Chapter 9

But when the crucial moment comes--when the die is to be cast and the promise asked and given that will bind the two lives together, halt for a moment until one asks and the other answers this "Woman's Question."

THE WOMAN'S QUESTION

"Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing Ever made by the Hand above-- A woman's heart and a woman's life And a woman's wonderful love?

"You have written my lesson of duty out; Manlike you have questioned me; Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul Until I question thee.

"You require your mutton shall always be hot, Your stockings and shirts shall be whole. I require your heart to be true as God's stars And as pure as Heaven your soul.

"You require a cook for your mutton and beef. I require a far better thing. A seamstress you're wanting for stockings and shirts, I look for a man and a king.

"A king for a beautiful realm called home, And a man that the Maker, God, Shall look upon as He did the first And say, 'It is very good.'

"I am fair and young, but the rose will fade From my soft fair cheek some day; Will you love me then 'mid the falling leaves As you did in the bloom of May?

"Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep I may launch my all on its tide? A loving woman finds Heaven or hell On the day she is made a bride.

"I require all things that are grand and true, All things that a man should be, If you promise me this, I would stake my life To be all you demand of me.

"If you can not do this, a seamstress and cook You can hire with little to pay. But a woman's heart and a woman's life Are not to be won that way."

Yes, Bobby Burns was right when he said,

"To make a happy fire-side clime, For weans and wife, That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life."

Exactly what is God's ultimate purpose for the human race, I think no one knows. And I am not sure that we need to know. Where clear vision is not granted we walk by faith. But even if the ultimate end is not clearly portrayed, even if we are kept in the dark as to the great outcome, we do know pretty well His method of procedure. A careful study of the past and a critical analysis of the data now at hand looking to the future enable us to grasp with some clearness the leading outlines of the program. From generation to generation, from century to century, from age to age, as time has rolled on, there has been a gradual moving onward and upward, a steady improvement both in the refining and civilizing of man's own being and in bringing that being into sympathetic relations with the external world, that is, a gradual development of man's own powers, and an ever increasing control of the forces of nature. In spite of the fact that this progress has been, at times, painfully slow, it has never once ceased, and during the last century it has moved on with constantly accelerating speed until to-day the human race stands upon the highest point ever reached. I have absolutely no sympathy with that narrow pessimism which is always talking about "the good old times." All in all, there never was a time in the history of the world when man knew so much as to-day; there never was a time when his life was so ministered to by the forces of nature; never a time when his heart was so tender, when it responded so quickly to human suffering, never a time when all forms of evil were so quickly condemned nor when so much good was being done. The long program seems to have been for each age and each generation to hand on to its successors the legacy received, but increased and strengthened and bettered. How much longer this upward movement is to continue, how much more the race is to know and do, how much better it is to be, no one knows. God's ultimate purpose, His great object in view--we may not be able to grasp, but certainly it is not difficult for us to note the general direction of the movement. It is upward.

In all this, wherein does the home come, and what is its function? Is it not, has it not been from the very beginning the Divine agency used for doing this great work? Was not the home instituted, endowed with the divine power of love, and consecrated for the perpetuation of the race? "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." True, as many times pointed out, our toils and our struggles, our earnings and our productions, incidentally give us pleasure and satisfaction and power, but yet even these are but a means to an end,--that parents may beget, rear, and educate their children in such a way that they can carry the banner of civilization a little higher--lift society to a higher level and draw mankind nearer to God.

So it is that the center and circumference of the home is the child. In the child the home finds its meaning, its excuse, and its justification. It exists, then, that the child may be adequately prepared for doing its great work in the world. Whatever else it may do, on the side, it has one great problem. The child! The child! The best crop the farmer raises, the best article the manufacturer puts on the market, the best ware the merchant handles, the best case the lawyer pleads, the best sermon the minister preaches--or at least that which gives meaning to all of these--the child! "The fruit of all the past and the seed of all the future." God bless the home and God bless its best fruitage--the child!

