BY PROF. S. P. WAIT.
Althoughthe many doctrines built up about the personality of Jesus attribute to him in some peculiar sense the relation of sonship with God, he does not so say of himself, but by every word and work declares a common spiritual fatherhood and human brotherhood. When Nicodemus testified to his superior power, Jesus did not trace its origin to a special interposition of Providence in his birth or life, but he made of general application the law that governed his conception by the emphatic assertion that all men must realize themselves as begotten and born from above before they can understand the forces of the unseen universe within and without. He affirmed the kingdom of God and of heaven to be latent in the life of man, and promised no peace for the soul here or hereafter until its innate capabilities for wisdom, love, and power for good are developed and exercised. His precepts and example would be foolishness and a stumbling-block, his character an unattainable ideal, were it other than the first fruit ripened on the tree of life, the promise of a perfected race.
We only apprehend its vital value, as we can trace in our own experience and that of others, the growth and fruition of that seed-principle of Truth around which the New Testament story has been crystallized. This re-conception of the Christ is, like the first one, essentially of the soul and intrinsically immaculate. It then matters little when or by whom the Gospels and Epistles were originally written; for the book as a whole is lifted forever above the level of legend and myth, on the one hand, and that of a merely historical narrative on the other, because the persons and events mentioned and described represent laws and principles permanent in operation, and reveal faculties whose reality and value we are daily called upon to demonstrate. We can, when we so will it, verify, each in his own subjective consciousness, all that the wondrous story of nineteen centuries ago relates as havingtaken place in the outward objective world of form and phenomena. For unto every “excellent Theophilus,” every lover of the good and true, the gospel of the Christ is, through the conscience, reconveyed, even as delivered by those who from the first have been its messengers.
The faith of Abraham and law of Moses, the line of patriarch, priest, and prophet, that linked the life of Jesus with that of primitive man, we find repictured in the working of those evolutionary forces that constitute each one of us an epitome of the past, a miniature of society. As children of earth we give due credit to each factor in heredity and environment that makes us what we are as we pass through planes of physical, intellectual, and moral development. But a still higher kingdom of consciousness is at hand, which forces us to feel that as brethren of the Son of Man we are also sons of God.
In every wilderness of human life that stands instead of the oncoming paradise, a voice of preparation loudly calls. It is the self-same cry which of old the Baptist first sent forth, and which the Nazarene with emphasis took up. This watchword, Repent ye, repent ye! means, asmetanoiaalways meant,newness and rightness of thought, and consequently a thorough and abiding betterment of motive, character, disposition and habit, in every department and relation of individual and social human life. To effect this transformation from ignorance to knowledge, from selfishness to its opposite, is eternally the mission of that principle of truth personified as Jesus. We recognize its saving power only as it is set up within us as a rule of thought and action. When we pattern after it, we then realize all sin to be just what the Hebrewchattahand the Greekamartiaindicate,i. e., a missing of the mark, a lack of conformity to type, the type being man finished in his creation, harmoniously developed, physically, intellectually, morally, spiritually. And we learn that sins are not forgiven by the setting aside of any law, or the amelioration of the consequences of the violation of law, knowingly, or unknowingly; but by the ordination in the nature of things of those agencies that tend, even though it be through the penalty of pain, to bring us to the knowledge of, and obedience to, every law written in the body and mind of man and governing his environment seen or unseen. Sin is incompletion, immaturity, unwholeness, ignorance, as well as the violationof some understood and accepted moral code. As the green fruit on the tree is forgiven for its unripeness by the baptism of sunlight, moisture, and all other forces needed to mature it, so man forgives and is forgiven by the impartation of strength where weakness is in body or in mind, by the diffusion of science to take the place of superstition, and by every other sure though slow, as we count time, redemptive evolutionary trend. The only sin unpardonable in this æon or the next isnon-receptivityto the spirit that in every age impels to righteousness. So long as man keeps his eyes closed, he cannot be forgiven for being in a state of darkness. But it is an utterly unthinkable as well as unscriptural idea that there be any so perverse as to refuse throughout an endless time, to look upon the glory of a world of light and color, when by opening the windows of the soul they can exchange their trouble and unrest for peace that will not pass away.
As for the babe of Bethlehem there was no other birthplace than a manger, so when the universal Christ is cradled in our souls, its resting place is in the midst of a well-nurtured animalism. The Herod of a ruling selfishness seeks to obliterate the loftier ideal. But while he summons all his strength to prevent the embodiment of the new thought, there are other faculties that perceive the star of promise and follow it as a harbinger of truth.
The years of Jesus’ life of which we have no record, save the one instance of his questioning and answering the wise ones in the temple, represent the time of preparation, discipline, study, culture, contemplation, necessary to fit us to give to others the benefit of our experience and attainment. For no one can lift another to a higher round of the ladder of life than that upon which he stands himself.
The immersion in the Jordan shows a willingness to conform to existing customs, when no principle is sacrificed thereby and a point of contact with the masses can thus be established, so that the truth symbolized by the rite of baptism can be shown forth through the action of those formative, purifying, spiritual forces that sustain to the psychical realm the same relation that water bears to the physical world.
