Christ and our country

Front matter

aass_j:.i.?_l^

Book > '■

15^1

Preface

Two books which have been generally read and almost universally commended have lately made their appearance in America: "Our Country," by Dr. Josiah Strong; and "Modern Cities," by Samuel Lane Loomis. We are willing to admit that there is much truth in both, yet at the same time we expect to show that the tendency of both is damaging to any hopeful view of Christianity.

Hurtful qualities have already made their appearance, and more of such qualities may come to the surface in the future. I met one of the most eminent and eloquent divines in the South not long since, and found his mind so saturated with the pessimistic influences of "Our Country'* that he had no hope, or at least very little, in his work. He was doubtful, gloomy, despondent.

A few months ago a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church made, before the Evangelical Alliance in Washington City, an address in which the same pessimistic spirit prevailed. The entire address was but a reiteration of the thought and methods predom' inating in " Our Country,"

The first Sunday in April, 1888, marked a peculiar fact in the history of the pulpit in New York City. If the reports from these pulpits are to be trusted, only two out of the hundreds gave any thing like a hopeful view of Christianity . It was so marked that even the secular press took notice of it.

As a general thing the Southern people are sanguine and hopeful, yet in our own periodicals for the past few months we get glimpses of this same influence. The spirit of Schopenhauer seems to have supplanted the si)irit of St. Paul; and men, to the extent of their capacity (which is sometimes large, but oftener small), are

6 Preface.

followers of a disappointed philosopher, rather than the disciples of a hopeful apostle.

It is to counteract this influence and renew hope that any justification can be given for publishing the following pages. We ought to study facts, and to know something of their meaning and bearing on the Christianity of to-day; but \\;Jien we seek to measure the influence of that Christianity by such facts, and to understand its present condition and power from them, our field must be broad enough and our vision clear enough to gain a rational and hopeful view of it. This has not been done by late writers, who may be very fairly represented on one side by Dr. Strong and on the other by Colonel Ingersoll. Kecent facts have been intensified by differentiating them from other facts. The past has been ignored so as to preclude the possibility of a clear apprehension of the truth. Even in late events certain facts are not duly weighed, while others are given an undue importance. We need a hopeful view in the present condition of things. This we have tried to present. J. B. Robins.

Elberton, Ga., February 1, 1889.

Conclusion 135

CHRIST AND OUR COUNTRY.

Chapter I

DR. STRONG begins his book by calling attention to an impending crisis, found in " the doS' ing years of the nineteenth century second in importance to that only which must always remain first — viz., the birth of Christ." I begin this by saying that there is in reality no such thing as an historical crisis. It is the habit of our minds to select certain striking events, and arrange about these our knowledge of the world. Our thoughts naturally collect themselves about such events. These are like high mountain-peaks, which give name and character to subordinate ranges. For convenience and mental discipline these imaginary crises accomplish a good purpose. They give us order in our thinking. But a man makes a fatal mistake who undertakes to explain the flow of events and to understand great historical movements by the crises he imagines exist. Dr. Strong and others made this mistake at the outset.

An apt illustration of the principle is found in the unfolding mind of a child. It is a common experience among school-children to fix certain words, pictures, lessons in their minds, all through their text-books. These serve as points around which their knowledge of the books arranges itself, and by which it is remembered. It is the free and practical working of the power of association of ideas. The historical child-mind does the same thing and accomplishes the same end by its crises. The striking events remembered help to recall those of less supposed importance. It would not do for a pupil to explain his text-book by some particular word, picture, or lesson. Neither will it do for a student of history to explain a great movement by the crises around which his knowledge is gathered.

There is a continuity in the text-book by which every lesson is properly connected with and related to every other lesson. So that he who would rightly understand the book must bring out every lesson. The crises of the book are submerged in the general flow of information. There is a continuity in historical events, and he who would properly appreciate and understand its movement must eliminate the notion of crises altogether, and study each age as the outcome and further unfolding of forces and principles present and at work in the age preceding. In this way we may understand that from the beginning of time until the present there have been continuity and an unfolding of purpose in all events which are interdependent and correlated. The evolution has been equal to the involution. No one event can be singled out as of more importance than any other event. All are important alike, because all are correlated. This is a principle that touches not only every fact connected with the present order of things, but also one which touches all events of all times. This general principle is contradicted by Dr. Strong in the very beginning of his book. "We now consider specific cases in proof of this general principle.

