Chapter 8

Now it is very difficult, indeed, for you to persuade a man that he ought to do right under such circumstances. He is ready to doubt and question as to whether these laws of right are imperative, whether they are divine, whether they may not be waived one side in the interest of the thing which he desires to do. So you must guard yourself very carefully, no matter what the department of life may be that you are facing, if you find yourself doubting under the impulse of your own wishes, if you are trying to argue yourself into the belief that you may be permitted to do something which you very much want to do.

Be suspicious of your doubts, then, and remember that probably they are wrong. Great moral questions may be involved, and doubt may mean wreck here.

There is another field where doubt is dangerous and presumably an evil. You will find most people, in regard to any question which they have considered or which has touched them seriously, with their minds already made up. They have some sort of a persuasion about it, they have a theory which they have accepted; and, if you bring them a truth with ever such overwhelming credentials which clashes with this preconceived idea or prejudice, the chances are that it would be met with doubt, with denial, not a clear-cut, intelligent, well- balanced doubt, but a doubt that springs out of the unwillingness that a man feels to reconstruct his theory.

Let me give you an illustration of what I mean, and this away off in another department of life from our own, so that it will not clash with any of your particular prejudices. Sir Isaac Newton won a great and world-wide renown, and magnificently deserved, by his grand discovery of the law of gravity. You will see, then, how natural it was for people to pay deference to his opinion, to be prejudiced in favor of his conclusions. It was perfectly natural and, within certain limits, perfectly right. Sir Isaac Newton not only propounded this law of gravity, but he propounded a theory of light which the world has since discovered to be wrong. But it was universally accepted because it was his. It became the accepted scientific theory of the time. By and by a man, unknown up to that time, by the name of Young, studied Newton's theory, and became convinced that it was wrong; and he propounded another theory, the one which to- day is universally accepted through the civilized world. But it was years before it could gain anything like adequate or fair consideration, because the preconception in favor of Newton's theory stood in the way of any adequate consideration of the one which was subsequently universally adopted.

So you will find scientific men, I know any quantity of them, grand in their fields, doing fine work, who are not willing to consider anything which would compel a reconstruction of their theories and ideas. This is true not only in the scientific field, but it is true everywhere: it is true in politics. How many men can you get fairly to consider the political position of his opponent? He not only doubts the rightness and the sense of it, but he is ready to deny it. How many people can you get fairly to weigh the position of one who occupies a religious home different from their own? And these religious prejudices, being bound up with the tenderest and noblest sentiments, feelings, and traditions of the human heart, become the strongest of all, and so are in more danger of standing in the way of human progress than anything else in all the world.

People identify their theories of religion with religion itself, with the honor of God, with the worship and the love of God, and feel that somehow it is impious for them to consider the question whether their intellectual theories are correct or not; and so the world stands by the ideas of the past, and opposes anything like finer and nobler ideas that offer themselves for consideration. And not only in the religious field; but these religious prejudices stand in the way of accepting truths outside the sphere of religion. For example, when Darwin published his book, "The Origin of Species," the greatest opposition it met with was from the religious world. Why? Had they considered Darwin's arguments to find out whether they were true? Nothing of the kind. But they flew to the sudden conclusion that somehow or other the religion of the world was in danger, if Darwinism should prove to be true. And it is very curious to note I wonder how long the world will keep on repeating that serio-comic blunder from the very beginning it has been the same; almost every single step that the world proposes to take in advance is opposed by the constituted religious authorities of the time because they assume at the outset that the theories which they have been holding are divinely authorized and infallible, and that it is not only untrue, this other statement, but that it is impious as well.

The doubt, then, that springs from preconceived ideas is not only unjustifiable, but may be dangerous and wrong.

Then there is another kind of doubt against which you should beware. There are certain doubts that, if accepted and acted on, stand in the way of the creation of the most magnificent facts in the world. Take as an illustration of what I mean: when Napoleon, a young man in Paris, was asked to take command of the guard of the city, suppose he had doubted, questioned, distrusted, his own ability; suppose he had been timid and afraid, the history of the world would have been changed by that one doubt. Take another illustration. At the opening of our war or in the months just preceding the beginning of active hostilities the man then occupying the presidential chair had no faith, no faith in himself, no faith in the perpetuity of our institutions, no faith in the people; and so he sat doubting, while everything crumbled in pieces around him. And then appeared a man in whom the people had little faith at first, and who had no great faith perhaps in his own ability; but he had infinite faith in God, faith in right, faith in the people, faith in the possibilities of freedom trusted in the hands of the people. And this faith created a new nation.

