CHAPTER XLI.

The American Church and the Spirit of Human Brotherhood.

[=Division of Labor=]

As the century draws toward its end, and men make careful survey of the work it has wrought in the many and varied fields of human activity, it is natural that each observer should take a special interest in the department which constitutes his specialty. The statesman studies the social and political phenomena and forces of the age. The scientist, the educator, the manufacturer, the financier, the merchant, find in their respective spheres problems to be taken in hand and carefully investigated, that the experience of the past may become wisdom for the future. While this division of labor may tend to develop one-sidedness in the individual, it provides ample material for the true student of history, who, by collecting the data furnished by these various investigators, may make wide and wise generalizations, and thus contribute to a more complete study of human nature and human history. The increase of general interest among special observers and students will ensure in due time co-operation, increased intelligence, and enthusiasm in the promotion of the highest civilization.

As the procession of the years which form the most wonderful century of human history closes its solemn march, those who look on time as deriving its chief worth from its relations to eternity, and who estimate civilization as it bears upon the immortal character of man, will of necessity judge a century by its religious quality and results, asking: What place has religion held, what work has it wrought, what errors have weakened it, what are the tendencies which now dominate it, what are the opportunities which open before it?

[=American Type of Christianity=]

The American type of Christianity is in advance of all other Christian types, since it grows among and permeates political and social ideas and institutions which give it larger and fuller opportunities than it has ever before known, opportunities to develop humanity on all sides and in all relations. The American Church is made up of all individuals, classes, societies, and agencies which bear the Christian name or hold the Christian thought. It is not a "State Church." It is not a "union Church"--constituted by the formal unification of diverse sects or denominations. It embraces all believers (and in a sense all citizens) without visible consolidation; it favors all without legislative interference; it gives freedom to all without partiality or discrimination.

[=Distinguishing Feature of American Life=]

The distinguishing feature of American life--which makes what we call "freedom" mean more and promise more than does the civil, political, and religious freedom of any other land, and which therefore gives a distinctive character to the American Church--is that the liberty of the individual has large and unhampered opportunity for growth and action. Individual liberty here is actual liberty; unhindered by governmental provisions for privileged classes, who, by the accident of birth, leap into place and prerogative without merit of their own, and whose unearned advantage is detrimental to the well-being of the multitude. It is liberty which carries with it opportunity,--the liberty of the lowest in the nation to reach the rank of the highest; of the poorest to become the richest; of the most ignorant to become the most learned; of the most despised to become the most honored; the liberty of every man to know all that he can know, to be all that he can be, and do all that he pleases to do, so long as he does not interfere with the right of any other man to know all that he can know, to be all that he can be, and to do all that he pleases to do. It is the liberty among brothers, who, with all the prerogatives of individuality, need not forget the brotherhood of man, and who have every inducement not merely to guarantee to each other this regal right of full personal development, but who easily learn how to render mutual aid--every man helping every other man to know all that he can know, be all that he can be, and to do all that he pleases to do.

This, then, is the ideal of American civilization: A nation of equals, who are brothers. This is the doctrine of the closing American century; the root of the goodly tree that covers such ample area with its fruitful and bending branches; the vine which the right hand of the Lord our God hath planted; this the lesson running along the bars and shining out of the stars of our national flag. It is necessary that the race experiment with this great idea of freedom and fraternity. It is an idea that sounds well in rhyme and song, but it must stand the test of practice as well; and is it capable of this? May this large Gospel of the Christ be realized by a nation, and this nation become in spirit and fact a church? This is the glorious thought running through the civilization of our century, and this we believe to be the purpose of the God of nations.

The distinctive feature of the nineteenth century in America is the struggle for the recognition of these two noble ideas: The freedom of the individual and the brotherhood of the race. And this thought is thoroughly religious. It is pre-eminently Christian. It was taught, enforced, and illustrated by the Nazarene. It is asserting itself in our civilization. The work is now going on. It has not gone far, but it is bound to go on to the blessed end. The leaven is working every day. We are in the midst of the great experiment.

