Our Unitarian Gospel

by Minot J. Savage

We are men, then, in the highest sense of the term, only as we are worshippers. And the more worshipful we are, in high and true sense of that word, the nobler and higher manhood, and the grander the possibilities in us of de intellectual, moral, spiritual growth.

Let us, then, cultivate the admiring, the wondering, the worshipful attitude of heart and mind, and recognize on lowest steps of this ladder that lifts to God, the presence of the same divine power and beauty and glory as that which we see clearly on the highest, and know that always, when we are worshipping any manifestation of God, we are shipping Him who is spirit, in spirit and in truth.

When on some strain of music Our thoughts are wafted high; When, touched with tender pity, Kind teardrops dim the eye; When thrilled with scenes of grandeur, Or moved to deeds of love, Do we not give thee worship, O God in heaven above? For Thou art all life's beauty, And Thou art all its good: By Thy tides are we lifted To every lofty mood. Whatever good is in us, Whatever good we see, And every high endeavor, Are they not all from Thee?

MORALITY NATURAL, NOT STATUTORY.

IT is very common for people to identify their special type of religion or their theological opinions with religion itself, and feel that those who do not agree with them are in the rue sense not religious. Not only this. It is perhaps quite less common for them to identify their particular type of religion with the fundamental ideas of morality, and think that the people who do not agree with them are undermining the moral stability of the world. For example, those who question the absolute authority of the Catholic Church are looked upon the authorities of that Church as the enemies, not only of religion, but as the enemies of society, the enemies of humanity, as doing what they can to shake the very foundations of he social order. You will find a great many Protestant theologians who seem to hold the opinion that, if you dare to question the authenticity or authority of some particular nook in the Bible, you are not only an enemy of religion, but you are an enemy of morality. You are doing what you can to disturb the stability of the world.

But, if we look at the matter with a little care, we shall see that we ought to turn it quite around, look at it from another point of view. Though every Bible, every particle of religious literature, every hymn, every prayer on the face of the earth, were blotted out of existence to-day, religion would not be touched. Religious books did not create religion, did not make man a religious being. It is the religious nature of man that made the Bibles, that uttered itself in prayers, that created the rituals, that sung the hymns and chanted the anthems. It is man, a religious being, who makes religious institutions, who creates all the external aspects and appearances of the religious life. And the same is true precisely in regard to moral precepts. If the Ten Commandments were blotted out of the memory of man, if every single ethical teaching of Jesus should perish, if the high and fine moral precepts of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and all the great teachers of the pagan world should cease to exist, if there were not a printed moral precept on earth, morality would not be touched. It is not these that have created morality. It is the natural moral nature of man that has written all the commandments, whether they have come to us by the hand of Moses or of Gautama or Mohammed or Confucius or Seneca, or no matter who the medium may have been.

Man is a moral being, naturally, essentially, eternally, and this is a moral universe, inherently, necessarily, eternally; and, though all the external expression of moral thought and feeling should be lost, the human race would simply reproduce them again.

It is sometimes well for us to get down to the bed-rock in our thinking, and find how natural and necessary the great foundations are. The Hindu priests used to tell their followers that the earth, which was flat, rested on certain pillars, which rested again on some other foundation beneath them, and so on until thought was weary in trying to trace that upon which the earth was supposed to find its stability. And they also told their followers that, if they did not bring offerings, if they did not pay the special respect which was due to the gods, if they were not obedient to heir teachings, these pillars would give way, and the earth would be precipitated into the abyss.

But we have found, as a result of our modern study of he universe, that the earth needs no pillars on which to rest; but it swings freely in its orbit, as the old verse that used to read in my schoolboy days says, "Hangs on nothing in the air," part of the universal system of things, stable in its eternal sound and motion, kept and cared for by the power that lever sleeps and never is weary. So, by studying into the foundations of the moral nature of man, we have discovered a last that it needs no artificial props or supports, but that morality is inherent, natural and eternal.

I shall not raise the question, which is rather curious than practical, as to whether there are any beginnings of moral feeling in the animal world below man. For our purpose this morning it is enough to note that the minute that man appears conscience appears, and that conscience is an act which springs out of social relations. In other words, when the first man rose to the ability to look into the face of his fellow and think of the other man as another self, like himself in feelings, in possibilities of pleasure or pain, when this first man was able imaginatively to put himself in: he place of this other, then morality as a practical fact was Dorn.