If there had been doubt in the heart of Abraham Lincoln, again the history of the world would have been &hanged. He believed that "Right is right, since God is God, And right the day must win: To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin."

You see, then, here is another field where you had better be wary of doubt. Do not doubt yourself, do not doubt the possibilities of noble action, noble character, of achievement. We say of a young man entering life, brimful of enthusiasm, that all this will be toned down by and by; and we speak of it as though the enthusiasm itself somehow was a fault or a folly. And yet it is just this enthusiasm of the young men that moves and lifts the world. It is this faith in themselves and in the possibility of great things, it is this faith that lies at the heart of every invention, of every great discovery, of every magnificent achievement. Read the history of invention. The world is full of stories of men who got a new idea. They were laughed at, they were told it was impracticable; and, if they had been laughed out of it, it would have been impracticable. It was their faith in the possibility of some great new thing, their faith in the resources of the universe, their faith in themselves as able to discover some new truth and make it applicable to the needs of the world, it was this faith which has been at the root of the grandest things that have ever been done.

It is this which was in the heart of Columbus as he sailed out towards the West. It is this which was in the heart of Magellan as he studied the shadow of the earth across the face of the moon, and believed in the story that shadow told him against the constituted authorities of the world.

But now let us turn sharply, and find out where doubt does come in, and where it is as honorable, as noble, as necessary as faith.

People misuse this word "faith." Doubt applies to all questions of fact that may be investigated, to all questions of history, to all questions open to the exercise of the critical faculty. For example, if I am told that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and I say I accept that statement on faith, I am abusing the dictionary. I have no business to accept it on faith. Faith has nothing whatever to do with it. It is a pure matter of scholarship. It is a matter of study, of investigation, a matter of clear and hard intelligence and nothing more.

Suppose I am told that the Catholic Church is infallible, and I am asked to accept it as an article of faith. Here, again, the introduction of the word "faith" into a domain like that is an impertinence. Faith has nothing whatever to do with it. That is a question of fact. We can read history for the last eighteen hundred years. We can find out what the Catholic Church has said and what the Catholic Church has done, as to whether it has proved itself absolutely infallible or not. It is a matter of study and decision intellectually; and it is my duty to doubt that which does not bring authentic credentials in a field like this.

Take the question of the authorship of the Gospel of John. Was it written by the apostle John, who lay in the bosom of Jesus, and was called the beloved disciple? Have I any business to say I have faith that it was written by him, and let it rest there? Faith has nothing to do with it. We can trace the history of that book, find out when first it was referred to, follow it back as far as possible, find out whether it was in existence before the apostle John had died or not. It is a pure matter of criticism, a matter of study; and I have no business to accept it as a matter of faith, because, if I do, I am in danger not only of deceiving myself, but of misleading the world. And truth, we cannot say it too often or too emphatically, truth is the only thing that is holy in investigations of this kind. Men's beliefs and mistakes, old, venerable, reverenced though they may have been by thousands and for hundreds of years, are no less unworthy longer to delude the minds of men. Truth is divine, truth is the one object of our search.

Now let us come to consider for a moment the nature of faith. I said a little while ago that the word is very frequently misused. Nine times out of ten, when I hear people using the word "faith" and I see the connection in which they use it, I discover they do not know the meaning of the word. That which has favor generally under the name of faith is simple credulity. It is closing the eyes and accepting something on somebody's authority without any investigation. That, remember, is not faith.

Let us see now if I can give you a clear idea of what faith really is; and now I have the Bible and I am glad to say it behind me. This magnificent chapter,* a portion of which I read as our lesson this morning, gives precisely the same idea of faith as that which I am going to outline. What is faith? Faith is a purely rational faculty. It is not irrational, but it is perfectly understandable. Suppose there is a man suddenly accused of a crime, and I never saw him before, I do not even know his name; but I go into court when he is brought up for trial, and I say that I have faith in that man, and I do not believe that he committed the crime. Do you not see that I am talking nonsense? I have no business to have faith in him, there is no ground for faith, it is an entire misuse of the word. But now take another case. Here is a man that I have known for twenty years. I have seen him in business. I have seen him in his home, among his neighbors and friends, and in the street. I have met him in all sorts of relations. I have talked with him, I have tested him. I have been intimate with him. He is suddenly accused of crime, and is brought into court. I appear, and say I have faith in that man, I do not believe that he committed the crime. I do not know that he did not commit it; but I have grounds here for faith. In the light of his past life, of his experience, of his temptations, of his opportunities to go wrong, and of his having gone right, in the light of all this past experience of years, I have faith in this man; and I say it, and I am talking reason and sense. In the other case I am talking folly.