Dr. Strong instances but one crisis to which his own is subordinate, and that is "the birth of Christ." If St. Paul is to be trusted, even this most important of single events is not a crisis. He says that "when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son." There was a previous preparation, a coming up to the fullness of time. The birth of the Lord Jesus Christ was but a further unfolding of forces at work in the former times. It was a rising higher than previous events, and also a rising out of them. A race had been purged of unholy characters, and a people chosen for an ancestry. Even the "birth of Christ" falls into harmony with a great historical movement which reaches from the dawning of civilization to our present time, and which will continue its movement until the close of the final day.

For the sake of clearness we advance one step farther. St. Paul employs his broadest statement on this question in his letter to the Church at Colosse. He calls Christ a "mystery" and his birth a full disclosure of the previously-hidden truth: "Even the mystery which *hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints." It was the coming to fullness of an event which was possible in the very nature of things. This event itself was the precursor to other greater events. It was needful for him "to go away" as a» preparation for the coming of the Spirit. And so the movement will go on until "the tabernacle of God is w^th men," and the divine idea of creation is worked out to the end.

We may find the same principle illustrated in the Reformation, Luther did not make the Reformation. Previous events made a reformation possible, and Luther was the outcome of the spirit of hi^ age. It was not a crisis, but hidden forces becoming visible in their products. Prior to this time the Refformation was an inner force, a hidden fact, a mere possibility. Its causes are to be found in the deep recesses of unfolding life.

The French Revolution finds its true explanation in all the events preceding it. An orthodox and arrogant Church, fearless advocates of human liberty, scientific investigations, and ignorant rulers — all had much to do in producing a revolution. It was the concrete expression of forces that are as deep and as old as human nature. The Kevolution was itself, with all its gathered forces, a preparation for still other events. It was the onward movement of humanity toward the full realization of its liberty.

We may here conclude that the mind of breadth and grasp enough to study the world does not look at it in spots or judge of it by crises. We might as well expect to be proficient opticians by gaining a knowledge of thef sun-spots, without any reference whatever to its radiating beams. The sun is known by its heat, its magnitude, its attractions, etc., and not by its spots or its eclipses. The history of the world must be studied as one movement, and its events are to be connected with a great world-purpose as their ground and explanation.

Another objectionable feature connected with the work of recent thinkers is their method of singling out striking events. They take too narrow a view as to time. They forget, it seems, that apparent defeat, or even actual defeat, may be the best reason upon which to predicate future triumph. To have judged the South by what it was in 1865 would have driven any one to the conclusion that the South was ruined. After a few years that judgment would have been considerably modified. Now, after the lapse of twenty-three years, a man would be forced to change his judgment entirely. The South is not ruined; but what was thought to be its destruction has resulted in the most marvelous growth and the most wonderful prosperity. In the want and poverty of the South in 1865 was given the basis of manly effort that has made her great. The South wears' her laurels of victory in 1889. To limit our view in time we see may be to destroy it altogether. The full measurement of events depends for its correctness upon a wise patience.

Here we may ask: If the disastrous results predicted by Dr. Strong should come to pass about the close of this century, is Dr. Strong or any one else prepared to say that such results will not be for the best, and that they will prove to be so in the time to come? Has he or any one else weighed and measured the events and forces that are at work on these closing years of this century? To look simply at such a culmination as he thinks is impending our times — and this is wholly imaginary — is to limit our view too much. There is more in it than disaster, even if it comes. There is final success in it. The world is built that way.

Christianity, judged by the events connected with the death of our Lord, would have been regarded a failure. His truest disciples ' so regarded it. And yet the loss of his life was the beginning of his triumph, and that triumph has increased down to our own time, and will continue until his words have proved true: "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." A man or an institution, no matter how great when living, is greater when dead, and such life is incorporated in other men and institutions. The Christianity of the future may build its temple from the ruins of present Churches and creeds, and be the better for their overthrow. I would much prefer this view as the final outcome of present events than to think only of the downfall of American Churches. This last can only carry with it, to all who take such a view, the downfall of hope.

At this point it seems necessary for me to say that all temporal things have their growth and decay, have their rise and fall. The body of a man, his governments and institutions, all have their critical periods, their backward turnings. Here is the ground upon which many are led into mistakes. We have only to remember that we are not dealing with temporal things when we speak of the historical movement of the world. These events are its products, its fruits, and nothing more. No man can think of a crisis in the being or thought of God. It is impossible. The inner and mightiest movement of this world is the underlying purpose of God. It partakes of the nature of the Absolute, and hence can know no crisis. All events are bending toward this great purpose, and are giving ns an unfolding design which shows its handiwork to be divine. The man who so studies it as to see this -great purpose will have hope in his work, and gladness as the reward of his toil.

