The Greek gospel; an interpretation of the coming faith

Book Fourth. The Purpose Of Life

I. The Riddle of Existence.

II. The Mission of Humanity.

FOREWORD

In the North American Review for October, 1907, there appeared an essay, written on his death-bed by a distinguished man of high and pure character, seventy-two years of age and dying of a cancer. He told clearly and frankly his opinion of the Christian religion as commonly and popularly apprehended. He entirely repudiated it, declared it incredible that any sane, intelligent man could for one moment believe it, and wrote with such force that, under all the circumstances, his must be regarded as a very significant utterance. It seems never to have occurred to him that Christianity might really be something far different from this conventional system of thought. In rejecting that, he seemed to himself to be rejecting the entire message of the churches; but in the interest of the truth he felt compelled to do it as the result of all his reading and meditation.

Herein there was a singular revelation of his high character. In his persistent devotion to every movement aimed at social progress and the uplifting of the race; in his loyalty to truth; in his kindness, forbearance and regard for the welfare of others; in earnest seeking after truth and steadfast faith in the verdict of his developed consciousness, he disclosed his veryself and it was a Christian self. He had tried to lead a sane and rational life, had been loyal to the very best that he knew and had constantly tried to make the world better because of his presence in it. Although he rejected what he heard called Christianity he revealed in all that he wrote the fact that he had unconsciously lived the true Christian life and was indeed a true type of Christian character. He had, however, never known words to be used in any other than the common and popular sense and as thus interpreted he could not accept them.

Now, as a young man, I faced the same dilemma. As soon as my consciousness developed to a point where it could pass on the subject, I felt that I could not accept the conventional propositions and I have never altered that opinion. In the forty years that have passed, I have constantly meditated about this religious problem as being the great enigma. I have sought the truth without any desire except to get at reahty. To do this, I studied my own consciousness and my own experiences. I sought to discover a profounder meaning in certain words, believing that, if

I could clearly reach the true significance of these key-words, it would lead me towards the explanation of the life by which I was surrounded and part of which I was.

I observed and studied man as he has been and now is, seeking in history and literature the reflected light which might illumine the dark places in my own consciousness. Everything became stimulating, suggestive and interesting. Having willed to know, I found that I had certain feehngs and experiences rising from the things I consciously did. About these I thought, seeking the explanation of the mysterious fact that I could thus will, feel, think and consciously act. I came to accept the conception of an immanent God, and then working along, step by step, relying always on experience and observation, I have reached a solution which at least satisfies me. I have reached a most intimate sense of the constant presence of God as an indwelling force or influence. I am clearly conscious of the presence as power and light of this subtle force, which I call spirit. I do not mean to suggest or imply any trace of what is commonly called mysticism, for I do not move towards the disparagement but towards the exaltation of the human intellect and the human self. I do not discover any ecstatic states, any incommunicable visions, any overwhelming and self -paralyzing conceptions of God. My personality is not extinguished, but is expanded and developed. I do not give up reason but use it more and more, get more and more out of it as a spiritual force that links me with God and makes me all that I am. While I doubtless realize the same essential experiences as the veriest mystic, I give them a different interpretation, — see them as a result for which my life has long been a preparation; as in part an intuition, in the true mystic sense, but as in a greater degree the product of conscious mental life.

God is indeed immediately present through intuition, but this very intuition is essentially intellectual, that is to say, it involves insight, use of developed faculties, and comes as the culmination of many experiences and reflections. All intellectual insight is spiritual, and it leads one to see more and more that is divine in the ordinary life functions, to discover God and the divine presence in much of the life that before had been deemed commonplace. I did not secure any positively new life, but I awoke to the divine significance that had always been in my life while I had been blind to its presence. I awoke to a realizing sense of what had always been surrounding me without recognition from me. I saw how I had been using divine forces and had been under divine influences without knowing it. I merely woke up to the truth which had indeed been impUcit in all my daily life during all the years. In a word, all has become alive and real, so that everything that has any value or interest is spiritual. ReHgion seems, indeed, to be the secret of the highest form of happy and contented living. I am troubled by no doubts or fears, but I am intensely interested in trying to apprehend more clearly and feel more deeply the spiritual forces that environ me, for these seem to be the only realities of life. All that makes life most desirable has come to center around the words, "God," "Spirit," "Christus," and these are all symbolized and connoted by the term "Trinity." In the popular meaning of these words I do not believe and never have believed since I was able to comprehend the matter. If there were no other meanings than those so long common and popular, I should repudiate them just as our essayist did; but instead of stopping at rejection I have labored to construct, and this book is the result of my forty years in the wilderness.

