I contend that science, philosophy and electric evolution sustain the religious concept.
The infinite and eternal power that animates the universe must be psychical in its nature, and any attempt to reduce it to mechanical force must end in absurdity. The only kind of monism which will stand the test of an ultimate analysis, says John Fiske is monotheism. The highest development of psychical life is the end for which the world exists. To the materialist the ultimate power is material power, and psychical life is nothing but fleeting colocations of natural elements in the shape of nervous systems. The psychical nature of God and the immortality of the soul harmonize infinitely better with cosmic philosophy. Prof. John Fiske says: "Evolution brings before us with vividness the conception of an ever-present God, not an absentee God who once manufactured a cosmic machine capable of running itself. It makes God our constant support and nature His revelation, and when all its religious implications are set forth it will be seen to be the most potent ally Christianity ever had in elevating mankind. The progress of evolution now is to bring out the higher spiritual attributes and to set the whole doctrine of evolution in harmony with religion. Then, the assumption that underlies all religion must be true—that what we see of the present life is not the whole thing; that there is a spiritual as well as a material side of life; in short, a life eternal.
"In the whole history of evolution," he continues, "when we see an internal adjustment reach out towards something, it is in order to adapt itself to something that exists. And if the religious cravings of man constitute an exception they are the only exception in the whole process of evolution." This is an argument of stupendous and resistless weight. This puts evolution in harmony with religious thought, and the great religious drift of humanity in all ages, and removes the antagonism that used to appear to exist between religion and science.
The French materialists of the eighteenth century virtually declared: "We content ourselves with what we can prove by the methods of physical science and we will reject all else." But think how chaotic nature was to their minds compared to our present conception, and how different the universe they saw to what we see to-day. And it is not to be wondered at that there was antagonism between science and religion. Anaxagoras maintained that the human race would never have become human if it were not for the hand, and John Fiske says, "man never would have attained his present psychic powers but for religion."
This is truth well stated, and the fact that man is the only creature that has a hand, an articulate voice and an aesthetic nature that is never satisfied, is strong proof that man is infinitely more than a mere animal, or a transient animate machine. The higher intellectual powers were dwarfed in the middle ages, when human life was made hideous by famine, pestilence, perennial warfare and bloody superstitions, fear of witchcraft and eternal torments, and men endured it because they had no experience of anything better. But the change wrought in six centuries is amazing, and shows that human genius and man's possibilities are beyond our comprehension. The genius of Aristotle proved that the earth is a globe, that of Copernicus showed that it was one of a system of planets, and that of Newton undertook to explain the laws and dynamics of this marvelous sun and world system.
Belief in God, and the immortality of the soul, and the compensations of a future life tend to maintain social order and moral rectitude, by enabling men to endure the trials and injustice of this world in the hope of ample compensation in the hereafter. Man steps forth on this revolving globe not of his own volition, but is sent here by some mysterious power on some inscrutable mission to fulfill some divine purpose. He comes as a spiritual wayfarer under sentence of death. Not death to the spirit, but to the transient habiliments of earth-dust he gathers round his invisible spiritual form. When he arrives and gathers his reasoning powers to scan the narrow horizon of his life, he is beset by perplexing problems of poverty, disease, sorrow, sin and death. The "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" often overwhelm him, and he discovers at last that the law of life is the law of growth and development; and all these struggles and trials are intended to evolve character and purify and ennoble the soul. That this is the seed time and nursery of existence preparatory to the harvest of eternal life when he shall drop this overcoat of atoms and be transplanted to the self-luminous bosom and unfading joys of the perfected and celestial sun-worlds. Here he sees incompleteness, fragmentary careers, tragedies, injustice, griefs and farewells, and he hungers for knowledge. His quenchless spirit seeks to penetrate the mysteries of the universe, and comprehend time and eternity, and in agony of soul he asks the age-old question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" Then, if he turn not to the pages of sacred writ for an answer, he will find written on the living pages and animated forms of all nature the promise of another life. He will find it in the returning verdure of spring, in the unfading light of the eternal stars, in the ever-changing beauty of the bending skies, in the mysterious impulse of the untaught birds of the air who start on their vast migrations from the frozen seas of the north to the summer-lands of the sunny south; in the tropic fish, who seek their spawning nests in the clear, cool rivers of the north. The bear and lion, the tiger and elephant, the bees and the insects of a summer day, all have the longings of their natures satisfied. Why should man be an exception? If the Creator of all keeps faith with all other creatures, why not with man?
"As something must have been eternal," says Prof. Wright, "it is easier to suppose it was an intelligent, designing mind which was uncreated from the beginning, and which has brought the universe into being with all its uniformity of laws and complexity of adaptation than to suppose that the eternal substance was matter out of which has come the orderly universe as we know it, with its high grades of intelligence in animals and man.
"The world, as the creation of a supreme intelligence, is partially comprehensible to finite minds. But to suppose that the thought and purpose and will of man are products of material forces is not only a mystery, but an absurdity which cannot long be entertained by any sane mind. The theory of evolution without a God can lay no claim to scientific support. A theory of evolution, designed, controlled and permeated by divine ideas, may be both scientific and in accord with the highest dictates of religious truth."
As to the life hereafter, which the religious concept has always proclaimed, it is a fact demonstrated by history that in all ages, among all people, under all religious forms, the idea of immortality remains fixed and imperishable in the human mind. Every human being in coming into this world brings with him under a form more or less vague this inward belief, desire and hope of immortality. This is God's handwriting on the human soul. And the history of man, the reasoning conscience of man, is God's Bible of life written in man's spiritual nature. And whatever is rational, true and good is of God, and whatever is contrary to the enlightened conscience of man is contrary to the divine purpose of God.
