"It must be claimed," says one, "on behalf of the passion for God, that where it exists it will--automatically, as has been said--set charity, love, all sweet graces of philanthropic activity, into quick and ceaseless play.... If the emphasis of religious thought be made to fall upon the idea of life, this cannot fail to be; for to have the divine life is to be possessed of and to give out the divine love.... The regeneration of human society is found to come from the dominance of spiritual passion, even though it be not the first thing on which spiritual passion is set; the saint will be--just because he is a saint--a philanthropist too, since a true sainthood must number love among the graces of character it brings. It is a fact--one has to make the sad admission--that religious people, professedly spiritual men and women, have been and still are in some cases eaten through and through by selfishness; these are those who, so that they can declare heaven to be their own, have no care for the present hell in which so many of their fellows spend their days and years. But that is not because they are too deeply immersed in the passion for God,--it is because they have not really immersed themselves in its flood. And in claiming for a Godward passion the regulative and supreme place among the elements of life, we do but secure a fuller tenancy among those elements of a manward love; for the nature which sets itself to receive the whole of God will, ere it knows it, and as an automatic effect of the new life it wins, give itself to its brethren in their need. For God is love, and he must dwell in love who dwells in God."[27]
We may hesitate to say that when the passion for God is the only thing aimed at it is bound to result in social regeneration; there are too many facts which prove the contrary. The aim must always include both the Godward and the manward obligations; the first and the second great commandments are of equal rank; what needs to be insisted on is the impossibility of divorcing them.
The church which seeks the redemption of society cannot, then, dispense with its religion. Nothing has been made plainer, during the recent exposures of social decay, than the fact that our social morality must have a religious foundation. Even the man on the street is ready to concede that no righteousness is adequate for the present emergency but that which springs from faith in a righteous God. And nothing is more needed, at this hour, than the deepening of men's faith in the great religious verities.
It is often said that the only cure for existing social ills is a great revival of religion, and this is true. But the revival of religion which is needed is not the kind which the churches are most apt to seek. The religion which needs to be revived is not that which puts the sole emphasis on the safety and welfare of the individual, but that which equally exalts the social welfare; which identifies the interests of each with the interests of all; which makes men see and feel that no salvation is worth anything to any man that does not put that man into Christian relations with his neighbors. Nothing but religion will do this for any man, and the religion which fails to do this is a spurious Christianity.
A great revival we shall see, one of these days, which will have this character. It will bind together the two great commandments of the law, and make men feel the weight of both of them. It will compel them to recognize the truth that, while the root of their religion is faith in God, the fruit of their religion is love for men. It will drive home the fact that the religion which does not hinder a man from being a boodler or a grafter; which permits a man to enjoy religion while fleecing his neighbors by crafty schemes of finance or artful legalized robberies; which allows the love of gain to triumph over truth and honor and brotherly kindness; which sits serene and complacent while social classes make war on each other, and children's lives are consumed by grinding toil, and women are forced by want into the ways of shame, and the enemies of society are set free to make gain by the ruin of human souls, is a religion which is not worth having. It will insist that a religion which is rightly described as the life of God in the souls of men, would begin in the house of God itself, and kindle there a consuming flame before which such iniquities could not stand. Perhaps it would set men to saying--they might not feel like singing--Thomas Hughes's great hymn:--
"O God of truth, whose living word
Upholds whate'er hath breath,
Look down on thy creation, Lord,
Enslaved by sin and death."Set up thy standard, Lord, that we
Who claim a heavenly birth
May march with thee to smite the lies
That vex thy groaning earth."We fight for truth, we fight for God,
Poor slaves of lies and sin!
He who would fight for thee on earth
Must first be true within."Thou God of truth, for whom we long,
Thou who wilt hear our prayer,
Do thine own battle in our hearts,
And slay the falsehood there."Still smite! still burn! till naught is left
But God's own truth and love;
Then, Lord, as morning dew come down,
Rest on us from above."Yea, come! thus tried as in the fire,
From every lie set free,
Thy perfect truth shall dwell in us
And we shall live in thee."
It is hardly needful to say that the redemption of the social order will not be wrought out without sacrifice. "The redemption of the soul is costly," says the Psalmist. No man is rescued from moral degradation and death without suffering and sacrifice. Those who are saved are more often saved by the suffering of others in their behalf than by their own suffering. But the price of a soul is apt to be high, and love is sometimes able to pay it.
The redemption of society from the welter of selfishness and brutishness and cruelty into which it is now plunged will be a costly undertaking. The church is here, as Christ's representative, to take up this work; and it must not expect to accomplish it without suffering. "It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord." If the Church is Christ's servant, she must not expect to find any better way than his way of saving the world.
It is true, as we have seen, that the present deplorable conditions are due to the failure of the church to enforce the Christian morality. The price that she must pay for the redemption of society is heavy because of her own neglect. But it must be paid. There is no other way of salvation.
Thus it appears that the church which bears the name of Jesus Christ has come to its testing time. It finds itself in the midst of a society whose tendencies are downward. Mammon is on the throne; the greed of gain is eating the heart out of commercial honor; reputations are crumbling; confidence is rudely shaken; the most cynical schemes for plundering the multitudes are daily brought to light; social classes stand over against each other distrustful and defiant; the house of mirth resounds with the mad revelry of the wasters, while the purlieus are noisome with poverty and vice.