[=Development of the American Church=]

The American Church is not a State Church. It is supported not by law, but by love. No large subsidies corrupt it. No political complications weaken it. Church and State serve each other best when the only bond between them is one of individual conviction and mutual confidence. The beginnings of the Republic were made by religious men, who organized religious communities. They sought our shores to secure religious liberty. Some of them may have been narrow, but they were true and brave. Some of the fetters that bound them had been severed, but some still remained. They had not yet conceived the idea of an emancipated and responsible individuality. Protestants fled from the severities of Roman rule, and Romans from the oppressions of Protestants. And it took a long time for Protestants to become free. But the founders and fathers of the Republic were religious and God-fearing men. They were simply pupils ("primary pupils" at that) in the school of human rights and human brotherhood. The lessons were long and hard. It has taken more than a century to get half through the "first reader," and there is ample work for the century ahead, but as a people we are coming to see the life of the Church in the aims and order of the State, and to learn that God is in all history, that His claims upon men extend to all social relations, sanctifying all secular and political life, and embracing charity, sympathy, and justice in the minutest details of life, as well as awe, reverence and worship.

[=The Sunday-school System=]

Simultaneously with the rise of the Republic began the great Sunday-school system, which went everywhere with the open Bible and the living teacher, with inspiring Christian songs, attractive books for week-day reading, juvenile pictorial papers, social gatherings, and the stimulating power of friendly fellowship in religious life. It brought the people together, old and young, learned and unlearned, rich and poor. It did more to "level up" society than any other agency in the Republic. It made the adult who taught susceptible and affectionate childhood a better citizen. It prepared the children to be wiser, more conscientious, and more loyal citizens in the next generation. In the widely extended Methodist revival, and in the all-embracing Sunday-school movement, we see the hand of God fashioning the Nation and the Church, that they might be one in aim and spirit, and that through them might be promoted liberty, equality, and fraternity.

[=Union Church Associations=]

The various branches or denominations of the American Church are influenced by these ruling ideas of the century; the freedom and unrestricted opportunity of the individual and the spirit of generous fraternity. The old warfare between the Protestant denominations has virtually ceased. Co-operation in religious and reformatory effort--the Young Men's Christian Association, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, the International Lesson system, the State and International Sunday-school Conventions, the Evangelical Alliance, the Chautauqua Assemblies, the exchange of pulpits, the frequent union revival meetings held by representative evangelists, the ease with which ministers pass from one denomination to another, the warm, personal friendships between representative leaders of the several Churches, the growth and enrichment of non-denominational periodical literature--these are some of the signs of the larger thought now controlling our people.

[=The Value of Religion in Politics=]

The American Church, which imposes no creed but the creed of the Republic, which knows no lines of division--sectarian, political, or territorial--but which seeks the well-being of the individual and the fellowship of all true citizens, will soon wield an immense influence in matters political. It will discuss great ethical questions; it will carry conscientiousness and independence into political action; it will dissipate the weak heresy that Christians are not to take part in national affairs. In the days of Christ and the Apostles, the governing powers, the rulers of this world, were beyond the touch and control of the people. It was for them humbly to serve and uncomplainingly to suffer. But now all this has been changed. The people to-day stand where Cæsar used to stand; and to be a thoughtful, conscientious, active, consistent politician, is to be doing God's service. The church member who neglects political duty is guilty of sin against both God and the neighbor. The power of the people will be felt for good when the people begin to know and to defend the true and the good. They have during the century expressed the purpose of the American Church on the subject of slavery. At its declaration the shackles have fallen. They pronounced against and destroyed the Louisiana Lottery. Through the press, the ballot, and the authority of law, the moral force of the nation expresses itself and the base conspirators surrender. So must it be with the saloon, and with all political evil. If politicians carry moral questions into the political arena, the pulpit and all other agencies of the church must go with the question before the people, and lead them to consider it no less from the moral than from the political point of view.

Aside from the development of the Christian religion as distinctively displayed in the United States, its progress in the world at large has been great and encouraging. Particularly has the spirit of sectarianism, strongly manifested a century ago, decreased in force and fanaticism diminished, while the sentiment of union and brotherhood between churches of different sects has developed to a highly encouraging degree.