The temptation of Jesus is typical of the time of testing that comes to every one who takes a step in advance of theage in which he lives. The principle of resistance called Satan confronts such an one at the very outset of his mission, and seemingly insuperable obstacles arise as foes to his progress. But he who first meets and masters all inward opposition, through knowledge of the law and allegiance thereto, can conquer every outward phase of hybrid beast and human, whose selfish pride and cruel greed have been well imaged as a devil with cloven foot and fiendish face.
The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of spiritual axioms. It lays before us the law of love for the neighbor, as the very instinct of self-preservation. Not to do for others as we would be done by, is to fail to furnish food, raiment, and shelter for our own souls. Physical and intellectual man gains worldly strength and honor as he takes to himself and retains riches and knowledge regardless of the rights of others. In contradistinction to this, the spiritual man gets treasure and wisdom imperishable, as he serves his fellow men, and freely gives of whatsoever he may have, of which his neighbor stands in need.
The beatitudes, with which the speech begins, such as man never spake before, tell, in a symbolism that is self-evidently true, the way by which alone, real happiness is won. We are blessed or cursed of God, through the working of His laws immutable, according as our relation to those laws is one of knowledge and obedience, or of ignorance and perversity. As, in the Hebrew tongue the words we render, “to curse,” and “to bless,” run back to the same root idea, so in point of fact, the very suffering which, sooner or later, comes to us when we are out of touch with the divine order of love to God and love to man, is the means appointed to bring us to that harmony which all must gain.
The lowest things are often seen to signify the things most high. A parable,paraballo, is that which “throws before” us such concrete imagery as best serves to foreshadow and to fit the mind to understand a certain abstract principle. As we become disciples, “learners” of the Truth, we find it speaks to us only through such emblems as enable us to reason from the things we do already know to those concerning which we wish to be informed. The words of Jesus went forth full-freighted with vitality. They were truly spirit and life, because charged with a virtue that can only come from a soul in submission to the law by his lips enunciated.Hence we see why, in the mystical language with which the Gospel of St. John begins, he is called the Logos, Reason or Word of God, from God and one with God, because he reveals the divine thought concerning man, inherently perfect from the first, but requiring time and space for its outworking. That human individuality may be maintained, man is uplifted only over the fulcrum of his own will. This volitional power is the ray in us of that Creative Energy whose name Jehovah signifies,I will be what I will to be. Thus, then, oneness with God is not sameness with God, nor the absorption of human personality in the Infinite Being. It is simply a state to be reached in our progressive creation where we will come to a knowledge of the laws of life, and will consciously co-operate with those divine decrees governing the origin, nature, and destiny of the soul. To illustrate the possibility of such achievement and exemplify the way of its attainment, was the mission of the Christ. But it has been so much easier to idolatrously worship his person than to embody his principles, that ceremonials and doctrines have been substituted for the life he lived. This is a sufficient reason for the manifestly unsaved condition that the so-called Christian world still exhibits in all manner of bigotry and disease, social unrest and iniquity.
The name Jesus signifies “that which makes whole.” So we find the one who bore it, true to his title, healing the bodies of men and giving to their souls a cure for sorrow. Yet, even he was made to feel that of himself he could do nothing, so keenly was he conscious of the fact that every self-denying sympathetic soul becomes a mediator, through whom the reconstructive forces of the universe make their impress felt upon the race. He speaks of prayer and faith, as mental states to be entered into and maintained, if we wouldbeanddothe best we can. His injunctions in reference to prayer correspond well with the meaning of the Greek verbeuchomaiwhich we render “to pray,” and which signifies to put forth effort rightly,i. e., along the lines of laws understood. He said that true prayer is not the repetition of any words, nor the asking for that which we may think it best that we should have. For the spiritual man knows that his labor for others insures of himself the results that are best. So the discourse of Jesus in this connection defines prayer, in its highest sense, as an inward, not an outward attitude; a state of mental receptivityto the guidance of truth and desire for the good of others, always to be observed, not the mere utterance of terms of petition or praise. He tells us to withdraw into the soul’s most secret place, where God already sits enthroned, and there commune with Him.
Before in spirit and with understanding we can in thought, and word, and deed, articulate Our Father! we must pass back in review through all the cycles that have rolled around, since this old earth of ours first turned in space. We then behold the most attenuate form of matter of which we can conceive, as a condensation of creative energy, yet but a matrix fitted for the reception of a planet seed or soul. We recognize a divine involution as the antecedent and causation of all so-called natural evolution. We see each link in the chain of being, from least to greatest, from the simplest to the most complex; grass, herb, and tree, fish, reptile, bird, and beast, as multiple yet orderly expressions of the immanence and permanence of the fatherhood of God. We view the creation of man as His highest handiwork, in which the seed of human life, bearing latent within it every high attribute and potency possessed by its celestial source, is placed or planted in a prepared material environment. We look back through the ages upon the travail of this our soul, and are satisfied as we see it gradually rising to the mastery and reformation of the physical form and animal soul, in which and with which it has been tabernacled to gain a necessary experience. From savagery to civilization, through planes of physical, intellectual, and moral consciousness we pass, borne upward by the overshadowing power of God to realize the omnipresence of its fatherhood. From this right starting-point there follows of necessity a conception of that vital fraternity of man which makes us members of one body, and which precludes the possibility of the gaining of a lasting good by any individual part thereof without a benefit to all.