Revelation proclaims God is a spirit and man is a spirit, and after death man in his spiritual being shall live on forever. The latest modern scientific thought fully and powerfully sustains the Bible. It says in substance, in dealing with man we must deal with him as a spiritual being; we must go into a realm that brings us within the sphere of the electrical and magnetic relations of the elements, but on a different plane. First, matter in the invisible world has the same essential basis of formative power so potent in the more tangible relations. Second, the invisible atoms there obey the same essential principles that in a lower grade of activity give visible results. Third, there must be a direct connection between the two conditions of being—the visible and the spiritual—as to be axiomatic. Fourth, there must be a secondary form of the invisible elements ere they assume the visible relation, which is a chemical or electric necessity. In all life this law is absolute. Fifth, in applying this principle to the process of the evolution of man's form we have an explanation of how it must be a natural product of evolutionary life, and that man must follow the same law as the evolution of all spirit that pertains to planetary life. Spirit holds visible things in form by its connection with the magnetic life of the planet. It is the controlling power in shaping the form and organism to correspond to changed conditions. The material form can only exist by keeping itself in harmony with the laws of the elements in the planet, and as long as the planet endures the electric form in man and the electric or instinct form in animals within the radius of its magnetic aurora must exist as a secondary satellite, or miniature concrete expression of the forces in the planet. This principle may give the electric form immortality, and, by reason of the eternal nature of the elements composing it, place it beyond the possibility of dissolution as long as the planetary relation of the elements exists. But with man it goes even further, for the spirit form, having the basic principles of eternal existence in its spiritual composition and having once entered upon organic life, has in itself immortality and the power of self-sustenance from the elements in space and cannot become disintegrated, for it has all the necessary material to keep it in eternal existence as an organism, though the planet should revert to its original status and vanish as a distinct form. This explanation of the nature of spirit gives us a logical ground for the rational consideration of the phenomenon that has been the basis of all the superstitions embalmed in the sacred and curious literature of past ages. That man and probably all types of life have a spiritual or electric counterpart is not a scientific speculation or hypothesis merely, but a logical sequence of the forms that enter into physical organization.
Here in the secondary form, says the author of "Planetary Evolution," is an explanation of the nature of spirit that follows the same principles that construct the physical body and form the same material environments. And the questions of a spiritual life, apart from this principle of a secondary form, cannot be solved by any known formula of a scientific character. On the other hand, the existence of a form holding the powers of thought and action upon the plane of radiant matter gives a satisfactory explanation of the transference of the mental powers that belong to planetary life. The law of correlation and conservation of force prevent their annihilation, and they must exist somewhere. They are a spiritual entity, but should not be regarded as having a supernatural origin.
"The spirit is an evolution of planetary life and cannot be destroyed, and it is natural that its mental attachments to the planet should bring it in contact with the mental development generated there. The spirit would have the power of thought and consecutive reasoning as much after its transition from mortal life as before, but it would lack the power of expression through ordinary channels. It would, however, have the power of inductive electric transfer of thought, and, coming in contact with a spirit embodied, this power of induction would excite the elements in the spirit embodied to equilibrium of mentality, which would give rise to a similarity of thought in both." And here lies the foundation of the doctrine of inspiration which is a process of mental action whereby the mind in the body is raised to a perception and expression of ideas beyond its own range of thought as generated by the physical senses. The result is the upbuilding of the brain organ and the uplifting of the mentality to the purely spiritual plane, and man has thus, by the aid of the spiritual powers, made another stride forward in the domain of spiritual evolution. And man is a spiritualized being with brain organs adapted to the expression of ideas that respond to the spiritual state of life.
It is sometimes assumed that a man cannot be a Christian and a man of science; yet there have been many men of science, from Newton to Lord Kelvin, who were devout Christians. It is also assumed in some quarters that an educated man cannot believe in miracles, or answers to prayer, or special providences. But this is not a fair assumption even from a scientific standpoint. Science affirms the universality of energy and law; Christian theology accepts this fundamental postulate of science and says it is the result of universal spirit and will, or Infinite Mind and volition, which is back of universal energy and law. Energy is spirit and will at work; law is the mode of work. Energy and law are derivative, spirit and will is the primary and ultimate force of the universe.
But says the unbelieving scientist, "I accept energy and law as facts, but do not see that spirit and will are facts." Christianity replies: "You mean by 'see,' mental sight; for in the physical sense you can no more see energy and law than you can see spirit and will, or mind and volition.
"The fact is, science is a search for the invisible or supersensible—for that which lies beyond sense and vision. You call it energy and law, which we say is a result and not a cause, and point to spirit and will, which is the primitive, ultimate, first cause of universal energy and law.
"Would you feel it a just description of yourself if you were described as nothing but a system of energy and law. Energy is action according to law. But there is psychical energy as well as physical energy, or 'a double faced' unity—psychical on one side and physical on the other. Thought, feeling, volition are all species of energy subject to laws of their own. And, what is most wonderful, while they are invisible and intangible they control all physical energy in man and all animal organisms, just as universal spirit and will or volition control all energy and law in the physical universe. Then, is universal energy and law psychical or physical? If it is intelligent and works according to design and purpose with beneficent uniformity it must be psychical, and all physical energy and law is but a manifestation of spiritual energy and purpose."
Then says the scientist, "there may be intelligence without physical organism, and man may be in constant contact with the spiritual world. But I am an organized being and cannot imagine how unorganized beings could communicate with me even if they wished to do so. I cannot imagine it as possible that I could know God, who is a spirit."
But Christianity answers, "suppose you are not matter only, but that you are a spirit also, and a spiritual atom of that universal spirit which controls the universe, then could not spirit communicate with spirit? Thus, you say, all science is founded on energy and law, which necessitates spiritual intelligence and will for its foundation, and consciousness for its evidence. Thought, feeling volition are forms of psychical energy. We are conscious that we think, feel, will; and as consciousness is a mental or spiritual perception, man must be a spiritual being. Then we are not far from Theism—for God is a spirit. Besides energy and law we have consciousness and spirit, and no force without will. Law is simply the mode in which will works. Law stands for the regular and steadfast operation of will, as opposed to variable or capricious action. The uniformity of nature is rooted in the faithfulness of God, which sustains the steadfast operation of natural law."
Then says the scientist, "there could be no miracles, or answers to prayer, or special providences, for these imply interference with law, which would mean inconsistency on God's part and confusion on ours."