THE CHURCH

Thus the home--God's simple yet mighty agent in His great work of developing the human race. Its work was accepted and for a time all went well. Such preparation, mostly physical, as the child needed for its future work the home gave without difficulty. But this simple life could not continue indefinitely. One of the fundamental principles of life absolutely forbade man's standing still. The laws of growth and development pushed him on. Whether he would or not, he was compelled to move forward, just as the acorn, obeying the law of its being, changes its form, its size, and adds to its complexity. Little by little man, obeying these inexorable laws, began to develop. His mental, his moral, and his physical natures gradually assumed new forms--new needs and desires were born. More and more his vision became expanded until he could see into and mesurably appreciate the forces of nature. His life was becoming more complex. Now, this larger life, this greater complexity of life, in addition to its own complexity, added materially to the work of preparing the child for playing its part in this great onward movement.

Such preparation as was needed by the child of the primitive home to equip it for playing its part as an adult would no longer suffice. The home must now do something more than satisfy the needs of the body--provide food, clothing, and shelter, and incidentally give opportunity to learn, mostly by imitation, how to do this for another generation of children. The spiritual life needed attention and, as well, the intellectual. Competition was growing keen, and each felt the need of a better equipment that he might play his part well in the larger life that was surely before him. And this larger outlook upon life was itself growing by what it was feeding upon and making its own demands for better things.

But the home was handicapped. It felt the need, but with all other things that it had to do, had no time to take up these new duties. And again, the most of the homes, even if time had been abundant, did not know how to do the new work. So it set about finding a solution to its problem. This was found in the principle of the division of labor. It was seen that time would be saved and results much more satisfactorily reached by delegating to persons definitely prepared and set aside for that purpose certain phases of this work. So the church was instituted and, a little later, the school. To the church was delegated, speaking broadly, the religious and moral development of the child and to the school, the intellectual development.

It was exactly the same principle that, later on, took from the home the weaving of cloth and the making of shoes and other industrial pursuits. With this added complexity of life, the homes could not profitably carry on all these varied activities--be, in addition to a home, also a tailor shop and a shoe factory, a church and a school. And so the homes of a community combined, selecting one man particularly adapted to that work to make all the shoes for the community, another the cloth, etc. And, in like manner, earlier in history, one was set aside to minister to the spiritual life, and one to teach the children. Both were offshoots of the home, delegated by the home to do a certain very definite portion of its work. Each took directions from the collective home and looked to it as the source of its authority. And such it was. The point is this: the home was the original educational institution and, as well, the original religious institution. At first it alone performed the work of all three: it was our home, our church, and school all in one. It finally established the others and merely delegated work to these supplemental agencies, so, at any time, it may withdraw that work from them. It is master of the situation. This withdrawal may be done either by the collective home or by any individual home. If any home represented here this evening, for any reason whatever, wishes to resume the religious function and alone direct the religious development of the children, no one can say it nay. And it is the same in regard to the school. If any parent here wishes to withdraw his children from the school and himself, either directly or indirectly, provide for their intellectual development, he has a perfect right to do so. Our compulsory attendance laws are satisfied when evidence is furnished of the child's advancement. Of course the church and the school, in this primitive stage, were both exceedingly crude--corresponding to the crude notions of religious and intellectual development then held by man, yet playing the same great part as now in the drama of life. I suppose it is true that these differentiations were at first only semi-conscious, but nevertheless they were real differentiations and had large influence upon the development of man.

To trace the development of the church thru its early stages is not necessary for the purpose of this address, so I pass at once to the establishment of the Christian church which is in reality our representative of the same fundamental institution. Like the home and the school, the church began in a very humble way, and during the progress of the centuries passed thru many vicissitudes and underwent many changes. Let me speak very briefly of four stages, or periods, of the history of the Christian church: first, the primitive stage, that period of about 350 years following its birth when, in the main, motives were pure, ambitions unselfish, and ideals high. But, tho it was founded to provide the means of securing the religious development of the child and the race thru the perpetuation and extension of the teachings of Christ, and tho it was launched forth into its great career in the spirit of love and meekness and fellowship that characterized His life, it was not long, as history counts time, before that worthy function was entirely lost sight of, that spirit wholly cast aside, and the new institution entered upon its second period, becoming a mere political machine which, in its utter disregard of rights and justice, in the shrewdness and daring of its schemes, and in the blackness of its methods, almost surpassed even our own most skilful efforts in those directions. "My kingdom is not of this world," Christ had said, and yet the church, founded upon His teachings and led by men pretending to be His true representatives, had become, in very deed, a kingdom of this world. The possession and use of worldly power by the church had so blunted its moral sense that Dante, in the early part of the fourteenth century, felt forced to exclaim, and exclaimed with truth:

"The Church of Rome, Mixing two governments that ill assort, Hath missed her footing, fall'n into the mire, And there herself and burden much defiled."