[=Missionary Activity=]

Outside of Christendom the influences of the religion of Christ have been widely spread by the active and enthusiastic labors of missionaries, who have carried the lessons of the Gospels to all lands, and established Christianity among numerous tribes formerly in the lowest stages of heathenism and idolatry. The success of these devoted men has been much less among peoples possessed of a religious faith of a higher grade, as the Mohammedans, Hindoos, and Chinese, and perhaps the most important results of their labors everywhere have been those of education and civilization, necessary preliminaries, in the case of ignorant and undeveloped peoples, to a just comprehension of the principles of Christianity and the inculcation of advanced moral sentiments and the high standard of the Golden Rule.

[=New Religious Movements=]

The religious history of the century does not end with the relation of the progress of Christianity. There has indeed been some degree of reaction of heathenism upon Christian countries, particularly in the case of Buddhism, whose doctrines have made their way into Europe and America, and gained there a considerable body of adherents. This infiltration from without has developed into what is known as the Theosophical Society, which claims over 100,000 members in the United States alone. In addition may be named various new religious outgrowths of home origin, including the Mormons, the Spiritualists, the Christian Scientists, and others of less prominence. Similar new sects have arisen in Mohammedan and Hindoo countries, such as the Babists in Persia and the Brahmo Somaj in India, these latter being distinctive reforms on the more ancient religious creeds and practices.

[=The Religion of Fear and of Love=]

What has been said above does not show the full extent of the religious movement within the century. There has been an active spirit of progress within the lines of denominational religion itself, and liberal sentiment has made a marked and promising advance. The former insistence upon creed as the essential factor in religion has greatly weakened in favor of its ethical element, and the supremacy of conduct over creed is openly taught. Again, the old religion of fear is giving way before a new religion of love. The doctrine of future punishment, and the attempt to swell the lists of church members by insistence upon the horrors of Hades, are rarely heard in the pulpits of to-day, the old Hell-fire conception having become at once too preposterous and too alien to the character of the All Wise and All Good to be any longer entertained except by the most ignorant of pulpit orators. In truth, the doctrines of the modern pulpit are rapidly rising towards the level of Christ's elevated teachings, and inculcating love and human brotherhood as the essential elements of the Christian faith.

[=The Spirit of Liberalism=]

The growing spirit of liberalism has given rise to a large body of moralists who repudiate the idea that faith in a creed is essential to salvation, and claim that moral conduct is the sole religious element that is likely to influence the future destiny of mankind. Persons of this class are specially numerous in the ranks of the scientists, whose habit of close observation, and rigorous demand for established facts as the basis of all theoretical views, unfit them for acceptance of any doctrines insusceptible of rigid demonstration from the scientific standpoint. This requirement of hard and fast evidence, appealing directly to the senses, and discarding all reliance upon the ideal or upon the broad consensus of ancient belief, has no doubt been carried too far, and has yielded a narrowness of outlook which will be replaced by broader conceptions as psychological science develops. That it exists now, however, cannot be denied, and its adherents constitute a very large and influential body. Yet it must be said that science and religion, for a time widely separated, are growing together, and that in all probability the final outcome of modern thought and research will be an alliance between these two great forces, a religion which science can accept and a science in full accord with religious views and principles.

[=The Movement in Ethics=]

If we now turn aside from religion as a whole, and consider only its ethical side, it is to find an immense advance within the nineteenth century. The standard of right conduct may not have risen, but the sentiment of human sympathy and of the brotherhood of mankind has very greatly developed, and human charity and fellow feeling, a century or two ago largely confined within the limits of a nation or a city, are now coming to embrace all mankind.

[=Child Labour in Factories=]

There has been a great amelioration in manners and customs within the century, a great decrease in barbarity and cruelty. A few examples will suffice to point this out. The barbarous practices in regard to child labor which existed in 1800 and much later have often been depicted in lurid colors, the selfish greed of employers giving rise to a "massacre of the innocents" as declared and even more cruel in its methods than that of the time of Christ. Thousands of children in the days of our grandfathers were simply tortured to death in dark and dank mines or gloomy and unhealthy workshops, at an age when they should have been alternating between the useful confinement of the schools and the healthful freedom of the playgrounds and the fields. This state of affairs happily no longer exists, and in the present condition of public sentiment could not be reproduced. The world has grown decidedly beyond the level of such heartless cruelty.

