregation

''
"
!
Yes,
I
will," replied
I
Brother Franks
whenI
ever
find that
am
wrong,
tJien
and there
turn."
And
is
it
he turned!
After
all, if
vitally
if it
wrong,
not better to turn, even

?
is
somewhat embarrassing
II.
lines.
The hour demands action along social The temperance movement is likewise
movement.
In our intense fight
a lofty social
against the thing,
principle of the thing.

cessful
we must not lose sight of the The foundation of sucis
temperance reform
educational.
It

is
17 in
time that we fixed on a firm basis
our
is
social relations, the truth that
intemperance
not a jolly weakness, or a phyiscal disease, but

a crime.
getics,
We
have passed the period of apoloin

is
and are
"
the realm of eternal axioms.
Drunkenness
law of God.
ders His
pronounced a crime by the

shall inherit " thun-
No drunkard
It is
Word!
pronounced a crime by
the science of medicine.
Attempts
to treat
drunkenness as a physical disease have been

conspicuous only as
It
is
failures.
civil
pronounced a crime by the

is
law.
Divorce
granted for this cause upon the
theory of criminality.
Drunkenness cannot be
explanation or
pleaded
in a court of justice in
extenuation of any crime, because one crime
cannot be pleaded
in justification of another.
So
is
the
man
arrested
who
is
found drunk
upon the
streets.
This law, written by the hand of
God and
the
echoed by science and
civil law,
must be trans-
lated into our social vernacular.
Woman,
reigning sovereign of polite society, can have
much
to do with this work.
It
should be en-
172
LIVING PROBLEMS,
Es-
forced in the parlor and the dining room.

pecially should
altar.
it
be enforced at the marriage

a criminal,
Would you marry

girl
?
my
dear
young
if
She shudders
gets drunk
at the idea.
But
is
man who
comes along and
good looking, she marries him to reform him
climax of idiocy!
of
Yes, there he goes.

a dry-goods store.
He
The
was kicked out

proprietor
came
to
him one morning
after a
debauch, and
iness
said: "
Young man,
this
is
a bus"
establishment.
We
have no room for
such cattle as you here.
There
is
the door!
He was employed by
on discovering
there.
a railroad company, but
his habits, they kicked
him out
Kicked
The conductor
and would not
of a street car kicked

let off
him
off
him
ride.
out of business, kicked
the public highway,
kicked out everywhere
but
about
this
time
some
to
girl
who never saw him
before, and not

:
akin to him, opens her arms and says
my
arms,
my own
for
stricken dear
"
Come And he
**
comes!
ing to
He
always comes.
He has
been wait-
come
some
time.
In the ecstasies of
mere moonshine sentiment she exclaims:
"O

darling, I
173
could
live
with you on bread and

in,
water!"
And
he chimes
''me too!"
if
but
join
with the mental reservation that
she can
furnish the bread, he will shuffle around and
try to get up a
little
water!
Then they
hell of
hands and down, down, down to a

erty and
pity of
it
pov-
woe
side
by
side they go!
Oh, the
We
should teach the young to shun the cup
as they
would shun arsenic or strychnine.
We
it
should teach them the awful danger of the

drink habit and the drink appetite.
But
lest
seems to
me
care should be taken
we
overdo the idea of appetite. few people

drink.
There are very
who
acquire an appetite from one

is
Appetite
not the result of the
first
drink, but of the five
hundredth rather.
It is
the result of unrebuked and unpunished persistence in the crime of
intemperance.
We
should teach a lofty contempt for drinkers and

drinking.
I
have seen young
men who made

lied in
great pretensions to the ravages of an insatiate

appetite for alcohol,
pretensions.
who simply
as
such
They drink
an excuse for
"
174
LIVING PROBLEMS.
utter worthlessness, while the world pathetically attributes

it
all
to appetite.
Without
will
first
hereditary taint the
human stomach
never
cry for the infernal stuff until you
soak
and rub
I
it
in
the sewer.
shall never forget
my
first
I
drink.
was
sea sick for the first time.
had
retired to
my
stateroom
and was wrestling with the
enemy.
advised.
My
He
friend with a
remedy
cocktail.
called
and
said the thing to
do was to go
down
to the bar
and get a
I
declined.
Finally,
I
decided to go.
At first I With as
I
much
dignity as
could summon, for

I
did
not want to appear green,
walked up to the
bar and called for a cocktail.

stared at
The barkeeper
whiskey
"
? I
me and
it
asked
I
" Gin, or
This was a problem

did not
dered.
had never met before,

I
know
It
was made two ways.

to
pon-
seemed
me
that
"
whiskey
sounded very raw and vigorous, vulgar and

formidable, while " gin " sounded short
and
me as the much milder term. I told him to make it gin. He made it gin. I took it. I do not rememsimple and upon the whole struck
THE TEMPEkANCE PROBLEM.
175
ber everything that immediately followed, but

as
I
look back now,
it
seemed
to
me
it
that
had swallowed a
iron.
glass of red-hot
it
molten cast
And when
struck bottom
seemed
to crystallize in the shape of a steam saw-mill
with a circular buzz saw making a thousand

revolutions a minute!
I
did
my
best,
I
but
could not hold
it
down
sixty seconds!
have
heard of people eating fish-hooks and axehandles, chewing matches and scrap-iron
as for
;
and
me you may give me

for supper,
fish-hooks and axe-
handles for breakfast, scrap iron for dinner and
matches
gin!
of
but
draw the
line at
If my physician thinks that the interior my anatomy needs blasting out, let him
load
me up
with powder, with gun-cotton,
with dynamite
draw the
line
at
gin
healthy boy will never convince

starts out with
III.
lines.
me
that he
an appetite for such
stuff
The hour demands action along legal We have made much progress in temtrafific
perance education, but the drink
under
the fostering influences of excise laws seems to
have grown
in
power
for evil
from day to day.
176
LIVING PROBLEMS.
find progress in the
Here we
except
wrong
direction
in
two or
three
States,
where the
saloon has been aboHshed.
man was released from Sing Sing the other day who had been confined there thirtythree years.
The progress
of
the world
in
those years
to him.
is
a constant source of
amazement
York, a
He
walks the streets of
New
feeble old
man now, and

town he
can scarcely recogits
nize the great metropolis with

of people as the
three millions
left thirty-three
years
ago.
Within that time, the nation has been

in
blood, and millions of slaves made Kingdoms have risen and fallen. The map of Europe has been made over again. The hum of a thousand new industries, and the flash of the electric light speak of a new age and a new civilization. In one thing he
baptized
freemen.
found no improvement.
In the year 1855 in a
drunken brawl
in a saloon
he had killed a man.
With
a shudder of horror he
saw the same red

broken
lights of the saloon
throwing their hellish glare

of
his
life
!
across the
pathway
He

finds
it
177
in
even more
difficult
now than
!
1855
to get
beyond the range
of the saloon
this
is
There are those who say

another
none
not.
of
my
in
business. Well, in one sense

it is.
it is
But
Coming
into the city the other

train
day from the seashore, as our

a village crossing,
lurch and quickly
it
dashed by
suddenly gave a sharp

to a halt.
came
In a
mo-
ment more we were rapidly backing up

station.
I
to the
looked out and saw a great crowd
gathering.
With the others body
rushed to the
spot and saw on the stones beside the track

the mangled
of a little nine-year-old girl.
The bloody trunk

rails
lay
upon one
side of the
and the ghastly head upon the other.
The limbs and muscles were still spasmodically moving in the agonies of death. In a moment
or two our whistle sounded and
rattling
on toward the
city.
we were As our
again
train
pulled out, the mother
came upon the
scene,
and above
of despair!
tle of
all
I
other sounds rang her wild cry
heard
it
above the roar and

I
rat-
engine and cars and

strictly
can hear
business.
it
yet
It
was
none
of
my
It
was
12
78
LI VING
PR OBLEMS,
it
not
my
!
child.
I
But
was
my
privilege
to
weep
had the
right to look
away out the
window
zvas
at the leaden
sky and with that brokenYes, in a higher sense
hearted mother to cry!

it
my
is
business.
The
cry of suffering
call of
Vv'e
humanity
If
always the trumpet
God!
must
con-
we
love
God and our fellow-men

call.
respond to that
sider
it
And
shall ever
my
duty to use
my
influence to abol-
ish grade-crossings,
remembering that bloody
scene.
I
am
told that the

I
remedy
must apply
is
moral suasion.
I
believe in moral suasion, but
believe in the exercise of
to
when
is
it
should be
common sense as applied. A man passing

tiger.
a jungle
is
attacked by a ferocious
His
arm
being crushed between the jaws of the
brute.
Nerve and muscle and artery and bone
are being ground between those teeth as he
drinks the rich

traveller
life
?
blood.
What must
the
beast
Use moral suasion on the Must he stroke him gently on the

his
do now
head with
disengaged hand and say

"
in
soothing tones,
Come,
let
me
reason with

you, tiger;
is
I
179
it
appeal to your judgment, that
unfair and unkind
and wrong
for.
you to
chew
this
?
my arm
And
who
in
that style!"
Should he do
his fellowall
at the
same time should

to
traveller
his
stands by, draw near and use

of
powers
persuasion
it
convince
his
stricken friend that
is
altogether unseemly
to allow himself to be eaten up in such a
man?
ner
Is this
what we mean by moral suasion
In our present situation
we have need
it
of
another method
first.
The
stricken traveller
to the hilt into
draws
his knife
and plunges
the body of the brute that attacks him, and

this prepares the
way
for the
application of
legal suasua-
gentler methods later.

sion
sion.
first,
So we need
to be
supplemented by moral
The open
that
still
saloon
challenge as a wild beast,
prowls with blood-stained claws and

the highways of the nineteenth
teeth
along
It
century.
has no mission save to murder and

is
destroy that which

in
good, true, and beautiful
our
I
life.
arraign and indict the open saloon before
So
LI XnNG PROBLEMS.
the court of public conscience, in the
name
of
God and humanity,

chronic criminal of
as
the
arch
fiend
and
In
modern
civilization.
five
my
bill
of
indictment there are
counts
is
against the accused, either one of which

ficient to
suf-
condemn him
to penal servitude in a
warmer climate than

First
this forever.
is
The open saloon

by an
Drunkenness
the manufacturer
legal-
of criminals,
ized, save
and therefore cannot be

act of suicide
is
on the part of
crime.
If
the state.
policeman finds a
breath
is
man on
the street, whose
loud and knees weak, does he rub