Each other portion of the prayer of prayers is seen to have a correspondingly deep significance, when carefully analyzed, although formulated as an object lesson in our spiritual kindergarten, the church. The name of God we hallow, but not as did the ancient Israelites, by refusing even to mention the sacredly incommunicableYahweh. For we have learned that the right name is what expresses the nature of thatwhich is named. So that the only way in which we can reverence the name of God or Christ is by the consecration of our time and talent to the expression of all the God-like, Christ-like qualities with which, as human beings, we are gifted.
What foolishness, if not blasphemy, it would be for us to ask that the will of God should be obeyed in the world about us, when His laws of gravitation and chemical affinity, crystallization and cell-growth, rule supremely in each of earth’s kingdoms. But the constant aspiration of our hearts should be that the elements of earthiness within us, that militate against the expression of our highest ideals, shall hear and heed a juster rule than that of selfishness. For no outward act of legislation can usher in heaven’s kingdom on the earth, in human institutions, until many individuals have by its inward presence been guided and illumined.
For a sufficiency of material food from day to day, we rightly ask by the proper use of each faculty and member God has given us, to compel the earth to yield up its resources for our sustenance, which it would do in ample abundance for all, were it not for the inordinate greed and lust, or the gross lethargy, of that many-phased, still unhumanized beast that man has to conquer in himself. But happy is he who hungers for the manna of law and the bread of truth, whose prayer is a sincere desire to be so fed thereon that there shall be such strength in the muscles of his soul as shall make of him a power for good to all with whom he comes in contact.
As to our enemies, we can no longer cherish feelings of resentment toward anyone, however they may misconstrue our purest motive, or malign our best intent. We see that every one must show, when tested, the exact degree of growth he has attained. Hence, the slander and persecution, the “all manner of evil” falsely arrayed against us, we apprehend as the necessary means to determine our fidelity to the truth to which we have pledged allegiance, and to prove that what is of good cannot come to naught though all the powers of earth and hell be set against it. To forgive,aphiemi, is to cause advancement, to bear away burdens. Thus we see it as an axiom that only as we aid the weak, instruct the ignorant, develop the undeveloped, can we receive in turn what we most need to carry us farther forward on the upward path.
Lead us not into temptation, is what we silently say whenour thought and action show that we have well learned the lessons that were for us in past trial and tribulation, and so order our course that the leading of His laws, by which alone God ever guides, brings to us joy instead of pain. Then, whatsoever may betide, as men count weal or woe, we see the gold pass from the fire freed from its base alloy. Then all the prayer is answered as with the eye of the prophet to whom the future is as now, we see the soul delivered from, born out of evil,poneros, which well represents the six days or epochs of labor, strife, and friction, of gestation in materiality, that precede and prepare the way for the Sabbath day to dawn.
The word “amen” is a Hebrew term for faith, which it defines as a firm prop or support, a foundation that abides. It pictures to us faith, not as emotion or credulity, nor the mere belief in, or acceptance of, some formulated creed; but as that clear assurance of what the present will produce or what the future has in store, which can only come as we perceive how God, by laws immutable, has ruled throughout the past. And faithful prayer is oneness of the will of man with that of God, through knowledge of His laws and glad obedience thereto. Thus, this word, as a symbol, stands for that which is the first and last of all true prayer.
The works of Jesus, like his words, were all of a symbolic character, in that each so-called miracle foreshadowed a result to be realized as a common heritage of men through the age-lasting evolution of the same intelligence that then produced the transient tokens of its presence. In the New Testament there are four words used, in the original Greek, which have been translated as descriptive of miraculous occurrences.
Their basic meaning is as follows: 1,dunamis, power, energy, a faculty or ability to do; 2,ergon, a work, an arrangement in order, with purpose and skill; 3,teras, to turn, to resolve, to excite wonder or fear; 4,semeion, the word most frequently employed, indicates a sign, mark, or token by which a thing is shown, something used to represent something else. Our word “miracle” is often and erroneously used for a phenomenon supposed to have occurred outside the realm of law. Yet, in the strictest sense, the bursting of a blade of grass from out the ground, the conception and birth of any form of life, are as stupendous miracles, marks of creative power, as the mind of man can ever contemplate.
The wise and great in any department of progress have alwaystowered like gods above their fellowmen. The natural product of their lives has been a constant miracle to those about them. In spiritualizing the story of the prodigies performed by Jesus, we would not question the psychic power, transforming virtue of such an one as he, who was fitted to convey a re-creative influence to the world. But we would wish to show how far those phenomenal evidences of power and intelligence transcended the domain of mediumistic wonder-working or spiritistic occultism. This is easily accomplished as we continue to apply the same principle of interpretation that has already shown us that the supposed miraculous conception and birth of the Christ was but a consummation of the plan, and in obedience to the same laws by which the heavens were made, the earth begotten and born, mineral and vegetable kingdoms formed and sustained, animal life brought forth and evolved, and, finally, man progressively created in the image, according to the likeness of his God. Because the same spiritual nature that the typical man so perfectly embodied has been begotten in our souls and is seeking to express itself along the lines he pointed out, the truth, of which his so-called miracles were illustrative and prophetical, is made apparent. His walking on the sea of Galilee, or bidding its tempestuous waves be still, was not so marvelous a proof of power as has been the advancement of the principle he represented upon the seething ocean of humanity, causing the tumultuous tides of lust and passion, sin and ignorance to subside. The literal narrative of the miraculous draught of fishes vouchsafed to the disciples affords but a feeble symbol of the abundant life that has come to men and nations who have cast their nets, put forth their efforts, in obedience to the injunctions of the Law-giver of the New Testament.