Faith, you see, is a rational faculty. Let me give you another illustration. Suppose I am driving along through the country some morning when there is a very thick fog hanging over the landscape. The fog is so thick that I can see no more than ten or fifteen feet ahead of me; but I discover that I am near the bank of a river, and I come to the entrance to a bridge. I can see enough to know that here is an abutment of a bridge and an arch springing out into the fog. I drive on to that bridge with simple confidence. I do not know that there is any other end to the bridge. I have never seen it before. I have seen other bridges, however; and I know that, generally, bridges not only begin somewhere, but end somewhere. So, though I do not know for certain that the bridge ends on the other side of the river, for aught I know there may be a break in it, the bridge may not be completed, something may have happened to it, I confidently drive on; and in ninety-nine times out of a hundred my faith is justified by the result. This is a pure act of faith, but faith, do you not see, based in reality, springing out of experience, and so a purely rational act of the mind.

Let me give you one illustration of the scientific use of faith, very striking, beautiful, as it seems to me. The only time Mr. Huxley was in this country, I happened to be in New York, and heard him give the opening one of a brief course of three lectures in Chickering Hall. He was very much interested then in the ancestry of the horse. Most of you are probably aware of the fact that they have traced its ancestry to a little creature having five toes, like ordinary animals. At the time that Mr. Huxley was here, one link in this chain was missing; that is, one of the forms in the line of the horse's ancestors had not been discovered.

But here, for example, was the first one and the second one, we say, and the third one was missing, and here was the fourth one, and here was the horse itself. Now, in the light of the presumable uniformity of nature, Mr. Huxley went on to describe this missing animal. He said, if the remains of this creature are ever found, they will be so and so; and he went into an accurate detailed explanation as to what sort of creature it would be. He had not been at his home in England a year before Professor Marsh, of Yale College, discovered this missing link in Colorado, and it answered precisely to the description which Professor Huxley had beforehand given of it.

Now here is a case of scientific prophecy, scientific faith, a faith based on previous scientific observations, based on the experienced uniformity of nature. Mr. Huxley did not know, he could not have known; but he believed. He believed in the universe, he believed in the sanity of the universe, he believed in the uniformity, the order, the beauty of the universe; and the result justified his faith.

Faith, then, is a purely rational faculty. It has nothing to do with the past, but is always the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of something not yet seen. It is always looking along the lines of possible experience for something as possibly or probably to be.

Now at the end I wish to suggest a few things that are in the rightful province and field of faith, fields where we can fearlessly exercise this grand faculty, where indeed we must exercise it if we are to achieve the highest and finest results in the world.

And, in the first place, quoting the words of the old writer, let me say, "Have faith in God." I do not mean by this, accept certain intellectual statements or propositions about him, though they may be mine, and though I may thoroughly accept and believe them.

You may doubt the representation of God that is made in any one of the theologies of the world, as to whether the statements made about him are accurate. It is not this intellectual belief that I am talking about at this minute. Have faith in God! You may not even use the name. I am no such stickler for phrases as to condemn a man who cannot say "God." I have known a good many men, who have hesitated to pronounce the name, who were infinitely more divine in their life and character than those who are glibly uttering it every hour of their lives. It is not this I mean. It is something deeper, higher, grander than that. As you look along the lines of history from the far-off time when we begin to trace it until to-day, and see the magnificent march of advance, an orderly universe lightening and glorifying as it advances, becoming ever finer and higher and better; as you observe the order and truth and beauty and good dominant, and ever coming to be more and more dominant as the years advance, believe in this and trust this, trust to all possibilities of something finer and grander by way of outcome in the future. Have faith in God!