St.
him with
Jacob's Oil for rheumatism
No,
billy,
he whacks him over the head with a

thrusts
him
into a cart
and dumps him into

Is
it
the station house for a season of rest.
right for the state to punish the drunkard,

at the
and
same time
offer a
premium
to those
who make him drunk and

ture a
kick him out into
the street to stagger and mutter and carica-
man
till
arrested
it
short time ago
was declared by one
of
our daily papers that Police Justice Welde
THE TEMPERA XCE PROBLEM.

was went
also the
16
owner
of a saloon.
The
press
into hysterics over the
announcement.
should make his
How
in the
outrageous, that a
man
fellow drunk at night, pocket the proceeds, and
morning sentence him
to the Island for
getting drunk over his bar to which he had
been lured!
Truly such would be a most
scandalous situation.
it
But strange
it
is,
that
pre-
does not occur to people that this
is
cisely the case with the
whole license system.

sit
is
Police Justice
Welde does not
on the judge's
bench as an individual.
He
the representa-
tive of the sovereign State of
New York.
His
individuality has nothing to do with his judicial duties.
He
is
not
nor
is
he allowed to
known as an individual, know individuals in his

represents the State.
official duties.
He simply
Likewise the saloon-keeper on the corner does

not
sell
as an individual.
He
is
the represensell
tative of the State,
and can only
when he
from the
shows
his
commission
delegating
officially
State the authority to

act as
its
and legally
merely the
representative.
He
is
creature of the State, the general treasury re-
l82
LIVING PROBLEMS.
ceiving the profits of the business jointly with
him.
It in
nowise changes the situation when

of
in
you make the same individual the owner

the bar and the judge on the bench
for
both cases
it is
the State that acts.
The
prin-
ciple remains the same.
But why did people

in-
hold up their hands

cident
?
in
holy horror at this
Because
it
was
a concrete illustration
of the basal principle of the license system,
which has been hitherto overlooked, but

this case
in
stood out
of
in all its
is
hideous deformity.
The meaning
ple are right,
it all
that at heart the peoreally
and when they once
do
understand the true inwardness of the license

business,
there
is
it
it
already enough righteous

to
dynamite under
dark ages where
day!
blow
it
back into the
belongs!
God speed
is
the
Second
of
The open
saloon
the rendezvous
criminals
criminals
in
against
It is
government
the
and outlaws from

Sunday-schools
society.
home
of
red-handed anarchy.
There are
in
five
or six
Chicago
which Anarchists
teach their children the gospel according to

John Most and the
schools held
?
183
devil.
Where
are those
In the saloons.
No
other roof
would give
shelter to such a devilish brood.

is
The saloon
population
the school into which our foreign

first
is
dragged, and
taught to
curse religion, the Bible, God, the Sabbath,
home, and pen

in
all
law.
It
is
the open slaughter
which are butchered shame, manhood,

Is
it
honor, ambition, love.
right to legalize
its
such an institution, or offer a premium for
management
You may
say
we cannot make
PerI
men
religious or sober
;
by
legislation.
haps so
but in God's
name
protest against
If
making them drunk by

cannot make a
sacred
legislation.
you
man
sober by law, then in the
name of law, give no more legal permits to make them drunk. Third The open saloon forces on the market at least forty per cent more liquors than
the appetite of the public, even in
its
present
degenerate condition, could consume without

its
allurements.
It
has been asserted again

is
and again by the liquor trade that more

ynder prohibition than
license,
sold
and
this, their
184
LIVING PROBLEMS.
statement, they invariably prove to be a
their frantic efforts to defeat prohibition
its
own
lie
by
and secure
assertion, I
repeal whenever enacted.

last
This
remember, was made
year in
Raleigh, N. C, by Northern liquor dealers,
who
were there with their money and agents, belying their words by paying $5 a head for votes
for license.
after
When the
of
first
saloon was opened,
two years
prohibition,
men enough
of
could not be placed behind the bar to accom-
modate the customers.

liquors,
five
it is
Three carloads
said,
were consumed within
thirty-
hours, showing that the supply had not
been equal to the demand.

Senator Ingalls, speaking of the results
in
Kansas
"
of prohibition, says in the
Forum
for
August, 1889:
But the habit
of drinking
is
dying out.
Temptation being removed from the young

and the
infirm, they
have been
fortified
and
redeemed.
is
The
liquor-seller,
being proscribed,
is
an outlaw, and his vocation

feeing stigmatized,
is
disreputable.
Drinking
out of fashion
and the consumption
of intoxicants has enor-

mously decreased.
per cent
Intelligent
185
and conserva-
tive observers estimate the reduction at ninety

;
it
cannot be
less
than seventy-five." can never be edu-
Fourth
Public sentiment
cated in true temperance sentiment while the

saloon
is
open and protected by the law.

is
The
these
in
liquor business
too respectable by
far,
people are too often received into society
which good and true people mingle, and are

even received by the
Roman
Catholic church,
and
in
exceptional
instances
some
others.
How
nels
the whiskey
men groan
that prohibition
drives the whole business to
low-down chanare then enis
that
in
it.
mean low-down men

Exactly so
I
;
gaged
and that
just
what
we want.
gaged
in
it.
want to see mean men only en-
qualified a
The meaner a man is, the better man is for the business anyway.
to
We
want
drive
it
into
the back
alleys,
cellars,
and dark
holes,
where only the desperit.
ate and devilish will sneak to get
Less
it
re-
spectable indeed
We
want to make
bite
filth.
the dust and crawl in the dirt,
mud, and
Make
it
crawl, crawl, crawl in the ditch, in the
1 86
LIVING PROBLEMS.
and on into
hell
gutter, in the sewer,
where
it
belongs
Fifth
It is
asserted that under prohibition
any man can get drunk that wants to
well,
any
fool
knows that but
charge the open
saloon with giving this poison to thousands
who
don't want
it,
it.
We
will
it,
cannot protect those

it
Avho want
and
have
we
can save
it
those
who
don't
want
and yet now have
thrust under their nose.
You
at
can save the

eventide
honest workingman,
who
must
float
walk by those open doors through which
the sounds of music and revelry that entice
him
in.
You
can save the noble young from
the allurements of such legalized resorts,
made
is
bright and attractive with tinsel and obscenity

in print
and picture.
To
carry no-license
;
not the end of temperance work
it is
but the
beginning of the fight for the mastery of the
young mind and
life:
it is
the silencing of the
battery of the enemy, and the opening of our
own
the
we
beginning of a victorious ending!

indifferent to such a
Can we be
Will
work
ever succeed in closing the saloons

Let no
187
man who loves God and humanity for moment despair. We are as sure to succeed as that God lives, and that truth and right will
a
prevail.
Prohibition
in
has recently been de-
feated
New
Hampshire,
Massachusetts,
Rhode
Island,
and Pennsylvania.
But these
is
defeats are in reality victories.
The saloon
simply piling
wrath.
up wrath against the day

vast
of
The
majority of the voters of

to the saloon.
It
America are to-day opposed

will
only take a few more years for the high

In the hearts of
is
license idea to fizzle out.
many good
people this high license blunder
yet firmly fixed.
But they
will see clearly
by-
and-by, and then
the
flood
comes!
just
The
in
saloon
power has succeeded,
now,
damming the
sylvania,
flow of prohibition waters.

in
They
Penn-
have placed another layer on the dam
when the waters were about

they did
in
in
to break
over
so
Massachusetts, and in
New
Hampshire, and
every inch higher they raise that
pones for a while the

that
is
Rhode Island. But dam only postmore awful destruction

Behind the dam the
sure to come.
88
is
LIVING PROBLEMS.
slowly and noiselessly rising.
water
Back
up on the mountains, whose streams, pure and

sparkling, pour their treasures into the valley,
I
hear the
roll of distant
thunder
it is
the
ris-
ing
heart-beat
of
long-suffering
humanity!
Higher and higher those waters are climbing,

adding ton on ton of hydraulic pressure.
That
filth
dam
is
not
solid.
It
It is built of
mud and
and rubbish.
again
in
has been repaired, again and
times of emergency, by stuffing glass
bottles, newspapers,
and greenbacks into the

is
cracks.
In the centre there
nothing solid
nothing that can withstand the mighty pressure of those climbing waters.
By-and-by a
will
storm of righteous indignation

nation, and every rivulet on hill
side will
sweep the
and mountain-
come plunging down
into the valley a
roaring torrent!
And
left
then the flood!
Every
there
saloon
will
fall
!
is
built
below that dam.

to
tell
!
And
not be one
the story of their
God speed
the day
JESUITISM.
1S9
JESUITISM.
I
ABHOR denominational
to worship
bickerings.
be-
lieve in religious liberty
the
is
right of every
man
God according
This
to the dictates
of his
own
conscience.
one of the funJesuit-
damental principles of Americanism.

ism, however,
is
the negation of Americanism.
Jesuitism
means imperialism.
Jesuitism
Americanism
ma-
means freedom.
chine.
means the unconliberty
ditional slavery of the individual to the
Americanism means the highest
of the individual.
its
Jesuitism not only enslaves
own
subjects, but seeks to throttle all

its
who
do not bow to
I
supremacy.
For
this reason
hate
it.
This so-called Society of Jesus

a religious order,
its
it
is
not strictly
political in
is
social
and
foundation and purposes, and merely uses
religion as
one of the weapons with which to
igc>
LIVING PROBLEMS.
its
accomplish
cardinal
ends.
of
Secrecy
is
one of the
principles
the order, deceit and
hypocrisy
among
its
favorite devices, for

in
its
which
ample apology
is
made
band
codes.
They
under
are an organized
of conspirators,
the
most thorough discipline and complete
organization ever conceived by the mind of
man.
They
believe in higher education, and
have been, and are, the chief teachers of the
Roman
been
Catholic
church.
They have
highest
ever
animated
by the
ambitions.
They once
its
furnished the world with
many
of
most
illustrious heroes
and martyrs.
They
are
in
made
of stern material.
They
are terribly
The Jesuit is to-day supreme in Rome. He educates the priesthood and young manhood of the American
earnest.
the councils of
Catholics.
He
is
the supreme dictator of the
methods
of education
adopted by
this church.
His principles are
now promulgated by
as the voice of
the
Pope from the Vatican
God.
influis
By
ence
reason of
in
its
growing power and

it
America, Jesuitism,
to our country
seems to me,
menace
a menace
to individ-
JESUITISM.
uai liberty, religious liberty,
191
and the freedom of
the whole people.

