Chapter 10

Moreover, Protestant orthodoxy did not have any firm hold on some fundamental parts and evident implications of the faith I already held, and was struggling to keep. The idea of the Church itself was weak in most Protestant mind; they "spiritualized" it, as they said; but when Jesus spoke of confessing him _before men_, he evidently laid the foundations of a visible Church. Again, Jesus felt that he spoke with Divine authority, and as he was commissioned, so he commissioned others to stand for him before the world, and to speak in his name. He left them to be his witnesses, to continue his message and his work after he should be gone. He had the power to forgive sins, for example, and he conveyed it to others, solemnly saying that whatever was bound or loosed on earth, should be bound or loosed in heaven. Was it exactly natural, I asked myself, that divine light and guidance and forgiveness should be thus present, as it were, on earth for a few years, and then become entirely a matter of history and antiquarian research? If there was reason for Jesus' commissioning the apostles, was there not equal reason for the apostles commissioning others who should take their places? Protestants said the revelation was in a book; but Jesus never spoke of a book. If something else was authoritative in the apostolic days, what absurdity was there in supposing that something else might be authoritative in later days? And yet, no Protestant church or synod or council ever claimed to be such a living witness of God on the earth. The most zealous Protestants were careful to say that they gave only their human, fallible interpretations of the distant revelation; that it was even blasphemous for a man to claim to forgive sins; that the Bible, and the Bible only, was their religion. And yet, the Bible, it was severally claimed, gave the basis to the Presbyterian creed, to the Methodist creed, to, one might say, a hundred creeds, even including the slender one of Unitarians. How certain words of Newman came home to me in the midst of such reflections! "There is an overpowering antecedent improbability in Almighty God's announcing that He has revealed something, and then revealing nothing; there is no antecedent improbability in His revealing it elsewhere than in an inspired volume." I do not mean to say that I was converted by Newman; but I was open to light on that side. I did not shut my mind, as most Protestants seemed to, and I dimly felt, I had a sort of foreboding that, if what I already held was true, reason might be on his side. And it was reason--the demand for a set of views that should be harmonious and consistent--that made me dissatisfied; and so I could give credit to the idea that Newman in his changes, and in his final act, was influenced by reason.

To Newman, the main difficulty of all lay in the being of God. If there was a God, it seemed rational to him that there should be a revelation, taking into account the actual condition of men. If there was a revelation, the Catholic Church presented more signs of being its bearer and custodian than any other body or institution of men. I think if we are disposed to question the rationality of his course, we shall find, if we examine the matter carefully, that it is because we question his postulates, not his reasoning or results. Granted that there is a God, as men ordinarily understand that term, and I think that a revelation is antecedently probable; granted that a revelation has been made, as Protestants (save Unitarians) are agreed, and I think it but reasonable to suppose that some such body as the Catholic Church claims to be should be its bearer and unerring interpreter to men. We are mistaken if we think that Newman devised any short-cut to mental peace, or used any other instrument or method for arriving at his results than we ordinarily employ in sound reasonings of every day. He claimed no intuitions, no vision of theological truth, and he was less arbitrary and fanciful in defending Catholic dogma than I have known "philosophers" to be in defending the being of God and the immortality of the soul. He tells us in his _Apologia_ that he believed in a God on a ground of probability, that he believed in Christianity on a probability, and that he believed in Catholicism on a probability, and that these three grounds of probability, distinct from each other in subject-matter, were still, all of them, one and the same in nature of proof, as being probabilities--probabilities of a special kind, a cumulative, a transcendent probability, but still probability.

