And what is to be said of those Gentile peoples who listened more willingly to the message of Christ, those “wild olive trees,” as St. Paul calls them, which were grafted on the “broken branches”? They also have had the same history. They also, in their own way, have become enslaved by the same formalism; and they also must regain their liberty through the return of individual souls to a personal experience of the method of Christ.
Here is the evidence of the indestructible truth and the extraordinary vitality of the Christian religion. To subdue its opponents was but a slight achievement; for every positive truth must in the end prevail. Its real conflict has been with the forces of accumulated opinion, of superfluous learning, of sickly fancies among its friends, and with the intellectual slavery to which these influences have led. Through these obstructions the light and power of genuine Christianity have broken like sunshine through a mist; and with such Christianity have appeared in history the political liberty on which the permanence of civilization rests, the philosophical truth which solves the problems of human life, and the present comfort for the human heart, beyond the power of misfortune to disturb.
We reach, then, a philosophy of life which is not speculative or fanciful, but rests on the facts of history. This is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Better is it for one if he finds this “way” without too many companions or professional guides, for many a religious teaching, designed to show the way, has repelled young lives from following it. As one follows the way, he gains, first of all, courage, so that he dares to go on in his search. He goes still further, and the way opens into the assurance that life, with all its mystery, is not lived in vain. He pushes on, and the way issues into health, not only of the soul but even of the body; for bodily health is more dependent on spiritual condition than spiritual condition on bodily health; and modern medicine can never restore and assure health to the body if it limit its problem to physical relief alone. Nor is even this the end of the “way” of Christ. It leads not only to personal health, but to social health as well; not by continually inciting the masses to some social programme, but by strengthening the individuals of which the masses are made. Here alone is positive social redemption; while the hopes that turn to other ways of social reform are for the most part deceptive dreams.
Finally, the way is sure to lead every life which follows it, and is willing to pay the price for the possession of truth, into the region of spiritual peace. No other way of life permits this comprehensive sense of peace and assurance. Apart from it we have but the unremitting and bitter struggle for existence, the enforcement of national self-seeking, the temporary victory of the strong, the hell of the weak and the poor; yet, at the same time, no peace even for the strong, who have their little day of power, but live in daily fear that this power will fail and leave them at the mercy of the wolves, their neighbors. Meantime, on every page of the world’s history, and in the experience of daily life, God writes the opposite teaching, that out of the midst of evil issues at last the mastery of the good; and that, in modern as in ancient time, the meek both inherit and control the earth. History is not a record of despotic control like that of a Roman Cæsar, effective and intelligent, but necessarily involving a progressive degeneration of his subjects; it is a story of progressive amelioration in moral standards and achievements; and this fact of moral progress is the most convincing proof of the being of God.
Thus it happens that to one who loves liberty and who reads history, the logic of thought leads to faith in God. Without such faith it is difficult to believe in human progress through freedom, or to view the movement of the modern world with hope. Without such faith the popular agitations of the time are disquieting and alarming, and the only refuge of the spirit is in submission to some human authority either of Church or of State. Without such faith it would be increasingly impossible to maintain a democratic republic like Switzerland in the midst of the autocratic monarchies of Europe. With profound truthfulness the Swiss Parliament at Aarau opened its session with these simple words: “Our help is in the Lord our God, who hath made heaven and earth.” And, finally, without political liberty there would be but a brief survival of religious liberty itself, and it too would be supplanted by a condition of servitude. A State-Church is a self-contradictory expression. State and Church alike need self-government for self-development. A free Church and a free State are not only most representative of Christianity, but are beyond doubt the forms of Christian citizenship which are to survive. Not compulsion, nor any form of authority, will in the end dominate the world, but freedom, in all its forms and its effects. The end of social evolution is to be the free obedience of men and nations to the moral order of the world.
And yet, we must repeat, the secret of true progress is not to be found in an achievement of philosophy, or a process of thought; but in a historical process, a living experience. To each man’s will is offered the choice of this way which leads to personal recognition of the truth and personal experience of happiness. To each nation the same choice is presented. No philosophy or religion has real significance which does not lead this way. No man can rightly call it mere misfortune, or confess his unbelief with sentimental regret, when he misses the way and forfeits his peace of mind. His pessimism is not, as he fondly thinks, a mark of distinction; it is, on the contrary, as a rule, an evidence of moral defect or weakness, and should stir in him a positive moral scorn.
What is it, then, which makes one unable to find the way of Jesus? It is, for the most part, either unwillingness to make a serious effort to find it, or disinclination to accept the consequences of the choice. To take up with some philosophical novelty, involving no demand upon the will; to surrender oneself to the pleasures of life; to attach oneself, with superficial and unreflecting devotion, to some form of Church or sect;—how much easier is any one of these refuges of the mind than serious meditation on the great problems of life and the growth of a personal conviction! And yet, how unmistakable have been the joy, and the strength to live and to die, and the peace of mind and sense of right adjustment to the Universe, which those have found who have followed with patience the way I have described! In the testimony of such souls there is complete accord. Consciously or unconsciously, every heart desires the satisfactions which this way of life can give, and without these satisfactions of the spirit no other possessions or pleasures can insure spiritual peace.
What infinite pains are taken by people in the modern world for the sake of their health of body or the welfare of their souls! For health of body they go barefoot in the daytime or sleep in wet sheets at night; for the good of their souls they go on pilgrimages and into retreats, or submit themselves to other forms of spiritual exercise. They go even farther in their pious credulity. There is not a hardship or a folly, or a risk of body or soul, or any form of martyrdom, which is not accepted by thousands in the hope that it will save their souls. And all the time the simple way to the meaning of life lies straight before their feet,—a way, however, let us last of all remember, which it is not enough to know, but which is given us to follow. This is the truth which a scholar of the time of Luther teaches, though he himself had not fully attained the truth. Not, he writes, by knowing the way but by going it, is the meaning of life to be found. He put into the mouth of Christ his lesson:
“Why art thou then so faint of heart,
O man of little faith?