Chapter VII
Friendship in God
Friendship is not only with God but also in God. Fellowship with God has for its corollary fellowship with man in God. And the latter in the greatness of its dignity and privilege is second only to the former. The religion of Christ does not allow of one without the other. The Church, which is the divinely ordered means by which man is admitted into and sustained in his fellowship with God, is also the ideal society of men. God never considers men apart from, but always as a part of, a great social order—a social order that is not a concourse of independent units, but a body instinct with life, a society which is not an organization but an organism. The description of our relationship to one another is couched in the same terms that tell of our relationship to Christ—"members one of another," "members of Christ."
It is God's will that the Church should be coterminous with society, and that the unity of life thus produced should make the "communion of saints" a reality on earth and not a mere theory. Past years have seen much earnest straining to gain a truer conception of God, that fellowship with and love for Him might be according to His will. All this theological effort will be lost, unless it is followed up by a no less strenuous effort to make the brotherhood of man a fact. The Master gave a new commandment of love, a commandment new not in essence but rather in intensity and comprehension. After the injunction to love God comes the equally unequivocal injunction to love man—"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." That is to say, personality whether in ourselves or in others is to receive the highest reverence and consideration, and that without any partiality. Humanity being full of diversity, this commandment requires a most thorough and intelligent study of society and its elements. Heresies concerning God have been and are destructive of unity; but heresies concerning man are productive of almost equal mischief. If the first part of the commandment of love calls us to a study of theology, the second demands a study of sociology—an old science under a new name. It is worth while noting that the Apostle who earned the name of "the Divine," or as we would say "the Theologian," by reason of his familiar acquaintance with the deep things of God, was the same who felt that the appeal most worth urging with the scant breath of extreme old age was, that men should love one another; and he repeats this simple phrase until the world wonders—"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth."
But it must never be forgotten that human fellowship and friendship must under the best of conditions be sectional and shallow, and under the worst, disastrous, unless it be "in Christ," that is, in God. The true ideal of human fellowship is realized only thus. And it is such a unity as would be the outcome of fellowship in Christ, for which the Master prayed at the last. Ecclesiastical unity does not necessarily produce unity of life, though the latter must include the former in some true sense. Christian unity has a twofold basis, the love of God and the love of man. This differentiation in the commandment of love, is of Christ's own making, and cannot be ignored by His followers.
In considering the ideal human fellowship it is vital to remember that the spiritual, here as elsewhere, is built upon the natural, the spiritual entering into, interpreting and developing the natural. And when the word "natural" is used, that which is purely accidental and artificial in life is not meant, but that which is fundamental and belongs to the very constitution of humanity. For instance, trade relations and conventional institutions of whatever kind are evanescent. To use them for a foundation is to build on sand. An eternal fabric cannot gain coherence from a creation of man's whim or genius. Indeed the institutions of commerce as well as all official intercourse, can be constructed with effectiveness, not to say justice, only when built upon the recognition of the dignity of humanity and the sacredness of personality, with equality of consideration for each. And herein lies the solution of the whole social problem in all its ramifications.
The fundamental relationship of life is such as springs out of that common humanity, which, in the last analysis, is a man's only absolute possession, be he prince or pauper, wise or ignorant. And this humanity of ours is a precious possession, not always perhaps for what it has actually become, but for what it is in process of becoming, or, it may be, only because of those latent possibilities which the Incarnation has declared to be contained in that which is born of woman. Once armed with this thought, Kant's valuable negative advice never to treat humanity as a thing[14] but always as a person, never as a means merely but always as an end, is in order.
It is one of the evils springing out of an intercourse that is so largely official, that on all sides men are valued and thought of, only or chiefly on the side of economic efficiency. That is to say, they are treated with only that amount of consideration which is due a machine. A simple illustration will suffice. The mistress of a household on coming down stairs one morning was greeted by her maid, who was dusting in the hall, with a "Good morning," and, "Do you know, Mrs. Z——, that I have been with you five years to-day?" "Have you?" was the response, "You have left some dust on that chair." The mistress boasted doubtless that she had "reminded her servant of her place." No further comment is needed. The maid thought herself to be a person, but was reminded that she was a thing.