But did he not by some magical metamorphosis turn these probabilities into a certainty? No; he simply claimed that they were sufficient to produce certitude, which is a different matter. Certitude, he held, was a quality or habit of mind; certainty, a quality of propositions; and probabilities that did not reach to logical certainty might suffice for a mental certitude. We are mentally sure almost every day of many things which could not be demonstratively proved; we are practically as sure of them as if they could be proved; we are ready to act on the basis of them, and that is the test of practical certitude. The word of a friend on a matter of which we are ignorant is an example; we may be as sure of what he tells us as if we had seen it ourselves; yet he may be mistaken; strictly speaking, his word is only probable evidence. But did not Newman substitute faith for reason? Yes, in a sense; but not in a sense in which it is of itself irrational to do so. How much could the reason of any of us tell us of Central Africa? We know of it by testimony, do we not? not by reason. From our own notions alone we could not tell whether it was a desert or a forest; whether it was inhabited or uninhabited; whether full-grown human beings or dwarfs lived there; but a Livingstone, a Du Chaillu, a Stanley, tell us, and we accept their word. The fact is, that trust in testimony is what we daily practise. We learn of what is going on in a neighboring town, of much in our own town, of much in our own house (unless we are there all the time, and in every part of it at the same time) not by reasoning about it, any more than by sight, but by faith in what others tell us. "Why should we be unwilling to go by faith?" asks Newman. "We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. By faith only we know our positions in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality; why should religion be an exception? Why should we be willing to use for heavenly objects what we daily use for earthly?" There is really nothing mystical about faith; it is not peculiarly a religious principle, nor is it the ideal way of getting knowledge. As Newman says, "The word of another is in itself a faint evidence compared with that of sight or reason. It is influential only when we cannot do without it."

Now it may be difficult to suppose that God has ever spoken in the world. But if we think He has, it cannot be irrational to take His word and believe it; it cannot be absurd to trust a Divine message, when we are every day trusting human messages. And one thing further. When we trust a friend's report, we do not make our previous ideas of what is probable, a test of how much we shall believe of what he says. If we were already competent to say what happened, we should not go to him for information. Unless it is impossible, or against all the laws of probability, we assent to what he says, however much it may surprise, or startle, or alarm us; if we cannot do this, we have not real trust. But trusting it is irrational "to pick and choose;" to say this we will accept and that we will reject, according as it seems antecedently likely or not. Surely this must be also true of divine testimony. If God, the perfect, the unerring intelligence, speaks, we are at least to give Him the same respect we should show to a fellow-man; we are not to say, "this is credible and I accept it; that is strange, mysterious, and I must reject it." If we knew beforehand what was true, to what end would God give the revelation? And if we do thus sit in judgment, we simply show (unless we are dishonest) that we do not believe that God has spoken. Hence, what is called the submission of reason, which, in the large sense of the word, it is only rational to give, if God has indeed given a message to the world. Protestants so submit to the teachings of the Bible; Catholics do to the teachings of the Church. If God really speaks in either, it is as rational to do so as it is to trust Stanley's reports of the lakes and jungles, the weird forests and strange inhabitants of Central Africa--yes, as much more so as Stanley is a man, and God is God. Most simply and frankly does Newman say, in speaking of early converts, "The Church was their teacher; they did not come to argue, to examine, to pick and choose, but to accept whatever was put before them." This attitude of arguing, examining, picking, and choosing in relation to things of which we really know nothing, and can know nothing, in our mortal state (though supposedly God knows and has given a certain amount of light) Newman calls Rationalism; and if God has spoken, surely such Rationalism is irrational. The doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, that one creed is as good as another, and that all is opinion, Newman calls Liberalism; but if God has revealed the truth such Liberalism is false.

In writing of Newman as I have, I have been moved by old attachment and personal veneration. But if I have incidentally contributed to show that a Catholic need not necessarily be either a weak man or a dishonest one, as is sometimes taken for granted among Liberals, I shall not be sorry. My opinion is that Newman differed from the stock Protestantism of his day, largely because he sought out light and sought it with a mind which for eagerness, keenness, subtlety, depth, has rarely been surpassed; that he left the Church of England because it was neither fish nor fowl--and rationality and consistency were not in it; that he went to Rome, because, taking his premises for granted, reason pointed that way. And yet the guarded way in which I have spoken has probably been noticed by my readers. I have not said that reason, abstractly speaking, was on his side, but that starting from his premises his course was reasonable--his premises being those to which most Christians hold. The difference was that he took them seriously and they became living principles, germs of ample growth in his mind, while others held them unthinkingly; that he had the rare power of realizing his ideas, while others took them as mechanically as we often take the stars at night--points of light they are to us and nothing more. But whether his premises were really sound is another question. My mature judgment is that they were not; had I been able to hold my Christian faith as I once held it, could I have resisted the solvents that science, and criticism, and philosophy were bringing to bear upon it, I should have gone I know not where; as it is, I am a Liberal (though not in Newman's sense). The ordinary idea of God I cannot hold, nor does it seem likely that I shall ever hold an idea of God with which the idea of a special revelation would be congruous; and even were the ordinary idea of God a true one, I think that the matter-of-fact evidence of a revelation through Jesus is insufficient. Reluctant as I was to admit it, struggle as I might against it, the share of Jesus in the errors and illusions of his time (the sense of which grew upon me) made it impossible for me at last to absolutely trust his consciousness; however great, however sublime a figure he was, it appeared that he belonged after all to our fallible humanity. Hence in my view we were thrown back on ourselves; we may have great and consoling beliefs about life and its purpose, about death and what lies beyond, about the fathomless Power from which we come and on whose bosom we rest; but a revelation we have not; they are beliefs which we ourselves form and do not receive from without. Rationalism, though not in the sense in which Newman used it, becomes the only method; and Liberalism, in the sense that whatever creed one may hold none can claim to be infallible, or of exclusive divine authority, and that good men of different creeds should respect and tolerate one another, becomes at once a necessity and a duty.