And, then, have faith in truth. I meet only a few people that seem to me to have utter faith in truth, who really believe that it is safe to tell the truth, always tell it. I talk with a great many people I wish to mention this as an illustration of what I mean who speak in the greatest commendation of the Roman Catholic Church. They say, We do not know what we should do in this country if we had not the Roman Catholic Church to keep a certain section of the people down, to keep them in order. I wonder if people ever realize just what this means. It means a lack of faith in God and faith in truth and faith in humanity, all three. If it is not safe to tell the truth, then I am not responsible for it. I propose to say it, although people tell me that there is danger of the explosion of the universe on account of it. If there is, I am not responsible for making it true. Oh, I get so tired of this kind of timidity, this playing hide-and-seek with people! I have had a minister tell me that he wished he was free to tell the truth in his pulpit, as I am; and then I have had people in his congregation tell me afterwards that they wished their minister would preach the truth plainly, as I did. Simply playing hide-and-seek with each other!

You remember the story of the man in Italy, who asked the priest if he really believed the religion of the country; and the priest said, "Oh, no! we have to go slowly on account of the people; they believe it." And when the people were asked if they believed it, they said, "Oh, no, we are not such fools; but the priests believe it." And so people play hide-and-seek with each other, not daring to tell the magnificent, clear truth of things.

Have faith in the truth. It is feared that it is not quite safe to tell people the truth, because they are not quite ready for it; and I have had no end of conversations during the religious discussion of the last two or three weeks right in this line. It seems to me very much like saying that, because a man has been shut up in a dark prison for a long time, you had better keep him there, because it would be such a shock to him suddenly to face the light. Undoubtedly, it would be a shock. Undoubtedly, it would trouble and stagger people for a little while to be told the simple truth; but how is the world ever to get ahead, if you keep on, as a matter of policy, lying to it for ages? How is it ever going to find the truth? Shall I lie for the glory of God, the supposed honor of God? I will take no such responsibility.

Let us have faith in the truth, then. Tell it fearlessly, simply, utterly; and, if God is not able to take care of his own world, why, the sooner it ends and we get into a stage of existence where it is safe to tell the truth, the better.

Have faith in men. Have faith in the people. This it is that we trust to in all our hopes of progress for the future. This it is which distinguished Lincoln among our statesmen. You remember that grand saying of his, true and humorous, so that it sticks in our memory, and we can never forget it, "You can fool all the people a part of the time; you can fool a part of the people all the time; but you can't fool all the people all of the time." Here is the basis on which we rest our republic. Our republic is fallen unless the people are really to be trusted.

Have faith, then, in the people, faith in their healthy instincts, faith in their general sanity, faith in their desire for the right and the true; and this is a genuine exercise of faith, for the past history of the world justifies it.

And, then, have faith in yourself as a child of God. I do not mean conceit now. I do not mean an overestimate of your ability, but belief that you can do great, grand, noble things, belief that you can become something great, noble, grand; belief in the possibility in this life or in some other life of unfolding all that is highest, truest, sweetest, in manhood and womanhood. It is this faith that is able to create the fact and make that which it trusts in.

Let us then believe in God, believe in truth, believe in humanity, believe in ourselves; and then we may work towards the coming of that far, grand time when the dreams of the world shall be realized and its faith shall become reality.

IS LIFE A PROBATION ENDED BY DEATH?

MY subject this morning is an attempted answer to the question, "Is Life a Probation ended by Death?" It will broaden itself naturally, if we cannot accept that theory of it, into the further question, What is the main end and purpose of our life? I take my text from the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the fifteenth and the sixteenth verses. I will read them as they appear in the Old Version: "See, then, that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time."

The idea of the writer is that, as we pass through the world, we should do it with our eyes kept intelligently open, looking about us on every hand, trying to comprehend the situation, to see what things are, and what we ought to do to play our part in the midst of them. Not heedlessly, not unwisely, he says, perhaps hardly the harsh word "fools," but as wise, as persons intelligently ready to take advantage of the situation and make the most of the condition in which one finds himself; redeeming the time, or, as the Revised Version has it, "buying up the opportunity "; being ready, that is, to pay whatever price is necessary in order to make the most of the situation.

This, then, is the spirit according to our text in which we should look over the problem of life; and this is the method by which we should attempt to guide its practical affairs.

That which people regard as the matter of most importance, any particular theory or plan of life which they may hold to be for them the most desirable, this, of course, is that to which they will direct their chief attention, on which they will lavish their thought, on which they will pour out their care, to which they will consecrate their energies. If now the theory or plan of life be false, if it be inadequate, if one is looking in the wrong direction for the success that he desires, or if he expects to achieve the great end and object of living by means which are not real, which do not match the actual facts of the world and of human life, then of course his effort is so far thrown away. He wastes energies, power, time, enthusiasm on wrong ends which might be used to the attainment of things which are real and fine and high.