First, the meaning of the word God. We, as a people, neither deny nor pretend to deny, in words, the existence of a Being, infinite in power and wisdom, who governs the universe according to his will; yet practically we have ignored His existence, and deified the laws of nature instead, given up the idea of a free volition, worshipping a mechanical necessity of cause and effect. The cause of this dates back to Bacon's 'Novum Organum,' the introduction of the Inductive Philosophy. He laid down the principle that nature must be interrogated if she would be understood, that from a careful study of the effects we must deduce the cause, instead of presuming the cause, and explaining the effects on this hypothesis.
This form of study and the study itself are well enough when confined to their right proportion; but desire for wealth, in its endeavor to adapt nature to the wants of man, has forced the study out of its proportion, and deduced from it an untruth. In proving the being of a God from nature alone, we get only the idea of power joined to a dead necessity of laws; and it must be in the study of the human soul, with its personality and volition, that we shall get the other ideas, which, joined to that of power, prove to us the being of a personal God. Nature has been studied and analyzed and searched with all the social and individual power of the age, while the science of mind and soul has stood still; and so it is that men no longer believe there is any God but cause and effect; not the nation which is right is successful, but 'God is always on the side which has the most cannon;' not the just man, but the shrewd man, will succeed; not God but rain and sunshine, will bring forth the harvest.
Give us back the time when men fought hand to hand in ordeal of battle, or bared their feet to walk over burning ploughshares in their firm trust that God would defend the right; give them back with all their superstitions and darkness, if with them we may receive again the lost knowledge of a God who is 'Our Father,' a God who loves and protects His children. If there is anywhere on the earth a soul that trusts and prays, then must the world be wrong in its belief. A law is a rule of conduct, a law of nature is a rule of God's conduct, and though we have abstracted the personality and freedom, they are none the less there. There is also a mitigated form of this atheism as follows: many believe in a personal God, yet conceive Him to be fettered by his own laws; as if He had made the machine of the universe, wound it up, and could now only stand helplessly aside to see it go. Prayer is of no avail to such a God; thus the first need of the soul is left unsatisfied, and man stands in the universe alone. Herein is their error: because He has always acted in this manner, they reason that He always will, and then go farther and think He always must; not seeing how He stands behind and moves the law. When the hammer in the pianoforte rises, the wire will sound; but there is one who sits unseen at the key board and controls the wires of the hammer. When the lightning bolt falls, the tree is shattered; but God holds the lightning in His hands.
Succeeding a mechanical idea of God, we have a similar idea of man. The fundamental question of human nature is that of free will or necessity. The history of philosophy is but a history of the conflict of these two ideas: in the life of the individual also, the same great question arises, whether he can be what he will, or will be what he must. From this come all those articles on 'Nature and Circumstances,' 'Genius and Labor,' with which college magazines are filled—endeavors of the young mind to solve this most vital problem. Modern society has declared itself on the side of necessity: while acknowledging man preeminently free in his relations to others, it yet considers him as the bondslave of motives. When God is the mere bondsman of necessity, and his religion only the means of the greatest amount of happiness, surely his creature must be in the same slavery. There are three great motives that sway men—love for themselves, love to others, and love to God. The first of these is measurable, the others immeasurable. In the first, given a greater means of happiness, ten thousand dollars instead of nine thousand, and the action follows in that direction as a matter of necessity. But love of children, patriotism, benevolence, love of God rise above this logical and mechanical, to the region of free and incalculable volition.
Society, ignoring any such thing as soul, has declared that only the measurable and necessary remains in man. Thence has arisen the science of averages, pretending to foretell with mathematical certainty what a man must do under given circumstances. Thence also has arisen this maxim, so often quoted as final in all such questions, 'Every man has his price.' Perhaps there is some ground too for this opinion. We have before shown how, by division of labor, affection and volition have been abstracted from life, while only a formal performance of duties by others remains, and it would be strange if, under such régime, these parts of the human nature should not become shrunken. But the soul is not wholly gone yet; the world is mistaken—a little is left which cannot be measured by dollars and cents, enough of benevolence yet to make tolerable, enough of faith and love in the hearts of a few holy men to keep the world from corruption.
Society was called by the Great Master a brotherhood. Even in heathen times men were held by ties of kindred and country; now they acknowledge practically no bond but that of interest. The word that is continually in our mouths is 'framework of society,' 'social mechanism,' as though it were impelled by a force from without, instead of being a living and vital thing, moved and governed by its own vital forces. 'Law of averages,' 'honesty is the best policy,' 'law of supply and demand,' are supposed to be the forces that drive the affair, while any such power as love or faith is ignored. But as with individuals, so with society. The world is not so bad as it declares itself to be. Enough of patriotism is still left to affect the gold market at times, enough of faith to keep alive the effete aristocracy of Europe, enough of courage and honor to rally around and bravely uphold a tattered flag in a battle for constitutional freedom.
Although we have shown the existence of a mechanical tendency, yet our labor is incomplete and practically useless unless we have shown how it may be retarded or wholly counterbalanced. Some countervailing element there must be, as is evident from the fact that, while the causes that produce this tendency exist in modern society in tenfold greater power than they ever had in ancient life, yet their operation has been, by far, less rapid. Greece and Rome existed barely a thousand years, while Anglo-Saxon civilization has already flourished much longer than that, and as yet shows no signs of immediate decay.
The retarding cause is war. This does not strike at the root of the matter and eradicate the love of physical prosperity, but only retards the movement, by awaking men to see that their interests are inseparable from those of the state. In the midst of war they see that one cannot perform the duty of another, that hired soldiery cannot protect a state, but their own hearts and arms must be enlisted unless they would be buried in its ruins. It wakes up the dormant dynamical powers of courage and heroism, and checks for a moment the selfish individualism that was taking the life from the nation.
This only retards, it does not counterbalance or neutralize this tendency. War was common to ancient and modern times alike; but that cause which has so long held our society from ruin, and on which we base our hope of an indestructible civilization, is the Christian religion. This strikes at the root of the matter, being antagonistic not only to the one simple cause, but to each of the subordinate causes that are derived from it. Disproportionate attention to outward prosperity springs from the idea that the happiness of men and nations is inseparable from wealth. Directly opposed to this is the teaching of religion, that happiness and strength come from performing truly the duties of life. The first derivative cause which we found under this was an accumulation of facts which overburden the mind and destroy its power. Religion has little to do with outward facts, it taxes but little the receptive power; it has to do rather with changing knowledge into wisdom, applying the few vital facts to the life. This knowledge, we have found, is objective, ignoring the Γνωθι σεαυτὁν; but religious thought is intensely subjective; all other things it esteems as of no avail, except those that relate to the outward condition and tendency of the individual. Know thyself in relation to man and God—this it continually demands. No man can be religious without thought—continual, earnest thought, perceiving and defining duties; therefore, wherever religion comes, even the mind that was sunken in weakness is raised to renewed life. It is in this way that religion counterbalances the influence of division of labor. While this takes away the last incentive to thought on the part of the workman, degrading him to a cunning but expensive machine, religion gives to him a new spring of thought, vivifies his blunted mind by the power of transformed affections, and makes him again a man.
The next derivative was lack of time, taking affection and volition from life by dividing the duties of the individual among others. In immediate antagonism to this, religion declares that the individual stands alone in his duties and responsibilities before God. It recognizes no institution of charity or social partition, but reiterates the command, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' which includes everything.