In His Image

by William Jennings Bryan

"The great voice of America does not come from seats of learning. It comes in a murmur from the hills and woods, and the farms and factories and the mills, rolling on and gaining volume until it comes to us from the homes of common men. Do these murmurs echo in the corridors of our universities? I have not heard them."

President Roosevelt, while in the White House, presented an even stronger indictment against some of the scholars. In a speech delivered to law students at Harvard he declared that there was scarcely a great conspiracy against the public welfare that did not have Harvard brains behind it. He need not have gone to Harvard to utter this terrific indictment against college graduates; he might have gone to Yale, or Columbia, or Princeton, or to any other great university, or even to smaller colleges. It would not take long to correct the abuses of which the people complain but for the fact that back of every abuse are the hired brains of scholars who turn against society and use for society's harm the very strength that society has bestowed upon them.

Let me give you an illustration in point, and so recent that one will be sufficient: A few months ago the Supreme Court at Washington handed down a decision overturning every argument made against the Eighteenth Amendment and the enforcement law. Who represented the liquor traffic in that august tribunal? Not brewery workers, employees in distilleries, or bartenders; these could not speak for the liquor traffic in the Supreme Court. No! Lawyers must be employed, and they were easily found—big lawyers, scholars, who attempted to overthrow the bulwark that society has erected for the protection of the homes of the country.

Every reform has to be fought through the legislatures and the courts until it is finally settled by the highest court in our land, and there, vanquished wrong expires in the arms of learned lawyers who sell their souls to do evil—who attempt to rend society with the very power that our institutions of learning have conferred upon them. All of our reforms would be led by scholars, if all scholars appreciated as they should the gift of education. There are, of course, a multitude of noble illustrations of scholars consecrating their learning to the service of the people, but many scholars are indifferent to the injustice done to the masses and some actually obstruct needed reforms—and they do it for pay.

My second illustration is even more important, for it deals with the heart. I am interested in education; if I had my way every child in all the world would be educated. God forbid that I should draw a line through society and say that the children on one side shall be educated and the children on the other side condemned to the night of ignorance. I shall assume no such responsibility. I am anxious that my children and grandchildren shall be educated, and I do not desire for a child or grandchild of mine anything that I would not like to see every other child enjoy. Children come into the world without their own volition—they are here as a part of the Almighty's plan—and there is not a child born on God's footstool that has not as much right to all that life can give as your child or my child. Education increases one's capacity for service and thus enlarges the reward that one can rightfully draw from society; therefore, every one is entitled to the advantages of education.

There is no reason why every human being should not have both a good heart and a trained mind; but, if I were compelled to choose between the two, I would rather that one should have a good heart than a trained mind. A good heart can make a dull brain useful to society, but a bad heart cannot make a good use of any brain, however trained or brilliant.

When we deal with the heart we must deal with religion, for religion controls the heart; and, when we consider religion we find that the religious environment that surrounds our young people is as favourable as their intellectual environment. As in the case of education, lack of appreciation may be due in part to lack of opportunity to make comparison. If we visit Asia, where the philosophy of Confucius controls, or where they worship Buddha, or follow Mahomet, or observe the forms of the Hindu religion, we find that except where they have borrowed from Christian nations, they have made no progress in fifteen hundred years. Here, all have the advantage of Christian ideals, and yet, according to statistics, something more than half the adult males of the United States are not connected with any religious organization. Some scoff at religion, and a few are outspoken enemies of the Church. Can they be blind to the benefits conferred by our churches? Security of life and property is not entirely due to criminal laws, to a sheriff in each county, and to an occasional policeman. The conscience comes first; the law comes afterward.

Law is but the crystallization of conscience; moral sentiment must be created before it can express itself in the form of a statute. Every preacher and priest, therefore, whether his congregation be large or small, who quickens the conscience of those who hear him helps the community. Every church of every denomination, whether important or unimportant, that helps to raise the moral standards of the land benefits all who live under the flag, whether they acknowledge their obligations or not.

But lack of appreciation on the part of those outside the Church would not disturb us so much if all the church members lived up to their obligations. How much is it worth to one to be born again? Of what value is it to have had the heart touched by the Saviour and so changed that it loves the things it used to hate and hates the things it formerly loved? Of what value is it to have one's life so transformed that, instead of resembling a stagnant pool, it becomes like a living spring, giving forth constantly that which refreshes and invigorates? What is it worth to the Christian, and what is it worth to those about him, to have his life brought by Christ into such vital living contact with the Heavenly Father, that that life becomes the means through which the goodness of God pours out to the world?

But, I go a step farther and ask whether the Church as an organization—not any one denomination, but the Church universal—appreciates its great opportunities, its tremendous responsibility, and the infinite power behind it. If the Church is what we believe it to be it must be prepared to grapple with every problem, individual and social, whether it affects only a community or involves a state, a nation, or a world. There must be some intelligence large enough to direct the world or the world will run amuck. We believe that God is the only intelligence capable of governing the world, and God must act through the Church or outside of it. If the Church is not big enough to act as the mouthpiece of the Almighty—not in the sense that the Church ought to exercise governmental authority, but its members, seeking light from the Heavenly Father through prayer, should be able to act wisely as citizens—if, I repeat, the Church is not big enough to deal with the problems that confront the world, then the Church must give way to some more competent organization. Christians have no other alternative; they must believe that the teachings of Christ can be successfully applied to every problem that the individual has to meet and to every problem with which governments have to deal. I have in another lecture in this series called attention to Christ's all-inclusive claim set forth in the closing verses of the last chapter of Matthew, but I must repeat it here because it is the basis of what I desire to say on this branch of the subject. Christ declared that all power had been given into His hands; He sent His followers out to make disciples of all nations; and He promised to be with them always, even unto the end of the world. If the Church takes Christ at His word and claims to be His representative on earth it cannot shirk its duty.