CHAPTER II. Our Country— Its Resources and Possibilities

DR. STRONG gives us a broad survey of our territory, a clear statement of our resources and possibilities, a good argument in favor of Western supremacy, and what would be, under more favorable considerations, a very hopeful prospect of our country generally. For this he deserves the thanks of every American citizen. One would be obliged to think well of his country if his judgment was made up exclusively from the facts contained in these chapters. The immense areas of unoccupied land and the large territories sparsely settled are very gratifying facts to those who may be inclined to take a hopeful view of things. Much of our country has been filled with a good population, and many of our possibilities have become actualities in the last one hundred and fifty years. The South and West are rapidly filling up by immigrants from more thickly-populated States and countries. Here, as nowhere else, the resources are undergoing development. In the course of a few years we will have abundant harvests from fields now untilled, millions of dollars from mines now unopened, and thousands of laborers employed in manufactures that are hardly dreamed of to-day. All this 2 (17)

and more will doubtless be true. This is a wonderful country in its actualities, and much more wonderful in its possibilities. It is to-day, even in its undeveloped condition, the wealthiest country on the globe. What will it be when the great West is inhabited by thrifty and productive citizens, and when all its resources begin to count for something in the world of fact? •

In the Old World nearly all wealth -producing forces have reached a maximum, while here they are all increasing. Not only that, but they seem to ha^e the quality of infinite development. The institutions of Europe, many of them, show age and sometimes decay; while her'e there is life and growth. There monarchies, both absolute and limited, feel the force of advancing powers by which the world is to be set free; while here a great republic thrives. There creeds grow old and dignities made sacred by age are losing their influence; while here the freshness and vigor of new life inspires and exalts a progressive people. There men are still under chafing yokes and have to bear heavy burdens; here they are free to act for themselves and in perfect harmony with their own consciences.

Much may be learned from these worthy people, these nations old in the evolution of their life and civilization. Here many of the problems that vex the American people and that are now before us for

Our Country — Its Resources and Possihilities. 19

judgment have been settled. Those countries have all been new and had their influx of population, their increasing cities, their multiplied industries, their growing manufactories, and their undeveloped resources. Many problems growing out of such conditions have been solved for us by some of these countries in the past thousand years or so. Many laws of social, intellectual, practical, and national life have been discovered, many principles illustrated, and many perils overcome. We see them as they are to-day — the results of struggle, o? battles for existence, of triumphs or defeats in the race for life. All these things can teach us much. It is true we are sailing on an untried sea, but we need the compass and charts of the sailors whose journey has ended. There is nothing wrong in populating our country and in developing its resources.

^ There will be a Western supremacy. This is inevitable. The center of population has continuously moved westward from the beginning of our history. It will not be many years before this center will cross the Mississippi River. Its course will be unchanged until our country is thickly inhabited. This same West will one day control the Congress of the United States so far as its numbers are concerned. This is certain. If it has more wealth, a greater population, and richer resources than the East, it ought to control. This is right.

The character of these immigrants to the West ought to be studied. All countries are contributing to this growing population, but far the greater nuinber are from the more thickly-settled portions of the United States. Our own people are moving westward and finding homes and founding institutions. New cities spring up like magic, but the magic is grounded in the enterprise and industry of the older portions of our country. All the new appliances, conveniences, and comforts of Boston and New York City are transferred to the new towns in the "West. Churches grow up along with the other growths, all of which are the direct products of our civilization. Indeed, it may be truthfully said that the civilization of the East is moving westward with the population. The new West is also a new East.

Only a few years ago Texas was a wilderness. It is now a prosperous, wealthy, well-peopled State. Its schools, its churches, its colleges, its government and morals, will compare favorably with many of our older and more dignified commonwealths. What is true of Texas may and possibly will be true of all other Western States and Territories.

An old man does not enjoy the sports of a boy, and sometimes he so far forgets himself as to think that these sports are really sinful. The same thing is true of older States and nations. They forget the rough, angular, g'^^as^-barbarous manners and customs once

Our Country— Its Resources and Possibilities. 21

characteristic of their own life, and condemn the same things in unmeasured terms in other and newer States and nations. The sports of the boy will help to make him a man some day, and the rongli quasibarbarous life will help to make a nation some day.

