"That the present existence is one of trial with reference to another state of being, is confirmed by all that we know in what is termed the course of nature. Probation is the only key that unfolds to us the designs of God in the history of human affairs, the only clue that guides us through the pathless wilderness, and the only plan upon which this world could possibly have been formed, or upon which its history can be explained."
This world was not formed upon a plan of unconditioned happiness, because it is overspread with miseries. Neither was it formed upon a plan of unconditioned misery, for there are many joys interspersed throughout the whole. It was not formed for the unconditional existence of both vice and virtue, for that is no plan at all, the two elements being, as we know, destructive of each other. By the way, in this very fact we find the grand necessity for the remedial scheme.
The mixture of vice and virtue, of happiness and misery, is a necessary result of a state of probation, trials and sufferings consequent upon offending or violating the will of heaven.
The doctrine of the religion of Christ, with its ultimate object and its ideas of God and man, of the present and the future life, and of the relations which these all bear to each other, was and is wholly unheard of until you come to the teachings of Christ. No other religion ever drew such pictures of the worthlessness of earthly-mindedness and of living merely for this present world. And no other ever set out such beautiful, lively and glorious pictures of heavenly-mindedness, along with the joys of a future world, nor such pictures of victory over death and the grave, nor of the last judgment, nor of the triumphs of the redeemed in that tremendous day. The personal character of the great author, Christ, is as new and peculiar to this religion as anything else that we can possibly name—"He spake as never man spake."
He is the only founder of a religion which is "unconnected with all human policy and government," and, as such, should not be prostituted to any mere worldly purposes whatever. Numa, Mohammed, and even Moses, blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by such means controlled their adherents. Christ neither exercised nor accepted such power. He rejected every motive which controlled other leaders, and chose those which others avoided. Power, honor, riches and pleasure were alike disregarded. He seemed to court poverty, sufferings and death.
Many impostors and enthusiasts have tried to impose upon the world with pretended communications from the world of spirits—some of them have died rather than recant; but no history is found to show one who made his own sufferings and death a necessary part of his plan and essential elements in his mission. This distinguishes the Savior of the world from all mere enthusiasts and imposters. He declared his death in all its minutia; with a prophet's vision he saw it, declared it was necessary, and voluntarily endured it; and he was neither a madman nor idiot. Look at his lessons, his precepts and his wonderful conduct, and then imagine him insane if you can. Still, if he was not what he pretended to be, he can be viewed in no other light; and yet under the character of a madman he deserves much attention on account of such sublime and rational insanity. There is no other person known in the world's history so rationally and sublimely mad.
In what madman's career can you find such a beautiful lesson as his instructions given upon the mount. What other leader enforced his precepts and lessons upon men's credulity with such assurances of reward as, "Come, ye blessed of my father! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee; or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in; or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick and in prison, and came unto thee? Then shall he answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Before the appearance of Christ there existed nothing like the faith of Christ and Christianity upon the face of the earth. The Jews alone had a few of its types and shadows, but the great mystery of Christ had been kept hid since the world began. All the Gentile nations were wrapped up in the very worst idolatry, having little or no connection whatever with morality, except to corrupt it with the infamous examples of their gods. "They all worshiped a multitude of gods and demons, whose favor they sought by obscene and ridiculous ceremonies, and whose anger they tried to appease with the most abominable cruelties." With them, heaven was open only to legislators and conquerors, the civilizers and destroyers of mankind. This was the summit of their religion, and even this was limited to a few prodigies of genius and learning, which was but little regarded and understood by the great masses. One common cloud of ignorance and superstition involved them. At this time Christ came as a teacher; his appearance was like a rising sun, dispelling the darkness and blessing the earth with light and heat.
If any man can believe that the son of a carpenter, together with twelve of the meanest and most illiterate mechanics, unassisted by any superhuman wisdom and power, should be able to invent and promulgate a system of theology and ethics the most sublime and perfect, which all such men as Plato, Aristotle and Cicero had overlooked, and that they, by their own wisdom, repudiated every false virtue, though universally admired, and that they admitted every true virtue, though despised and ridiculed by all the rest of the world—if any man can believe that they were impostors for no other purpose than the promulgation of truth, villains for no purpose but to teach honesty, and martyrs with no prospect of honor or advantage; or that they, as false witnesses, should have been able, in the course of a few years, to have spread this religion over the most of the known world, in opposition to the interests, ambition and prejudices of mankind; that they triumphed over the power of princes, the intrigues of states, the forces of custom, the blindness of zeal, the influence of priests, the arguments of orators, and the philosophy of the world, without any assistance from God, he must be in possession of more faith than is necessary to make him a Christian and continues an unbeliever from mere credulity. If the credulous infidel, whose convictions are without evidence and against evidence, should, after all, be in the right, and Christianity prove to be a fable, what harm could ensue from being a Christian? Are Christian rulers more tyrannical and their Christian subjects more ungovernable? Are the rich more insolent when Christianized? Are poor Christians most insolent and disorderly? Does Christianity make worse parents and worse children? Does it make husbands and wives, friends and neighbors less trustworthy? Does it not make men and women more virtuous and happy in every situation in life? If Christianity is a fable, it is one the belief of which retains men and women in a regular and uniform life of virtue, piety and devotion to truth. It gives support in the hour of distress, of sickness and death.
"If there were a few more Christians in the world it would be very beneficial to themselves and by no means detrimental to the public."