But Dante's criticism and other forces brought to bear drew back the erring leaders to some slight conception of their function and to some slight effort toward the performance of duty, tho neither conception nor performance took them back to their pristine merit. And the church entered another historical stage, the third, and one whose dominant thought and purpose prevails even up to modern times. Indeed, so recently has it passed that its dark outlines are even yet discoverable as we glance backward. In this new conception of the church and its work we find the function of the institution to be not religious development of the individual and of the race, as it had been at first, but merely technical salvation. And the institution may be pictured as a great lifeboat thrust out into the storm to save from destruction those who can be drawn within--_while all others perish_.

You remember the painting of the picture, foreground and background, how the emphasis was thrown upon the world to come! This world was not man's home. He was a sojourner here, a wanderer. His citizenship was in Heaven. He was a pilgrim passing thru a strange and weary land, and the only purpose of the pilgrimage was a preparation for the life to come. The nature of man himself was corrupt. The world around him was evil. Alone and unaided he was powerless. He was lost both for this world and the next. The storms of life were about him, the great waves were ready to engulf him. But the church, as a lifeboat, was thrust out into the breakers, and upon certain stipulated conditions was ready to take him in. The church was represented as having received direct from the hands of God "the keys of heaven and hell," and as being able to open the gates of a better world to all true believers. But true believers, you know, were no longer the pure followers of the crucified Christ, simply those who would accept the man-made dogmas of the church. No matter how full of error the church was, no matter how corrupt her leaders, there could be no safety outside of her fold. Accept the dogma, salvation was sure; once within, all was well. Religious development was not sought. The character of the life, previous or prospective, mattered not. Acceptance of the dogma was the only requirement. So she taught--having departed Oh! so far from her character and program when given existence by the home and started out on her beneficent work. And so tight had her grip become that none dared dispute her claims. The child had outgrown her mother, that is, the church had, in its own conception, outgrown the home, and it repudiated her control. Indeed, she held the keys--she was the ark of safety.

I have dwelt upon this because, with varying degrees of emphasis, that has been the conception of the church from medieval times almost to our own day. Indeed, I am not sure that it has entirely passed even at the present time. There are doubtless some people who continue thus to regard the church, and there is more than one branch of the institution whose definitely formulated statements of belief can be interpreted in no other way however much, as a practical fact, the members have departed from them.

There are some branches of the church that still teach that the child, newly born into the world, fresh from the hand of God, is already corrupt, prone to evil, of its own volition choosing evil in preference to good. And, believing that, they require the parents when presenting the babe at the altar for holy baptism, to affirm that that pure and innocent babe has inherited an evil and corrupt nature, and that it was conceived and born in sin. A monstrous doctrine, violating not only every parental instinct, but as well all the principles of psychology and ethics. Yea, verily, the Dark Ages are not yet wholly past! Yes, there are doubtless some who still look upon the church as a lifeboat, and who think that that lifeboat should offer safety and protection to those alone who already have on the life preserver. In other words, there are still some who seem to think that church membership should be granted only to those whose character and belief already assure them of abundant entrance into the heavenly kingdom and who, therefore, do not really need church membership.

But yet, on the whole, as a working conception, we have discarded the lifeboat idea and are now regarding the church rather as a great school, so to speak, in which all the children of men, thru the grace of God and mutual helpfulness, may gradually develop the Christian character and eventually come to be the very elect of God. No longer is it being regarded as merely an ark of safety, a lifeboat, ministering to the few, but as a great social beneficent institution shedding abroad upon all people its life-giving light and lifting all men nearer to God; true, giving her choicest blessings to those who come closest and partake most fully of her nature, but yet like the sun which shines upon all and both by direct and indirect rays warms and lightens all. Between the two views, what a contrast! And that change can not be better seen than by a contrast of the methods of work--the methods used to replenish the ranks, to offer the boon of membership to those deemed worthy or to those whom such boon could help.