The wonder of the marriage-feast is re-performed as Christ attends the wedding of our souls to truth, that union which cannot by man be put asunder. As this takes place the water turns to wine; that within our mental make-up which before was unformed, unstable, in a condition of flux and change, becomes vivified with creative power, and bubbles and sparkles with newness of life and inspiration, refreshing and stimulating the soul with higher emotions and desires, imparting to the very cells and tissues of the body a reconstructive tendency to health.
By the breaking of the bread of life, the hidden manna of the Word, the reality behind appearance, the multitude of faculties is fed and that unseen assembly nourished whose lives are linked with ours at this Lord’s Supper of the soul. Blinded perceptions are restored to sight from day to day, and gifted with a constantly enlarging field of vision in the realm of truth and law. The understanding that was deaf vibrates with joy in response to the call of a salvatory science. The antitypes of palsied arm and crippled foot, which are the lack of power to do and of ability to advance in a higher, mental life, are healed by the transforming touch that makes its impress on the soul when first made conscious, that by its own free will its highest ideals are to become realities. Even those who have been so earth-bound and selfish as to be lifeless, cold, and dead to the knowledge of God and love to the neighbor are commencing to arise in answer to the spirit of the approaching altruistic age. Accompanying this present resurrection, the veil is being rent that for so long has intervened between this life and the next. And although no outward cloud is sundered for a personal Messiah to descend to rule as temporal prince, the denser fogs of a gross materialism are parting fast before the rising glory of that day whose dawn we see afar on the horizon. For the signs are many and are strikingly apparent that those splendid souls, the wisely great ones of the past, the saviors and educators of the race, are to co-operate with us in the formation of that kingdom and republic which their prophetic vision saw and fervent words foretold. Then, as a spiritual reality, will we understand the truth symbolized by the doctrines of the church concerning the resurrection of the dead and communion with the saints, as the first fruits of them that slept appear to us. And what is now prefigured by the phenomena and personations of modern spiritualism, will then become a blessed fact as our missing loved ones labor with us for our and their redemption and the good of all mankind. Had they been permitted, or were they able, to return for any other purpose, the result would be the furtherance of selfishness and materiality. Spiritualism, with its convincing tests of an unseen intelligence, and its crude communications, sustains the same relation to the angelic intercourse which it simulates, that the symbolic conversion, baptism, and bread and wine of the church bearto the organic experiences of a true life. They are all, alike, signs and forms, shadows cast before the substance drawing nigh, the Christ that is to be.
Our present space will not permit us now to even touch upon, much less delineate, the all-important principles symbolized by the recorded martyrdom of Jesus, and the doctrine of atonement. But they, and all the eschatology of the Gospels, and with which the apocalyptic book of riddles is filled, will be readily unravelled as we still farther trace the working of those laws already seen, that are not restricted in their operation by relations of time and space, but govern through the ages the travail of the embodied or disembodied soul. Suffice it then to say that hell and heaven are not the names ofplacesto which the wicked or the good are called upon to go. Sheol, Gehenna, Hades, Tartarus, and the opposite Kingdom of God, are terms expressing symbolically the experiences and conditions of undeveloped and developed souls here as well as hereafter.
BY EDWIN C. PIERCE.
A vastbody of American citizens have a deep concern in the temperance cause, and are bound in conscience to do their utmost to give early success to the movement for the legal suppression of the drinking saloon, which they rightly regard as the fountain of intemperance. Some of them are rich and some of them are poor. Some of them are conservative and some of them of radical tendency as to questions concerning wealth. They belong to the industrious, intelligent, moral, and patriotic reserves of the country. With them in sympathy is the motherhood of America. I think it is only fair to say, and that all social reformers should see, that the radical prohibition constituency—dispersed now in several political parties—is larger than the following commanded by any other single reform idea, and it is distinguished by exceptional persistency. There is also a large and increasing body of American citizens absorbed in what is called the labor question. Some of them are rich and some of them are poor. Some of them are also on the side of prohibition and some of them are hostile or indifferent.
The labor question is the question of social justice, and no question can be higher than that. Stated in other terms, the labor question is the question of how to approximate more nearly to an equal distribution of wealth, not so much of the wealth already amassed by society as of the wealth that is to be produced by labor in the future. Now, while there are very few people who think that entire equality of fortune in this world is either possible or desirable; every free democracy will wish to work towards equality of social condition, looking forward to a glorious time when uninvited poverty shall be outgrown, when manhood shall be of more social weight than wealth.
There is as much high moral sentiment put into the laborquestion to-day, as ever was put into any crusade against any form of oppression or evil.