But Christianity answers, "interference with law is of continual occurrence. You cannot stand up or walk, or so much as raise your hand without interfering with the law of gravitation or attraction. We can modify or direct the action of forces without violating their laws. Violation of God's laws on God's part would mean inconstancy. Direction of his own energy to any point He wills—as in evolution, for example—is no violation of law; neither are what are termed miracles, special providences and answers to prayer violations of law, but evolutions in accordance with law, as law stands for God's mode of working in the control of the universe."
Then says the scientist, "I cannot reconcile the two ideas of 'infinity' and 'personality.' Personality implies limitation; infinity asserts absence of limitation, a being cannot be at once limited and unlimited."
"But why should we suppose personality to involve limitation?" says Christian theology. "Even in man the essential idea of personality is not limitation. Personality in philosophy and theology refers not to the body but to consciousness and will. What difficulty is there in believing that the Infinite God is infinitely conscious and volitional and therefore personal."
There is a mighty force in the material metaphors of the Bible, but these all stand for spiritual realities, and its fundamental postulate is "God is a Spirit," and "God is Love." As man is a spiritual atom of deity. God has spiritual contact and influence with his spiritual children and they are "moved by the Spirit," and "born of the Spirit," as they accept and obey that spiritual influence which leads to righteousness and truth. Religion cannot exist without spirituality and the religious concept. God has so constituted the human soul. Without religion the soul could not dream of heaven nor feel the sweet whisperings of faith and hope. Neither could the heart thrill with spiritual joy and truth. Without religion the heaven-bound spirit could not soar to the altitudes of celestial bliss.
Without religion and ideality there would have been no gems of art or literature, no beautiful pictures, no living statuary, no lofty temples or inspiring thoughts. The grandeur of Shakespeare, the sublimity of Milton, the poetry of Byron, Burns, Tennyson and Longfellow, the romances of Scott, Dickens and Hawthorne, the noble architecture of Michael Angelo, the statuary of Phideas, Praxatelles and Canova, and the pictures of Raphael, Murello, and Reuben had never been known. Ideality is the father of beauty and the inspiration of all genius, goodness and nobility and the twin brother of religious hope and faith.
Without religion ideality would be a mockery and a dream, hope would be a delusion and a snare, inspiration would wither, like Jonas' gourd, in a night, and the mildew of selfish materialism would convert the verdure of earth into deserts of despair.
John Fiske well says, "Man never would have attained his present psychic powers but for religion," and without religion ideality would never have soared to her lofty heights or brought forth her beautiful thoughts, her lofty conceptions, her sublime dreams of joy, or her noble gems of art, poetry, sculpture, architecture and literature. Remove the twin brothers—religion and ideality—from the earth, and its glory and worth would shrivel like a withered flower. Its hopes and joys, its dreams of peace and love, of paradise and heaven, would vanish into the desolations of a boundless Sahara, heaped with the burning sands of doubt and scorched by the withering blast of despair. The religious concept is the pilot of the soul to the fair field of heaven, the communion with the Father of the spirit, and ideality is its companion and servant who carries its cloak and staff as they journey along the pathways of earth and the highways of eternity. Science and philosophy, ideality, love and hope and all the aspirations of the human soul sustain the religious concept. It is a scientific postulate imbedded in the nature of man and in the basic law of the universe. Ideality and religion are the most powerful forces in uplifting humanity. The sublimer the ideal the more potent and ennobling its influence on the human soul. Though millions grasp not its sublimity and truth, those receptive souls nearest the light will catch its divine illuminations and reflect it to those below. And gradually those below will grasp its beauty and truth and step up higher, and each in succession, step by step, will advance to "a higher plane and a broader view," and this is growth and progress toward perfection.
The ultimate aim and purpose of creation is ideal perfection. This purpose is written in the fundamental law of evolution—progress from the lower to the higher and the survival of the fittest. The higher, the more sublime, the spiritual truth, though it be ages in advance of the world's comprehension, yet its brightness and power will penetrate the darkness, and scintillate from soul to soul, as the sun gleams from atom to atom, until at last all humanity is illumined and exalted. When we go down into the darkness and poisoned vapors of a dungeon we seek for a ray of sunshine as we seek for life and light, and we are cheered by the smallest sunbeam which enters through a crevice, for in its silvery thread of light little atoms float like miniature stars, dispelling the desolation. There at our feet, left to decay and perish, may be the seed or bulb of an insignificant vine or flower, forgotten by the busy world of conflicts without, where little men become great and great men become little, not dreaming of the eternal law of life and hope that thrills in every throbbing atom and electric germ in this life-evolving magnetic universe.
But there in the darkness of that dungeon a struggle for life and hope goes on as important to the life involved as that of building a throne or destroying an empire. Never did a hero dare or a nation fight more bravely to attain its aspirations than did that little seed or bulb lying in the darkness. A slender beam of light gives it a hope of escape, and, cold and chilled, its prayer for life has slowly evolved a delicate pale vine which creeps toward the sunbeam.
Each day it has seen that beam of light fade and pass, and darkness and mildew paralyze it into the stupor of unconsciousness. And again that sunbeam awoke it to consciousness and life. At last it reached the crevice whence came the light, and, lifting itself as a prisoner escaping from death, it springs forth into the sunshine and opens its blossoms of beauty and perfume to greet and gladden the world of light and life.
Thus has humanity struggled for light, and toiled for hope and joy and sunshine through a thousand ages of gloom and chilling mildew of ignorance and darkness. And wherever a gleam of light and truth has pierced the shadows of life's struggles and tragedies, like the tiniest seed or fragile vine, the aspirations of his nature and his longing soul have reached up toward it.
What the ray of light is to the flower seed in the dungeon, religion is to man. Wherever man has crept, like the vine, in the darkness, towards the light it was his religious spiritual nature and aspirations which led him. Truth, which comes from the bosom of the eternal Good, streams down into the darkness and lifts man's soul up into the light by the same law that the flower and the vine seek the sunshine, and all true science and philosophy sustain the religious concept.