Newman has taken his way; other men, let us trust, with the root of piety in them as truly as it was in him, have taken theirs; the ways are far apart--which is truer, time, the future, perhaps the ages alone can tell. But we are bound not to revile him, as he in sober truth never reviled us.

INTER-MIGRATION.

BY RABBI SOLOMON SCHINDLER.

The immigration problem, which I have been discussing in previous numbers of THE ARENA, cannot be unravelled without considering one important thread which adds to the entanglement. I shall apply to it the term "Inter-migration," a word not found in the dictionary, because it is freshly coined for the purpose. Let me try to define its meaning.

A person is said to migrate when he leaves his native land, seeking a new home in some other country. Around the word emigrant or immigrant hovers always the idea of an exchange of habits, customs, and language of one country with those of another. The immigrant, when he arrives at the place which he has chosen for his new settlement, appears by his dress, his language, his manners, yea, even by his features, a stranger; one who has apparently no right to press himself upon the community; one who must not feel offended if he is mistrusted, until he has shown that his arrival will not prove dangerous to the old settlers. Around the word emigrant hovers the idea of distance; he comes from far-off countries, from a place which cannot be easily reached, or from which information concerning himself cannot be readily obtained. We call a person an immigrant who comes to us from a distance of at least a few thousand miles, and from a country that differs from ours in the forms of government as well as in customs and manners. We would surely not call a person an immigrant who comes from a village of Maine or New Hampshire to Boston, nor even if he should come from the far South or from the extreme West.

Yet, what is the difference? He is a person who has left his native home, who is as much a stranger among us as the one who comes across the ocean. His manners may be as different from ours, his features may show at a glance, whether he is a southerner, a western man, or whether he comes from down east; even his language may be strange on account of the peculiar accent which he gives his words, and the idioms which he uses. It may frequently happen that two people, who both think they speak the English language will be unable to understand each other, on account of the difference in dialect. The new-comer may prove to be as much, or even more, of an undesirable element among us, as the one who comes from Ireland or China; his presence in the labor market may tend as well to reduce the rates of wages as if he had come from Hungaria or Bulgaria. There is no denying the fact that a locomotion has taken place, that an individual has transplanted himself from one place to the other, either on account of the urging of his venturesome spirit, or for the sake of finding a better market for his abilities, or driven out by force of adverse conditions. There is little difference whether a person leaves Russia on account of his dissatisfaction with the government, or an arbitrary legislation which deprives him of his opportunities; or whether he leaves a village in Nebraska because he finds he is unable longer to withstand the grinding process of the land sharks, or the sweating system of the factory owners. His intentions are to better his condition; precisely the same as are those of him who crosses the Atlantic. The one will sell his all to pay his passage on the steamer, the other to pay for his railroad ticket, and both will arrive penniless. Yet the one is called an emigrant or immigrant, and the other is not, although the distance from which the latter comes may be the same or even greater than that from which the former hails.

In order to distinguish between these two classes of migration, I call this latter one "Inter-migration," and desire the term to stand for a change of habitation occurring within the boundaries of a land that is under the same government.