If, however, only the radicals with fixed convictions and unflagging zeal were counted, neither of these humane causes would have a majority of American voters. Deeply interested in both, I frankly confess that I do not believe either prohibition or labor can win alone. As we study our political history, we find that political issues are not carried except in combination, and as part of the policy of a political party to the cohesion and the power of which many issues and many forces contribute. We are not under the Swiss referendum; we are a representative republic, with two legislative chambers, each constituted in a peculiar way. Our national life is complex. To hold in party association the six millions or more of American men whose support, continued for years, is necessary to carry a great measure, requires the proper connection with the past, and trenchant dealing with the present which is full of imperious demands. Abraham Lincoln was not borne into the presidency in 1860 solely by the strength of the anti-slavery issue, but found necessary support in Pennsylvania from the committal of the Republicans to the protective principle, while in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and the West generally, he was greatly aided by the homestead issue. Several distinct issues have usually been involved in our presidential elections. Exceptions are presented by the victories of sentiment or tendency under the extraordinary leadership of Jefferson in 1800, and in the extraordinary demonstration for General Jackson and Democracy in 1828.
Successful parties in the United States, as in England, have generic rather than specific names. Federalist, Democratic-Republican, Whig, Democratic, and Republican; all represent popular triumphs and administrations of the government. Anti-Masonic, Liberty, American, Free Soil, Greenback, Prohibition, Labor,—these party names represent no partisan victories. In the Cabinet of the first President of the Republic, Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. To each of them Washington submitted the question whether Congress had power to incorporate a bank. Jefferson, believing popular liberty safe only in a strict construction of the Constitution, denied the power to create a bank becauseno such power is expressed, or is strictly necessary to the exercise of any power expressly granted. Hamilton, believing that a liberal construction of the Constitution was essential to the development of America, answered that Congress had the power, that the power was incidental to the national character of the government. He construed the grant of “necessary” powers in these words: “It is a common mode of expression to say that it was necessary for a government or a person to do this or that thing, when nothing more is intended or understood than that interests of the government or person require or may be promoted by the doing of this or that thing. The imagination can be at no loss for exemplifications on the use of the word in this sense. And it is the true one, in which it is to be understood as used in the Constitution.” The Supreme Court, quoting these very words with approval, has adopted Hamilton’s construction. With the writing of those two opinions in the Cabinet of Washington, the enduring lines of party division in America were drawn. There ought to be early recognition of the fact, that in case a new party of the people shall be formed, a party determined upon reform of existing abuses and oppressions, upon the suppression of the liquor traffic as we know it, upon the overthrow of every semblance of plutocracy, upon opening to every child of the American democracy an equality of opportunity as yet unknown, resort must be had to those broad, liberal, and constructive constitutional doctrines which the existing Democratic party steadily opposes, and which the Republican party does not sufficiently apply for the benefit of the masses. It is the duty and opportunity of the prohibitionists to make such a party. A party going to Thomas Jefferson for a baptism of Democratic feeling, and content with no sprinkling, and to the school of Hamilton for its constitutionalism, can supplant the Republicans, and only such a party can meet the case of labor. The woollen manufacturers of Massachusetts have just remonstrated against further reduction of the hours of labor unless the reduction be uniform in all the manufacturing States, and they made the significant suggestion that Congress has power to establish uniform hours of labor. Congress does have that power as a part of the power to regulate commerce. The eight-hour day can only come in this country by act of Congress, and the construction that sustains such an act sustainsnational regulation of the liquor traffic. The general welfare of the Union is involved in each case. American industry is a unit so far as the interests of American homes require the rule of uniformity, and the home life of America is a unit so far as it needs that protection which, in order to be complete, must come from the national authority. I venture to suggest that one thing that has hindered the cementing of the alliance between labor and prohibition, is the tendency of the prohibitionists while recognizing the importance of labor problems to insist that prohibition must come first. The labor men will never go into any party that puts it quite in that way. Is it not sufficient to claim urgency for the prohibition issue, to say that no work should take precedence of prohibition in party performance? I think the time has come when this issue can be taken up by a political party and I recommend a party that shall declare for prohibition with the same emphasis with which the Republican party declared for protection in 1884 and in 1888. I think, however, that the party that carries a bill for national control of the manufacture and traffic in liquors through Congress, to be signed by a President chosen with a knowledge of his prohibition principles, will have to have a good running mate for its prohibition issue. Yet I believe the prohibition plank in the platform of the great progressive party, lineally descending, would be the centre of attraction and of repulsion. I grant that. But the balance will be so kept that multitudes who take, at first at least, a livelier interest in some other measure which also is promoted by party ascendancy, will vote for partisan prohibition because it is the policy of the party of human progress with which they are keeping step.
