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"Yes

"Yesterday you wore a cloak: Why not to-day?" terday was cold-to-day is warm." Consistency is more frequently the fool's excuse, the sluggard's plea, or the coward's boast than the watch-word of those who are wise, devoted, and brave.

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Constancy in Error is Constant Folly."

In Religion-which is, more than anything else, a matter of unfolding intuitions, of widening wisdom, and of evolving Spiritual Life-all this is especially pertinent and true.

XXIII. THE RELIABLE CREED AND ITS ESSENTIAL TESTS.

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But how perplexing it all is; and, after all, who can hope ever to arrive at any permanent certainty! To these very natural exclamations answers may be made as follows: First-No creed is of any account that has not a practical side to it; in fact, that is not far more practical than theoretical. So nothing should be accepted, or sought for, except that which will surely elevate and inspire, as well as broaden and brighten one's every-day life. If you are not inspired and elevated, are not growing sweeter and better, suspect your Creed and hasten to correct it. Second-No Creed is of any account which has not an intellectual side to it, and does not grow out of one's first-handed investigations and convictions. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy mind, as well as soul and strength, is the first and great Command." Therefore never repeat a Creed like a parrot, nor accept one without serious questioning, nor continue to accept it without unceasing inspection, and readiness to enlarge or improve. ThirdIn studying Comparative Religion adopt the Platonic test of an otherwise credible Belief;-What the wisest and best men have always and everywhere affirmed, on questions of Theology and of Ethics, is likely to be true. Whatever is common to the fundamental teachings of all the Great Religions may be gathered into a Creed of Mankind and accepted as Truth. This was the method of Jesus and this is Christianity. Fourth-That great and Divine Eclectic who was the founder of Christianity has left two Condensations of Divine

Truth, of which all the rest of the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament are only elaborations-namely, The Beatitudes, and the Two Commandments. These, like all the rest of his Divine Teachings, are Eclectic and (in other phrase) are common to all the Great Religions of the World. So, on the Platonic basis, as well as because they are selfevident to what we may term the Universal Human Mind, they may be accepted as Truth. As such they may constitute a Creed with which all who seek to be pure in heart, and who hunger and thirst for righteousness, may at least start the inspiration and direction of their every-day lives. These Beatitudes and Commandments, however, need a constant study of the whole Christian Bible (of which they are only a summary) for their illumination and enforcement.The Christian Bible expurgated and corrected we mean; for it-(like all other ancient books) is cumbered with much of traditional accumulation and debris, which Higher Criticism is now Providentially commissioned to remove.

The expurgated and corrected Sacred Books of the other Great Religions of the World should also be studied; not only because they so wondrously confirm all the essential teachings of the Christian Bible, but also, because they furnish those varied statements and beautiful illustrations of the Common Truth, which nothing can supply so well as Oriental Piety and Oriental Imagery combined.

XXIV. THE LIVING CREED AND PLEDGE.

The Beatitudes and Two Commandments of Jesus, being accepted as the summary of the Christian Bible, and of all the other Bibles of the world, might (as they are found in the New Testament) be taken as the Common Creed of Mankind. However, greater brevity and simplicity may be an advantage for ordinary concerted, and individual, use.

In a recent volume of notable Sermons entitled The Mind of Christ, a well-known clergyman of Scotland has suggested such a simplified Creed joined to a Pledge of equal spirit and simplicity. Venturing to add two or three clauses to

each, to change a few words, and to give a more Creed-like and Pledge-like form to both, they are here added.

The Life Creed.

I believe in the Fatherhood of God.

I believe in the Teachings of Jesus.

I believe in the Guidance of the Holy Spirit.

I believe in the Clean Heart.

I believe in the Service of Love.

I believe in the Unworldly Life.

The Life Pledge.

I promise to trust God and love Him supremely.
I promise to take my Cross and follow Christ.

I promise to accept the Holy Spirit as my Guide.

I promise to forgive and love my Enemies.

I promise to love my Fellow Men as myself.

I promise to hunger and thirst after Righteousness.

