Next, there is the dream of Allegiance. Some one has well said: "Wouldst thou live a great life? Ally thyself with a great cause." Allegiance is devotion of the whole of ourselves to a leader, a cause. We can no more go through the world without allying ourselves to something than we can go through it and live nowhere. If the object of our allegiance be a high one, if the ideal be a grand one, our lives are in a constant process of development toward that height, that grandeur. Each act of faith becomes an impetus to progress. We are daily enriched by the experience of mere obedience. To obey and follow are acts in the universal process.
If, on the other hand, we ally ourselves to that which is lower than ourselves, by the very act we are dragged down. No one can remain upon even his own level, who is in obedience and devotion to that which is below him. Allegiance to a Higher is one of the trumpet-calls of the world. It has been the rally of all armies, of all legions, of all crusades. The great commander is, by his very position, a grouper of other men, the ruler of their thoughts, their deeds, their dreams. His power to call and to sway is beyond his own ideas of it. How otherwise could it be that out of one century one heart calls to another--out of one age, proceeds the answer to the cry of ages gone?
The lover of music to-day allies himself to Bach, to Haydn, to Mozart, to Wagner, by his appreciation, his sympathy, his understanding of what they have done. He acknowledges their control of his musical self by his efforts to interpret their work to others, and to create new works which shall be inspired by their ideals. Thus he acknowledges their control of his own powers. Such control over the spirit of man is that of the Church over the social body; it stirs the spiritual aspiration of man, it directs his ambition. It fixes upon a standard, the Cross; upon a Hero, the Christ, and reaches unto all the world its arm of power, drawing unto itself the loyalty, the faith, the affection, and the royal service of successive generations of mankind.
The dream of Redemption. It is not technical creeds for which the Church as a whole stands, but for certain vital principles which concern the life of the soul, and its relation to G.o.d and man. Virtue has always been a dream of the heart. But how inaccessible is virtue, with a past of unforgiven sin! The height of our ideal of redemption is conditioned upon the depth of our realization of sin. To the shallow, redemption is an easy-going process, a way of healing the scratches which the world makes. To the deep and serious-minded, redemption involves the regeneration of the race. Only the ransomed can truly work, love, or praise!
There is one sorrow which G.o.d never calls us to--the sorrow of a wasted life. By redemption, the Church reveals not only a saving from rebellion, unbelief, and crime, but redemption from sloth, from indifference, from lack of purpose, and from low aims. Redemption looms up as the great economic force of Time--that which inspires and preserves our powers, directs our energies, creates opportunity, brings to pa.s.s our most high and holy desires, and fills life with satisfying and abiding things.
Beauty, harmony, and affection are the natural laws of the moral world.
There is no despair where there has been no disobedience. _Christus Salvator_ stands out before the world in majesty and power. Virtue is enthroned in a universe which is beneficent.
The dream of Fellowship. The Church is the great social body. We can never live our best life in the world, and stand outside the Church.
There is something vital in personal contact, and in social affiliation.
It strengthens the best and otherwise most complete work. The Christian Church is a body of allies, whose work is the upbuilding of the kingdom of G.o.d. We do not realize how great a bond this is. We have our own church centre, our own denomination, our own local interests. But by and by a great occasion arises--a revival which sweeps the country, a reunion of two long-divided parties, an Ec.u.menical Council, a Chinese persecution--and suddenly there arises before the mind"s eye a glimpse of that Church which girdles the world, whose emissaries are in every country, whose voices speak in every tongue. We perceive that everywhere are
"_Swelling hills and s.p.a.cious plains Besprent from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e with steeple-towers, And spires whose silent finger points to heaven_."
Says Wordsworth also:
"_They dreamt not of a perishable home, Who thus could build_."
Many an ideal state has been thought out, in which fellowship should be the root of social progress. But in what state is the proffered fellowship like that of the communion of saints? Each has his share of work and dreams; each has his endowment of talent and of opportunity; each has his aspirations and supreme hope. The joys of one are the joys of all. The sorrows of one are the sorrows of all. The triumphs of one are the triumphs of all. The World-burden is the task set to be removed.
The World-upbuilding in love, joy, peace, and truth is the final endeavor. This community of interest is the strongest coalition the world has yet known.