I found that there was a group of words each of which has not only a conventional and popular meaning, but also a rational significance; that these variant meanings constitute two seemingly different interpretations, two antagonistic systems of thought. The rational seems destructive of the common and popular, and it truly is, for no one who has ever clearly apprehended the idea on its rational side can ever again use the conventional idea as formally true or adequate. Yet the two are not essentially antagonistic, for the one is the profound explanation of the truth that underlies the other. Each is referring to the same realities, each derives its practical advantage from the same eternal facts, but the rational interpretation is so superior that no one who has grasped it can ever again rest in the old symbolism and be satisfied with the old mysticism. Therefore, whenever a man comes to really see the rational truth, he is lost as a champion of the old conventional statement of it, and so it is said that his old faith has been destroyed. Now it truly has, and there is no occasion to deny it, but it all means that the old has given way to the new because that new is better. The less effective has yielded to the more effective, the blind faith has been replaced by a clear-eyed faith, superstition has been conquered by reason. It is as if impoverished land had been enriched so as to yield larger and better results. When it occurs it is merely a psychical growth or evolution. He who has not progressed is unable to discern the reasons which have come to the others as a flood of light.

It is, indeed, all a matter of psychical insight. He that hath eyes to see may see, and not otherwise. The higher can understand the lower and sympathize with all its perplexities, but the lower cannot understand the higher and so is utterly unable to sympathize with it. This is the reason why all genuine progress, all true reform and all psychical enlightenment move so very slowly. The men who do see can understand the plight of those who do not see and so are tolerant and sympathetic towards them and their institutions. They even help to support institutions, as venerable and at the time socially useful, with whose tenets they do not and cannot agree. They never ridicule or act against any form of religion or any stage of religious development and, while they decline many dogmas and superstitions, they do so without assailing or denouncing them in a way to give pain to sincere believers in them. They seek to avoid all needless clashing of opinion, all futile collision of feeling. Differ as they must from others, they seek to be peacemakers, avoiding unseasonable allusions and topics which may irritate. Far different is the case with those undeveloped men who do not and cannot see. Unable to understand the psychical movement, they do not at all perceive the spiritual significance of what is going on before them, and so are intolerant, suspicious and inclined to harsh judgments. Gentle and peaceful as are the men who see, they become the object of deep and unreasonable resentment and often are cruelly repressed and persecuted by the men who do not see. Thus the men who have the vision are crucified by those who are blind. This is the tragedy of man, the austere, bitter and mysterious law of his social life. The brave souls of each generation suffer for the salvation of the multitude. While men are corrupted and ruined by the selfish machinations of other men, they are also saved and lifted up to the higher plane of life by the action of their fellows. Thus men find in each other both the Devil and the Christus. *' Perdition and redemption in and through each other is the destiny of man."

Man always has been, is now and ever will be, in a process of psychic evolution. This he cannot avoid or escape, for it is the law under which his race lives. Life is movement, growth, progress, so that the idea of final truth acquired once for all is delusion. There are individuals in all stages of this evolution and this renders the situation at all times extremely complex, since, despite these differences, they all meet as members of one social body.

Living in a world in which all ideas conflicting with popular systems have been persistently kept out of sight, it was many long years before I even came to know that these words had or could have another meaning than that commonly assigned to them. I now see that it is a fact that, side by side, there are two great systems of thought, two ways of looking at the universe, in which the same word symbols may be used because the same essential verities are referred to in each case. Each system may properly be called Christian, the one in a popular sense, the other in an esoteric sense, being variant interpretations resting on essential similarity of belief in certain great truths which are really universal laws. In all popular usage these words must necessarily have their common meaning, but the individual may use them in their higher sense without regard to how many men agree with him.

