Part 19

There is one obvious fact that throws into bright relief the absurdity of Prayer. Two people pray for exactly opposite things; whose Prayers are to be answered? Two armies ask for victory; which is to be crowned? Amongst ourselves, now, the Church is divided into two opposing camps, and while the Ritualists appeal to God for protection, the Evangelical clamour also for his aid. To which is he to bend his ear? which Prayer is he to answer? Both appeal to his promises; both urge that his honour is pledged to them by the word he has given; yet it is simply impossible that he should grant the Prayer of both, because the Prayer of the one is the direct contradiction of the prayer of the other.

Again, none of the believers in Prayer appear to consider, that, if it were true that Prayer is so powerful a weapon--if it were true that by Prayer man can prevail with God--it would then be madness ever to pray at all. To pray would be as dangerous a thing as to put a cavalry sword into the hands of a child just strong enough to lift it, but unable to control it, or to understand the danger of its blows. Who can tell all the results to himself and to others which might flow from a granted Prayer, a Prayer made in all honesty of purpose, but in ignorance and short-sightedness? If Prayers really brought answers it would be most wickedly reckless ever to pray at all, as wickedly reckless as if a man, to quench a moment's thirst, pierced a hole in a reservoir of water which overhung a town.

But, in spite of all arguments, in spite of all that reason can urge and that logic can prove, it is probable that many will still cling to the practice of Prayer, craving for the relief it gives to the feelings of the heart, however much it may be condemned by the judgment of the intellect. They seem to think that they will lose a great inspiration to work if they give up "communion with God," and that they will miss the glow of ardour which they deem they have caught from Prayer. But surely it may fairly be urged on them that no real good can arise from continuing a practice which it is impossible to defend when it is carefully analysed. Prayer is as the artificial stimulant which excites, but does not strengthen, and lends a factitious brightness, which is followed by deeper depression. Those who have prayed most have often stated that "seasons of special blessing" are generally followed by "special temptations of Satan." The reaction follows on the unreal excitation, and the soul that has been flying in heaven grovels upon earth. To the patient who is weak and depressed from long illness, the bright air of the morning seems chill and cold, and he yearns for the warmth of the artificial stimulants to which he has grown accustomed; yet better for him is it to gain health from the morning breezes, and stimulus from the glad clear sunshine, than to yield to the craving which is a relic of his disease. If they who find in communion with God a sweetness which is lacking when they commune with their brethren--if they who cultivate dependence on God would learn the true dependence of man on man--if they who yearn for the invisible would concentrate their energies on the visible--then they would soon find a sweetness in labour which would compensate for the languor of Prayer, and they would learn to draw from the joy of serving men, and from the serene strength of an earnest life, a warmth of inspiration, a passion of fervour, an exhaustless fount of energy, beside which all Prayer-given ardour would seem dull and nerveless, in the glow of which the fancied warmth of God-communion would seem as the pale cold moonshine in the glory of the rising sun.

CONSTRUCTIVE RATIONALISM.

IT is a common complaint against the Rationalistic school of thought that they can destroy but cannot construct; that they tear down, but do not build up; that they are armed only with the axe and with the sword, and not with the trowel and the mason's line. "We have had enough of negations," is a common cry; "give us something positive." Much of this feeling is foolish and unreasonable; the negation of error, where error is supreme, is necessary before the assertion of truth can become possible. Before a piece of ground can be sown with wheat, it must be cleared of the weeds which infest it; before a solid house can be built in the place of a crumbling ruin, the ancient rubbish must be carried off, and the rotten walls must be thoroughly pulled down. Destructive criticism is necessary and wholesome; the heavy battering-ram of science must thunder against the walls of the churches; the swift arrows of logic must rain on the black-robed army; the keen lance-points of irony must pierce through the leather jerkin of superstition. But the destruction of orthodox Christianity being accomplished, there remains for the Rationalist much more to do. He has to frame a code which shall rule in the place of the code of Moses and of Jesus; he has to found a morality which shall replace the morality of the Bible; he has to construct an ideal which shall be as attractive as the ideal of the Churches; he has to proclaim laws which shall supersede revelation: in a word, he has to build up the religion of humanity.