There are those who say, I prefer to worship by myself! One might as well say, I prefer to fight in battle by myself! There is a time for personal worship, and there is a time for social worship. Alone, the heart meets G.o.d. Alone, its prayers for individual needs and longings are offered up. Alone, it asks for blessings on the individual life and work. But the personal life is only a fragmentary part of the life universal. Above the ages rings an Over-song of praise. From shrines and cathedrals, from chapels, churches, tents, and caves, there arises, day after day, this incense of united prayer, from a vast and heaven-uplifted throng! Each of us would say, Canopied under world-skies, I, too, would join this chorus of adoring love!
The dream of Permanence. The immortality of the Church is akin to the immortality of the soul. It is a connection which is never severed. When we enter the visible body of the Church on earth, we connect ourselves with the invisible hosts of the Church on high. We enter a company which shall never be disbanded nor dismayed. Something subtle and eternal seems to lay hold of our spirits, and to lift them even to G.o.d"s Throne. For this Time has been, and for this Time now is: to present spotless before Him the innumerable company of the redeemed, the lion-hearted who, armed by faith and shod with fire, in robes of azure and with songs of praise, shall stand before Him even for evermore!
2. The Church is the centre of a great circle of remembrance. One of Constable"s famous paintings represents the Cathedral of Salisbury outlined against a storm-swept sky, with a lovely rainbow arched beyond it. So stands the Church athwart the landscape of our lives. In each community the church is like a living thing! How every stone grows significant and dear! How the lights and shadows of its arches, the dim, faint-tinted windows, the carvings and tracings, the atmosphere and coloring, all sink into the heart, and make a background for memories that never pa.s.s away! Who ever forgets the tones of the old organ, the voice of the choir, the accent, look, and bearing of one"s early pastor, the rustle of the leaves without the window, the rush of the fresh summer air, the soft falling of the rain?
The path to the church is worn by the feet of generations. Thither the aged go up, and thither the laughing, romping children. Weary men and women bear their burdens thither; triumphant souls bring shining faces and uplifted brows; love and dreams cl.u.s.ter round the church, and the life of the soul, silent and hidden, is subtly acted upon by persuasions and convictions that rule the heart amid the fiercest storms and temptations of the world. The church is a sanctuary and shield; it is an emblem of strength and peace. Three angels stand before its altar: Life, Love, Death! Hither is brought the babe for the christening, hither comes the wedding procession, and here are laid, with farewell tears, the quiet dead. Day by day within that church, as one grows to manhood and womanhood, one enters into race-experiences, and feels, however vaguely, that the Holy Spirit abides within them all.
3. The Church affords the best outlet for moral activity. Where shall we put our moral powers? In what work shall they centre? From what point shall they diverge? Scattered action is irresolute; it is the centripetal powers that count.
The Church stands ready to engage, to the full, the moral powers of man.
It can rightly distribute the spiritual vitality of the world. It rouses the moral emotions and affections, and gives scope for contrition, adoration, and thanksgiving,--the Trisagion of the heart.
In the press and stir of life we sometimes forget that the highest emotions of which we are capable are those of joy, praise, and prayer.
Joy is a heavenward uplift of life--deep happiness of spirit. Praise is an appreciation of the greatness and mercy of the Infinite. Worship is the outpouring of the whole nature, an ascription of blessing, glory, honor, and power and majesty to G.o.d. It flows from the religious imagination, and is the supreme offering of the intellectual as well as of the emotional life.
The Church is a body ministrant: it has received the accolade of spiritual service. It stands among the world"s forces, as one of giving, not of gain. It holds within its scope both a teaching and a training power. It is the school of the soul, the illuminator of the meaning and discipline of life. Abelard is said to have attracted thirty thousand students to Paris by his teaching. But the Church to-day calls into its a.s.semblies fully one-third of the millions of the world. They are held by its tenets, guided by its ideals, thrilled by its hopes, and set to its works of charity and mercy. The highest philanthropy is but a scientific renewal and adaptation of work which has had its start, primarily, in the Christian Church. Wealth is its vicegerent, and from the adherents to the Church fall largely the contributions to great philanthropic causes.
Take the work of Missions alone: Has there ever before been a body which attempted to bring the whole world into its fellowship, to make known everywhere its ideals, and to share with all living a spiritual inheritance? "The Evangelization of the World by this Generation" is one of the most sublime thoughts which has come to the race.
4. There is a large amount of ability in the world which the Church needs, but which has not yet been thoroughly enlisted in church service.
Take business energy, executive ability. It is a common saying, that business men are not interested in the Church, and do not work well in it. Why? Because there is not yet in the Church enough of the active and economic spirit to make a business man feel at home in it, or approve of its ways of work.
This weak spot in the Church, which business men mock at, or fret at, exactly reveals the work that is waiting for business men to do.