I refrain from going at length into a discussion of labor issues. Shall prohibitionists come out for State Socialism, shall they pledge themselves to make that economic nationalism which is now only a prophecy and an ideal, a political fact when they came into administration? No political party should do this. But the word socialism is a word of good meaning. It means fraternity, industry upon a Christian basis. In the discussion that impends in this country, concerning the rights and the wrongs of the wage-earners, and concerning the demands for relief, constantly growing louder, of the agricultural producing classes, the question arises inthe mind at the outset, whether our policy, state and national, shall be based upon thelaissez fairedoctrine, the “let alone” principle; or upon the principle of the intervention of public opinion through the agency of government to effect the ends of justice and of aid to the weaker classes whether by regulative laws, or by the assumption by the public (through local, state, or national government, as the nature of the case may require,) of such business or industrial enterprises as are natural monopolies or can be best performed by the people collectively. I say this question arises in the mind at the outset, but after all, it is, I think, not a question requiring much argument in this day of the world; because, although there are some men more busy with their own daily duties than attentive to the world’s progress who are apt, from time to time, to raise this question, appealing in favor of the “let alone” principle, it is really a question already decided. The people both in England and in America have grown quite away fromlaissez fairedoctrine, the tendency is strong and constantly increasing in the direction of increase of governmental intervention to redress the social balance. I believe it is impossible that this tendency should be arrested. I believe it would not be in the interest of humanity to arrest it. There is a vast field for individualism, and in that field it is eminently useful. There is a field also for society, for the State. The needs of the people in this country to-day are such, the thought of the masses is advancing so rapidly in the direction indicated that no political party can long hold power that does not accept the socialistic tendency and prudently experiment in that direction. There is, in point of fact, no other possible direction in which society can move, and it cannot stand still. From the necessity for some intervention in aid of the weaker classes against the operation of the laws of demand and supply, it follows that “no class legislation” is not a good cry for a labor party.
The land question should have a distinct recognition as a true reform issue, and while committal to the policy signified by the term single tax, in its entirety, should be avoided, land speculation and monopoly should be condemned as a monstrous evil, and against that evil should be directed such special taxation of land values as will check and ultimately destroy it, without too rudely disturbing existing values.
Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and of the anthracite coal mines, should be favored.
Gas, electric lights, and street railroads should be municipalized.
Legislation, reducing gradually and prudently the hours of labor, should be given urgency.
National aid to education, unwisely neglected by the Republicans, is strong with labor, and will be stronger the more it is discussed. Prohibitionists should advocate universal suffrage with universal education.
Educational tests for the suffrage offer too easy a repose for the conservatism of wealth, and to advocate them is to touch the wrong note, that of distrust rather than trust in the masses. Stand with Jefferson for Democracy and education, not for education first and the ballot afterwards. Go to the magnificent oration of Wendell Phillips, “The Scholar in a Republic,” for the courage and wisdom to say with that friend of prohibition and labor, that “crime and ignorance have the same right to vote that virtue has…. The right to choose your governor rests on precisely the same foundation as the right to choose your religion.” “Thank God for His method of taking bonds of wealth and culture to share all their blessings with the humblest soul He gives to their keeping.” “Universal suffrage,—God’s church, God’s school, God’s method of gently binding men into commonwealths in order that they may at last melt into brothers.” All attempts to identify prohibition or labor with free trade should be abandoned.
No large extension of our market for manufactures in Spanish America or in other foreign countries is possible, if we are to reduce hours of labor, abolish child labor, call married women from factory to home, and raise wages in America, regardless of the effect upon the cost of production. Labor reform, the socialistic tendency require a rigid adherence to the protective system. But reliance upon the home market will not only make labor legislation possible, but will be economic wisdom as well, for by education, by suppressing the saloon, by shortening hours, by increasing wages, we can indefinitely increase the capacity of our own people to consume. The McKinley tariff will work out its own salvation; for the friends of labor or prohibition to attack it is a fatal mistake. Prohibition, labor reform, andprotection are natural allies, and in the party of the future will be united. Whoever wishes to form a new party for prohibition and for labor, will do well to appropriate rather than discard the historic Republican issues. Let the reformers catch the Republicans bathing and steal their clothes, albeit they already have some garments of their own which are very good. If a Democrat, for the sake of temperance or labor, or any issue, will leave the Democratic party, he has outgrown the constitutional doctrines of that party, and will not cling to its economic theories. If he brings a traditional prejudice in favor of government by the masses rather than by classes, he brings what is needed. When the period of political readjustment, not yet surely begun, is over, the Republican party will have been supplanted by a party inheriting many distinguishing articles of its creed; but the Democratic party will remain as the party of obstruction, claiming descent from Jefferson but not the true representative of the eternal truths with which his name is associated. Around the anti-national idea the ultra-conservatives, the cormorants of society, the panderers to vice, the white-liners of the South will rally. The true Democrats, with a unanimity hitherto unknown, will appreciate the utility of the national idea and will demonstrate that our Constitution was indeed intended “to live and take effect in all successions of ages.” The popular party, at once conservative and radical, will demonstrate by its habitual self-restraint, by its scrupulous regard for justice, by the honorable methods which it shall observe and exact, by its prudence in legislation, that the Democracy in the plentitude of its powers, is most truly conservative of all that vast store of good which the past hands down.
BY WM. H. ARMSTRONG.
Thequestion of closing on Sunday the gates of the World’s Fair is one that not only interests our nation but also the nations of the world.
On September 3, eighty members of the National World’s Fair Commission, and one hundred members of the Board of Lady Managers, listened to the arguments of representatives of the American Sabbath Union for closing the World’s Fair Sundays. The arguments for Sunday closing were presented by Col. Elliott F. Shepard, President of the American Sabbath Union; Rev. Dr. S. F. Scoville, President of Wooster University, Ohio; Rev. T. A. Fenley, Secretary of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association; Gen. O. O. Howard; Col. Alex. F. Bacon; Hon. L. S. Coffin; Rev. F. L. Patton, President of Princeton University; Dr. P. S. Henson of Chicago; and Mrs. T. B. Carse, as the representative of the W. C. T. U.