As the Rationalist looks abroad over the contending armies of faith and of reason, he gradually recognises the fact that his new religion, if it is to serve as a bond of union, must stand on stable ground, apart from the warring hosts. Round the idea of God rages the hottest din of the battle. The old, popular, and traditional belief is wounded to the death, and is slowly breathing out its life. The philosophical subtleties of the metaphysician are beyond the grasp of folk busied chiefly with common work. The new school of Theists, believers in a "spiritual personal God," stands on a slippery incline, whereon is no firm foothold. It simply spreads over the abysses of thought a sentimental veil of poetical imaginings, and bows down before a beatified and celestial man, whose image it has sculptured out of the thought-marble of its sublimest aspirations. If the idea of God be thus warred over, thus changing, thus uncertain, it is plain that the new religion cannot find its foundation on this shifting and disputed ground. While theologians are wrangling about God, plain men are looking wistfully over the shattered idols to find the ideal to which they can cling. The new religion, then, studying the varying phases of the God-idea, seizes on its one permanent element, its idealised resemblance to man, its embodiment of the highest humanity; and, grasping this thought, it turns to men and says, "In loving God you are only loving your own highest selves; in conforming yourselves to the Divine image you are only conforming yourselves to your own highest ideals; the unknown God whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you; in serving your family, your neighbours, your country, you serve this unknown God; this God is Humanity, the race to which you belong; this is the veiled God whom all generations have worshipped in heaven, while he trod the world around them in every human form; this is the only God, the God who is manifest in the flesh: "--

"There is no God, O son, If thou be none."

The first great constructive effort of the new religion is thus to transform the idea of God, and to turn all men's aspirations, all men's hopes, all men's labours, into this channel of devotion to humanity, that so the practical outcome of the new motive power may be a steady flow of loving and energetic work for man, work that begins in the family, and spreads, in ever-widening circles, over the whole race.