Business to-day takes intellectual grasp and insight--promptness, energy, enterprise, and common-sense. These qualities are needed at once in the conduct of the Church.
A second cla.s.s greatly needed by the Church is the university-bred. Many college graduates are church-members--some are even active workers. But until lately the universities as a whole have stood rather indifferently apart from the Church. They have somewhat indulgently regarded it as one more historic inst.i.tution for preserving myth and legend. To them the Christ-life has meant little more than the Beowa-myth, the Arthur-saga, the Nibelungen cycle, the Homeric stories, the Thor-and-Odin tales!
Druids, fire-worshippers, moon-dancers, and Christian communicants have been comparatively studied, with a view to understanding the race-progress in rite and religious form.
This spirit is changing. The most remarkable aspect of the intellectual life of to-day is the rise of faith in the universities. Like the incoming of a great tidal wave at sea is the wave of spiritual insight and religious aspiration that is rolling over the colleges of our land.
The whole intellectual structure of the Church is approaching reconstruction--its doctrines, creeds, tenets. This reconstruction cannot possibly be effected by schools of theology alone. At every point the theologian needs a.s.sistance from the man of science. Philosophy, psychology, ethics, history, literature, sociology, language, natural science, and archaeology are all bound up in an old creed and must be looked into, ere a new statement can take form. Their data must be known at first-hand. Hence there is no intellectual specialty which may not be made invaluable to the Church.
Too often religion has been a matter of hearsay or dogma. A bitter conflict has always raged between theology and the latest word of science. The Church cannot afford to be without the scientific thinkers of the race. The time has come when there is everywhere heard the call of Jesus to men of mind.
What work awaits the university man or woman? It is to help free the Church from traditions and superst.i.tions which scholarship cannot uphold. It is to throw fresh vigor and intellectual vitality into the services of the Church. It is to build up a hymnology which shall be n.o.ble and poetic in expression; it is to contribute a great religious literature to the world. It is the work of educated men and women to add their insight, their zeal for truth, their scholarship, their training and ideals to the Christian community: to sweep thought and practice out of ancient ruts, to clarify the spiritual vision of the world, and to present new aspects of truth and new goals of human endeavor! Let Research join hands with Prayer.
A third cla.s.s which the Church needs to-day is that of the working-man.
The hand of the working-man is the hand that has really moulded history.
Working-men lead a brave and self-sacrificing life. From their toil come the necessaries and many of the comforts of the race. The man of labor knows the root-problems of the industrial world. While all his industry and skill, all his courage, heroism, and strong-armed life are so largely alienated from the Church, the Church is deprived of one of the fundamental sources of inspiration and growth. The tree of progress can never grow, except it has labor-roots. It is absolutely essential for the health of the Church that every form of human energy be represented.
Suppose that by some great revival a very large number of working men and women could suddenly be added to the membership of the Church. What would happen? Would there not be at once a return to more simplicity of life? There are two currents at work always in society--emulation and sympathy. Rightly used, each is for the social good. If all cla.s.ses of men and women worked side by side in the Church, many great social differences would become adjusted.
5. It holds sway over the fortunes of the home. Where, outside of the Church, will you find the ideal conception of marriage, and the really united and happy home? The Church makes for domestic happiness, because it goes straight to the roots of life and plants happiness where happiness alone can grow. More and more the Church is lifting the standards of a n.o.ble, proud, pure, and rejoicing married life. Its ideal of human love is sacred, because founded on the deeper love of the soul in G.o.d. The Church is drawing hosts of young people under the shelter of its teaching, and is placing before men and women ideals which cannot fail to make their mark upon the social standards of the times. It stands for purity, for patience, for tenderness, for the love of little children, for united education and endeavor, for mutual hopes and dreams, for large public service.
6. It is the militant force of time. We speak of the Church militant, and of the Church triumphant. For us, to-day, the Church militant.
To-morrow, triumph comes. Armies have been, and armies shall be, but the hosts of this world fight against material foes, and largely for material ends. It is the glory of the Church militant that its conquests are spiritual and its victories are eternal. Its fight is chiefly against the inner, not the outer foe--against sin and wrong-doing, impatience, strife, anger, clamor, meanness, evil-speaking, wrath. It is the foe of tyranny and its heel is upon the head of the oppressor and the avenger. Its banner flies over every country and has been carried through tribulation, through sorrow, through danger, and through death to the remotest parts of the yet-known world. Its troops are legion, marching from the far distances of the past, and extending out to the far confines of the eternal years.