Inter-migration, although it has never before reached the development to which it has risen in the present, is not a new form of the migratory habit of peoples. Ancient records tell us that a forced inter-migration has frequently taken place. The conquerors of old, desirous of making one nation out of the many peoples they subdued by their valiant sword, would transplant large numbers of individuals from one province to another distant one, giving their land and their possessions in exchange to settlers, whom they drew from some other country. Their scheme, however, rarely succeeded, because the difficulties of a long journey made it impossible for them to transplant a sufficiently large number of people; the masses remained undisturbed, the few new-comers were soon absorbed by them, and the desired change of sentiment was not produced. The moment the government was attacked by a new conqueror, all provinces would at once rise in revolt, and thus hasten the downfall of empires, such as was, for instance, the Persian, before the onslaught of so small an army as that with which Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont.

The golden era of the Roman Empire, and the prosperity and the culture which then prevailed, were made possible solely through the facilities which were given to inter-migration. Good roads connected the ends and dissected the width and breadth of the great Roman Empire. Travel was well protected. A well-drilled army suppressed highway robbery, and an excellent navy put down piracy. A resident of Gaul could with ease settle in Syria, while the Syrian, if he so desired, could find with ease a home in Gaul. The residents of Brittania and Greece could with comparative ease inter-migrate, and had not the floods of barbarians which deluged the Roman Empire put an end to civilization, and with it the possibilities of inter-migration, we might stand to-day on a much higher round of culture, and our knowledge might have been much greater than it is.

If the inventions of the nineteenth century have made possible emigration to such an extent to-day as never before existed, it has still more facilitated inter-migration. It has almost destroyed the equilibrium between the centripetal and centrifugal forces, giving the advantages to the latter. The facilities of locomotion have made people restless; the times have passed by when grandchildren would live in the same house in which their grandparents lived or when they consider it a hardship and misfortune to move out of such a habitation, or to see it change owners; time has been, when only the adventurer left his native place, and when it was considered dangerous to go into the world, which at that time could be circumscribed by a radius of a few miles; time has been, when people lived for generations in the same house, in the same street, in the same village or town, when even the household furniture became venerable on account of its antiquity and the remembrances connected with it. What boy or girl in our day plays around the chair which their great-grandfather used to occupy? To sell one house and move into another; to leave one city and seek settlement in another, is now the rule and not the exception; and it is mainly this inter-migration, stirring up the masses, to which is due our increased prosperity and our progress in all branches of knowledge. Inter-migration keeps us from stagnation; it removes shyness and fear at the sight of a stranger, accustoms us to an intercourse with different people, removes prejudices and superstitions, and facilitates the exchange of thoughts and ideas.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that intermigration has also its drawbacks; that it will easily flood the labor market so as to screw down wages; it will foster the venturesome spirit, induce people to risk a certainty for an uncertainty, and especially has it tended to draw people from the rural districts to the large cities.

All the complaints heard against immigration, and all the pressure that is brought to bear upon the government to restrict it, do not come from the rural districts, but from the large cities; and it is generally overlooked that the competition, which presses down the compensation for labor to such a degree that the wages earned for hard work are sometimes not sufficient to support one person, and far less a family, is not brought about solely by the immigrant who comes from abroad, but is, to a very great extent, the consequence of inter-migration, of the influx of villagers into the cities. While in country places there is a scarcity of labor, thus in New England, for example, while many farms are vacant, there are people starving in the cities, unable to obtain work. The increase of large cities and of their population is beyond the proportion in which it formerly stood to that of the country. This has aroused the thoughts of many long-headed people, and investigations are being made on every hand, especially because some people are moved by fear that city life will corrupt morality. They take it for granted that country people are virtuous, and that vice finds its domicile only in the large centres of population, and having established these premises, they argue that the tendency of country people to move into cities shows a degeneracy on their part, or that the abnormal growth of cities is a sure token of the moral depravity which has taken hold of the people. This, however, is not true. There is as much iniquity in proportion in small communities as in large ones, and not unfrequently wickedness and viciousness are attributed to actions which, after all, are neither wicked nor vicious, but merely strange to one who is not accustomed to them. The tide of inter-migration, which swells the population of the cities, has its natural causes, of which moral corruption is the least.