Our Unitarian Gospel

by Minot J. Savage

Look for a moment at Abraham Lincoln. Think what he did by the atoning sacrifice of his life for liberty, for humanity, for truth. On the one hand, his murderer showed what sin may come to in its ignorance, its misconception, its antagonism to whatever is right and good and true. And, on the other hand, he, with words of forgiveness on his lips, words of human love, with all tenderness and charity in his heart, illustrated again and lived out the sweetness of divinity and the tenderness of humanity.

As another illustration, human, simple, natural, just let me say a word concerning the act, the attitude, of General Grant at Appomattox. He did more at the surrender of Lee to send a thrill of brotherly sympathy through North and South and help wield this nation into one than he could have possibly done by the most magnificent achievement of arms, when he refused to take his opponent's sword; when he let the officers go away with their side-arms; when he told each man that his horse or his mule was still of right his because he would need it to begin the new life again that was before him.

Facts like these suggest the naturalness, the humanness, as well as the God-likeness of the work of atonement that is going on all over the world, as it climbs and swings slowly up out of the darkness and into the light of life. Jesus the great atoning sacrifice? Yes, but thousands on thousands of others atoning in just the same divine way, just the same human way, just as naturally, just as necessarily. Every man who does an honest day's work, every man who is kind and loving in his family, every man who is helpful as a neighbor, every man who stands faithfully by his convictions of truth, every man who shows that he cares more for the truth than he does for worldly success, that he knows that in that truth only is immortality, and that it is greater and better and sweeter than even life, every man who consecrates himself in this way is doing his part towards working out the atonement of human sin, the reconciliation of man with God, the reconciliation of men with each other.

Let us, then, while loving Jesus, while reverencing him for the grandeur of his work and the beauty of his life, let us rise and claim kinship with him, rise to the dignity and glory of the thought that we are sons of God as he was, and that we may share with him the grandest service that one man can render to his time, the helping of people to find and love and serve God, the helping of people to discover and love and serve each other. The outcome of this atoning work is simply the coming of that time which we speak of familiarly without half comprehending it, when the world shall recognize the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.

PRAYER, AND COMMUNION WITH GOD

SOME years ago I heard a minister, then widely known throughout the country, say in a public address, "Prayer is the power that moves the arm that moves the world." Can we accept that to-day as a definition of a rational view of the relation in which we stand to God? Many of you will remember that not long ago the churches and the scientific men of England and America were much stirred and roused over a discussion concerning the practical efficacy of prayer. There was much talk of what was called the "prayer-gauge." I think it was Professor Tyndall who proposed to test the question as to whether prayer was a real power in the physical world; and his test, if I remember rightly, was something like this. He said: You churchmen claim that prayer is able to heal the sick. Now, he said, let us take a certain hospital. We will divide it, a certain number of wards on one side, and a certain number of wards on the other, equalizing so far as we can the nature of the illnesses which afflict the patients. You now concentrate as much as you please, and as many as you please, the prayers on certain wards in the hospital, and we will commit the rest to the ordinary treatment of the physicians; and we will see if you are able to produce any results.

Against a certain type and theory of prayer I suppose a test like that is legitimate enough; and this type, this theory, is the one that has prevailed throughout Christendom largely for a good many hundreds of years. I suppose you can remember in your boyhood some of you are as old as I that it was not an uncommon thing for the minister to pray earnestly for certain things that intelligent men would hardly think of praying for in the same fashion to-day. It was not an uncommon thing, a few years ago, to have a special prayer- meeting during a drought in the endeavor to prevail upon God to send the rain; and there was certainly a Scriptural warrant for it; for Elijah is represented in the Old Testament as having, by the power of prayer, shut up the heavens for three years and a half, and then as bringing rain again as the result of his petition. If you study the Book of James, and remember, when you do study it, that it was not written by the apostle, but by some unknown author towards the middle of the second century, you will see that he teaches that, if any one is sick, you are not to send for a physician. The brethren are to assemble, the invalid is to be anointed with oil, they are to pray over him, and the explicit and unqualified promise is given that the prayer of faith shall save the sick. And yet we have been confronted for ages with the spectacle of people breaking their hearts in pleading prayer for those that were sick, and seeing them fade and vanish from their sight in spite of their petitions.

I have heard it said a good many times that the fame of the Cunard line of steamships touching the matter of the safety of its passengers was to be explained by the piety of the founders of the line, and the fact that they prayed every time a ship sailed that it might safely cross the seas and land its passengers without accident in the wished-for haven. Are there no prayers for other lines? Has no one ever prayed on behalf of a ship that did meet with an accident? But this would be explained on this theory by saying that the prayer was not the prayer of faith or that there was some defect in it somewhere.

I refer to these things simply by way of illustration to recall to your mind that prayer used to be supposed to be a power touching the winds, the waves, the prosperity of the crops, insuring safety during a dangerous journey; that it was a power that was able to heal disease, that could accomplish all sorts of strange and startling effects in the physical realm.

And now I simply wish to call your attention to the naturalness of that kind of prayer in the olden time. To some of us this thought may seem strange, it may seem almost absurd, to-day; but remember it was not strange, it was not absurd, in the times when the old theory of the universe was thoroughly believed in, not only by church members, but by scientific men as well.