In the sense in which I have now come to use the term, religion is the single factor that makes this present life at all worth while. The irreligious man simply throws his life away, so that, as far as he is concerned, it would have been as well if he had never been born. Religion is not a graceful adjunct of life, a social decency, something that may be left to await consideration in convenient times of leisure, that may be taken up occasionally in a patronizing way, but, in this high sense, it is life itself, for outside the field of animal existence there is from this point of view no life that is not religious. A being entirely destitute of religion would not properly be classified as a man.

When truly apprehended, Christianity seems to me to be the one great achievement of the entire race. For its imfolding and development, it has taken all history and will take all the future. To understand it requires the perception of all man's history as the record of a development due to the operation of a force that is immanent in himself. This force may be delayed and obstructed, but it is essentially invincible. It is an evolutionary process that links together all centuries and connects together all men as parts of one great psychical movement, the final achievement of which seems to be the one object of all living. Aside from this the world would have existed without aim, purpose or motive. If the incessant activity of man is not finally to create a perfected humanity, then no reason can be given why all that is should not now be blotted out, for all man's activity, outside the mere animal plane, is aimed at this, if it is aimed at anything.

The best of the past is the prophetic disclosure of all future development. What was said in secret shall be proclaimed from the housetop. The ideas of the persecuted minority will in time dominate and uphft the majority. What is impracticable to-day will become practicable in some to-morrow. The vision of the seer to-day will be the vital creed of the statesman to-morrow. But in all this we go back not to the common and popular life of the past, not to the ideas that in those early days were widespread and apprehended by the masses, but back to the ideas of the isolated few, of the serious thinkers, and of the reflecting observers despised and rejected by the multitude. It is back to the frustrated ideals of the race, back to the unrealized aspirations, back to those ideas that failed in their own day and that still await recognition. In this way, all the future is locked up in the past, is tied to that past, and will merely realize the dreams of that past. The so-called reactionaries are in error, for they are seeking to return to the common ideas of the past while the world has moved beyond

18 FOREWOKD.

this and is ever realizing more and more of the hitherto frustrated ideals. To go back to the common life of the past is unwise and is indeed impossible. We only need draw upon the past as if it were a storehouse of ideas and aspirations held mostly by men who played but a small part in the successful activities of that past. They are ideas that seem to have come forth before the world was ripe for them and wait to be utilized by subsequent generations. They have an endless life, for all the future is theirs. So, if we seek to discover what will be the great achievements of the future in the field of the spirit, we must go back to the past and see what have been the ideals of the most gifted men. These despised, neglected and rejected ideals of the past are to be the realized achievements of the future. It is only in this way that we can discern what is to come, for it is the dream or vision of to-day that becomes the fact of to-morrow. In this spirit I have worked for a solution of the great enigma. I have tried to discover the best ideas in the long past of the race, regardless of the number of men who held such ideas, believing that whatever is the best will certainly some day come to its reahzation.

Even the most favored portion of the world is now hardly beyond the stage of psychical adolescence.

The world, indeed, has always been and is now, in many ways, a very terrible place. There have been times when it has seemed like an ill-regulated insane asylum. All is crude and immature and, while there are indications of great possibilities lying ahead, it is only in a very moderate degree that to-day any true psychical living is realized, except by a small fraction of the most favored communities. The length of the historic period needed to reach even this stage may well lead us to realize the many generations that must come and go before the world can reach any stage corresponding to early manhood; but the entire record of the race does, when studied as a whole, justify the opinion that the greater development will some day be reached, whatever chaos and terrible retrogression may meanwhile occur.

Clearly to see all this, to read all that is awful in the records of the past, to reaUze the almost inconceivable cruelty, corruption and fraud that is and has been everywhere present and then, in the face of it all and with a clear consciousness of it all, to stand serene, declaring and believing that there is a psychical force steadily and persistently working out a great purpose which is the evolution of a perfected humanity, — this is the Christian idea in all its simplicity. This is the largest and broadest statement of the Christian faith. The true Christian is not aiming primarily at the selfish purpose of saving his own soul for another sphere of existence; but he is seeking to live so as in some measure to cooperate, now and here, with the cosmic purpose, which is the uplifting of the race. If this faith has any intellectual basis, it is found in the careful study of the whole history of man, and of this study the results seem to me adequate and conclusive.