Life seems of little value when men of every nation are armed to the teeth to slay each other like madmen, as the best way in which they can show their gratitude to nature for the useless gift of life. But they are not so anxious for war and bloodshed as their preparations would indicate. And the World's Peace Conference at The Hague, and recent arbitration of national questions, mark a new era in the world's history, and indicate a disarmament of the nations in a few decades. The fear of death is useless and absurd. As Flammarion has said, there are only two sides to the question. When we go to sleep at night there is always the possibility that we may never awaken. Yet this thought does not prevent us from falling asleep. In one case, suppose death to end all; it is but an unfinished sleep to last forever. In the other case, should the soul survive the body, we shall reawaken in another world to resume the activities of life. In this case the awakening must be rather delightful, as every form of life and every creature finds its happiness in the exercise of its natural energies and faculties. The deep study of this important question and the disgust at the indifference of men to this great problem of human destiny impelled a great student of science to attempt suicide. Because he saw everywhere people absorbed in their material interests, accumulating wealth, consecrating their lives to Mammon, folly and passion and neglecting their nobler natures, it made him doubt their fitness for an eternal existence, and he determined to know the truth at once by plunging into the invisible unknown.
Prof. Albert H. Walker, in a recent lecture—May, 1903—makes a new distinction in philosophy and religion, when he says: "Two systems of philosophy will divide the attention and adherence of the people of the twentieth century. One is the old system of Epicurus which long preceded the rise of Christianity and which underlies the Declaration of Independence; and the other is the philosophy of Christian science."
His definition of religion and Atheism is something modern and unique. He says: "I define religion as belief in a God who cares; and Atheism as lack of belief in a God who cares. These two definitions, if correct, divide all men into two classes, and, according to this classification, most of the men in the United States are Atheists." He seems to think all men believe in a God, but a majority believe in a God who does not care, and that is Atheism. An Atheist has always been defined as one who believes there is no God; now they may believe in a God who does not care. This is not a very bad distinction and may be the true one in the future. For modern knowledge and culture forbids any thinking man from denying the existence of a God, and this may compel modern Atheism to modify its creed and accept a don't-care God.
He thinks this century may find an answer to the immortality of the soul, and "it may be in the affirmative through actual communication with departed souls; or in the negative by scientific demonstration that the spirit or soul of man is only a name for the electrical and chemical actions and reactions which occur in the body." He also says: "The twentieth century may show whether there is a great master hand that sweeps over the whole of this deep harp of life, or whether men are but pipes through whom the breath of 'Pan doth blow a momentary music.'" Religion has nothing to fear from the future; materialism is vanquished and now Atheism must change its creed.
Canon Farrar says: "Let us think noble thoughts of God and break through the brain-spun meshes of impotent negations. God is not vortices of atoms, or streams of tendencies, or earth fermentations. Heaven is not a vacuous eternity, or a future of ceaseless psalmody."
The Greek had his Elysian Fields, his daffodil meadows where the Eidola, the shadowy images of the dead, moved in a world of shadows; and his islands of the blest, where Achilles and Tydides unlaced the helmet from their flowing hair. The Scandinavian dreamed of his green sylvan paradise hereafter, amid the barren wastes. The Indian saw God in lightning, heard him in the thunder's roar, and viewed beyond the cloud-capped hills his hunters' paradise. And in the perennial hereafter in the all-life-giving sun there are green fields, daffodil meadows, golden light, rainbows that never fade, glorified cities, white-robed innocence, the crown and the palm branch, the throne of serene majesty, the golden harp and the song of rejoicing, and all-abounding happiness, innocent, thrilling, intense and unending.
The rare and radiant physical beauties of heaven we cannot describe, but it is a place where no guilty step enters the gates of pearl, in the city of God; no polluting presence flings shadows on the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. It is the dwelling place of angels and just men made perfect, and spirits of saints in celestial glory. There is no darkness, envy, hatred or slander, no gold mixed with dross. No bleared and blighted crowds, degraded out of the semblance of humanity, crawl, like singed moths, around the flaring house of multiplied temptations. Where boyhood shall not so live as to make its own manhood miserable; where manhood shall not so live as to make old age dishonorable and death ghastly. The apples of Sodom cannot grow on the same soil with the Tree of Life.
In other stars and countless worlds there may be work for us to do. What radiant ministrations, what infinite activities, what never-ending progress, what immeasurable happiness, what living ecstasies of unknown raptures may surround us in the beauty and loveliness of the land of the leal, in the life supernal?
Heaven is not a reward but a continuity, not a change but a development. It means a place of love and goodness where we are one with God and playfellows with the angels. Present science would change God into a struggle of careless forces or a complexity of impersonal laws. Let us reject the Chinese idea; they believe in God, but worship the devil, because they think the devil's rule predominates.
Let us discard the pagan deification of annihilation, and the modern agnostic's plea for suicide, and the Greek poet's pessimistic postulate: "It were best never to have been born, and next best to depart as soon as possible." Let us grieve at the dark shadows flung by theologians athwart God's light upon those who believe that human reason, conscience, and experience, as well as Scripture, are the books of God. Phrases which belong to metaphor, to imagery, to poetry, to emotion should not be formulated into dogmas, or crystallized into creed.
Discard the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors, the asserted infallibility of isolated words. Canon Farrar says: "Erase from our Bible the erroneous disputed renderings of the three words, 'damnation, hell and everlasting.' Not one of these three expressions ought to stand any longer in our English Bible."
He says further: "There has never been a human being yet since time began, however beautiful, gifted, bright with genius, or radiant with fascination, who has sinned with impunity." Evil and punishment, as Plato said, walk this world with their heads tied together, and the rivet that links their iron link is of adamant. It needs no lightning stroke, or divine interposition, no miraculous message to avenge God's violated laws. They avenge themselves. The hell fire of the Bible was a spiritual fire which does not burn the flesh, but purifies the spirit. Not a material fire, but self-kindled fire, an internal fever—in fact, remorse for remembered sins—a figurative representation of a moral process by which restoration shall be effected.