I.
say
this, first,
because of the HISTORY
OF THE Order.
From
the Reformation, with Martin Luther
as its leader, dates the birth of
modern thought.
set
The mind
free,
of
man
lay chained in the dungeons
of ecclesiasticism.
The Reformation
mind
and man began to think.
Here freedom
this revo-
was born.
of Europe,
But the great wave of
lution that swept like a cyclone over a part
produced also a counter wave
in
the Latin nations near by.
While a Luther
of Luther.
was
born
to
Germany, Spain produced a

to freeing the
Loyola.
Luther's
Loyola was the negation

life
was given
world
from the domination of the errors of the Dark

Ages, and the dominion of the Pope.
life
Loyola's
was given
to
the
undoing of Luther's
of
work, the
reestablishment
the
absolute
despotism, spiritual and temporal, of the Pope.
Loyola was a general
in
the Spanish army.
The order he founded was one run upon

sternest principles of
the
military discipline, the
192
LIVING PROBLEMS.
complete merging of the individual into the

machine.
Absolute obedience to one supreme
commander was the fundamental principle. His command, right or wrong, was to be
obeyed as the voice of God.
His success was phenomenal.
In
a
short
time he was at the head of the most powerful

organization in the world.
He
rescued France,
Spain, Portugal, and Austria from the grasp

of the Reformation.
It
has been well said that
Luther moved Europe by ideas which emancipated the millions, and set in motion a progress which
is
the glory of our age
Loyola
invented a machine w^hich arrested this progress,
and drove the Catholic world back again

and despotisms
of the
into the superstitions
Middle Ages.
The
success of Jesuitism was due to the

abilities,
extraordinary virtues,
and
zeal of the
early Jesuits and their wonderful machinery.
After the
first
period of sacrifice and success,
followed the period of power and wealth, and
consequent
ripened
fruit
corruption,
in
which
the
tree
first
was gathered from the
which
JESUITISM.
Loyola had planted.
193
Their ambitions knew
no bounds.
will,
Slaves themselves to one supreme
they sought to enslave the world they

conquered.
all
had
Their
civil
principles
at
once
rights
allegi-
clashed with
power, whose
all
they refused to recognize, denying

ence to any state.
were,
1759;
therefore,
For
political reasons
they
in
in
dis-
expelled
in
from Portugal from France
from Spain
finally in
1767;
1764; and
1773 the society was
solved by Pope Clement XIV., upon the united

petition of
all
the Catholic nations of Christen-
dom.
But
in 1814,
Pope Pius VII. concluded
that Clement had
made
ancient
a mistake (both of
them
the
infallible,
however), and so he restored

foundations.
order to
its
The
reason
why
Pius restored the order was a very
simple one.
Jesuitism had swallowed
Roman
Catholicism, and to oppose Jesuitism was to

cut his
tions,
own
throat.
it
Again they began opera-
and again
became necessary
to expel
them from the
principal nations of
Europe.
They were
from Spain
expelled from Switzerland in 1847;

in
1868;
from Germany
in
1872;
13
194
LIVING PROBLEMS.
in 1880.
its
and from France

of empire takes
priests
Westward the
star
course, and these exiled
have thronged to the shores of free
America, and are here scheming and dreaming

of
new kingdoms and

what
they
conquests.
They
be
are
doing to-day, what they always have been

doing,
always
must
doing,
plotting and scheming, plotting and scheming

to stop the progress of civilization, and enslave mankind, until
all
bow and
Italian,
kiss the big
toe of
some
feeble old
call
who
has the
effrontery to
himself infallible
earth!
and the
vicegerent of
II.
God on
a
Because of their principles and doctrines,
the Jesuits are
menace
to
our
country.
of
Where
there
is
the highest development
liberty, there
is
always a danger of a counter-
current, a reaction
so
is
Jesuitism the coun-
ter-current of Americanism.
I.
These men are
politically against our in-
stitutions,
and can never be amalgamated with
our people.
feudal lord.
master.
They are the serfs of a They are the slaves of a They take a solemn oath
foreign
foreign
to
put
JESUITISM.
themselves
in
195
the hands of their superior com-
mander
as a corpse^ with no will or thought of
their own.
Each
one,
among
other things in
his oath, swears:
"I do renounce and disown

heretical
any allegiance as due to any

Prince, or State
King,
named
Protestant, or obedi-
ence to any of their inferior magistrates or

officers."
2.
Their fundamental political doctrine
is
that the
State,
Church (Roman Catholic)

is
is
above the
which
nothing short of high treason.
This
is
the corner stone of their educational

In 1870 they forced on
of the Pope's
and
the
religious system.
Romish church the dogma
infallibility
an
error that has

in
had an overquote
whelming influence
the church.
shaping the policy of

their
To show
triumph
the
some recent declarations from

Catholic authorities.
highest
Bishop Gilmour
1873, said
:
in his
Lenten Letter, March,
" Nationalities
must be subordinate
to religion,
and we must learn that we are

and
citizens
Catholics
first
next.
God
is
above man, and the church above the state."*
196
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Manning put the following
sen-
Cardinal
tences in the
mouth
I
of the
I
Pope:
"
acknowl-
edge no
prince
;
civil
power;
claim
am
the subject of no
this.
I
and
more than
claim
of the
tills
to be the
supreme judge and director
consciences of
the
fields,
men
of the peasant that
and
of the prince that sits
upon the
in
throne;
of the
household that
lives
the
shade of privacy, and the legislator that makes

laws for kingdoms;
I
am
right
the sole,
last,
su-
preme judge
also says:
fine,
of
what
is
and wrong."
He
"Moreover, we declare,
it
affirm, de-
and pronounce
to be necessary to sal-
vation for every hum.an creature to be subject

to the
Roman
Pontiff."
Of the utter degra-
dation of reason, and the stifling of conscience the teaching of Cardinal Bellarmine affords a
good example: "If the Pope should

enjoining
vices
err
by
tJie
or
forbidding
virtues,
ChiLi'cJi zvoiild be
obliged to believe vices to be

it
good
arid virtues bad, unless
would
sin
against
conscience."
3.
The
doctrines of Jesuitism are subversive
of true morality
and destructive
of the very
JESUITISM.
foundations of character.
I
197
can only quote a
few of these doctrines as
illustrations.
The
Parliament of Paris on March 5th, 1762,

cree against the Jesuits
in a de-
drew up the following
indictment which has never been successfully
questioned
" These doctrines, the consequence of which would destroy natural law, that rule of morality which God himself has implated in the hearts of men, and, consequently, would break
the ties of civil society, in authorizing theft, perjury, the most criminal impurity, and generally all passions and all crimes, by the teaching of secret compensation, of equivocation, of mental restrictions, of probabilism and philosophical sin; destroy all feelings of humanity among men, in authorizing homicide and parricide, annihilate royal authority, etc."
all
lying,
We
its
must remember that
this
was the
official
utterance of a
Roman
Catholic nation through
Parliament assembled.
An
examination of
their doctrines as
taught to-day, shows the
fact that they are substantially the
same doc-
trines taught in 176.2.
See
"The Doctrines
B. F. Brad-
OF THE Jesuits," published by

bury &
of the
Co., Boston, Mass.,
v.diich is a translation
works
of
Father Gury,
S. J.,
Professor
198
of
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Moral Theology
in the
College
Romain
of
France.
Hear Father Gury on the celebrated doctrine of mental reservation

''A culprit
:
interrogated judicially, or not
lawfully
by the judge,
may answer
'
that he
has done nothing, meaning
about which you

or,
'
have the right to question me,'

obliged to avow.*
that
am
all
This
mode
of restriction
may
be used by
public functionaries questioned on things confided to their discretion;
or secretaries, am-
bassadors, generals, magistrates, lawyers, physicians
and
all
those
who have
reasons to hide
some
truth relative to their charge.
You must keep

etc.
a co7ifided
it
2,^zxq.\.,
even
if
you
are questioned about
by
a superior, a judge,
''
:
You must answer them

it,"
do not know
is
anything about
for
because that knowledge

as
if
it
you absolutely
did not exist
and
thus should the secret be confided expressly

or tacitly."
("
Treatise on the Seventh and

of the
Tenth Precepts
443, 444, 472.)
Decalogue," Articles
JESUITISM.
199
As
to stealing
" Question.
guilty of theft
his
we have this Must one always be considered when he takes the property of
neighbor
**
:
"
How
''It
simply God's word an"

!
swers
Thou
shalt not steal
But hear the

that
Jesuit's
answer!
may happen
is
:
the
one from
whom
the property
stolen has no
right to be
opposed to the theft
which takes
place, for instance,
when
the one
is
who
in
takes
what belongs to
need
;
his
neighbor
extreme
and when he takes only what he badly

;
needs
sation,
or
when he
takes
it
secretly, as
a compen-
not being able to secure in a different
way what is owed him by right of justice." Under such teaching we need not wonder that
servants should " compensate " themselves secretly at their employer's expense.
III.
The
Jesuit
is
menace
to our country
now doing the world over and what they mean to do in America They lead the Catholic church in particular.
because of what he
is
in its
aggressions upon the liberties of manin

all
kind
nations.
Every Cardinal,
arch-
bishop and bishop of the Catholic church
now
200
LIVING PROBLEMS.
takes an oath of allegiance to the Pope, in
which occur the following words
*'
:
Heretics,
schismatics, and rebels to our said lord (the
Pope), or his aforesaid successors,
I will
to
is is
my
tol-
utmost persecute and oppose."
Rome
erant in America simply because she
not
yet strong enough to be intolerant.
Says Bishop O'Connor:

is
'*
Religious liberty
merely endured
until the opposite
can be
carried into effect without peril to the Catholic
world."
The Catholic Review
sdiys:
"Pro-
testantism, of every form, has not, and never
can have, any right where Catholicity
is
tri-
umphant."
said
:
The Archbishop
of St. Louis once

;
"
Heresy and unbelief are crimes

where
and
in
Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for

instance,
all
the people are Catholics,

religion
is
and where the Catholic
an essential
part of the law of the land, they are punished

as other crimes."
Another Catholic writer
of high authority,
much
puts
'*
petted
at
Rome, Mr. Louis

is
Veuillot,
it
in a nutshell thus:
When
there
a Protestant majority
we
JESUITISM.
claim religious liberty, because such
principle
fuse
it,
;
20
is
their
re-
but when we are

is
in
majority we
because that
ours."
In accordance with these principles
we
see
a Protestant minister arraigned in Spain last
year for the crime of denying that the image

of the "
Virgen de
los
Dolores
"
had any power

of the
to heal diseases.
court.
"
Hear the sentence

of
For
this sacrilege
'
comparing,' as the
of
court says, the sacred image
the Virgen
de
los
Dolores with the manger of the horse of
the priest, and attributing the same virtue to

this miserable object as to that,
by which the
zvorsJiip of
greatest scorn
is
thrown upon the

Pastor Vila
is
the holy images,
etc.,
condemned
to two years, four months and one day of
imprisonment
to
pay a
fine of
two hundred
and
^{X.y
pesetas ($50), and the costs of court."

to
We turn
"
Mexico and hear President Diaz
thus address the last Congress:
This progress has indeed been praiseworthy
because of the determined opposition of the

Catholic clergy, sworn enemies of
all
civiliza-
202
tion,
LIVING PROBLEMS.
who have always
tried to stop the intel.
lectual flight of free peoples."

said
'*
Further on he
The Catholic clergy
of Mexico, united in
fatal
concubinage with a faction of unworthy
Mexicans, have thrice betrayed their country.

