Man also instinctively recognizes that he sustains some sort of personal relationship to this "Something," that for want of a better name, we call God. It is necessary in this connection to repeat what we have already said: That very early in the history of the human race man was led to this conclusion, concerning his relationship and obligation to God, thru his effort to interpret and solve the problem of evil, or his own sufferings from it, and his ultimate death. The only possible method he had of interpreting these problems was drawn from his own nature and experience. He knew himself as being alive, as a conscious individual, capable of exercising will and exerting force. Thus when he heard the roaring thunders, saw the clouds floating overhead, and the flashes of lightning among them, felt the force of the wind and the falling rain; in fact all the phenomena of nature and life about him, including his own aches, pains, diseases, suffering, and the ultimate death of his kind, he could only interpret these things in terms of living personality, some great, powerful individual, or individuals behind, and directing it all. These became man's first gods.
Man also interpreted his own relation to the gods, and theirs to him, in the same terms that defined his relations toward his fellowmen. He recognized the fact that some of his fellowmen sometimes did him an injury, or committed some offense against him; that this offense or injury aroused in him a spirit of resentment, a desire for vengeance in kind, even to the taking of the life of the man who had injured, or seriously offended him. Man made his gods in his own image. He believed these gods to be like himself. Thus, man interpreted his own sufferings to mean that he was out of right relations with the gods; that he had personally offended them,—or, one or more of them in some way, according to the source from which he conceived some particular affliction to come. When the individual was conscious of his own innocence, he concluded that some of his ancestors had grievously offended the god, who relentlessly pursued his posterity and inflicted on them the penalties due for the sins of this ancestor. Hence the doctrine of inherited or original Sin. Man then set about to devise some means to appease the wrath of the gods, and thus restore harmonious relations with them. A volume might be written here, but we must proceed with the next proposition.
All religion is therefore one in its ultimate purpose, and objective end: To attain to its ideal, or harmonize with its objective. In other words: To attain unto right relations with God. Lest I be misunderstood, I will repeat: It is immaterial what this God may be, Jehovah, Allah, Nirvana or Jove; Person, Principle, or Abstract Ideal. It is that which man in his mind sets before him, toward which he aspires and strives to attain. Remember that what we think God to be, that is what God is to us.
We have now reached the point where divisions arise, where religion branches out into religions. "Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
"What must I do to be saved?" This has, in one form or another, at one time or another, been the burden of almost every soul among men. How can man attain unto right relations with his God? This is the great question of the ages. Keep in mind that it is immaterial who or what this god may be, how crude or how refined, from the lowest fetish to the highest spiritual conception, the fundamental question remains ever the same: How shall man get right with his God? What must man do to be saved?
To answer this question has been the purpose of every system of religion known to mankind, and every sect, order and denomination known to every system. And here is where confusion begins. Some one evolves a formula, means, or method that he believes meets the case. Some others are persuaded to accept it and the sect grows. In the mean time some other person has evolved another; and some other still another, and so on, and on, and on, ad infinitum; all having the same purpose in view, and each claiming to be the only right one, or at least, the best one. And it is immaterial how erroneous, crude, or even barbarous one may look to the devotees of the other; in fundamental purpose they are all the same. The Hindu mother who casts her babe into the Ganges as food for the crocodiles, as a sacrifice to her gods, does it with as sublime a motive as any Christian mother ever bowed before the altar of her own church,—and for the same purpose: To get right with her God. The Parsee wife, who burns herself to ashes upon the funeral pyre of her dead husband, does it for the same purpose: To get right with her God. The devotee who throws his body before the wheels of the Juggernaut to have it crushed as an act of devotion, does it for the same purpose: To get right with his God. The devout Mohammedan who bows himself to the earth five times a day, and says his prayers with his face towards Mecca, does it for the same purpose: To get right with Allah. The savage who repeats his incantations to his fetish that he has probably made with his own hands, does it for the same purpose: To get right with God as he conceives him. The Chinese that burns his sticks before the image in his Joss-house, does it for the same purpose: To get right with his God. And so on ad infinitum, the same central purpose running thru it all, whether Hindu or Parsee, Buddist or Janist, Confucian or Shintoist, Jew or Gentile, Mohammedan or Christian, Catholic or Protestant, Methodist or Baptist, Presbyterian or Lutheran, Calvinist or Arminian, Unitarian or Trinitarian, one and all, have one and the same ultimate object: To get into right relations with God, each according to his own conception of God, and what he understands to be his will concerning him. However, in the more rational interpretation of religion in these later times, the element of fear of punishment hereafter has been almost, if not entirely eliminated; and the religious objective is made the highest, noblest, purest, and best possible life in this world, for its own intrinsic worth, and without any reference to any future life, resting firmly in the faith that he who lives right cannot die wrong.
Hence, religion does not consist in creeds, dogmas, or beliefs; nor in forms, ordinances, ceremonies, or sacraments, as I was early taught to believe. But these are, one and all, but so many varying forms of expression which religion takes. They are all only so many different ways, means and methods religion takes to attain to its ultimate purpose and aim. They are only so many different paths which different men take in their search for God.
And is there but one true path to God, while all the others only lead to hell? And if so, which is the right one? Ah, herein lies the fruitful source of most of the world's tragedies and sufferings! It was this that burned John Huss, Savonarola and Bruno. It was this that lighted the fires of Smithfield and hung helpless, silly women in New England, as witches. But thank God, it is abating and the dawn of a better day is in sight.
I have long since come to believe that all who honestly, sincerely, and diligently seek God will ultimately find him, in some way, at some time, when God sees best to reveal himself, no matter what method may be pursued. I do not mean that all methods are equally good; no, not by any means. The quest for God may be helped or hindered, advanced or delayed, accordingly as the methods of search may be correct or erroneous. But I do mean to say that I do not believe the Infinite God, who knows the hearts of men, and will ultimately judge them by this standard, will forever hide, and deny himself to any, in whose heart He sees honesty, purity, and sincerity of purpose and motive, because in their finite judgment, they were unable to intellectually determine just which was the right, or best way;—and this, whether the searcher be Hindu, Chinese, Pagan or Parsee; Hottentot or Arab, savage or philosopher; Christian, Mohammedan or Buddhist; or any one else on earth. "Man looketh upon the outward appearance; but God looketh upon the heart." And they that diligently, honestly and earnestly seek after him will find him,—somewhere, somehow—in this life or some other, And when found, it will not be "in far-off realms of space," but in one's own heart.
"The outward God he findeth not,
Who finds not God within."