The Essentials of Spirituality

by Felix Adler

This is the baldly secular view of the matter, and this view, though based on low considerations, in some respects is sound enough. And yet I reiterate the opinion that to live as if this hour were our last—in other words, to frankly face the idea of death—is most conducive to the spiritual life. It is for the sake of the reflex action upon life that the practice of coming to a right understanding with death is so valuable. Take the case of a man who calls on his physician, and there unexpectedly discovers that he is afflicted with a fatal malady, and is told that he may have only a few months longer to live. This visit to the physician has changed the whole complexion of life for him. What will be the effect upon him? If he be a sane, strong, morally high-bred man, the effect will be ennobling; it will certainly not darken the face of nature for him. Matthew Arnold wished that when he died he might be placed at the open window, that he might see the sun shining on the landscape, and catch at evening the gleam of the rising star. Everything that is beautiful in the world will still be beautiful; he will thankfully accept the last draught of the joy which nature has poured into his goblet. Everything that is really uplifting in human life will have a more exquisite and tender message for him. The gayety of children will thrill him as never before, interpreted as a sign of the invincible buoyancy of the human race, of that race which will go on battling its way after he has ceased to live. If he be a man of large business connections, he will still, and more than ever, be interested in planning how what he has begun may be safely continued. If he be the father of a family, he will provide with a wise solicitude, as far as possible, for every contingency. He will dispose of matters now, as if he could see what will happen after his departure. On the other hand, all that is vain or frivolous, every vile pleasure, gambling, cruelty, harsh language to wife or child, trickery in business, social snobbishness, all the base traits that disfigure human conduct, he will now recoil from with horror, as being incongruous with the solemn realization of his condition. The frank facing of death, therefore, has the effect of sifting out the true values of life from the false, the things that are worth while from the things that are not worth while, the things that are related to the highest end from those related to the lower partial ends. The precept, "Live as if this hour were thy last," is enjoined as a touchstone; not for the purpose of dampening the healthy relish of life, but as a means of enhancing the relish for real living, the kind of living that is devoted to things really worth while. As such a test it is invaluable. The question, "Should I care to be surprised by death in what I am doing now?"—put it to the dissipated young man in his cups, put it to the respectable rogue—nay, put it to each one of us, and it will often bring the blush of shame to our cheeks. When, therefore, I commend the thought of death, I think of death not as a grim, grisly skeleton, a King of Terrors, but rather as a mighty angel, holding with averted face a wondrous lamp. By that lamp—hold it still nearer, O Death—I would read the scripture of my life, and what I read in that searching light, that would I take to heart.

Finally, there is a third condition of the spiritual life which I would mention, and which comes nearer to the heart of the matter than anything that has yet been said. Learn to look upon any pains and injuries which you may have to endure as you would upon the same pains and injuries endured by someone else. If sick and suffering, remember what you would say to someone else who is sick and suffering, remember how you would admonish him that he is not the first or the only one that has been in like case, how you would expect of him fortitude in bearing pain as an evidence of human dignity. Exhort yourself in like manner; expect the same fortitude of yourself. If any one has done you a wrong, remember what you would adduce in palliation of the offence if another were in the same situation; remember how you would suggest that perhaps the one injured had given some provocation to the wrongdoer, how you would perhaps have quoted the saying: "Tout comprendre est tout pardonner"—"to understand is to pardon," how you would in any case have condemned vindictive resentment. In the moral world each one counts for one and not more than one. The judgment that you pass on others, pass on yourself, and the fact that you are able to do so, that you have the power to rise above your subjective self and take the public universal point of view with respect to yourself, will give you a wonderful sense of enfranchisement and poise and spiritual dignity. And, on the other hand (and this is but the obverse of the same rule), look upon everyone else as being from the moral point of view just as important as you are; nay, realize that every human being is but another self, a part of the same spiritual being that is in you, a complement of yourself, a part of your essential being. Realize the unity that subsists between you and your fellow-men, and then your life will be spiritual indeed. For the highest end with which we must be ever in touch, toward which we must be ever looking, is to make actual that unity between ourselves and others of which our moral nature is the prophecy. The realization of that unity is the goal toward which humanity tends.