The old evangelism--you remember its key-note, the old revival meeting, in which skilful word painting presented the two extremes, heaven and hell. And when the emotional nature was wrought up to the desired pitch and fear to the right degree, a choice was demanded,--conversion, it was called. The newer evangelism--Christian nurture in the home and school, and the various agencies of the church--is not as spectacular as the old. It doesn't make as much noise nor draw to itself so much attention. Nor do results so readily lend themselves to figures and tabulation. It does not bring about certain times when large accessions are made to the church membership, feeling rather that a continuous stream, tho smaller, indicates a more healthy growth. But it recognizes the fact that human nature is not necessarily depraved, that, on the other hand, the Christian life is the natural life and that the child under the sweet influences of the home and school and church passes naturally from one stage to another often not knowing when the transitions take place. Christian nurture--_a continuous process_--in which development is the key-note, not conversion, a sudden transformation, a terrible wrenching of the whole being, is the church's present method of growth. Oh! the old has not entirely gone--here and there we occasionally see evidences of its presence. Professional evangelism we call it to-day. I ran across it in a recent trip East. A big, barnlike structure had been erected which was called "the tabernacle." Its floor was of sawdust sprinkled on the ground. Here for about a month a professional evangelist had harangued the curious crowds in immoderate, and oftentimes immodest language. Wit and sarcasm and slang and emotion had been freely used in his efforts to make sinners "hit the sawdust trail," to use his own spectacular language, as well as to extort money from the pockets of the attendants. He left the town $5,000 richer than when he entered and also carried with him, as advertising material, a long list of so-called converts. A travesty on the sacred work of the church! But such methods are to-day the exception and not the rule, and the exceptions merely prove the rule.

And to-day church membership is graciously held out to all who need help in the work of perfecting character--to all who need assistance in leading the Christian life, as well as to those whose battles have already been fought and won. The question asked is no longer, "Have you attained?" but rather, "Do you wish to attain?" When an individual, child or adult, seeks entrance at the doors of an educational institution, the only condition imposed is assurance of his desire to be a learner. The doors swing open. And thank God the church is at last coming to the same position. And so we see her to-day well started upon the fourth stage of her development, accepting as her one great work that given her at birth so long ago--the religious development of the child and the race.

THE SCHOOL

The American school is a wonderful institution. In its absolute universality and impartiality, in its fine spirit of democracy both of teachers and pupils, there is nothing like it elsewhere in the world. It is a product of the genius of our people. Product? Yes, but, also, successively, the most influential cause of the genius of our people. From the first, in a somewhat remarkable degree, we have been a people knowing no social classes or distinctions. The caste idea, so prevalent in European countries, has ever been repugnant to us. And our schools, emanating from such a people, have had a powerful reflex influence in shaping the people and keeping those fine ideals ever before us. But let us go back and see whence it came--trace the connection between the complex, highly influential institution of to-day and the simple offshoot of the home of primitive times. Just when it was first instituted, nobody knows; but in essential features it is very ancient. Long before the beginning of the Christian era, as a supplementary agent of the home having in charge that one portion of its work, it was a well-recognized and highly esteemed institution.

I have already called attention to the great changes that have taken place in the home and in the church as the centuries have passed. The school likewise has changed, and is to-day as far removed from its original prototype as either of the others. It has changed because the home has changed, and in its changes has kept pace with the changing ideals and added complexities of home life. At the very first, only the essentials--teacher and boy--were present: no building, the great out-of-doors furnished the room and the friendly tree the only protection from sun and storm; no course of study, no book--the teacher was all in all. But this stage passed and the next, that continued so long and is more characteristic, followed. Here we find the building and the book as well as the teacher and the boy. The boy's one task is to transfer the contents of the book to his own mental storehouse and the teacher's function to see that the transfer is made. Knowledge was the main element of the child's preparation, that the home demanded of its school. And this often but ill-fitted him for the performance of the duties of life. This period continued for many centuries, down almost to the present time. But another and a greater followed--a period in which not merely knowledge was demanded as an outcome of the school's activities, but something else very different, including that, it is true, but finer and greater than that--something toward which they are the contributing agents--a somewhat harmonious development of the entire life--physical, mental, and moral.