This transformation of the central figure necessarily transforms also the whole idea of religion, which must take its colour from that centre. Revelation from heaven being no longer possible, its place must be supplied by study on earth: revealed laws being no longer attainable, it becomes the duty of the Humanitarian to discover natural laws. This duty is the more cheering from the manifest failure of revealed laws, as exemplified in popular Christianity. "Law," in the mouth of the believer in revelation, means a command issued by God; the "laws of Nature" are the rules laid down by God, in accordance with which all things move; they are the behests of the Creator of Nature, the controlling wires of the mechanism, held by the hand of God. But "law" in the mouth of the Rationalist means nothing more than the observed and registered invariable sequence of events. Thus it is said "a stone falls to the ground in obedience to the law of gravitation." By the "law of gravitation" the Christian would mean that God had ordered that all stones _should_ so fall. The Rationalist would simply mean that all stones _do_ so fall, and that invariable sequence he calls the "law of gravitation." Obedience to the laws of Nature replaces, in the religion of Humanity, obedience to the laws of God. As there is no inspired revelation of these laws the student must carefully and patiently ascertain them, either by direct observation, or most often, in the books of those who have devoted their lives to the elucidation of Nature's code. Scientific books will, in fact, replace the Bible, and by the study of the laws of health, both physical, moral, and mental, the Rationalist will ascertain the conditions which surround him to which he must conform himself if he desires to retain physical, moral, and mental vigour. This difference in the authority which is obeyed leads naturally to the difference of morality between the orthodox Christian and the Rationalist. Christian morality consists of obedience to the will of God, as revealed in the Bible. The grand difficulty regarding this obedience is, that the will of Jehovah, as revealed to the Jews at different times, varies so much from age to age that the most zealous Christian must fail to obey all the conflicting behests prefaced by a "Thus saith the Lord." God would, of course, never command any one to do a thing which was directly wrong, yet God distinctly said: "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live;" and God sanctioned Slavery, and God commanded Persecution on account of religious convictions: true, Christians plead that all these laws are obsolete, but what is that but to acknowledge that revealed morality is obsolete, _i.e._, that it was never revealed by God at all. For a command to persecute must be either right or wrong: if right, it is the duty of Christians to obey it, and to raise once more the stakes of Smithfield for heretics and unbelievers; if wrong, it can never have come from God at all, and must be blasphemously attributed to him. In God, Christians tell us there is no changeableness, neither shadow of turning; then what pleased him in long past ages would please him still, and what he commanded yesterday would be right to-day. Thus fatally does revealed morality fail when tested, and it becomes impossible to know which particular "will of God" he desires that we should obey. Now, once more, the Rationalist experiences the advantages of his new motive-power; he has to serve Humanity, and is unencumbered by the difficulties attendant upon "pleasing God." Not the pleasure of God, but the benefit of man, is the basis of his morality. Revealed morality is as a child's garment, into-which one should try to force the limbs of a full-grown man; it is the morality of the past stereotyped for the use of today, and is clumsy, archaic, half-illegible from age. Rational morality, on the other hand, grows with the growth of those who follow its dictates; its errors are corrected by wider experience, its omissions are filled up by the irrefragable arguments of necessity. It is founded upon the needs of man; his happiness is its sole object; not only his physical happiness, not only the fulfilment of the desires of the body for ease and comfort, but the satisfaction also of all the cravings of his intellectual and moral powers, the love of truth, the love of beauty, the love of justice. A morality founded on this basis can never be overthrown; one sure test it affords whereby to decide on the morality or the immorality of any-given action: "Is it useful to man? does it tend to the promotion of human happiness?" The will of God is doubtful, and is always disputable, and therefore it can never form the foundation of a universal system of morality, a code which shall unite all men in obedience. A code which shall unite all men must needs be founded on those human interests which are common to all men. Such a code is the utilitarian. For man's happiness is on earth, and can be known and understood; the promotion of that happiness is an intelligible aim; the test of morality may be applied by every one; it is a system which everybody can understand, and which the common sense of each must approve, for by it man lives for man, man labours for man, the efforts of each are directed to the good of all, and only in the happiness of the whole can the happiness of each part be perfected and complete.

There is much popular misconception with regard to utilitarianism: "utility" is supposed to include only those material things which are useful to the body, and which tend to increase physical comfort. But utility includes all art; for art cultures the taste and refines the nature. It thus adds a thousand charms to life, deepens, softens, purifies human happiness. Utility includes all study, for study-awakens and trains the intellectual faculties, and therefore increases the sources of happiness possible to man. Utility includes all science; for science is man's true providence, foreseeing the dangers that threaten him, and shielding him against their shock. Science leads man up to those intellectual heights where to stand awhile and breathe in the keen, clear air after dwelling in the turbid atmosphere of daily toils and cares, is as the refreshment of the pure mountain wind to the weary inhabitant of the crowded city streets.. Utility includes all love and search of truth; for the discovery of a truth is the keenest pleasure of which the noblest mind is susceptible. It includes all sublimest virtue; for self-sacrifice and devotion yield the purest forms-of happiness to be found on earth. In a word, utility includes everything which is _useful_ in building up a grander manhood and womanhood, wiser, purer, truer, tenderer than that we have to-day.

Such is the basis of the morality which is to supersede the supernatural morality of the Churches; a morality which is: for this life and for this world, since we have this life, and are in this world; a morality which seeks to ensure human happiness on this side the grave, instead of dreaming of it on the other side; a morality which endeavours to carve solid heavens here, instead of seeing them in distant cloud-lands, white and soft and beautiful, but still only clouds.