In each case their crime was generously forgiven,
though not forgotten by the republic.

days when independence
alli-
First, in the glorious
was won, the traitorous clergy, forming
ance with the nation's conquerors and using
excommunion
as a
weapon, hindered
of
liberty.
for eleven
years the attainment
second
time, during the celebrated period of reform,
the clergy joined the country's enemies.

third time traitorous, in the
tion,
French usurpa-
they helped set up a foreign monarchy

soil."
on Mexican
What
are they doing in
America
Building
politi-
colleges, schools,
and churches, pulling
cal wires In the cities, the States, the nation,
and crushing the

that
last
spark of free thought
may
linger in the breasts of their Ameri-
can priesthood.
Father Lambert,
of
Waterloo,
JESUITISM.
203
N. Y., was driven to Rome, and driven back

in disgrace,
simply because he dared to think.
Dr. McGlynn, was driven out of his church,
excommunicated, and cursed, simply because

he was guilty of a
little
thought outside the
beaten tracks of theological and ecclesiastical
dogmas.
He was
and
informed that he had no right
to think for himself; and for pitying the woes

of humanity,
for advocating
what seemed
to
him
a remedy, he
was crushed by the ma-
chine.
He was
too big a
man
to be annihil-
ated by such a process, however.

chine has lost his power, and
The ma-
freedom has
gained a new champion.

Cardinal Gibbons reads us a lession in catholicity
by
calling
on freemen of the nineteenth
century to curse Giordano Bruno for daring to
be a philosopher, for daring to think, when

forbidden by the machine of the Middle Ages
to do so.
He
says
it
is
a crime
and outrage
that Bruno's friends should dare to build a
monument
to his
memory on
the spot where
he was burned to death by order of Rome.
Poor Bruno has been dead nearly three hun-
204
LIVING PROBLEMS.
dred years, and yet the Cardinal,
who
poses
now
as the
champion
of liberty, calls
on free
his
American
followers
nal
citizens to curse his
memory and
who
yet survive.
So does the CardiTruly
thus indorse his brutal murder.
Rome
does not seem to change on some points

!
at least
Does the Cardinal mean

Bruno and
to imply
by
his tirade against
his friends that
he would dare to re-enact that horrible tragedy
on American most
soil
if
he had the power?

highest and
Does Cardinal Gibbons, the

liberal representative of the
in
Romish ma?
chine, believe
religious
liberty
Let us
turn to his book and see.
We
:
turn to page
264 and read his definition

religions liberty
"A man
enjoys
when he
possesses the free

to the dic-
right of worshipping
tates of a
God according
RIGHT conscience, and
of practising
a form of religion most in accordance with his

duties to God."
*'
right " conscience, as he
elsewhere shows,
science,
is
Roman
God
"
Catholic conin
and
tJie
only "
form of religion most
accordance with duty to
he shows elsereligion.
where to be the
Roman
Catholic
JESUITISM
Strictly within the
205
of that definition
bounds
he could re-enact the horrors of the reign of
Alva
in
the Netherlands, repeat the massacre
of St.
Bartholomew, reorganize the Spanish

rekindle the
Inquisition,
martyrs'
it
fires,
and
again sing a Te Deiiin over

nal
all
The
a
Cardi-
boasts that
Lord Baltimore,
But
in that far
Roman
Catholic, granted religious liberty to Maryland.
Perhaps he
did.
he failed to
be a good Romanist according to this definition.

If
Baltimore did champion religious
lib-
erty,
he did not learn his lesson from such a
teacher as the Cardinal, and he granted this

liberty,
not by reason
if
of,
but
in spite of, his
religion,
we
are to judge
by such
girl
authorities.
We
need not wonder, then, that a short time
ago, in Maryland, a
young
was arrested
at
the dictation of a priest and dragged before a

civil
magistrate, whose only crime consisted in
the fact that she had professed conversion and

joined a Baptist church.
In spite of
all
that
could be done for her defence, through the
machinations of
father, she
this
priest
and a drunken
of penal
was sentenced to a term
2o6
LIVING PROBLEMS.
servitude in a Catholic reformatory.
And
this
happened
in
the city of Baltimore beneath the
shadow
to have
of the Cardinal's palace!
Times seem
his
changed since the days of
Lordship,
the founder of the colony!
A talented
of
young Southerner,
City and a
a citizen
of the
now
most
New York
told
member
powerful political organization

olis,
in the
metrop-
me
voluntarily the other day, that

of the
management of the politics of New York, the more clearly he saw the hand of the Jesuit, and the more he tremthe
more he saw
bled for the future of the Republic.
Their great university

ital
is
located at the cap-
of the nation solely for political reasons.

their
They have
States.
hands with more or
less
power
on every great daily newspaper
in the
United
They know
that
America holds the
destiny of the world and they
mean
to conquer
hier-
America.
Does any man think that the

liberal in
archy has grown more
modern
times,
and that the
liberties
of
mankind could be
If so, let
safely intrusted in their
hands?
him
read the encyclical that was sent to America
JESUITISM.
last
,
207
year from Leo XIII. the present Pope.
This letter was received as the voice of God.

It
was reprinted
in
a Baltimore paper and a
leading Protestant minister of the city openly
challenged Cardinal Gibbons to give an explanation of

it
that
would harmonize
it
with our
Constitution!
The Cardinal
Its
did not respond.
And why ?
letter
is
Because there was no possible ex-
planation to be given.
whole
spirit
and
the very negative of our fundamental

denial of the principles on which
is
laws
the
our Republic
built.
The
is
subject of this en-
cyclical, strange to say,
"
Human
is
Liberty."
Now
''
as to civil liberty, here
a part of what
the Pope says:

For, once granted that
of his
suaded
man is firmly own supremacy, it follows

civil
per-
that
the efficient cause of the unity of

is
society
to be sought, not in
any principle exterior
or superior to man, but simply in the free-will

of individuals
;
that the
power
of the state
is
from the people only; and

man's individual reason
so
is
that, just as every

life,
his only rule of
the
collective
reason of
the
community
2o8
LIVING PROBLEMS.
in
should be the supreme guide
the manageof
ment
of public affairs.
Hence the doctrine

all
the supremacy of the majority, and that the
majority
is
the source of
law and authority.

it
But, from what has been said,

all this is in
is
clear that
contradiction to reason."
As
tion
:
to liberty of speech
'*
we have
this revela-
From
this
it
follows, that greatly op-
posed to reason, and tending absolutely to

pervert men's minds,
is
it
that liberty of which
we
speak, in so far as
claims for
it
itself
the
right of
teaching what
pleases
liberty
which cannot be granted by the state without failing in

its
duty.
And
the more so, be-
cause the authority of the teacher has great
weight with his hearers,
who can
rarely decide
for themselves as to the truth or falsehood of
the instruction given to them."

society, the Church,
"
To
this
He
intrusted
it
all
the truths
which
He had
and
taught, that
might keep and
guard them, and with lawful authority explain
them
all
if
at the
same time
He commanded
nations to hear the voice of the Church, as

it
were His own, threatening those who
JESUITISM.
would not with everlasting perdition."
" In faith and
in
.
209
.
the teaching of morality,
God
made
the Church a partaker of
His divine
authority, and through
His divine help she
cannot be
deceived.
She
is
therefore
the
greatest and most safe teacher of mankind,
with inviolable right to teach them."
That
as
is
to say, he
would
if
he could, and
will
soon as
he can, close every Protestant

every Protestant preacher, and
rliurc-h, silence
compel every member to accept the teachings
Romish church. And this should be done by the strong arm of the law. Hear him
of the
''
False
is
doctrines, than
greater,
which no
mental
plague
and vices which corrupt the
heart, should be diligently repressed
by public
authority lest they insidiously work the ruin of

the state."
And
in his
summary,
lest
he should be mis-
understood by some careless reader, the Pope

reaffirms his position in language
whose mean-
ing cannot be mistaken

"
is
in
From what has been said, it follows that it no way lawful to demand, to defend, or
14
2IO
LIVING PROBLEMS.
to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of
speech, of writing, or of religion, as
if
they
were so many rights which nature had given

to man."
Let us remember that
this letter
does not
bear the date of the Dark Ages, though each
words drips with the congealed ignorance,
ar-
rogance, and bigotry of the darkest of the
Dark Ages no,
my
countrymen,
it
is
dated
Rome, A.D. 1888. The learned De Tocqueville, from Catholic France, predicts, in his great book on America, that if the American Republic ever falls it will
be at the hands of the
Certainly
if
Roman
Catholic clergy.
stuff as this
it
they believe such
we
be
have quoted to be the voice of God,

wêll
will
to maintain an
eternal watch over the
liberties
I
we have won through

it
so
much
blood.
do not fear the result of any

come, but
is
conflict that
may
is
time our people were beit
ginning to open their eyes to the fact that
coming.
THE SCHOOL WAR.
211
THE SCHOOL WAR.