7. It is the ascendant force of the future. Rightly conducted, it will surely absorb the vigor of the world. To stand apart from it is to be out of step with the march of nations. The processional of progress to-day is the processional of the historic influence of the Church. What force has there been in time gone by, which has lived and so greatly grown for nineteen hundred years? Nations have risen, and nations have decayed. States, once prominent, have pa.s.sed into the oblivion of the years. Plato and Pericles, Socrates and Sophocles, Philip and Alexander, the Caesars, the Georges, and the Louis have pa.s.sed away. Their politics have pa.s.sed from our following; their empires are no more. But through these centuries of change, the Church of G.o.d has risen stronger, more powerful year by year; stretching its arm out to the uttermost parts of the earth; levying tribute on the islands of the sea; enlisting all ages and conditions, and looking out over coming generations--not as a waning, but as a growing and ever-increasing power. Think you that such a Church can die? Think you that any spiritual power aloof from this Church can be as efficient as if it were allied with it?
These, you say, are the reasons why one"s allegiance should be given to the Christian Church. Let us now look back over the processional as it marches across the dim years. Saints, martyrs, confessors, evangelists, and singing children have joined its historic train. Is there any other processional in the world"s history which, numbering such millions and millions, began with only one? When the Christ enters the arena of history, He comes as one to lead myriad deep-lived souls! Next, there follow twelve. They, two by two, take up the marching line. Think of their deeds and influence, of their inspiring power! What would have been the record of those obscure fishermen of Galilee and of their simple friends, had they refused to ally themselves with the leader who called for their allegiance and their obedient love?
Next follow the early disciples. Tried by scourging, by stripes, by poverty, by imprisonment, by all manner of danger and trial, they yet remain true. Then follow the prophets, those whose clear vision looks out on things unknown and things unseen. To the prophet is intrusted the ministry of hope and inspiration. Then follow the martyrs who yield life for the cause they profess. In torture at the stake, and on the cross, by fire and by sword, they show forth an unshaken and undying faith.
Then follow matrons and virgins, babes and children, reformers and mediaeval saints with a convoy of angels, singing as they march. These are the Church triumphant, the Church above. But to-day we have among us the Church militant--the long processional of congregations, elders, deacons, members, ministers and missionaries, young people, and workers in every phase of enterprise and reform. These all communicant on earth are the Church militant, whose work is to keep alive the traditions of the past and to march onward to an endless victory and to an unceasing praise. Who, looking upon that processional, filing through the ages of the years of man, would say that there may be a parliament of religions?
A parliament of boasts and pomps, of good precepts and queries, of misuses and half-truths, of superst.i.tions and infinite idolatries, no doubt; but there is but one religion, though it be perverted in many ways and rightly revealed at divers times; and there is but one G.o.d, infinite, true, holy, just, loving, and eternal. Where now are the G.o.ds of Hamath and of Arpad? Where are the G.o.ds of Sepharvaim? Bow thy head, O Buddha! and do thou, O Zoroaster! hang thy head. Isis and Osiris grow dim; Jove nods in heaven; the pipe of Pan is dumb; Thor is silent in the northern Aurora; the tree of Igdrasil waves in midnight; Confucius is pale; Muhammad is dust. Darkness is over the skirts of the G.o.ds of the past--gloom receives them, Erebus holds outstretched arms. But the Lord G.o.d, Jehovah, the Ancient of Days, encanopied in s.p.a.ce and glory, leads onward to the end of years His people in a mighty train, to a rule and kingdom which shall know no end. May thou and I, dear friend-soul, in whatsoever land thou be, may thou and I be numbered in that throng!
IV. THE WORLD-MARCH: OF KINGS
[DIE WACHT AM RHEIN]
_Jesus shall reign where"er the sun Doth his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
People and realms of every tongue Dwell on His love with sweetest song; And infant voices shall proclaim Their early blessings on His Name.
Blessings abound where"er He reigns; The prisoner leaps to lose his chains, The weary find eternal rest, And all the sons of want are blest.
Let every creature rise and bring Peculiar honors to our King; Angels descend with songs again, And earth repeat the loud Amen_.
ISAAC WATTS
The elemental force of some men is appalling. They lift their eyes--thrones tremble; they wave a hand--empires rise or fall. It comes over the heart of many a man at times, Here am I, running my little office, shop, factory, fire-engine, or professional circuit, with no influence that I can see, beyond my borough or my barn-yard. But in the world there are other men, no taller than I, no older than I--men born within a stone"s throw of where I was born--whose hand is on the fate of nations, and whose decrees are universal law!