Even from this practical and secular point of view every American citizen feels proud of his country. It . has withstood many dangers, and is better prepared for counteracting others to-day than ever before. It has been impregnable to foes without, and demonstrated her power and her glory. There have been family dif&culties, trying and cruel. These have not destroyed her. In all she has shown a magnanimity unparalleled in the history of the world. These have resulted in a real, not an imaginary. Union. Here we might end this chapter were it not for the fact that Dr. Strong has failed to consider our greatest resources — to wit, our intellectual and spiritual resources. It is to these that w^e must look for our greatest improvement.

Heretofore, with but few exceptions, the mental power of our people has been largely exercised in practical affairs. The accumulation of money and the settlement of millions of acres of land have received most consideration of our people. Not much of it has been given to purely literary or philosophical pursuits. Our colleges and universities are pandering to the notion of the practical. As to philosophy we have notliing worthy the name. English thought has dominated the American mind. If England has ever demonstrated any truth clearly, it is that she is incapable of producing a philosophy. In this country men of a speculative turn of mind rarely know where to find a philosophical system, to say nothing of a philosophy. Here and there may be found indications of a truly American philosophy. There is enough on the surface to demonstrate that a rich mine is underneath, and that one day its wealth of thought will be utilized by American thinkers. This will come in as a later development of our national resources. For the present we must gin our cotton, smelt our ores, and build our factories. Another possibility grows out of the fact that our orthodoxy in religion is the orthodoxy of England, and not that of America. Beligious possibilities are slow in their evolution. With but few exceptions England has furnished us our religious thought. Our creeds, our prayer-books, our theology, and our Bible are all English. It is true that Germany now has pre-eminence in critical method; but it is generally Anglicised before it reaches America. I favor an American religion, with its creeds, liturgies, theolgics, and orthodoxies. Every creed, every religious system bears the marks of climate, race, and historical notions. We little dream how much Norse religion we have mixed up with our Christianity, and how

Oar Country— Its Resources and Possibilities. 23

much of the cold, slow, yet stately moving qualities of the Englishman is found in our religious notions and modes of worship.

In this country there has been a considerable breaking away from uncongenial elements in our spiritual environment. At first it showed itself as indifference. This period is about over, and now there is a positive power antagonistic to those time-honored notions; or in other words, Christianity is taking on an American form, in which spiritual freedom plays a wonderful part. There is a preparation for new ideas about old things, old doctrines and principles. There is coming an enlarged hope for the enlarged capacities of the American people.

The notion of human government took on the form of a republic, which is a purely American idea. This stands apart from all other notions of government, and yet contains all others in its grasp. So the Christianity of America is developing a life and taking on a form peculiar to itself. This will contain in its sweep every other form of Christianity. The unoccupied lands, the wealth-producing qualities, the immense expansion of our resources may all be great possibilities in themselves, but to my mind the greatest of all possibilities is found in the possible development of the minds and Christian characters of the American people.

CHAPTER III. Increasing Wealth Not a Danger

aKEAT fortunes and a great increase of foieign immigration furnisli ground for many fears to the minds of those who take either a selfish or superficial view of our country. Let us study closely our increasing wealth and our growing population.

Dr. Gladden has v/ritten a little book, "Applied Christianity," that I could wish had been more widely read and more thoroughly understood by the thinkers of our time. Among the first propositions discussed is this: that wealth is the product of Christianity. He not only gives us a fine argument, but one based upon statistics which show conclusively the truth of his proposition to every inquiring and unprejudiced mind. The world without Christ would be no world at all. Man without Christianity is not only a barbarian, but very nearly a brute. The wealth of the nations is the product of religion, of Christianity. Millions of money and increasing wealth are the natural products of a higher development of man. Christianity proposes not simply the salvation of men in heaven, but also the highest possible development of manhood in this life, and as a natural result the highest possible development of a world life. Its (24)

Increasing Wealth Not a Danger. 25

force is not expended in the freedom of an individual. Its object is not really and truly attained until humanity is free in the same way. So that we have not only the development of individual character, but also the unfolding of a better world character.

One of the notions prominent in any correct definition of Christianity would be that it is a revelation of defects in men. These defects are revealed through conscious wants. The gratification of these wants, the correction of these defects, the completion of a true manhood, and the beautifying and enlarging of a world life constitute a basis upon which rests all our commerce that is normal and profitable. This gives increasing wealth. That there is room for perversion, room for greed, ng one will deny. These things are to be expected.