[=Prevention of Cruelty to Animals=]

The development of sympathy has not confined itself to a redress of the wrongs of children, but has made itself manifest in attention to the wrongs of workmen as a whole, factory inspection having put an end to many unhealthful and oppressive conditions formerly prevailing, and saved thousands of workmen from being poisoned in the midst of their daily labors. And not only human beings, but dumb animals, have been reached by the awakened sympathy of modern communities. A century ago the noble and patient horse was frequently treated with the utmost brutality, without a hand or a voice being raised in its defence. This barbarity was accepted as a part of the established and necessary order of things, and dismissed with a shrug or perhaps without a thought. To-day, in the more enlightened nations, this state of things has ceased to exist. Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals keep a close watch upon the brutally inclined, and have almost put an end to cruel practices which formerly prevailed without a word of protest, domestic animals being now protected as carefully as human beings.

[=Prison Reform=]

In no direction did the lack of kindly sentiment of a century ago show itself more decisively than in prison management. We do not mean to say that philanthropy did not then exist, but that it was far from being the active sentiment it has become to-day, and was largely without effect upon legislators; the condition alike of convicted criminals, of debtors, and of those held for trial being in many cases almost indescribably horrible. The first effective movement towards prison reform was made by John Howard, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, but public sentiment was so dulled towards the condition of prisoners that the horrors painted out by him were in great measure permitted to continue. The legislators of England could not be awakened to any active interest in the inmates of the gaols.

[=Prison Life a Century ago=]

When Elizabeth Fry made her first visit to the female department of Newgate, the city prison of London, in 1813, she found a state of affairs whose horrors, words are weak to convey. The women inmates "were limited to two wards and two yards, an area of about one hundred and ninety-two superficial yards in all, into which some three hundred women with their children were crowded, all classes together, felon and misdemeanant, tried and untried; the whole under the superintendence of an old man and his son. They slept on the floor, without so much as a mat for bedding. Many were very nearly naked, others were in rags; some desperate from want of food, some savage from drink, foul in language, still more recklessly depraved in their habits and behavior. Everything was filthy beyond description. The smell of the place was quite disgusting."

The condition of affairs on the men's side, unless they were able to pay for better accommodations, was similar to that here described. Their treatment, indeed, depended largely on the amount of money they could pay the jail officials and they were fleeced without mercy. The practice of fettering them was so common that nearly every one wore irons, even the untried being often laden with fetters, while their limbs were chafed into sores by the weight of these useless instruments of torture.

The report of the Prison Discipline Improvement Society, at as late a date as 1818, shows the existence of an almost incredible state of things in English prisons. Many of the gaols were in the most deplorable condition, and crowded far beyond their powers of accommodation. All prisoners passed their time in absolute idleness, or spent it in gambling and loose conversation. The debtors were crowded into the narrowest quarters conceivable. Twenty men were forced to sleep in a space twenty feet long by six wide--accomplishing this seemingly impossible feat by "sleeping edgeways." In the morning the stench and heat were something terrible; "the smell on first opening the door was enough to knock down a horse." The jail hospitals were filled with infectious cases, and in one room, seven feet by nine, with closed windows, where a boy lay ill with fever, three other prisoners, at first perfectly healthy, were found lodged. It is no wonder that the deadly jail fever raged as an epidemic in such pest holes, and even communicated itself to the judges before whom these wretches were brought for trial.

[=Improvement in Prison Life=]

We have by no means told all the horrors of prison life at that period, but will desist from giving any more of its painful details. It need scarcely be said that an utterly different state of affairs now exists in all civilized lands, prisoners being treated as human beings instead of wild beasts; and so warm is the feeling of public sympathy with the wretched that any of the horrors here depicted would raise a universal cry of deprecation in the land. Kindness is now the rule in dealing with criminals of all grades, and every effort is made to supply them with employment, and to attend to the requirements of comfort and cleanliness. Prisons are rapidly developing into schools for reform, and with remarkable success where systems of this kind have been fully developed.

