Our Unitarian Gospel

by Minot J. Savage

And so, as you look into these cases of supposed divine judgments, which people are so ready to see in regard to their neighbors, you will find that it has some serious defect of this sort almost always that makes you question whether a wise man would be guilty of that method of conducting his affairs.

This, perhaps, is enough by way of setting forth the popular method of looking at these problems. I want to ask you now to go with me for a little while, as I attempt to analyze some of these cases, and get at the real principle involved as to what it is that is really going on.

Now take this case of the mother whose child is taken away from her, as she says. Let us see if we can find out what is really being done. It is possible, of course, that the child has inherited, it may be from a grandfather or great-grandfather, from somewhere along the line, a tendency to a particular kind of disease. It may be that, without anybody's being to blame for it or anybody's knowing it, the child was exposed to some contagious disease on the street or at school. It may be that the mother, through a little otherwise pardonable vanity, wishing to display the beauty of the child rather than to dress it in the healthiest manner, has been the means of exposing it to cold. It may be any one of a dozen things has caused the death of this child. And do you not see that in every case it has nothing whatever to do with the mother's moral goodness or spiritual cultivation? It is absurd to think that the mother, in this case, is being punished for something that she is entirely unconscious of having been guilty of. Do you not see that there is no logical connection between an inherited disease, between exposure, between taking cold, between any of these natural causes and the goodness of the mother? Is it not absurd to talk about their having anything whatever to do with each other?

I remember hearing a famous revivalist preach some years ago; and in this particular sermon he represented God as using all means to try to turn such a man from his path of evil, as he regarded it, into the way of right and truth and salvation; and he said: First, perhaps, God takes his property away from him; and that does not change him. And by and by he takes his wife; and that does not change him. And then he takes one of his children; and, as he expressed it, he lays these coffins across his pathway in order to warn him of his sinful condition, and turn him into the right way.

Think of a God who kills other people on account of my wrong!

I had a friend in Boston once, a lady, a school-teacher, who in all seriousness told me, when her sister died, that she was afraid God had taken her sister away because she had not been sufficiently faithful in attending church services during Lent. Think of it! Not only the lack of logic in linking things like these together, but the practical impiety of attributing to God such feelings and action in regard to his dealings with his children!

Let us take the case of a man who, not being highly elevated in character, becomes rich. Let us see if we can get at the principles involved here. Perhaps you can call to mind one or another case that you may be thinking of while I speak. Of course I shall mention no names. Here is a man who possesses remarkable natural business ability, power to read the commerce, the business of his times. He deals with these in a practical way. He complies with the conditions of accumulating wealth. No matter for the present whether he does wrong in doing it or not, that is, whether he is unjust or hard or cruel; but he complies with the conditions for the obtaining of money in this particular department of life. Now do you not see that, no matter what his moral character may be in other directions, whether he is kind to his wife, whether he is loving towards his children, whether he is generous in a charitable way, whether he is politically stanch or corrupt, do you not see that these questions are entirely irrelevant, have nothing whatever to do with the question of success in the money field? He sows according to the laws of the product which he wishes to raise, and the product appears.

Or take the case of a farmer: Here is a certain tract of land adapted to a particular crop. He sows wisely in this field. He cultivates it: the rain and the sun do their part; and in the fall he has a magnificent result. Now has that anything whatever to do with the question whether the man was a good man or not, as to whether he went to prayer-meeting or not, as to whether he read his Bible or not, as to whether he was profane or not, as to whether he was a good neighbor or not? Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap, and reap it where he sows it. Is it not perfectly plain? So in any department of human life, I care not what, trace it out, and you will find that precisely the same principle is involved, and that you get results, not arbitrary bestowal's of reward or punishment.

Now I must come having, I hope, made this sufficiently clear, though after this fragmentary fashion to deal a little more with some of the ethical sides of this question. I have had no end of persons tell me, first and last, that it seemed to them that the universe could not be a moral universe, that it was not governed fairly, that reward and punishment were not meted out evenly to people; and they based their criticism on statements of fact similar to those with which I have been dealing.

Now let us look into the matter a little deeply; and let us see if we can find any hint of light and guidance. I have had a person within a week say to me, "I do not feel at all sure that it means much that people get the moral results of their moral action in a particular department of life. If a person becomes a little bit callous and hard, wisely selfish and prudent, and so prospers in the affairs of this life, I am not sure that he is not as well off as anybody, perhaps a little better off, perhaps a little better off than a person who is sensitive, and worries because he does not reach his ideals; and it is possible that he serves the world after all quite as well." This is a kind of criticism, I say, that has been made to me in the last week.