On reading the addresses and petitions presented by the above named persons, I was surprised to see the diversity of names given to the first day of the week. Some called it “the Sabbath day,” others “Sunday,” while another class termed it “theAmericanSabbath”—none of them having Bible authority for the names given. This inadvertence might be excused if these gentlemen were not poising as moulders of public thought and teachers of Bible truth, while they are endeavoring to palm off Sunday upon the National Columbian Commission as a “holy day,” for which they cannot produce Bible authority.
Nowhere in the Bible can they find any command to keep Sunday as a “holy day,” neither can they there find where the Jewish Sabbath was ever changed to the first day of the week—Sunday. This change was made by Constantine’s edict, in 321a.d., which was the first law either ecclesiastical or civil by which the sabbatical observance of Sunday was known to have been ordained. Does anyone claim thatConstantine was inspired? The sabbatical observance of Sunday, as prescribed by Constantine, or of “the American Sabbath,” as prescribed by statutory law, is yielding obedience to the commandments of man and not of God, and all their advocates are confronted with the Scripture: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matt. xv. 9.
As Dr. Francis L. Patton, of Princeton University, was the only speaker who attempted to speak on the Biblical aspect of the Sunday question, I shall direct my remarks to him. The doctor is quoted as saying: “The Ten Commandments represent the high water mark of morality. The Jew had contributed the greatest feature of the civilization of the nineteenth century. The Sabbath had become the inheritance of every civilized nation. God had issued His command as to the observance of the Sabbath, and that command was imperative.” These words would be more appropriate coming from a Pharisee, but when spoken by a Gentile claiming to be a minister of the New Testament, 2 Cor. iii. 6, they come with bad grace, and are not in harmony with the Scriptures.
The Ten Commandments made on Sinai were delivered to the Jews alone and never were intended for the Gentiles, for Paul said: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” Rom. ii. 14. An appeal to the law itself shows that it was always and only addressed to the house of Israel, “to you and your children, to your man servants, and maid servants, and to thy stranger that is within thy gates.” It cannot be proven that God ever commanded a Gentile to keep the Sabbath. “The Ten Commandments,” says Luther, “do not apply to us Gentiles and Christians, but only to the Jews.” “A law,” says Grotius, “obliges only those to whom it is given, and to whom the Mosaic law is given, itself declares: ‘hear, O Israel.’”
When the Gentiles first began to accept Jesus Christ, we read in Acts xv. that the Apostles, elders, and brethren at Jerusalem wrote them letters as follows: “Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law; towhom we gave no such commandment…. For it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if you keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.” Here is freedom for the Gentiles from the Ten Commandments and especially the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, the most valued of the ten.
Romans ii. 14 plainly shows “the Gentiles had not the law,” and this constituted a mark of distinction between Jew and Gentile. But had the law been also given to the Gentiles, the Jewish nation would not have been fenced off from the rest of the world by it. The very fact that they were a separate people under the law proves that their code was not a universal law. Paul said: “For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.” Gal. v. 3. This is clear, only the circumcised Jew and proselyte was under the law.
In favor of the Mosaic law, many advocates say that all municipal governments are based upon it; but this only proves that it is not of the Kingdom of Christ, because his kingdom is not of this world. Christ’s law is the “ministration of Spirit” “the law of the spirit of life written in the heart.” The Sinai law was the “ministration of death” written on stone. Moses’ law only gave the knowledge of sin, Christ’s law gives a far more exquisite knowledge of sin, and contains the remedy for its removal.
We find, in Matt, xxviii. 18-20, and Mark xvi. 15-20, the final universal commission of Christ, his imperative orders to all teachers and preachers in the Kingdom of God. Everything else is excluded but Christ’s Gospel, andhis commands. They stand out against every form of sin, and they only are to be preached to sinners as a means of conviction and salvation, and to believers as their present rule of life; and to show that he is not subjected to, nor in need of any former code, he announces the fact that “All power is given me in heaven and earth.” Here Christ sets up his supreme authority, removes all temporary systems, and demands subjection tohis own gospel and commandments.
It would have been more appropriate for the members of the American Sabbath Union, in their petitions to theNational Columbian Commission, to subscribe themselves “many Israelites,” for they preach the law of commandments more than the Spirit of the Lord, which is life and liberty. Paul describes them, viz.: “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament: which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day when Moses is read, the vail is upon their hearts. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.” 2 Cor. iii. 14-16.
Doctor Patton is credited with saying: “If the nation and fair should yield obedience to the fourth commandment they would be in a fair way to the other nine.” I wish, while the doctor was speaking, that the Apostle Paul could have stepped in and delivered several of his old sermons such as he delivered to the Galatians who, as Christians, were trying to keep the law of Moses. I select a few of his observations, viz.: “Man is not justified by the works of the law. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but after faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law.” Gal. ii. 16; iii. 10, 11, 12, 24, 25; v. 4, 14, 18.