The
Boston Herald relates the fact that Mr.
Matthew Arnold was struck by the democratic government of the reading-room when
he was
in Boston.
He came
in
one day and

in
saw a
little
barefooted newsboy sitting
one
of the best chairs of the reading-room, enjoy-
ing himself
great
"
apparently for
dear
life.
The
essayist
let
was
completely
in
astounded.
Do you
?
barefooted boys
''
this reading-
room
"
he asked.
You would
Europe.
I
never see
such a sight as that

lieve there
is
in
do not be-
a reading-room in
is,
all
Europe
in
which that boy, dressed as he
would
enter."
Then Mr. Arnold went over

gaged him
in conversation, " Life of
to the boy, en-
and found that he
was reading the
Washington," and that

anti
he was a young gentleman of decidedly

British tendencies,
and
for his age
remarkably
well informed.
212
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Mr. Arnold remained talking with the youngster for
some
time, and, as he
came back
:
to
the desk, the great Englishman said
"
do
not think
have been so impressed with anyI I
thing else that

this
have seen since arriving
in
country as
am now
with meeting this
barefooted boy
in this
reading-room.
it
What
is
tribute to democratic institutions
to say
that instead of sending that
boy out
to
wander
alone in the streets, they permit him to

in
come
here and excite his youthful imagination

as the
**
by reading such a book

ington"
!
Life of
Wash-
The reading
of that one book

life,
may
and
change the whole course of that boy's
may
try.
be the means of making him a useful,
honorable, worthy citizen of this great counIt

is, I
tell
you, a sight that impresses a

to your democratic
European not accustomed

ways."
Mr. Arnold here touched the secret of our

power.
America has long been the wonder

to Europeans.
of
modern times
nation, with a
How we
as
have
as a
it
attained such heights of
power and glory

they
mob government
call
THE SCHOOL WAR.

how
civil
213
the Republic has stood the strain of over
a hundred years, the shock of the bloodiest
war
in
the records of the world, and

of earth,
is
is
to-
day the mightiest nation
to
them a
constant source of amazement.

it is,
The
secret of
our fathers built the Republic on free boys

free brains
this
and
Against
system
of
broad republican
education the Romish hierarchy has
made a
of
most deadly
free schools
assault.
Our American system
they have sworn to destroy, and
to never sleep so long as there shall remain
one stone upon another to

tions.
its
very founda-
Understand me,
say the hierarchy,
Romish machine, has made this assault. This war on our public schools was not inaugthe
urated by the
Roman
Catholic
it
citizens
of
America.
On
the other hand

their will
was forced on
set
them against
by the men who

ecclesiastical
themselves up as the supreme directors of the

consciences of men.
The
ma-
chine has seized the American Catholic people
by the
throat, pried their
mouths open, and
are trying to
ram
their sectarian school system
214
LIVING PROBLEMS.
their
down
throats!
They have used
their
church organization to form a gigantic conspiracy to this end, that covers the length and
breadth of our country.
To accompHsh
of
their purposes
First,
two methods
withdraw
the
all
attack are
used.
to
Roman
schools,
Catholic
children
from
public
and place them
in sectarian
parochial
schools under the immediate control of priests,

nuns, and monks, and then to
demand
a divi-
sion of the public school fund for the support

of these so-called educational establishments.
Second, when this cannot be done, or until

is
it
done, they attempt to control by manipula-
tions of various sorts the
management
entirely
of our
public schools, mutilating text-books to suit

their
tastes,
eliminating
obnoxious
histories and other books, and controlling the
appointment of teachers.
saults they seek to
In these secret asof the
weaken the hold
public school on the hearts of the people, and

to defeat the purpose of to give a
full,
its
existence, which
is
free,
broad, liberal education.
To
this end, therefore,
they attack the public
THE SCHOOL WAR.
215
schools because the King James version of the

Bible was read at
is
its
opening
saying that this

in
a Protestant Bible
and makes the schools
sectarian.
They have succeeded

this
many
places in banishing the Bible from the public

schools,
and no sooner was

and
accomplished
than they turn
denounce
anew these
purpose from
schools because they are "secular," ''godless,"

''infidel!"
Showing that
school.
their
the beginning has been to destroy not to re-
form the public
This issue about the

is
reading of the King James Bible

skirmish they have engaged
in,
a side
to merely hide
friends of free
it.
the real point of conflict.
The
education must not be deceived by
We can
is
afford to yield this issue without a struggle,

for the
purpose of our public school
not to
teach religion
religion of
the state has no right to teach any sort and we have no right to
upon the
child
force our version of the Bible

of the
Jew
or Catholic
public state schools.
who helps support these The hue and cry about

infidel,
our schools being godless and

the Bible
is
because
is
not read at the opening,
the
2l6
LIVING PROBLEMS.
!
merest tomfoolery
edly said,
As
Prof. Fisher has point-
we cannot
call
bank a
" godless "

it
or an "infidel" institution because
does not
open each morning with a chapter from the Religion must be taught at home and Bible.
at church
if it is
to reach the heart

in
and
life.
went to a private school
childhood that
made
a specialty of
religion.
We
read copi-
ously from the Bible and repeated the ten
commandments backward and

result
forward.
The
on
my
childish
real
mind was merely the

with
its
confusion of
religion
in
outward
a conI
forms and the growth
tempt
always
for
felt
it
all.
For
my heart of my own part,
have
that such tampering with sacred
things was a dangerous experiment.
The
his-
tory of nations whose public-school system has
been sectarian has overwhelmingly confirmed Dr. W. T. Harris, on in me this conviction.

this point, has well said
"
The utmost
care should be taken to sur-
round religious instruction with the proper

atmosphere.
The time and
place should be
made
to assist instead of distracting the relig-
THE SCHOOL WAR.

ious impression.
of
217
With regard
to the
example
Germany, Austria, and other

so
states, that
place religious lessons on the regular school
programme
many hours
in a
week,
boldly
in-
appeal to the experience of
all
who have
spected the results of such teaching, and
in-
quire whether they do not confirm the theoretical conclusions here
deduced.
Do
of
not the
pupils, well taught in secular studies, learn to
hold
in
?
contempt the contents
religious
lessons
Do
they not bring their
critical in-
tellects to
bear on the dogmas, and become

?
sceptical of all religious truths
Is
not the
all
Germany
peoples?
its
'
of to-day the
Is
most sceptical of
not
its
educated class famous for

?
Then there is France, where the church had its own way
free thinking,' so called
Is
with religious instruction until recently.
there another class of people in the world so
abounding
class
?
in
atheism as the French educated

is
In other countries where religion

in
taught
tive
the schools, does not the authorita-
and dogmatic method of religion do much

in
to render inefficient the instruction
the sec-
2i8
ular studies
?
LIVING PROBLEMS.
Is
not this apt to be the case in

"
?
parochial schools
So
also they
have sought to control school
boards and dictate the management of the

public system.
In Bcston last year
had the
honor to be a member of the Committee of
One Hundred who managed

free education in that city.
the campaign for
We
found upon
investigation that the school board, v/hich had
control of
all
the
common
schools of the city,
Primary, Grammar, Latin, High, and Normal,
was composed
of twelve Catholics, eleven Pro-
testants and one Jew;
that
this
all
the important
sub-committees within
trolled
board were con-
by a Catholic majority; that the comnomination

of
mittee on the
teachers was
composed
ant
;
of four Catholics
this
and one Protest-
that
whole board was being praca coterie of Jesuit priests,
tically
managed by
who examined and

several
passed upon the text-books

;
that should be used
that at their dictation
standard books
had
been
;
removed
that again
from the schools without a word
and again had competent Protestant teachers
THE SCHOOL WAR.
219
been removed without cause and incompetent

Catholic teachers put
in
their places,
and
inif
struction sent to the superintendents that
complaints were
positions.
made they would
lose their
When
Mr. Travis was removed
from
lines
his chair of history,
and Swinton's Outcom-
thrown out
of a priest
it
of the schools at the
mand
by
this servile board,
is it
any
wonder that
precipitated a storm of public
indignation that overturned the city govern-
ment and reorganized

the Committee of
scores of such
that board
Scores of
patriotic Catholic citizens voted the ticket of
One Hundred, and there are men in every city who will be
found the champions of our free schools against

all
enemies.
But the method on which the hierarchy lay
most
tory,
stress
is
and depend most

first
for ultimate vic-
the
mentioned, this second one
being merely tributary to the main object
namely to build a system

with the public fund
of sectarian schools
in
now used
the maintenis
ance of our free schools.

at last boldly asserted
This purpose
now
is
by the hierarchy and
2 20
LIVING PROBLEMS.
pushed with remorseless
persistency.
is
being
Not
a legislature meets at
Albany that
not
besieged by those
who
seek to divide the school
fund for sectarian purposes.

bill
Sometimes the
introduced bears one name, sometimes an-
other
it is
always the same old Trojan horse
with this assassin of the free schools concealed

within.
It is
asserted that the State of

its
New
York through
people's
rian
Assembly has already been
robbed of over twelve million dollars of the
money
that has been given to secta-
institutions.
That we may understand
clearly the purpose of the

in this
Romish hierarchy
matter,
Catholic
let
us consult their authorities.

for October, 1889, has its
The
World
leading article on this subject, entitled
"A
of
Canadian Example."
the article
is
The whole purpose
to
show that the only solution to

is
our school question
the division of the school
fund on a sectarian
basis.
The
tion:
"
Catholic Review of August 25th has the
following pointer on
the public-school ques-
The parochial school has come
to stay.
THE SCHOOL WAR.
22
And
it
means one day, without infringing on
the pubh'c school in any way, to have the sup-
port of the State."
Says the Freeman

olic
s Journal, a
:
Roman
"
Cath-
paper, in a recent issue
This
is
why
their
Catholics ask that the State

their
let
them educate
own
children in their
own way, with
own share of the school tax." The Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph,

and
exultingly shouts, " It will
insolently
be a glorious
day
our
for the Catholics in this country

(?)
when
(?)
under the blows of justice

school
and morality
be
shivered
system
shall
to
pieces."
The Roman
Catholic
priest,
Monsignor
Capel, according to a newspaper report of a

conversation, which was widely circulated and
never contradicted, said, " The time
is
not far
away when
tax,
the
Roman
Catholics, at the order
of the Pope, will refuse to
pay
their school
and
will
send bullets to the breasts of the

agents,
government
*'
rather
than
pay
it."
*'The order can come any day from Rome."