When earthly life vanishes and we see in the visions of the soul an endless life and being in countless worlds of destiny, death has no terrors. The thought of the pale, cold body enwrapt in its winding sheet, coffined and alone in the narrow grave, its last sad dwelling place, with the grass growing above, where the lonely cricket chirps through the silent night, does not disturb the calm and reasoning soul. A few years hence and we shall all cross the dark river to the shadowy unknown shore and learn the mysteries that lie beyond. But where is that wondrous shore, and where will all of the now living inhabitants of earth be a century hence? Not floating in the marvelous belt of atmosphere which surrounds the earth. Nor on a changeful planet like our earth. Not floating in the frigid ether of space, but, if my hypothesis is correct, they will be celestial residents in the self-luminous, all-life-giving sun.
The only rational scientific theory that satisfies my mind is to regard the suns as self-luminous, perfected worlds, the visible abode of deity, and the future home of the soul. This hypothesis accords with every recently established fact in science, nature and revelation. It fits man's hopes and aspirations, his aesthetic nature, his psychic powers and religious concept which have followed him through all the vicissitudes of his history.
The question often arises: As justice reigns in the moral world, as equilibrium reigns in the physical world, and the destiny of the soul is the result of its aptitudes and its aspirations, are only those souls alone that truly live and unfold their faculties and aspire to knowledge and truth destined to a conscious immortality? Many souls pass their lives here in mental sleep, intellectual stupor, and spiritual paralysis. Will they receive the gift of eternal life? Many great scientists think they will not. And all who neglect their mental and moral development seal their own fate and will have no future existence. This is a distressing view held and championed by some of the able minds of modern times. But I do not agree with them, for I believe every soul is a spiritual atom of deity and, however ignorant and depraved, may become wise and good, and enjoy the beatitudes of an immortal existence.
It is a mistake to consider the Bible as the only book of God and its revelations the only revelations of Deity. The natural universe and human reason are also books of God. They are books He has been writing all along through the varied history of man and the universe, from the dawn of creation until now. Man is God's handiwork, His most perfect and finished product, a machine he has been developing and improving through all the ages, a book that He has bound and rebound, and stamped upon it His name and title a million times.
The Bible teaches this when it says, "Ye are His epistles known and read of all men." He has named this book, this living epistle written by His own hands, "The Sons of God," "Children of the Most High," "Heirs of Eternal Life." And man's body, the binding which He has furnished for this book, He has designated "the temple of the living God—the tabernacle of flesh." The Bible is not only a book of religious and ethical teaching, but also a history of the reason, conscience and experience of men for a thousand generations.
The Bible is the revelation of God's mind and will, and so is man, who was "made in His image." The Bible is God's book, but so is the physical universe His book and the revelation of His will. The Scriptures affirm this truth, also, when they say, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge." Thus God has three books instead of one. His first book was the physical universe, His second book was man and human reason, conscience and experience. And then He added the third, the oracles of Divine truth, to instruct His spiritual atom, man, in the essential truths of life, spiritual being and moral perfection. The theologians should remember this, and the scientists should read and study all these books.
Man is a second edition of God epitomized, and in his enlighted spiritual nature he thinks like God, reasons like God, and has the moral conscience, goodness and love that emanate from God. All these books of God should bear the same infallible testimony. The Bible should be in accord with the reason, conscience and experience of man, and both with the constitution and laws of the physical universe. Wherever they seem to differ or contradict each other it is because we do not understand them, for there is perfect unity and harmony in all creation.
Flammarion says: "Science in revealing the plan of the universe will show that the moral universe is based upon the same plan, that both worlds form but one world and that spirit governs matter. The same laws rule everywhere and make the vast universe a unity. All the ages of the past and future are one with the present, and thinking beings will live eternally through successive and progressive transformations. Everything progresses toward supreme perfection. The material world has but an apparent existence, and the reality underlying it is a force imponderable, invisible and intangible." Man is apparently an animal, but he is not; that is the visible side of his nature and is deceptive.
All he beholds is apparent. The reality is something altogether different. The sun seems to revolve around the earth, and the earth seems to stand still. The reverse is true. We dwell upon the surface of a body revolving in space and projected with a velocity seventy-five times greater than the speed of a cannon ball.
We hear a harmony of sweet sounds which charm our senses. The sound does not exist; it is an impression made upon our sense of hearing by vibrations of the atmosphere which themselves emit no sound. Without the auditory nerve and brain there would be no sound. In reality there is only motion in the ether.
The rainbow expands its radiant circle, the rose and lily sparkle in the sunshine; the green fields and golden grain diversify the landscape by their vivid colors. But there are no colors; there is no light; there are only undulations in the air that set the optic nerve vibrating. The sun warms and fertilizes, the fire burns, but there is no heat, only the sensation of heat. Heat, like light, is only the result of motion—invisible, all-potent, supreme. Here is a solid iron joist sustaining tons of enormous weight, yet the joist is composed of molecules which do not touch each other and are in continual motion. What constitutes the solidity of this bar of iron? Not the atoms that compose it; but the cause of its solidity is molecular attraction, the invisible force of magnetic attraction.
The present scientific theories have only been apprehended by the brightest intellects within the last half century, and would have been a conglomeration of absurdities to the wisest men of the world a century ago. So, written revelation had to use the language and symbols understood by the ancients. And it seems that scientific evolution is constantly struggling for new terms to express new ideas and discoveries.
Some scientists believe it impossible for the terrestrial being to attain a complete knowledge of the truth because he has only five senses, and a multitude of the phenomena of nature remains unknown to his mind because he has no means by which to reach them. Just as if we should be unable to see if deprived of the optic nerve, or to hear if deprived of the auditory nerve. Our terrestrial harp may be wanting in many chords which prevent us from catching the perfect harmony and truth of the universe. It is said the smallest magnet can more easily than Newton or Leibnitz discover the magnetic pole, and the swallow has more knowledge of the varieties of latitude than had Columbus or Magellan. But whatever our experience, it is a part of the book of God and nature.
Flammarion says: "No one who is aware of the progress made in the exact sciences of to-day can pretend to be a materialist. The psychic atom, the principle of the human organism would be immortal, like atoms everywhere, if scientists were to admit the fundamental axioms of chemistry. But it would be superior to atoms, and be conscious of its existence. Can the soul partake of the character of electricity? We conceive that it exists as force that survives the dissolution of the body."