Spirituality depends upon our tutoring ourselves to regard the welfare of others—moral as well as external—as much our concern as our own. What this practically means the following illustration will indicate. A certain bank official, a man of excellent education and of high social standing, committed a crime. He allowed himself in a moment of lamentable weakness to use certain trust funds which had been committed to him to cover losses which he had sustained. He intended to replace what he had taken, of course, but he could not do so, for he became more and more deeply involved. One night as he was alone in his office it became plain to him that the day of reckoning could no longer be put off. He was at the end of his resources. The morrow would bring exposure and ruin. Then the temptation seized him to make away with himself. He had a charming wife and two lovely daughters. He was the revered head of the household; in the eyes of his family the paragon of honor. He was universally esteemed by his friends, who knew not his temptation and his fall. On that night in the lonely office he could not bear to think of meeting the future, of being exposed as a criminal in the eyes of his friends, of bringing upon his family the infamy and the agony of his disgrace. Should a man in his situation be permitted to commit suicide? If we were at his elbow should we allow him to do so? This question was submitted to one of my Ethics classes. The students at first impulsively decided in the affirmative, for they argued, as many do, that right conduct consists in bestowing happiness on others, and wrong conduct in inflicting suffering on others; and now that the man had committed the crime, they maintained he could at least relieve those whom he loved of his presence by taking himself out of their way. True, someone said, the exposure was inevitable in any case, and the shock of discovery could not be averted; but we were forced to concede that from the point of view of suffering, the pain involved in the sudden shock could not be compared to the long-drawn-out anguish which would result if he continued to live. For presently he would forfeit his liberty; he would sit as a prisoner in the dock. His wife and daughters, loyal to their duties even toward an unworthy husband and father, would be found at his side. They would hear the whispers, they would see the significant nods, they would endure all the shame. Later on, when the trial was at an end, the prisoner would stand up to hear the verdict. They would still be near him. Still later there would be the pilgrimage to the prison on the Hudson. They would see their beloved husband and father in striped garb among the scum and refuse of society, and these weary journeys would be repeated during long years until his term was over and he returned a broken and outcast man to what was once a home. Could not this lamentable issue at least be forestalled? But then there came a new light into our discussion. One of the students suggested that he must face the consequences of his wrongdoing, and that one of the consequences is the very suffering which he inflicts upon the innocent. He must see that day by day. That would be a part of his expiation, the purifying fire that may consume the dross of his nature. And, on the other hand, it would be right for the innocent to bear, not the guilt, but the consequences of the guilt of the wrongdoer whom they have loved, whom they still love. For this is the holy law: that the other whom we love shall be taken into our self as a part of our very self, that in his joy we shall rejoice as if his joy were ours, that in his achievements we shall triumph, that in his humiliations we shall be humbled, and that we shall work out his redemption by traveling with him the hard road that leads out of the dark depths upward again to the levels of peace and reconciliation.

The spiritual life depends on self-recollection and detachment from the rush of life; it depends on facing frankly the thought of death; it is signalized, especially, by the identification of self with others, even of the guiltless with the guilty. Spirituality is sometimes spoken of as if it were a kind of moral luxury, a work of supererogation, a token of fastidiousness and over-refinement. It is nothing of the sort. Spirituality is simply morality carried to its farthest bounds; it is not an airy bauble of the fancy, it is of "the tough fibre of the human heart."

II. THE SPIRITUAL ATTITUDE TOWARD ONE'S NEIGHBOR.

Sunday, Nov. 27, 1904.

Those whom we call our neighbors, our fellow-men, may stand to us in a threefold relation. Some possess gifts far greater than our own, and in point of development are our superiors; some are on the same level; and some are much inferior to us. The spiritual attitude toward our neighbor—though always governed by the same principle, expresses itself in different ways, according as our neighbor is related to us in one or another of these three ways.

I recently read a biography of Matthew Arnold, the author of which constantly speaks of himself as Arnold's disciple. It is not often nowadays that we hear men proclaim themselves disciples and glory in their discipleship. At the present day the tendency is for every one to assert an equality with others; and most persons would resent the imputation of subordination implied in such a word as disciple. And yet the writer in question is a self-respecting man, he is thoroughly alive to his dignity, and he has keen and unsparing words for certain of the faults of the master whom he reveres. He is not blind, he is not wax in the hands of the master, he does not look upon him with undiscerning admiration, and yet he takes toward him the reverent attitude—what I should call the spiritual attitude—for he recognizes that this master of his is a casket in which nature has deposited a treasure of extraordinary value, that he possesses a genius much superior to that of others. The loyal disciple is concerned that this genius should appear in its full potency and in undiminished radiance. To this end is the upward look, the appreciation and reverence, and to this end also the misgiving and the remonstrance when the great man deviates from the course which he ought to follow. The same attitude of loyalty we sometimes find among the disciples of great artists, and the followers of great religious teachers. Loyalty is a virtue which is somewhat underrated at the present day. Loyalty is not debasing, not unworthy of a self-respecting man; it is but another name for the spiritual attitude toward those who have a superior genius, to whose height we are lifted by our appreciation of them.

Furthermore, in our spiritual relation toward those who occupy about the same plane of development with ourselves, the same principle of sympathy with the best possible attainment should be the rule. To rejoice in the failure of others, to accentuate in our thinking and in our conversation the faults of others, to triumph at their expense, is the utterly unspiritual attitude. To desire that others may manifest the excellence that is latent in them—be it like to or different from our own, to desire that they shall have credit for every excellence they possess, and to sedulously aid them in developing such excellence as they can attain to, that is the spiritual attitude.

I have spoken of superiors and equals, of our attitude toward those who are more developed than we are, and toward those who are about equally developed; but my address to-day will be mainly occupied with our duty toward those who are or seem to be wholly undeveloped. The fundamental principle of Ethics is that every human being possesses indefeasible worth. It is comparatively easy to apply the principle of anticipating our neighbor's latent talents to the highly gifted, to the great authors, scientists, statesmen, artists, and even to the moderately gifted, for their worth is, in part, already manifested in their lives. But it is not so easy to apply or justify the principle in the case of the obscure masses, whose lives are uneventful, unilluminated by talent, charm, or conspicuous service, and who, as individuals at least, it might appear, could well be spared without impairing the progress of the human race. And yet this doctrine of the worth of all is the cornerstone of our democracy. Upon it rests the principle of the equal rights of even the humblest before the law, the equal right of all to participate in the government. It is also the cornerstone of all private morality; for unless we accept it, we cannot take the spiritual attitude toward those who are undeveloped.