It will
come
as quickly as the click of the
222
trigger,
LIVING PROBLEMS.
and
it
will
be obeyed, of course, as
coming from God Almighty himself."
The
question
is,
Can we,
as free
Americans
can we, as Protestants; can we, as patriotic

Catholic citizens, ever agree to those
of the hierarchy
I.
demands
say
we
cannot,
first,
because these de-
mands
are based on false principles that attack
the very foundations of our liberties and free

institutions.
These demands are based on the
assertion that the
Church (Roman Catholic)
is
above the State, and has the supreme and sole

right to educate
;
that the priest
is
the supreme
master
tical
of the citizen.
is
This idea of ecclesiasof
supremacy
simply centuries out
It comes to us from the gloom of the Dark Ages smelling of the dust and mould of an oblivion into which the progress of man-
date.
kind has long since kicked
it.
Catholic
bishop recently expressed this idea very tersely

in reply to a
committee from the parish who

if
waited on him to ask
certain reforms within
that parish could be carried out provided a
majority
of
the
members favored
it.
The
THE SCHOOL WAR.
223
bishop, drew himself up indignantly, glared at

his questioner a
moment, and
" in this fight
replied:
"I
am
the majority, Sir!
The hierarchy
pretend to cham-
pion the " rights " of parents
that the parent

rather that
should not be coerced into sending the child

to the public school.
They mean
they demand the sole right to dictate to the

parent what shall be done with the child.
Do
the
they allow any choice to a parent as to where

the child shall go
public schools
**
when withdrawn from
No, they say to the parent,

child to the paro-
If
you do not send your

I
chial school,
will hurl against
you the curse
of the church,
in
'
and deny you the right to sleep

'
consecrated
ground."
Again and again

as a
have they used
excommunion
weapon
with which to coerce public-spirited parents

into submission.
An
Irishman
who
patronized
the public schools of Charlestown, Boston, was

so threatened
by
his priest.
He
consulted one
do.
of the school board as to
what he should
The gentleman advised him

American
citizen
that he was a free
and that he had the right to
254
LIVING PROBLEMS.
do as he pleased.
the priest.
in
He
continued to disobey
He
called again
on
this
gentleman
a dilemma for advice.
He
said the priest
told
him
if
he did not send
his child to the
parochial school
rat!
he would turn him into a
The gentleman laughed and advised Pat

let
to
his
Reverence
he
try
the
experiment.
Soon
pled
afterward
saw the Irishman, and

getting on.
!
asked him
:
how he was
Pat
still
re-
"
Oi'me
right, Sor, as yit

oi
We
sind
to the school
and
told
me
if
old o'oman to
kape a sharp look out, and

growin', to
kill
she saw a
is
tail
the cat
"
It
not the right
of the parent the priest thus seeks to protect,
but the right of the machine to dictate to the

parent.
II.
We
cannot agree to these demands, be-
cause these parochial schools are not being

built primarily for the
purpose of giving an
adequate education for the masses, but are

being built for the
first
purpose of destroying
our free educational system.
Let us consult Catholic authorities and see

if
this
is
not the case.
An American, who was
THE SCHOOL WAR.

in
225
at
Rome
on one occasion, was astonished
the appalling ignorance of the people of Italy.
Being an American, he was fool enough to believe

in
universal
education,
the
so
he sought
Cardinal Antonelli,
State,
Papal
Secretary of
and asked him for an explanation of the

In the Cardinal's reply he said that
it
situation.
he
"
thought
in
better that the children should

in
grow up
ignorance than be educated
such
a system of schools as the State of Massachusetts supports; that the essential part of edu-
cation was the catechism

tic
and while arithme-
and geography and other similar studies

useful,
might be
they were not
essential.**
(Int. Rev., vol. 8, p. 293.)
The
cation!
catechism the essential part of an edu-
And
this
from the Vatican, the head!
quarters of the parochial system
Dr.McGlynn,
in prin-
who
"
claims to be
still
good Catholic
ciple, says
on
this point
The extraordinary
of
all,
zeal manifested for getinstitutions
ting
up these sectarian schools and
is, first
prompted by jealousy and

and
institutions,
rivalry
of our public schools

15
and by
2 26
LIVING PROBLEMS.
the desire to keep children and other beneficiaries
from the
latter; and, secondly,
by the
desire to
fortable
of
make employment for and give comhomes to the rapidly-increasing hosts monks and nuns who make so-called educaand so-called charity their regular
busi-
tion
ness, for
which a very common experience

little
shows that they have but
qualification
It
beyond
is
their professional
stamp and garb.

if
not risking
much
to say that
there were
no public schools there would be very few

parochial schools, and the Catholic children,
for
all
the
churchmen would do
in brutish
for
them,
would grow up
ignorance of letters;
and a commonplace of churchmen here would

be the doctrine taught by the Jesuits
in their periodical
lica,
in Italy,
magazine, the Civita Catto-
that the people do not need to learn to

all
read; that
they need
is
bread and the cate-
chism, the latter of which they could

to know something how to read."
of even without
manage
knowing
Victor Hugo,
in his
famous speech
in opposi-
THE SCHOOL WAR.

tion
227
to
Jesuit control of
the
education of
France, uses these burning words:
"You
claim.
claim the liberty of teaching.

let
Stop;
be sincere;
It is
us understand the liberty
you
the liberty of not teaching.
You
wish us to give you the people to instruct.
Very
done
Spain
well.
Let us see your pupils.
Let us
see those
for
?
you have produced.

Italy
?
What have you What have you done for

in
For centuries you have kept
your
hands, at your discretion, in your school, these
two great nations,

trious.
illustrious among the illusWhat have you done for them ? I
shall tell you.
" Italy,
which taught mankind to read, now

to read.
knows not how
Yes
Italy
is,
of all
the States of Europe, that where the smallest
number know how

" Spain,
to read.
magnificently endowed Spain, which
received from the

tion
;
Romans
in
her
first
civiliza-
from the Arab her second
civilization
from Providence,
spite of you, a
world
America
Spain, thanks
to you, rests under a
228
LIVING PROBLEM^.
of stupor,
yoke
which
is
a yoke of degradation
it
and decay.
Spain has lost the secret power
obtained from the Romans, the genius of art

it it
had from the Arabs, the world
(of
America)
had from God
and
it
in
exchange
it
for all that
you have made
lose,
has received from

Inquisition,
you the INQUISITION; the
which
;
certain of your party try to-day to re-establish
which has burned on the funeral pile millions

of
men
the Inquisition, which disinterred the
dead to burn them as heretics; which declared

the children of heretics infamous and incapable of
any public honors, excepting only those

have denounced their
fathers.
.
who
shall
" This
is
what you have done
for
two great
nations.
What
do you wish to do for France?

just
;
Stop!
you have you

have
come from Rome!
congratulate you
there;
you have had
fine success
Roman
lion,
people,
French people.
and
is
come from gagging and now you wish to gag Take care! France
. . .
the
the
is
alive."
We may
is
Likewise
add to
meddling enemies of our schools, "Take care!
America
is
a lion, and
alive
*'
!
THE SCHOOL WAR.

As
a climax of consistency, look
I
229
now
at the
sentence
quoted from the Catholic Review of

*'
:
August 25th
Means one
day, without infringto
ing on the public school in any way,

the support of the State ! "
have
Could mortal man
conceive
"
Have
of a more monstrous absurdity! the support of the State " without in-
fringing on the public school in
any way!
To
the mixture of simplicity and cheek composing

that sentence
I
can remember but one parallel,
and that
ers
is
the case of the county commission-
who
resolved to build a
''
new
jail
;
jail.
They
resolved,
it
ist,
to build a
new
2d, to build
out of the bricks used in the old one; 3d
to keep the prisoners in the old one while they

built the
new one; 4th
to build the
new one
stands
"
!
on the
site
where the old one
now
To have capped
the climax of asininity they

final
should have added as a

infringing on the old
clause " without
building in any way."
Such a resolution thus concluded would have

furnished a worthy companion
piece
to
be
framed and hung up
in a
museum
alongside
230
this
LIVING PROBLEMS.
marvellous proposition from the Catholic
I
Review
III.
We
cannot agree to these demands beis
cause the sectarian parochial school
narrow
and
and bigoted,
hatreds,
is
fosters
class
distinctions
its
anti-republican, and
is
standard of
instruction
infinitely inferior to that of the
public schools.
We
have the best Catholic authority for say-
The Freeman s Journal and Catholic Register for March 12th, 1887, coming they are inferior.
plained of the parochial schools, where

of the pupils:
is
it
said
"A
fit
smattering of the catechism

for the duties of life;"
supplied to
them
that
and intimatea
*'
the
schools were only
apologies,
compromises,
systemless
pre-
tences."
Dr. Orestes A. Brownson, a distinguished

Catholic, said of the
Roman
*'
Catholic schools
practically
fail
{Brownson' s Review)
recognize
They
.
to
human
progress.
educate their pupils to be at

ease in their
They do not home and at their

.
.
own age and
country, or train
. .
them
to be living, thinking, energetic men.
THE SCHOOL WAR,

They who
are educated in our schools
in
231
seem
if
misplaced and mistimed
the world, as
born and educated for a world that had ceased

to exist.
.
. .
The cause
of the failure of
is,
what
we
call
Catholic education
in
our judgment,
in the fact that
we
educate, not for the pres-
ent or the future, but for the past.
... an
left
all,
order of things which the world has

hind, for
it
be-
could be reproduced,
if
at
only
by a second childhood."
The
world
Catholic Review, April, 1871, gives to the

this
revelation
*'
:
We
of
do not indeed
our countrymen
prize as highly as
some
appear to do, the ability to read, write, and

cipher.
Some men
are born to be leaders,
and
the rest are born to be led.
The
best ordered
and administered state
is
that in which the
few are well educated and lead, and the

are trained to obedience," etc.
Is
it
many
so!
And
one of the most conclusive reasons

these schools to be inferior
intelligent
is
why
that
we know
thousands of our most
Catholic
citizens defy the hierarchy
and continue to
because
patronize the public
schools,
they

232
LIVING PROBLEMS.
their superiority.
It is
know
it
no small
tiling
for a Catholic to defy the
governing clergy
means often
social ostracism, hatred, loss of
friends
and even the means
of support.
It has been truly said, that the purpose of
the sectarian parochial school
is
to
make obe-
dient Catholics, while the purpose of the public
free school
is
is
to
in
make good
citizens.
Now
what
taught
these sectarian schools in

is
many
zen.
of their favorite text-books
anything
citi-
but favorable to the production of a good

It is
often false and injurious in the highest
degree to the mind and character of the child.
They
hatred
are
constantly drilled
in
bigotry and
toward
they are to
other
denominations,
with
whom
live as citizens of a
common
government.
They
are taught to hate those
they do not understand, and to avoid their

presence.
Let
me quote from
"
the
''
Catechism
of Perseverance
one
of their standard
books
published by T. B.
Noonan &
final
Co., of Boston,
I
which has the approval of four bishops.

quote only the two
in
answers on the lesson
Chapter LIV.
THE SCHOOL WAR.