One vast advantage of this humanitarian philosophy is that it endeavours to train men into unselfishness, instead of following the popular Christian plan of making self the central thought. Self is appealed to at every step in the New Testament: if we are bidden to rejoice under persecution, it is because "great is your reward in heaven;" if urged to pray, it is because "thy Father, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly;" if to be charitable, it is because at the judgment it will bring a kingdom as the recompense; if to resign home or wealth, it is because we shall receive "a hundredfold in this present life, and in the world to come life everlasting;" even the giver of a cup of cold water "shall in no wise lose his reward." It is one system of bribes, mingling the thought of personal pain with every effort of human improvement and human happiness, and thereby directly fostering and encouraging selfishness and gilding it over with the name of religion and piety. Humanitarian morality, on the other hand, while utilising the natural and rightful craving for individual happiness as a motive-power, endeavours to accustom each to look to, and to labour for, the happiness of all, making that general happiness the aim of life. Thus it gradually weakens the selfish tendencies and encourages the social, holding up ever the noble ideal by the very contemplation of its beauty transforming its votaries into its likeness. "Vivre pour au-trui," is the motto of the utilitarian code; and in so living the fullest and happiest life for self is really attained; so closely drawn are the bands that bind men together that happiness and unhappiness re-act from one to another, and as the general standard of happiness rises higher and higher, the wheels of social life run more and more easily, with less of friction, less of jar, and therefore with increased comfort to each individual member. While Christianity developes selfishness by its continual cry of "Save thyself," Utilitarianism gradually developes unselfishness by the nobler whisper, "Save others, and in so doing thou shalt thyself be saved." Delivered from every debasing fear of an unknowable and inscrutable power, Utilitarianism works with a single heart and a single eye for the happiness of the race, stamping with the brand of "wrong" every act the general repetition of which would be harmful to society, or the tendency of which is injurious, and sealing as "right" every act which brightens human life, and makes the general happiness more perfect, and more widely spread. As morality rises higher and higher, human judgment will grow keener and purer, and in the times to come probably many an act now approved on all sides will be seen to be harmful, and will therefore become marked as immoral, while, on the other hand, acts that are now considered wrong, because "offensive to God," will be seen to be beneficial to man, and will therefore be accepted by all as moral. Thus Utilitarian morality can never be a bar to progress, for it will become higher and nobler as man mounts upwards. Revealed morality is as a milestone on the road of the world's onward march: it marks how far the world had travelled when its tables of law were first set up in its place: as a milestone, it is useful, interesting, and instructive, and none would desire to destroy it; but if the milestone be removed from its post as a mark of distance, and be laid across the road as a barrier which none must overclimb in days to come, then it becomes necessary for the pioneers of progress to hew it to pieces that men may go on their way unchecked, and this revealed morality now lies across the upward path of the world, and must be broken in pieces with the hammer of logic and the axe of common sense, so that we may press ever higher up the mountain of progress, whose summit is hid in everlasting cloud.

And what has constructive Rationalism to say to us, when we stand face to face with the mighty destroyer of all living things? "Your creed may do well enough to live by," say-objectors, "but is it good to die by?" A creed that is good in life must needs be good in death, and never yet was a hero-life closed by a coward death. What can better smooth the bed of the dying man than the knowledge that the world is the happier for his living, that he leaves it better than he found it, that he has helped to raise and to purify it? What easier pillow to rest the dying head on than the memory of a useful life? The Rationalist has no fear lurking around his death-bed; no lurid gleams from a hell on the other side lighten around him as his breath begins to fail; no angry God frowns on him from the great white throne; no devil stands beside him to drag him down into the bottomless pit; quietly, peacefully, happily, without fear and without dread, he passes out of life. As calmly as the tired child lies down to sleep in its mother's arms, and passes into dreamless unconsciousness, so calmly does the Rationalist lie down in the arms of the mighty mother, and pass into dreamless unconsciousness on her bosom.

To the Rationalist, the future of the race replaces in thought the future of the individual; for that he thinks, for that he plans, for that he labours. A heaven upon earth for those who come after him, such is his inspiration to effort and to self-devotion. He seeks the smile of man instead of the smile of God, and finds in the thought of a happier humanity the spur that Christians seek in the thought of pleasing God. His hopes for the future spread far and wide before him, but it is a future to be inherited by his children in this same world in which he himself lives; freer and fuller life, wider knowledge, deepened and more polished culture--all these are to be the heritage of the generations to come, and it is his to make that heritage the richer by every grander thought and nobler deed that he can do to-day.