XXV. CHRISTIANITY THE SUPREME RELIGION.

Thus far Christianity is Supreme. Spite of its many, great, and persistent degenerations; spite of the Commercial Spirit-inherited from Judaism,-of Priest-craftcommon to all Religions,-of stupid Conservatism—the "block-head" mystery prevailing everywhere;-spite of all these reversions, and perversions, Christianity has proved itself superior to all the other Religions of the World. This superiority is evident from even the brief study of Comparative Religions that intelligent and unprejudiced scholars and observers have, up to date, been able to make. The comparative study of Sacred Books, of Literature drawn from or growing out of those Books, and of grades of advancing or receding Civilization that may fairly be said to be essentially or inseparably connected with them-this is our field of observation and of judgment. Of the superiority which we claim there have been various notable opportunities for public manifestation during the Christian

Centuries; some of them, we confess, very unfavorably resulting, for Christianity-as, for instance, during all the Mediæval Centuries, when the Scholarship, Morality, and higher Civilization of the world belonged, unquestionably, to Islamism in particular, and to Confucianism, Brahminism, and Parseeism in general. But, spite of these many centuries of decadence the partial renascence of Christianity, known as the Protestant Reformation, and the much more radical and complete one now in progress, together with the thriving scholarship, morality, and civilizing influences of the first three Christian centuries, have so combined to rescue the Divine Religion of Jesus from reversion and decay that, to-day, it stands before the world unquestionably supreme.

XXVI. THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.

Without doubt the most notable manifestation of this superiority that has ever transpired was that known as The World's Parliament of Religions, held in connection with the recent Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Not "three wise men from the Orient" only, but a large assembly of wise men-the wisest, the most saintly, the most noble, the best as we may truthfully call them-out of every civilized nation under heaven, representing every highest or more intelligent form and phase of religion, from every continent and corner of the earth, were there gathered together to witness they knew not what at first! But in the end, as in the providence of God it proved, to witness the transcendent power of Christ's personality, and the supreme glory of his religion, as compared with all the other personalities and religions of the world. Not as on that greatest of historic Epiphanies, the day of Pentecost, when those gathered were representatives only of various tribes, sects, and proselytes of the Jews scattered abroad among all the nations who had "come up to Jerusalem for to worship"-this assembly was composed of representatives from all the great nationalities, and all the ancient as well as most recent religious faiths of the civilized world.

This most remarkable manifestation is not only "most remarkable," but is also bound to have most wide reaching, world illuminating, and history transforming results.

After nineteen centuries of historic illumination, transformation, and evolution, what has the world to say about Christianity? Let us examine and answer this question in the light of the nineteenth century, as focused in the recent "World's Parliament of Religions.'

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At the very beginning we are met by an objection thought by some to be unanswerable; an old objection and yet very new; an objection many times answered, and yet forever pressed upon us not only by Jews, Pagans, and Skeptics, but also by many honest enquirers among those who-in some sense-call themselves Christians. The objection is this: The claim of superiority is a claim that long has been and still is made with equal sincerity and emphasis by the devotees of all the other great religions of the world, Jewish, Persian, Buddhistic, Confucian, and Mohammedan—all say the same thing,-claim the same superiority.

No doubt that all the representatives of the great religions of the world, from the most ancient Hindoo and Parsee faiths to the most recent of the Protestant Christian sects, crossed seas and continents coming up to this World's Parliament of Religions, each with this thought in his heart and this word on his tongue,-My Religion is supreme! In view of this fact there were many of "the most straitest sects" of all these Religions (our own Christian Sects included) who doubted of the benefits, to say nothing of the reverence, of such a World's Parliament of Religions. Others of the most liberal, or what one may better term "free-thinking," Sects concluded that the time had come (and the Parliament of Religions would settle it) when the indefinite article "a" should be substituted for the definite article "the"; so that all the claims would be right and none wrong-My Religion is a Superior, not the Superior Religion. This they thought should be done as a timely compromise, in the interests of universal peace and good will. It is time, they said, that we acknowledge the good

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