I conceive the soul controls electricity, which is the right hand of its power, and the tongue of the spirit, and survives in conscious power "the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." "Whither does the soul go?" asks the same author, and he answers "to other worlds. Yes, living principles of force can transport them from one world to another." I agree with him. I believe they go to other worlds, and the other worlds are perfected sun-worlds. We must not think that the soul belongs to some supernatural world. There is nothing that is not in nature. Nature is unceasing progress. It is only a few thousand years since terrestrial humanity emerged from its chrysalis state of being. Yet certain spirits have attained transcendent power, and humanity has produced a Shakespeare, a Goethe, a Hugo, a Newton, and a Milton. We live in reality among the stars.
We are inhabitants of the skies. Life, light and eternal progress to perfection is the final end and purpose of the universe. Every thinking man feels in his moral and psychic nature that he is linked to justice, truth and Deity.
Maeterlinck, the Danish philosopher, sustains this thought in his latest work when he says: "Though nature appears unjust and nothing authorizes us to declare that a superior power rewards or punishes here or elsewhere, it is none the less certain that an image of that invisible, incorruptible justice we have vainly sought in the sky or the universe reposes in the depths of the moral life of every man. It will not add to or take from our wealth, it will bring no immunity from disease or lightning, it will not prolong one hour the life of the being we cherish; but if we have learned to reflect and to love, it will establish in heart and brain a contentment that shall still be inexhaustible and noble.
"It will confer a dignity of existence, an intelligence, that shall suffice to sustain our life after the loss of our wealth, after the stroke of disease or lightning has fallen, after the loved one has forever quitted our arms."
It is said Jesus was a chosen medium to communicate to the people of the earth the higher sentiment of love which prevails in the sphere of spirit life. His mission was to teach the doctrine of love to humanity, and to afford a striking and never to be forgotten example of its violation.
This same Jesus taught that God's law is written in the hearts of men, and to those who listen to His voice—the still, small voice of the spirit—"He moveth in them to will and to do according to His good pleasure." This shows, as Maeterlinck says, "That the invisible justice that reposes in the moral life of every man" comes from God and His epistle, written on the secret tablets of the human soul.
Goldwin Smith says: "It will be found that Anarchism and Atheism generally went together. But minds of the finer cast have preserved the religious spirit while they have thrown off the shackles of creed. Yet the Positivist feels the need of a religion, and for the worship of God he substitutes the worship of humanity. Humanity is an abstraction, an imperfect abstraction. It cannot hear prayer or respond in any way to adoration. The adherents of Comte's religion, therefore, are few. Tindall and Huxley would console us for the loss of religion by substituting the majesty of law. But the idea of law implies an intelligent, authoritative imponent of some kind. There is no majesty in a sequence.
"The all-embracing philosophy of Herbert Spencer excludes the supernatural and Theism in its ordinary form, and looks upon them as the Unknowable, which he presents as an object of reverence. But unknowableness in itself excites no reverence, even though it be supposed infinite and eternal. Nothing excites our reverence but a person, or at least a moral being." Thus does Goldwin Smith, the great Freethinker of to-day, demolish the Freethinkers of yesterday, the Tindalls, Huxleys and Darwins of Materialism, the Comtes and Voltaires of Atheism, and the Herbert Spencers and Ingersolls of Agnosticism, and contends for the inexorable necessity of a personal deity with intelligent moral or spiritual power. He says the present tendency is "to minimize the supernatural and throw it into the background, bringing the personal character of Christ and his ethical teachings into the foreground," and, "the legemen of reason should consider to how great an extent our civilization has hitherto rested on religion."
Abstract humanitarianism, and scientific naturalism do not constitute a moral standard, nor can scientific postulates be made a basis for moral culture. Only when acted upon by man does nature give response to the increasing purpose of the world, and the supreme test is spiritual. Religious truths are fundamental truths. First, the existence and personality of God; second, His creation and government of the universe; third, man's immortality and freedom of will. These are not contradicted by the solid facts of science nor shattered by "the great eternal iron laws of the universe." On the contrary all harmonize with these great truths.
Emperor William of Germany in his letter to Admiral Holbrun, Feb. 20, 1903, says: "I distinguish between two different kinds of revelation—progressive and, as it were, historical, the other purely religious. It does not admit of a doubt that God reveals Himself continuously in the race of men created by Him. He breathes into man the breath of His life, and follows with fatherly love and interest the development of the human race. In order to lead it forward and develop it, He reveals Himself in this or that great sage, whether priest or king, whether among the heathen, Jews or Christians. Hammurabi was one, so was Moses, Abraham, Homer, Charlemagne, Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kant, and Emperor William the Great. These he sought out and endowed with his grace to accomplish splendid, imperishable results for their people in their intellectual and physical provinces according to His will." Emperor William seems from these statements to be a firm believer in spiritual revelation and personal inspiration.
"The second form of revelation, the more religious," he said, "is that which leads to the manifestation of our Lord. It was introduced with Abraham, slow but forward looking and omniscient, for humanity was lost without it. Now begins the most astonishing activity of God's revelation. Abraham's race and the peoples developing from it, regard faith in one God as their holiest possession, and it follows, hold fast to it with iron-like consistency. It was the direct intervention of God that caused the rejuvenation of His people through centuries, till, the Messiah, heralded by prophets and psalmists, finally appeared, the greatest revelation of God in the world, for He appeared in the Son Himself. Christ is God—God in human form. He redeemed us, and inspires and entices us to follow Him. We feel His fire burning in us. His sympathy strengthens us. His discontent destroys us. But also His intercession saves us. Conscious of victory, building solely upon His word, we go through labor, ridicule sorrow, misery and death, for we have in Him God's revealed word. That is my view of these matters. It is to me self-evident that the Old Testament contains many sections which are of a purely human and historical nature and are not God's revealed word. These are merely historical descriptions of incidents of all kinds which happen in the political, religious, moral and intellectual life of this people."