The world has as a whole steadily moved on an ascending plane. This is an estabhshed fact, for history is the record of one great evolution. Superstition must some day lose its hold, even on the masses, and the rational ideas must finally triumph. Not in our day and not in any time within our ken, but some day it must and will come. There is probably no single mind now existent greater or more remarkable in any way than many minds that gave their message and flashed out their Kght thousands of years ago; there is probably no psychical sensitivity or receptivity anywhere to-day deeper or finer than that always present in every preceding century; but the great world mind is, as a whole, broader and better, the great world consciousness is somewhat deeper, the great world sensitivity is somewhat finer than in any preceding period. The multitude is still, in a very discouraging degree, just what it always has been, but a close study of the past will convince any one that even this has moved, and is ever slowly moving, and the movement is clearly upward. There has been a constant broadening of the common racial mind, a constant deepening of the common racial consciousness. Discouragingly slow as it is, we may feel absolutely certain as to its trend, for it is a faith based on a racial experience covering a hundred generations. There is about it a sort of cosmic slowness, but also a sort of cosmic certainty.

In all the universe, so far as we know, man is the only creature that asks a question or seeks to understand and interpret a fact. He thus stands as the sole interpreter of the universe and in seeking, as such, to understand himself, he is obliged to turn his faculties back upon themselves and try to interpret the interpreter. So far as we know, man alone answers the questions he himself has asked. He cannot avoid this psychical problem or escape from its consideration, for it is a series of questions, all of which are connected and which really form but one great question that in some form or other is always appearing and demanding attention. It may be framed thus: What do you think of yourself; of the race of which you are a member; of the world which is the dwelling-place of your race; of the universe of which that world is a part; of the Power which is behind that universe? To all this man feels that he must find some adequate reply, and under a sort of compulsion he has tried through all the ages to secure an answer that would leave him in peace, freed from the haunting consciousness of failure. All the answers he has found seem to arrange themselves in classes or groups, each of which is dominated by some central thought, as a sort of key-note, to which all the rest of the answer is attuned. In our Western civilization there have been two great streams of ideas, one of which crystallized, as if frozen, into the Latin Theology, while the other is an ever-expanding system running back to Greek sources. Most men find themselves in substantial harmony with the explanation given by the Latin Church and rest content therein, considering the matter as a closed question. The reply they thus accept is, they say, final and conclusive. They rest on the common traditions current in their special environment, ignoring and ostracising all who differ from them.

In a community thus saturated with the Latin ideas and traditions, accepting these as final, this volume will, for most men, be caviar, for it seeks to express the reply to the great enigma given by that type of mind which must ever be considered as having first appeared in Greece and as having for all these centuries derived inspiration from that manifestation of the human spirit which characterized the highest and best life of the Greeks. The Renaissance was the rise of this Greek spirit after nearly a thousand years of oblivion. The Reformation was an active protest and revolt against further submission to the Latin type of mind. All subsequent history describes the march of this spirit towards its ultimate ascendancy.

If we seek to discover exactly what it is that we refer to when we use this term ''Greek spirit," we shall find that essentially it is the spirit of man as it develops under the most favorable social environment. It is an historical fact that the disclosure of what the spirit in man may become under such conditions was first made in Greece. Whenever those conditions have again appeared there has been another manifestation similar to that which characterized the noblest days of Athens. We may therefore designate all this as Greek, using that term as a convenient symbol. It is all due to similarity of environment, for the human spirit under hke conditions develops in essentially the same way always and everywhere.

The most marked feature of that classic environment was a certain intellectual freedom, resulting in complete independence of individual thought, the absence of coercion and artificial restraint upon the natural working of the mind. These conditions did not long endure, but before they passed away there had been such a flaming forth of the higher forces hidden in man's nature that the race knew its possibilities as never before. The inspiration of that marvelous display of human genius has never been lost. In some clearly traceable way, all subsequent manifestations of the same sort have been connected with that classic period through its splendid literature and art, which have been a source of inspiration urging men on in the same path of joyous achievement.