" Q.
233
How
do you show that Protestantism,
or the religion preached by Luther, Zuinglius,

Calvin, and
ion
?
Henry VHL,
is
not the true
relig-
''A.
In order to
show that Protestantism

in
is
a false religion, or rather no religion at

will be sufficient simply to bear
all, it
mind:
ist,
that
it
was established by four great

it
libertines;
2d, that
owes
its
origin to the love of honors,
covetousness of the goods of others, and the

love of sensual pleasures, three things forbid-
den by the Gospel;

believe whatever
3d, that
it
permits you to
to do what-
you please and

it
ever you believe; 4th, that
has caused im-
mense
erland,
evils,
deluged Germany, France, Switzit
and England with blood;
leads to
impiety, and finally to indifference, the source

of all revolutions, past
and
future.
We
must,
therefore, be on our guard against those
who
preach
" Q.
it,
and cherish a horror

it.
for the
books
which disseminate
dered
''A,
What religion is it that alone has renmen better and alone has civilized them?
The only
religion
which has rendered
! ;
234
LIVING PROBLEMS,
better and civilized
men
them
is
the Catholic
religion, to the exclusions of Arians,
Mahome-
tans, Protestants, and philosophers; the Catholic
religion, therefore, alone
is
good, alone
divine."
Bishop Gilmour's
very popular
" Bible
History "
is
book
in these sectarian schools.
Hear
Tudors
what
in
this
book says
of the reign of the
England.
The
career of Bloody
all
Mary
is
not mentioned at
and the account closes
with this paragraph

*'
Catholicity has ever appealed to reason
Protestantism, like
Mohammedanism,
to force
and violence.
In England and Scotland Protfines,
estantism was forced upon the people by
imprisonment, and death;

Prussia,
in
Germany and
Sweden, and Denmark and Norway,

In America the Puritans acted in
the same.
like
manner."
reason
Catholicity has ever appealed to
Did Bishop Gilmour never read the

This
directed
edict with
in
which Alva baptized the Netherlands

edict
blood?
that
all
Protestants
should be executed; the
men
with the sword,
THE SCHOOL WAR.

the
235
women
to be buried alive, provided they
do not
persist.
That
is, if
they should recant
they would be granted the sweet privilege of

such a death
the women
to be buried alive
and the men to be butchered with the sword! But

with
if
they persisted they were to be burned
fire,
and
in either case all their
property
should be confiscated.
edict
The
story of
how
this
was executed
is
one of the most sicken-
ing chapters in the story of the
human
race.
During the
six years of Alva's reign, his exe-
cutioners put to death 18,000 persons, besides
the victims in cities captured by his troops and the hosts that
fell
in battle.
Has
St.
the Bishop
never read of the massacre of

the
fires of
I
Bartholomew,
the martyrs, or the Spanish Inqui-
sition?
do not say that we are to teach

I
these things in our public schools, but

that
if
do say
the state must pay for instruction on
these points, then the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth must be taught!
Take
lished
their
most popular geographies, pub-
by Sadlier, Barclay street.

most parochial schools.
New York, and

Let us take
used
in
236
LIVING PROBLEMS,
some three questions from the Lesson on the United States. The answers to these questions
are
fresh
they
citizens
are startling news to
most American
country.
who thought they had
a smattering at least of the history of their
''Who were the first explorers of great portions
of our country ?
discovered
" Catholic missionaries. "
Who
and explored
the upper Mis-
sissippi ?
" Father Marquette, a Jesuit missionary.
many of the States^ were the first settlements formed ? "Around the humble cross that marked the
Where
^
"
in
site of a
Catholic mission."
(Page
22,
Lesson
xxxn.)
Mr. Edwin Mead aptly remarks on
son:
" This
is
this les-
the general account of the coloni-
zation and early history of the United States.
And
this
is
a good sample of the proportion
of the role assigned to Jesuit missionaries all
through these books.
You have heard
of the
THE SCHOOL WAR

boy who once asked
his father,
237
who was
for-
ever telling of his tremendous exploits at Bull
Run
and
Gettysburg
and
Cold
Harbor,
" Father, did
anybody help you put down the
rebellion
'*
The descendant
of the
land Puritans or of other worthies,

of us
New Engwhom some

thinking as
have been
in the habit of
standing for something in this American enterprise,

is
moved
all
to ask the Jesuit,
when he
in
reads
of
"
his
accomplishments,
*'
these
books,
Did anybody help you found

?
the
American republic
As
"
to
New England
in particular
we have
this historic revelation
What was
the first settlement in the
New
Engla7id States ?
"
A Jesuit
mission on
Mount Desert
Island
(in 1612).
"
"
*'
By whom was this By the English.
settlement destroyed?
What people made a permanent
settlement in
Massachusetts in 1620 f
''
**
The Pilgrim fathers Who were they ?
23^
LIVING PROBLEMS.
who, being persecuted
" English Protestants
by
"
their Protestant
fellow-countrymen, took
refuge in America.
How
did they act in their new home ?
"They proved very intolerant, and persecuted all who dared to worship God in a manner
different
from that which they had established."

the
Shall
raised
pubhc-school fund, levied and
for
the
purpose of giving men and

fit
women
duties
an education that will

of
life;
them
for the
shall
this
fund, the people's

of sectarian
stuff
money, be devoted to the support

schools where
as this
?
monks and nuns teach such

this question
is
When
fairly before
the American people, the answer will
come
as
the roar of an earthquake to the ears of these
meddling priests
on battle
Bismarck said that the sad-
dest thing he saw in France was not the dead

fields,
but mutilated and misleading
text-books on the tables in Catholic schools.
These books are scattered

deadly work
IV.
in the
far
and wide
in
these sectarian schools in America, doing their
minds of our youth.
We
can never agree to the demands of
THE SCHOOL WAR.
239
the hierarchy, because their plans successful
would destroy our system

Church and
of education, thus
stabbing the Republic to the heart, and reunite

State.
To
basis
divide
the school
fund on a sectarian
would not be simply a step toward the

it
union of Church and State,
would be the
Suppose you
consummation
children.
clesiastical
of actual union.
divide the fund on the per capita basis of the
Directly into the hands of the ec-
machine
will fall millions of dollars.
Does any candid
intelligent
man
believe for a
moment
those ecclesiastics would devote these
enormous
sums
to
educational
purposes
Simply the cost

the hosts of
these
of the
board and clothes of

in
monks and nuns who teach

It
schools would
be the extent of their
expenditure.
would be inevitable that the

directly into
money would go
the general
treasury under the control of the bishop and
be used for cJmrcJi purposes

seen that this fight
of the zeal of the
tion.
is
We have already
made because
for popular educa-
not being
machine
is,
The
truth
the prize for which this
240
LIVING PROBLEMS.
is
hierarchy
fighting so desperately, and
prom-
ises to fight still
more desperately,
sums
it,
is
the con-
trol of these munificent
of
money.
will
When
become
they get their hands on

of the schools
?
what
They will go where they have

Spain, in Mexico, in South
devil
!
gone
in
Italy, in
America
to the
where they have ever

machine has been
gone when the
ecclesiastical
master of popular education.
A journal under
their control said recently in a three-column

article
lics
on
?
this subject.
'*
What, then, do Catho-
want
Justice, absolutely nothing but jusall."
tice,
equal justice for
He
defines this "jus-
tice " to
be a division of the school fund on a This plea of injustice because
sectarian basis.
parents are taxed for public-school purposes
whose children go to private schools,

and downright
it
arraign
as the climax of ignorance of our institutions

selfishness.
it is
To
say the
least,
if
be not rebellion,
a sad exhibition of unis
patriotic sentiment.
Besides there
not one
school
spark of justice
in
such a demand.
The
tax
is
not levied for the purpose of giving
to the individual paying the tax an equivalent
THE SCHOOL WAR,

in
241
education
is
in his
own
family.
The school
There are
fund
tirely.
based upon a different principle enTest the question and

see.
thousands of old bachelors
in this
country
are heavily taxed for school purposes.
who They
receive no benefit in return in their immediate

families.
Then
demand
justice for the old
bachelors of this country!
Divide the school
fund!
Give each old crusty wretch his share!

of old maids, too,
There are thousands
who
are
taxed heavily for the support of the schools.

Justice for the old maids!
Divide the fund!

childless couples in
There are thousands of

this
country
who
are taxed heavily to support
public schools.
schools.
They have no
children in the
Divide the fund!

of Baptists
There are thousands

dists
and Methoare taxed

**
and Presbyterians and others who patron-
ize private schools exclusively
who
for the
support of the public schools.

"
!
Equal
justice for all
Divide the fund
Give each
crank a chromo for the maintenance of his

crotchet
!
And
16
let
posterity take
care
of
"
242
itself!
LIVING PROBLEMS.
" Posterity! "
what has posterity ever

this
done
anyhow Yes, such a man as

for
tis
was he who refused
to assist in the purchase of a
new hearse
for
the village.
The committee asked him why.

:
He
replied
"
Well,
gave ten dollars to buy

I
the old one, and neither
nor
my
family have
ever had the use of
it
a single time!
Such
is
the supreme selfishness of the
man
who would divide this fund raised for the common weal -a selfishness so cankerous that it fain would eat up the victim who proclaims it when other food has failed! This money is
raised
by the
state as a life insurance fund.
The
life
of the state rests

is
on universal suffrage.
Universal suffrage
a possibility only
when
no
supported by an universal education
and
such education has ever been given, or can be

given save by the state.
Prate to
me
of individual rights here!
Care
you nothing
for the life of this glorious free

all
Republic, the asylum of

of an oppressed world
?
nations, the refuge
Shall
we allow
it
to
THE SCHOOL WAR.

be stabbed to the heart
sectarian brawlers
?
243
fight
in a
mad
between
We
have no army, no navy worthy of the
name, no frowning ramparts along our coasts

to withstand the ironclads of the
Old World,
and yet we are the mightiest nation of earth

the last nation in
all
the
roll of
nations against
which a foreign power

sword!
will
dare to draw the
And why ?
in
Because,
we have not
in-
vested in steel guns, granite masonry or brass

buttons, but
Shall
free
boys and free brains!
the foundations of this glory be de?
stroyed
Shall
ures of the Old

ple
we re-enact the dismal failWorld ? The American peoI
must answer.
have no fear as to what
that answer will ultimately be.
But
it is
time
now
that answer should begin to formulate
itself in
an overwhelming demand that
in
the
Constitution of the United States and every
State of the Union there shall be a clause,

specifically forbidding that a single cent of the
people's
money
shall ever
be appropriated to
sectarian purposes, either under the guise of
charity or education.
244
LIVING PROBLEMS,
THE SOUTHERN QUESTION.

SOME DIFFICULTIES OF THE SITUATION.
[An address before the New England Paint
and Oil Club
at their 44th dinner at the
Hotel
Thorndike, Boston, as reported by the Boston
Daily Herald, April 14th, 1889.]
The 44th dinner

of
of the Paint
and Oil Club

last
New
England, at the Thorndike,
even-
ing,
was attended by about
a dozen or
more
guests,
fifty members and among the latter being
Rev. Thomas Dixon,
Jr.,
pastor of the Dudley
Street Baptist Church, and formerly a

of the
member
enjoy-
North Carolina Legislature.
An
able reception of half an hour's duration
was
held in the parlors, after which the
company
repaired to the banquet hall, where an admirable
dinner
was
served.
The
after-dinner
speaking was inaugurated by President Daniel

G. Tyler, who, in
introducing the principal

guest of the evening, said:
245
''The Southern
problem has been an interesting question to

all
close observers of national affairs since the
war.
Our guest
this
evening was born upon
the
soil of
the Old North State, has served in
her Legislature and in other posts of trust,

and, after living in the North for a
years,
number
of
comes to-day to give us the
benefit of
his experience
and thought upon the subject."
Rev. Mr. Dixon's Speech.