This letter of Emperor William was in reply to Prof. Delitzsch, who contended that Moses and the Israelites got their laws and religion from the Babylonians. The recent discoveries in Asia Minor seem to refute Delitzsch, especially those at Nippur.
Nippur is situated between the Euphrates and Tigris in Babylonia. It is one of the oldest towns spoken of in the Scriptures. The famous temple, library and school for priests cover an area of thirteen acres, and are pronounced the most far-reaching archeological discoveries of the century. Only about one-twelfth part of the library has been uncovered, out of which over twenty thousand cuneiform tablets and fragments have been obtained belonging to the era three thousand years before Abraham, or nearly six thousand years before our time.
These show strong evidence of civilization and culture. There have been found evidences that freehand drawing, clay-modeling and sculpture were taught. There were found works of reference, scientific treatises, and various technical volumes on astronomical and religious subjects.
These discoveries show the knowledge and culture that existed in the days of Abraham, and are a powerful demonstration of the unshaken truth of Old Testament prophesies.
Prof. Hilprecht, who made these excavations and discoveries, says: "As the attempt has recently been made to trace the pure Monotheism of Israel to Babylonian sources, I am bound to declare this an absolute impossibility, on my basis of fourteen years' researches in Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions. The faith of God's chosen people is: 'Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord,' and this faith could never proceed from the Babylonian mountain of gods—that charnel-house full of corruption and dead men's bones."
The fact is, as far as I am able to judge, every recent discovery of science tends to sustain the essential truths of the Bible, and confirm the religious concept.
Those who think that religion is losing its power should remember that thousands of converts are added to the churches daily, and fifteen church buildings on an average are erected every day in the United States alone. And there are besides thousands of persons, like myself, of a thoughtful, religious nature who are not members of any religious order.
Scientists should omit from their works all spirit of antagonism to religious faith. Such antagonism impairs the usefulness of their works, and is an offence against public morals, public security, and man's aesthetic nature and psychic advancement. Religion has helped to develop the spiritual life of the race, and is the anchor of all good society, good government and exemplary conduct in man.
The religious faith and even superstitions which some scientists rail at with such vehemence was a necessary phase of human history and experience to lift the human race to a higher plane of spiritual power. Science has passed through the same phases of credulity and superstition.
Whiskey, wines, and intoxicants once had their useful phase in arousing the sluggish brains of our half-civilized ancestors to higher realms of thought and perception. So, what now seem the most absurd superstitions once had their usefulness in deterring men from crime and causing them to lead better lives. The dread of physical punishment hereafter, and the fear of a hell and a devil that never existed, had a salutary effect on countless millions of the past which no moral persuasion or scientific arguments could have reached. But all intoxicants with their blighting curse, and all superstitions with their blinding ignorance have had their day of usefulness and should be relegated to the dark tomb of oblivion.
The solemn cathedral, the soft-toned organ, the mellow light from colored windows, the awe and anxious faith, have added soul development and psychic power to human life.
The mother who bowed in prayer, the father who assembled his children around the family altar, have added spiritual power to themselves and their posterity for all generations.
And it is the honest, home-loving, God-fearing and praying mothers and fathers of the past three centuries that have made the Anglo-Saxon race and the civilization of to-day what it is.
The Bible says truly, "to be spiritually minded is life," and to be worldly minded is to lead us back to pagan selfishness, when cruelty was a pastime, and poisoning and assassination were fine arts.
This book of God we call man is bound in imperishable atoms that dissolve into-viewless ether, and are tied together with electric bands as pliable as silk and as invisible as thought, and the spirit they enwrap is as strong and enduring as omnipotence.
The statement is often made to the prejudice of religion that religion has been the cause of most of the wars and cruelties that have desolated the earth since the commencement of human history. This is unjust and misleading. Until the formation of our government, church and state were united among all nations and politics and religion were blended, and a purely religious war was impossible. As to the miracles of the New Testament, if they were all discredited the immaculate teachings of the gospel would remain. The peculiar glory of Christianity is the regeneration it brings to man, putting him under the law of love; and without miracles we would still have vital, uplifting, heaven-inspiring Christianity.
As to the infallibility of science, she has nothing to boast of over religion. Science has been groping her devious way from colossal blunder to blunder, and championing as many absurdities and superstitions through all the ages as ever the religious devotee dreamed or the religious concept propagated. She is still teaching some of the grossest superstitions and incredible absurdities. Science has received nearly every fundamental truth from religion, and is at last steadily developing and proving the true religious concept of the universe, in showing that all visible things are the product of invisible spirit, invisible law and invisible force; that the spiritual and invisible world is the supreme reality; that its Creator and Ruler must be the Father of Spirits, and virtually re-echoes the words of Christ, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." It teaches universal love, helpfulness and equality, which was demonstrated by Christ when He called for water and washed the feet of those who worshiped Him. This was His last object lesson, so little understood in Christian philosophy. But ethical and psychic science have lifted it to be the glory of perfected civilization, and endorsed the exalted truth, "Let him that is greatest among you be the servant of all."
All knowledge and truth are in a sense inspired revelation from God, whether written in nature or the human soul. There is scientific revelation written in physical facts and recognized by the senses; there is God's revelation written in the secret conscience and reasoning power of man, and they naturally sustain and supplement each other and the revealed truths of the Scriptures.
It may be that the first chapter of Genesis was not intended so much as an infallible record of the divine order in the creation of the world as to teach the vastly higher spiritual truth that creation is the work of God, thus leading men to His worship and away from the lower worship of sun, moon and heathen deities.
The mechanical conception as to the mode of inspiration and revelation tends to give way before a larger conception of the process—that God speaks to man through the experience of the events of life. Thus revelation becomes a living process, and all later history may become a commentary on sacred history, renewing and confirming the primal utterance of God to the soul of man.
The reign of law, which was little understood by the ancients, is now universally accepted and endows the human race with new powers. It also gives new conceptions of the "intelligibility of nature," which is but a modern scientific term for religion or the reliance on the will and wisdom of Creative Deity.