One of the safeguards connected with the correction of these human defects and the necessary accumulation of wealth lies in the very peril Dr. Strong dreads — to wit, the accumulation of large fortunes by individuals. It is a storing up, a self-preservation of the accumulated money forces, until the selfishness and greed of the world are reduced and better ideas inculcated so that a distribution of such wealth is no longer dangerous. It is stored treasure for future use, as the heat of former ages is stored in immense coal-fields. At the right time it will come forth to bless the race as a servant, and not as a master. Occasionally we get glimpses how this is to be done. Vanderbilt gives a ball which costs him a hundred thousand dollars. This money went to bless many a home and to support many a family that needed it. One of the great treasuries leaked a hun- •dred thousand dollars, and hundreds were blessed in its distribution. The elder Vanderbilt endowed a Southern university with a million dollars, and that million is used to educate, elevate, and bless hundreds of young men. De Lesseps has been a wonderful man in developing the world and unloosing thousands of treasured gold. Every railroad built, every new factory erected fills the mouths of the hungry with bread and gives the laborer something to do. Every enterprise that looks to the gratification of natural wants is the key that unlocks the vaults of individuals and places a part of the accumulated wealth into the pockets of the laborer. This is true with men who make no pretensions to religion. On the side of religion we can^ say that every gift to a charitable institution, every college endowed, and every school equipped is a breaking into individual fortunes. The name of Peter Cooper is immortal because he was a ' faithful steward and rightly administered the money that a progressive Christianity had produced. There is a law of distribution which regulates wisely and. justly the accumulated wealth of a nation.

The millions of money in the United States more

Increasing Wealth Not a Danger, • 27

completely distributed would be a curse and not a blessing. Even an equal distribution of money, which would give each individual something over $800, would result in the overthrow of our civilization. It would prove disastrous. There are profound principles underlying all commerce, all money transactions, every one of which points to the elevation and purification of all men. It should be our purpose to rightly understand . existing facts, and thereby come to a knowledge of the inner life and purposes of a civilization like ours.

The immense wealth looked for by Dr. Strong in the future of our country has no fear - producing qualities to my mind. On the other hand, this is one of the ways by which I determine the final triumph of Christ. This is one of the evidences of his triumph. It is no reflection on Christianity to say that the world is becoming richer and its population greater. Many calculations about the future of such things are extremely ridiculous. There seems to be a forgetf ulness of the fact that there are counterbalancing and opposing forces at play in the progress of things. This will appear as we advance.

CHAPTER IV. Immigration Not a Danger

IT is our purpose to show in this chapter that inimigration is not a peril to our institutions. We will find, I think, that certain great laws are at work in the matter of immigration, just as in many other dangerous things, which will regulate and control it. Many forces are at work and many laws are in operation which a careful study of European life would help us to understand and apply. A few things have to be proven by facts, and not by figures. As people become more numerous and a country more populous there is a reduction in the fertility of the race. Not so many children are born. Families are not so large. This is a fact showing that a law is secretly at work to equalize the population to the conditions under which such race or people is placed. No arithmetical table, no matter how nicely adjusted, could ever be made to demonstrate this law. The numerical equality of sexes is maintained under the operation of another law which only facts can prove. A country may lose vast numbers of males in battle, so that females would constitute a large majority. The natural law of increase would keep this majority large. But this is corrected by a law wdiich begins (28)

Immigration Not a Danger, 29

at once to restore the numerical equality of the sexes. In a few years the nation whose males were in a minority finds its sexes equalized, and then the natural law of increase works as it did before the depletion. As people become crowded the birth-rate decreases, so that things are equalized.

It will not do, therefore, to take the present percentage of increase, and calculate from this rate of increase the possible number of inhabitants a hundred years from now. Four centuries ago the natural increase of the Indians, taken as a basis of calculation, would have filled two such continents as this by the present. The facts are against the figures. The counteracting law here was bringing an inferior race into competition with a very highly-developed one. One has increased, and the other is nearly extinct. So we find that many, pursuing the same idea, calculate that the natural increase of the negro race in America will result in many millions a few decades from now. It is the Indian problem over again. The only additional feature connected with it is due to the self-interest of those who can use the negro. This becomes less every year, and soon it will be the competition of an inferior race with a very strong one, and the extermination of the negro will result in the natural order of things. In all of these cases there are laws at work regulating, eliminating, and equalizing things in the struggles of men for existence.