Paul also tells those “foolish Galatians”: “But now, after ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” Gal. iv. 9-11. I can see how Paul would be also afraid of these Sunday agitators, as they spend much of their time in the observance-worship of days, months, times, and years.
Under the old covenant God’s laws were written on tables of stone, while under the new covenant we receive the promise, viz.: “This is the covenant I will make with themafter those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them.” Heb. x. 16.
All who consider “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy” applies to them, should keep the day in the exact manner prescribed for the Israelites. There are seventy-seven positive commands from God to the children of Israel regarding the keeping of the Sabbath day holy to Him. Now, I ask what Bible authority has Doctor Patton, or any of the Sabbath day advocates for ignoring or abridging any of these seventy-seven commands? To obeythe law, no wood or water must be borne; no fire built; no victuals cooked; no domestic animals must be worked, even to drive to the house of worship. To do any of these were a violation of the fourth commandment. Is there a member of the American Sabbath Union who keeps the law for which they are clamoring? These agitators rush to Chicago, with petitions signed by hundreds of thousands, and say: “If the fair is opened Sunday it will force tens of thousands of employees to work Sunday,” while their petitioners are forcing hundreds of thousands of their employees to do even extra work in getting up their best dinners for the clergy and visiting brethren on Sunday; this they do though the fourth commandment says: “Thou shalt have no work done,” “that thy man servant and thy maid servant-may rest as well as thou.” Deut. v. 12-14.
No one can deny the necessity and benefit of man resting one day in seven; but when any set of men attempt to make our legal rest day “a holy day,” and prescribe certain modes and forms of rest by demanding that the nation discard their newspapers, conveniences, and amusements—which are means of rest to the majority—because they call them sins if enjoyed on Sunday, it is in order for us to “speak out” and ask these reformers to produce their authority.
No man has the right of dictating to another how he shall rest. What is rest for one man would be an unpleasant strain upon another; to illustrate: The church people, mostly the wealthy class who are not bound with labor’s chains, can do as they please, enjoy all the amusements—the ball, theatre, lecture, concert, card-party, etc.,—throughout the week, so when Sunday comes it is a rest for them to ride to church, glide up the aisles, listen to the deep, solemn sounding tonesof the organ, glance around at the rich toilets, hear a pleasing short lecture, greet friends, and return home for anicedinner. The poor laboring man who has none of these things would feel out of place among all that culture, wealth, and luxury, so he must seek other diversions.
The members of the American Sabbath Union remind one of the Scribes and Pharisees, who brought unto Jesus a woman taken in adultery and said unto him: “Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou?” Jesus, totally disregarding Mosaic law, said unto them: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” So we can apply these words of Jesus to “the Sunday agitators”—as law breakers—and say unto them, he that is not breaking any of Moses’ laws among you, let him first cast a stone at the managers of the World’s Fair.
When Jesus came bringing the light of the new covenant, he showed how unimportant was this question, for we cannot find in the New Testament where he ever recommended anyone to keep the Sabbath day holy. On the contrary, he and his disciples were accused of breaking the Sabbath by the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees.
“The poor we have always with us,” and to alleviate as much as possible the misery of the less fortunate is one of the noblest missions of life. From dark, dust-begrimed habitations of a hot city comes a cry whose burden is “Fresh Air.” So throw wide open the gates of the World’s Fair on Sundays, that the wage worker may find rest and enjoyment; for the rich can rest when they please—the poor must take recreation when they can. Sectism is blinding humanity and turning them from the old pathway to Jesus, the Son of God, who came to save man from his sins. This “one day worship” is not enough, for God claims our services each and every day, as every day is given us by Him. God certainly must be jealous of nations to-day serving Satan six days in the week and then worshipping Sunday (Constantine’s law) or Saturday (Moses’ law) instead of Him. For their Sunday worship is mostly vain show and pomp, fashioned as a crowd bedecked for a theatrical performance, all of which is forbidden in the Bible (1 Tim. ii. 9-11), which they profess to follow.
BY E. A. ROSS.
Itneeds no very long stay in Europe to detect a strange drooping of spirit. The rank corn and cotton optimism of the West quickly feels the deep sadness that lurks behind French balls, Prussian parades, and Italian festivals. Europe, when once you pry beneath its surface and find what its people are thinking and feeling, seems cankered and honeycombed with pessimism. You need go but a little way beyond the table d’hote and the guide book to feel the chill of despondency. Without taking into account this new mood, it is vain to try to understand the latest in art, music, fiction, poetry, thought, politics. The one word “despair” is the key that opens up the meaning of Ibsen’s dramas, and Tolstoi’s ethics, of Zola’s novels, and Carmen Sylva’s poems, of Bourget’s romances, and Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal. It is the spiritual bond that connects Wagner’s operas with Turgenieff’s novels, Amiel’s journal with Marie Bashkirtseff’s diary. Naturalism in fiction, “decadence” in poetry, realism in art, tragedy in music, scepticism in religion, cynicism in politics, and pessimism in philosophy, all spring from the same root. They are the means by which the age records its feelings of disillusionment.
The broad basis of the sadness of Europe to-day is keen political disappointment. Forty years ago everybody hailed the policy of free trade, peace, and international exhibitions as ushering in the era