[=Capital Punishment in 1800=]

The laws of a century ago were barbarous almost beyond conception at the present day. Capital punishment, now confined to murderers, was then inflicted for some twenty-five separate crimes, including forgery, coining, sheep or horse stealing, burglary, cutting and maiming, rick-burning, robbery, arson, etc. There were, in fact some two hundred capital crimes on the statute books, but most of these had grown obsolete. Yet such a minor offence as stealing in a dwelling house was a crime punishable by hanging, and men were occasionally executed on the gallows for a small theft that would now subject them to only a few months of imprisonment. It was not until after 1830 that an amelioration in these severe laws began, and with such effect that the number of persons sentenced to death in England decreased from 458 in 1837 to fifty-six in 1839. After 1841 the death penalty was inflicted only for murder, though seven other crimes remained capital by law until 1861.

[=Public Executions=]

The practice of public executions was another barbarous feature of the code, and the scenes around the gallows at Tyburn, on the occasion of the execution of any criminal of note, were so disgraceful that it seems incredible that they could exist in any civilized land. Other relics of the dark ages were the public exhibition of the bodies of the executed, and hanging in chains on a gibbet, a practice in vogue until 1832. In one case mentioned, at that late date, "a sort of fair was held, gaming tables were set up, and cards were played under the gibbet, to the disturbance of the public peace and the annoyance of all decent people."

It will suffice to say here that this state of affairs has been reformed out of existence. Executions, restricted solely to murderers, now take place wholly in private, and so great is the public desire to prevent suffering to the condemned that the first electrical execution in New York raised a cry of horror when it was announced that life did not cease within the few seconds expected, but that the power of sensation continued for perhaps a minute. In truth, in this instance, there was something of a hyper-sensibility manifested, but one of a kind creditable to human nature.

[=The Spirit of Sympathy=]

The development of the spirit of sympathy with the poor and suffering is by no means confined to the instances stated, but has gained an extraordinary extension. The rapid progress of railroad and steamship communication, the enormous increase in travel, and the bringing of the ends of the earth together by means of the telegraph wire have made of all mankind one great family, and the instinct of charity and benevolence reaches to the most remote quarters of the globe. Notable results of this feeling, of recent date, have been the efforts to ameliorate the suffering in India during the late famine, the war instigated by sympathy in Cuba, the earnest efforts to supply food to the starving in Porto Rico, and the fervent feeling aroused in favor of the unjustly punished Dreyfus.

[=The Growth of Charity=]

In regard to charity at home, the instances of it are voluminous beyond our power to record. Hospitals, asylums, institutions of benevolence of the most varied character, have been everywhere instituted, alike in Europe and America, mainly through public donations, and there is no form of want or suffering which is not met by some attempt at alleviation. Homes for the afflicted of every kind are rising in all directions; charity is organized and active to a degree never before seen; the bettering of the condition of the poor by improved residences, methods of recreation and instruction, and other acts of aid and kindness is actively going on, and in a hundred ways benevolence is striving to lift man from want and degradation into comfort and advanced conditions.

What is known as altruism, the sentiment of fellow feeling, is, in part, coming to be one of the active conditions of the age, and is among the most promising signs of the times. Selfishness, indeed, is abundantly prevalent still, yet altruistic feeling is rapidly on the increase, and gifts for benevolent purposes of all kinds are becoming remarkably abundant. Hundreds of instances might be named, but we shall confine ourselves to one, Andrew Carnegie's wise and kindly devotion of the income of his great fortune to the founding of public libraries, than which nothing could serve better to bring man into a condition of mind which will prevent him from becoming a willing object of charity.

[=An Advanced Spirit of Benevolence=]

Certainly the Golden Rule is bearing fruit in these later days, and men are widely doing unto others as they would wish to be done by. The old, narrow idea of patriotism is being replaced by a growing sentiment of the brotherhood of all mankind, and altruism is making its way upward through the dense mass of selfism which has so long dominated the world. It is still only in its pioneer stage, but the indications of its growth are encouraging, and we may look forward with hope to a day in which it will become the leading influence in the social world, and selfishness lose its long and strong hold upon the heart of man.