Herbert Spencer's "persistency of matter and force" is but another expression of the reign of law. And as law is the result of an intelligent spiritual concept and impulse, the lawmaker of the universe must be a supreme, intelligent, spiritual personality.
And the reasoning, intelligent soul of man, by discovering the immutable laws of nature, which are the unchanging decrees of Deity, has learned the art of controlling the great powers of nature for the use and convenience of man.
But in the ultimate analysis it is God's spirit and will that control the universe, and man's spirit and will which evolve the art of controlling, and masters the great powers of nature.
Therefore, we must look to the powers of the mind to subdue all other powers. This it does by constructive reason and vitalizing faith. By constructive reason it builds bridges, tunnels mountains, operates engines, telegraphs and all the appliances of modern commerce. By vitalizing faith it renews and strengthens body and soul, and seems to work the miracles of God.
Prof. Osler says: "Faith is a most precious commodity. Faith is the great lever of life. Without it man can do nothing, with it all things are possible. Galen says: 'Confidence and hope do more good than physic.' Faith in the gods or the saints cures one, faith in little pills another, hypnotic suggestion a third, and faith in a plain, common doctor a fourth. In all ages the prayer of faith has healed the sick, and the mental attitude of the suppliant seems to be of more consequence than the powers to which the prayer is addressed."
Miracles, says criticism, belong to an age of ignorance. With the dawn of knowledge they diminish. In its meridian light they disappear.
The Jews were eminently addicted to belief in miracles. With them there was satanic miracle as well as divine. They believed in persons being possessed by devils, and all efforts to disentangle them from the demoniac miracles and to resolve them into cures of lunacy by moral influence was vain.
Comte totally discards belief in God, but, feeling the need of a religion, substituted the worship of humanity. Humanity is an abstraction by itself, but combined with the Christianity and the monotheism of the New Testament, it is the perfection of ethics and religion. They who preach the religion of humanity, morality and true socialism will find it more perfectly taught in the New Testament, with nobler incentives and higher inspiration and spirituality, than elsewhere in human history. And it accords more perfectly with the book of truth, written in the reason and conscience of man.
Prof. C. F. Kent of Yale, says: "There is no conflict between science and religion. The Bible does not pretend to teach science, but does speak with authority with regard to questions of morality and religion.
"The pathetic fact is that the fundamental spiritual truths the Bible narratives seek to teach are lost sight of in the contention for historical accuracy, which was entirely secondary with the authors. The prophets used ancient narratives, the same as Jesus used parables, to illustrate spiritual truths."
Dr. Beet, of Wesleyan College, England, denies that either "the endless suffering or the extinction of the wicked is taught in the Scriptures," and says: "Very few Wesleyans now adhere to Wesley's teachings concerning it."
The essential truths of the Bible are just as true without miracles as with them. Christ said a wicked and perverse generation seeketh a sign or miracle.
Truth is inherently true and needs no miracle to confirm it. And the tendency of all ancient writers, as well as those of the Bible, to exaggerate natural phenomena into wonders and miracles cause many to discard the great truths of revelation. I undertook to show how Joshua might have mistaken a luminous aurora borealis for the sun standing still. And I am inclined to think that a mistranslation is responsible for the story of Jonah and the big fish. Somewhere in ancient history I got the idea that the pirate boats in ancient times were called, "the big fish." If so Jonah might have been captured by the pirates after being thrown overboard, and put in the hole or belly of the boat, and after three days, seeing no prospect of a ransom, was thrown onto the land. God may have prepared the pirates and boat for this purpose and a miracle would be unnecessary. The writers of that day would say Jonah was swallowed by "the big fish," meaning the pirates captured him, and centuries afterwards the translators would make a great miracle out of it. Take many of our modern expressions, as, "the ship and sailors went to Davy Jones' locker;" if centuries hence our language should become obsolete, the translators would say, "the ship was in a great storm, and it and the sailors were all saved by running into David Jones' big chest." That would be a literal translation, but would not state the facts. Take another illustration. In the war, "a company was lost in the woods and was gobbled up by the enemy." A future translation would read, "a company of soldiers was lost in the woods and a ferocious turkey gobbled and eat them all up." Either of these would make a greater miracle than Jonah and the whale.
I mention this to show how easy it is to mistranslate an obsolete language, especially an Oriental language, always so full of figures of speech, hyperbole and parables.
There is the wonderful capture of the city of Jericho. When the Israelites, under Joshua, marched round it seven times, and blew seven long blasts on their ramshorns, the walls fell. Now, the spies may have reported to Joshua the weakness of the walls, and, by marching round them seven times, caused the people of the city to crowd onto the walls, and the vibrations of the horns caused them to fall.
We know that the vibrations of thunder or cannon or any loud noise has caused many a house to fall, and would endanger any weak building or wall. I believe that if every miracle in the Bible was disapproved or shown to be a natural event it would not destroy or affect a single important truth it teaches.
While I believe the brave and honest man will refuse happiness at the expense of truth, I must partly agree with Luckey, the historian, who says we owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge; that superstition appeals to our hopes as well as our fears, and often meets and gratifies the inmost longings of our heart. Imagination, which is altogether constructive, contributes more to our happiness than reason, which is mainly critical and destructive. He says: "The rude charm clasped by the savage, the sacred picture protecting the poor man's cottage, can bestow a more real consolation in the darkest hour of human suffering than the grandest theories of philosophy." This was more distinctly true in the early history of the human race, when ignorance and superstitious wonder dominated all minds and all important events were deemed supernatural or miraculous.
Take the superstitious worship of the Virgin Mary; its beneficence to the human race is beyond all human calculation. It helped to elevate and spiritualize woman and lift her offspring and the generations of men to a higher spiritual plane.
Romantic love between the sexes was never known, so history teaches us, until the worship of the Virgin Mary became universal throughout Christendom. No such sentiment existed in Greece or Rome or any pagan country, and none exists now in any pagan or Mohammedan land. There women are still treated as chattels and denied a soul. We should remember that for man all religions were instituted, all books written, all science formulated, all literature ennobled, all progress inspired, and all art made beautiful.
Human reason, the perfection of the universe and the words of revelation all teach—