Rev.
Thomas Dixon,
I
Jr.,
on being thus pleas-
antly presented, spoke substantially as follows:
What do
tion
?
mean by ''The Southern Quesmind when he uses the expresSouthern question

"
"
Certainly not what the sectional monoin
maniac has
sion.
If
by
"
you mean
the supposed problem of crime, violence, and

semi-civilization, as presented in the cock-and-
bull stories
you hear
of
the South
then
have no time to discuss such a question, for

such a problem exists only
fancy of
question "
ill-informed
I
in
the distorted
"
men.
By
Southern
mean
the sectional question, and
24^
LIVING PROBLEMS.
it
is,
the problem of
how
can sectionalism be
life,
eliminated from our national
social, eco-
nomic, and political
If this is a
union, unity
should be the cardinal principle of national

life,
and sectionalism and
is
a monstrosity.
The
the
re-
South and North should stand related

other, politically
to each
commercially, as
Eastern, Western and

lated.
Middle States are
What are some of the difficulties that stand in the way of such an obliteration of sectional
lines
I.
can dwell on but two this afternoon.
The North The South does not understand the North. The i^nodoes not understand the South.
ranee of the average northerner as to the real
condition of the South has been to
stant source
of
Mutual misunderstanding.
aniazement.
me a What are
con-
the
chief causes of these misunderstandings?

{a)
The
federal office-holders in the
South
conto
under Republican administration.

crete idea of the
The
North has been presented
the South in the personality of the carpet-
baggers, turncoat Democrats, and general rap-

scallions
247
under Republican Presidents.

question was
"
who have been honored with office The most poTurn the
rascals out."
tent cry ever raised in the South on a national
They
offi-
meant the
rascals at
home, who used
their
ces to domineer over
and
insult the
people
whom
civil
they were placed there to serve.

given the
The
under
service
South, exept
Cleveland's administration, has been simply

infernal.
There have been some good men
among them, but they were the exception to the rule. The finest stroke of policy yet made by President Harrison was when he sent home
the other day the forlorn groups of chronic
office holders
and
office seekers
is
from South
step toward
Carolina.
Such a policy
first
breaking a solid South.

{h)
Cranks.
Hot-headed,
ill-advised
men,
thirsting for a sensation,
and determined to
make
one, plunge into the South for a
week
or two, and return to the northern platform
loaded
with
strut,
wind and
exclamation points.
shriek.
?
*'
They
and bellow, and

it
What
som.e-
are you going to do about
"
And
248
LIVING PROBLEMS,
times the very elect are deceived by the noise

into
believing that something ought

!
to
be
done
Such a D.D. recently spent
a few
weeks
South.
He
returned with a pain he knew not
where, with the griping sensation as yet unlocated, but with a determination to be heard
or die.
[c)
God
save the South from her friends!
Knaves.
There are men who
deliber-
ately seek to deceive
you on such questions.

election, the
The day
before the last
New
York Tribune contained a long dispatch from

Raleigh, N. C, stating that the town was in a
state of riot
and bloodshed; that the negroes
were being driven from the place, shots were

being exchanged and that there was urgent
need of troops.
every
letter,
lie
Every word, every

i
syllable,
every dot on every
in
the article
was
the
out of whole cloth, as testified to by

council,
mayor and
among whom were

in sectional issues
is
four distinguished negro politicians.

(^) Politicians
only.
who
trade
The day
for those
men
rapidly going
by.
Some
of
them
still
remain. North and
THE SOUTHERN QUESTION,

South.
249
Let the rising young men of the naall
tion set their feet emphatically on

{e)
such.
Partisan newspapers.
It
is
a sad fact
that
tions
we have
so
many newpapers
it
in
both sec-
whose business
Thousands
seems to be to misrepre-
sent each other and everything on the other

side.
of our best people read only
these papers, and must, of necessity, see every-
thing in a distorted light.

feed a morbid
They
create
and
and
appetite for sensational
highly exaggerated matter on those questions.

I
am
oftentimes disgusted at the attempt of
our independent newspapers to straddle the

universe on questions of grave importance to
preserve their independence, yet with

faults
I
all
their
to-
thank God for them.

of
They form
day the only means

the sections, and,
in the
it
communication between
seems to me, mark an era
progress of the nation.
They have tem-
pered the tone of our organs, so that they do

not scream and bellow and rattle as of old, but
must
of necessity
now
give forth sounds
more
the
or less harmonious and reasonable.
And
tune grows better as time
rolls on.
250
-2.
LIVING PROBLEMS,
The second
I
great difficulty of the ques"
tion
mention
is,
The negro and
his relation
to the local governments

rising generation of the
of the South."
The
South never knew the
negro as a slave and does not hate him because his skin
is
black.
Why,
then, do the
young men,
as well as the old
men, stand as a
unit in the determination that the negro shall
not as yet control the local governments?
Simply because they know he does not represent the wealth, virtue, and intelligence of the
community, and because they know that negro
supremacy
in
State
or
county means bankI
ruptcy, ruin, disgrace, and corruption.
have
with
no apologies to
offer for the interference
the negro vote that has characterized certain

sections of the South in times past.
These
it is
things are mostly traditions now, and
my
earnest conviction, after living in
New York
crimes of
and Boston, that there are
as
many
one sort and another committed against the

ballot in the
North
as in the South, taking the
sections as a whole.
But what was the cause

?
then of intimidation and trickery in the South
THE SOUTHERN QUESTION,

Take North Carolina
of ignorant slaves,
abilities
25
as an example.
Imme-
diately on the enfranchisement of the hordes
and before the were
political dis-
of
the whites
removed, the
negroes, under the leadership of adventurers
and
villains,
took possession of the state gov-
ernment and the county governments of about

forty counties.
They wrecked
the state gov-
ernment
in
short order, stole everything they
could get their hands on, even to the school

fund, and the United States land script fund,
issued millions of dollars worth of fraudulent
bonds, raised what
money they could on them
and
stole that.
counties were even
The governments of these forty more hopelessly wrecked.

was not worth the paper
it
The county
nearly
its
script
was written on, and the land was taxed to

full
rental value,
and land was the
only capital the people had.
What were
sell.
the
?
people to do
Sell
in
these forty black counties
out and leave?
They
couldn't
No-
body would buy.
Lands worth $20 an acre

fifty cents.
could not have been sold for
They
took
did what you would have done
they
252
LIVING PROBLEMS.
of
it
possession
their
local
governments
they
life.
had to do
or give up the struggle of
They
tion
violated the Constitution you say?
Per-
haps they did sometimes.

is
But self-preserva-
the
first
law of nature and antedates
the Constitution somewhat.
They
said
it
was
not right that pauperism and vice and igno-
rance should rule wealth and virtue and

gence, and that
all
intelli-
the constitutions of the

it
make you teach them the

earth couldn't
right.
?
After
all,
didn't
lesson
distinguished
senator of the North,
when
driven to the wall
by the
be d
relentless logic of
it is
Calhoun on the Con:
stitution,
said, replied
"
The Constitution
did stand between
"
The Constitution
it
the slave and his freedom.
You
said
it
was
it
not right, smashed over again.

I
to
atoms and made

it.
thank you for doing
You
said the Constitution
was
not divine before the
war.
Could you expect these Southern men,

lives
whose very
accept
it
depended on the
issue, to
as divine after the
war
This dark cloud of the possibility of local

corruption and bankruptcy and ruin hangs like
THE SOU THERM QUESTION;
2^3
a pall over the South, and makes the white

race stand
together as a solid unit to-day.

the negro race turned
It
The enfranchisement of loose too much power.

business
forced the Southern
people to go into politics rather than into
their
life
depended on
it.
The white
in
Republican party recently organized
Alarace
bama
is
the dream
of a fool.
The white
first
cannot divide until the negroes

All this
I
divide.
say with the kindliest and tender-
est feelings for the
negro race.
of
Yes,
say
it
by the memories
the dear old nurse in

of
whose arms the weary head

heard the sad story of the
I
my
childhood
I
so often found rest, at whose feet

life
I
sat
and
of a slave until
hell.
learned to hate slavery as
hate
What would
give as the solution of the
Southern question?
Pass the Australian ballot
system or a good educational qualification for

suffrage in every State in the Union, and
will disfranchise
it
two-thirds of the negroes and
one-third of the whites in the South, the terror

of negro misrule will disappear,
believe, sectionalism.
and with
it,
i^rS

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NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES

Religion and Social Science

(successor TO LEE, SHEPARD & DILLINGHAM)

Nos. 718 AND 720

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBR4HY

AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

THE PUBLISHERS' PRINTING COMPANY,

WHOSE DEAR PERSON THE DAY-DREAMS AND IDEALS OF MY BOYHOOD

THE SWEETEST REALITIES OF MANHOOD,

THE INSPIRATION OF WHOSE LOVE,

THE VOICE OF GOD,

UNTO HER, WITH TENDEREST LOVE, THIS BOOK

A SHEAF FROM THE FIRST FRUITS OF THAT BETTER LIFE.

prayer that they

been to those who

heard them delivered

fresh and suggestive, rather than proI

and modern times; but

have used from them,

passed through, and become a part

rent questions of Social Science were delivered

Oct. lo, 1S89.

The Mission of the Church, The Minister's Sphere,

The Question of Hell,

Miracles and Robert Elsmere;

and Robert Elsmere

Playing the Fool; Or, the Problem

The Temperance Problem,

The School War, The Southern Question,

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH.

Master on earth was

thus to lay the mantle of his mission on our

and yet one

freighted with sublimer responsibility.

You are the inmedium through

into the world to

leave unto you to complete.

work, then, we turn,

To understand our own for a moment to the Masof His mission.

and learn the import

take these definitions from His

take several of the principal ones given

"I came not

to judge the world, but to save the

Luke, xix. 10:

and to save that which was

not to call the righteous, but the

In Matthew, xx. 28: ''The Son of

not to be ministered unto, but to

these definitions certain negafirst

remove these negatives

of the positive elements of our mission.

and Mark say:

not to judge the world,"

constructive rather than

the way, the truth and the

not, but preach, proclaim, work, for the night

the Father was then the judge

not Christ so Christ

the judge, while

THE MISSIOM OP THE CHURCH.

that his Church should be a ferryboat specially

chartered to take a specified number of the

a special car chartered for the special