Hence, to put to a man the query, ''Are you a Greek?" would mean: ''Are you an independent thinker, free from the coercive power of traditions and superstitions, looking at life and its problems with the clear, unclouded vision of a free man?" If you are such a thinker, you owe it to your environment, which has given your nature a free and unimpeded development, has fed and stimulated your nascent powers, has called into activity your potential capacity. This environment you owe to your race and to your social connection with it, for you have merely let the social forces play upon you and, reacting on them in a natural and normal way, you have become what you are.

In some degree the Greek thought and spirit secretly survived in all the great historic churches. While it was entirely lost for most men, it was aUve in the minds of a small minority, being a part of the esoteric thought of these churches. This minority was the best developed ^and most favorably environed element, the men of broadest and clearest vision. Some were discovered and punished, being martyrs to the cause. Most of them escaped by silence and by outward conformity, which was in itself a type of martyrdom. Thus it was for ages secret, concealed, hunted and proscribed, and he who held it did so in silence at the risk of his life in a so-called Christian church. The revival of freedom of thought has gradually relaxed this pressure till, to-day, while still esoteric, it is no longer so concealed, but each generation it creeps a little further into the common and popular arena. As freedom of expression increases, it must in time altogether lose its esoteric character. Its undoubted existence in our churches to-day is not openly or formally recognized, or in terms conceded to exist at all, since it is felt that to confess in set phrases the esoteric is to shatter and destroy the exoteric, which it is said would at this time be unwise. The truth will, it is claimed, reach him who earnestly seeks after it, and no other, it is said, is worthy of it or can attain unto it. It is not, however, at all probable that any man will clearly grasp the higher interpretation without at once instinctively realizing the value, at this time, to certain minds of the conventional statements which continue to exist because they really are fitted to such minds. He will feel that the exoteric, traditional and popular doctrine is in some degree a bulwark of the public peace, and he will see to it that the ideas be not ruthlessly destroyed, but wisely conserved. Thus the esoteric will safeguard the exoteric.

The number of men interested in this higher interpretation has always been very small. When we consider how scattered and isolated these thinkers have been, how unpopular and unremunerative their ideas have appeared to be, how bitter the prejudice against them, growing out of the fear by powerful leaders lest the esoteric, weak as it was, should in some way imperil the exoteric, strong as it seemed to be, we are surprised to find that these ideas have had any vitality whatever, that they have not altogether disappeared. The only explanation is, that to those who feel the appeal at all, it comes with an invincible power, an irresistible charm. As social conditions become easier and education is more widely diffused, this class steadily grows and the sense of isolation becomes less marked, making the situation of the reflecting man less painful. He is constantly finding that it costs him less of sacrifice and unpopularity to differ from the conventional thought, and this means in time a full and frank social recognition. If, indeed, these so-called esoteric ideas ever secure a popular hearing, their advance will be rapid and their influence upon life will be very impressive in the way of social regeneration. It involves and means no more nor less than the entire problem of social progress, for that comes in the exact degree that these ideas become prevalent and characteristic of the social group.

That a man has reached this perception is, however, no evidence that he can induce his nearest friend to give it a moment's consideration, for his friend may not be sufficiently interested in the general field of inquiry, and, indeed, may not be psychically developed so as to be able to respond. Or his friend may be so encased in prejudice as persistently to repel every effort to present the matter. Truth is necessarily self-revealing and carries with it when simply and clearly stated its own sanctions and convictions. If any person is seriously repelled by these pages, it is clear that for him they are not valuable and he may disregard them as being for him a dead hypothesis. The mind takes unto itself only that for which it has an affinity. It is not a matter of will but of instant conviction. If a person is ready to hear the statement, if his previous thinking has led up to it or in its direction, then when he meets it he will need no seal of institutional authority upon it, for it will come to him with an authority of its own. Whatever does not come to a man with this force, when by effort he has succeeded in really understanding it, cannot be for that man at that time of any true value. To try to grasp it needs an exercise of the will, but when it is apprehended, the mind works in its own way. It is idle to abuse the ideas of others or to try to force any idea upon a man who is not ready for it. Discussion is only good so far as it serves more perfectly to define and explain what the idea is.