CHAPTER V. The Christian Spirit of Love

THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF LOVE

THE TEACHING OF LOVE

Jesus taught His philosophy of life in three ways: the personal, by example; the artistic, by parable; and the scientific, by propositions.

The first, though most vital and effective of all, is expensive and wasteful. For in life principles are so embedded in "muddy particulars," trivial and sordid details, that they are liable to get lost. The Master may be a long time with His disciples, and yet not really be known. Even the disciples themselves, after months of such teaching, like James and John may not know what manner of spirit they are of. Indeed it may become expedient for them that the Master go away, that His Spirit may be more clearly revealed.

The artistic method, too, has drawbacks. For though it gives the principles a new artificial setting, with carefully selected details to catch the crowd, yet the crowd catch simply the story. Only the initiated are instructed; those who do not already know the principles learn nothing, but "seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not understand," as Jesus, past master of this art though He was, so often lamented.

The third or scientific method is dry and prosaic. It observes what qualities go together, or refuse to go together, in the swift stream of life; pulls them out of the stream; fixes them in concepts; marks them by names; and states propositions about them. It may go one short step farther: it may arrange its propositions in syllogisms, and deduce general conclusions, or laws. It may take, for instance, as its major premise, Love is the divine secret of blessedness. Then for its minor premise it may take some plain observed fact, Humility is essential to Love. Then the conclusion or law will be, The humble share the divine life and all the blessings it brings. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Of course no one but a pedant draws out his teaching in this laboured logical form. The syllogism is condensed; the major, and perhaps even the minor, premise is omitted, and often only the conclusion appears.

At its best this method is hard and dry; yet this is the method employed in such sayings as those handed down in the summary called the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps that is why the teaching of the "Sermon," in spite of its clear-cut form, is much less studied and understood than the teaching of Jesus' life and parables. To recover this largely lost teaching one must warm and moisten the cold, dry terms; supply, when necessary, omitted premises; use some one word rather than many for the often suppressed middle term; and so draw out the latent logic that underlies these laws.

The middle term of all this argument is Love. For that old-fashioned word, in spite of its sentimental associations, much better than its modern scientific synonyms, such as the socialising of the self, expresses that outgoing of the self into the lives of others, which, according to Jesus, is the actual nature of God, the potential nature of man, the secret of individual blessedness and the promise of social salvation.

In the two or three cases where the logic of His principle, applied to our complex modern life, points clearly to a modification of His literal precepts, as in the management of wealth and the bestowal of charity, I shall not hesitate to put the logic of the teaching in place of the letter of the precept, citing the latter afterward for comparison.

A logical commentary like this will be most helpful if it reverses the order usual in commentaries of mere erudition, and introduces the steps of the argument before rather than after the passage they seek to make clear.

In whichever of the three ways it is taught, Love shines by its own light and speaks with its own authority to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

A person who loves carries with him a generous light-heartedness, a genial optimism, which show all his friends that he has found some secret which it is worth their while to learn.

Every well-told parable or fable, every artistically constructed novel or play, makes us take sides with the large-hearted hero against the mean, selfish villain.

In the same way Love's formulated laws, showing on what conditions it depends and to what results it leads, convince every one who has the experience by which to interpret them (and only to him who hath experience is interpretation given) that Love is the supreme law of life, and its requirements the right and reasonable conditions of individual and social well-being.

THE FULFILMENT OF LAW THROUGH LOVE

Jesus was born in a nation which had developed law to the utmost nicety of detail, and recognised all laws as expressions of the good will of God seeking the welfare of men. Prolonged experiments in living had proved certain kinds of conduct disastrous, and the states of mind corresponding to them, despicable. Law had prohibited this disastrous conduct, and the prophets had denounced these despicable traits.

Of course latent in the prohibitions of law was the constitution of the blessed Kingdom that would result if the law were observed; and dimly foreshadowed in the figurative expressions of the prophets was the vision of the glorified human society that would emerge when the despicable traits should be extirpated and the better order introduced. This negative and latent implication of law Jesus developed into Love as the positive and explicit principle of life; and this figuratively foreshadowed prophet's vision He translated into the actual fact of a community united in Love. He fulfilled the law by putting Love in the heart, and fulfilled the prophets by establishing a community based on Love. Jesus taught us to make every human interest we touch as precious as our own, and to treat all persons with whom we deal as members of that beneficent system of mutual good-will which is the Kingdom of Heaven. But the moment we begin to do that, law as law becomes superfluous; for what the law requires is the very thing we most desire to do: prophecy as prophecy is fulfilled; for the best man's heart can dream has come to pass.

In the ideal home, between well-married husband and wife, child and parent, brother and sister, this sweet law prevails. In choice circles of intimate friends it is found. Jesus extended this interpretation of others in terms of ourselves, and of both others and self in terms of the system of relations in which both self and others inhere, so as to include all the dealing of official and citizen, teacher and pupil, dealer and customer, employer and employee, man and man.

Jesus does not judge us by the formal test of whether we have kept or broken this or that specific commandment, but by the deeper and more searching requirement that our lives shall detract nothing from and add something to the glory of God and the welfare of man.

Is the world a happier, holier, better world because we are here in it, helping on God's good-will for men? If that be the grand, comprehensive purpose of our lives, honestly cherished, frankly avowed, systematically cultivated, then, no matter how far below perfection we may fall, that single purpose, in spite of failure, defeat, and repented sin, pulls us through. If we have this Spirit of Love in our hearts, and if with Christ's help we are trying to do something to make it real in our lives and effective in the world, our eternal salvation is assured. On the other hand, is there a single point on which we deliberately are working evil? Is the lot of any poor man harder, or the life of any unhappy woman more sad and bitter, for aught that we have done or left undone? Is any good institution the weaker, or any bad custom more prevalent, for aught that we are deliberately and persistently withholding of help or contributing of harm? If so, if in any one point we are consciously and unrepentingly arrayed against God's righteous purpose, and the human welfare which is dear to God; if there is a single point on which we are deliberately setting aside His righteous will, and doing intentional evil to the humblest of His children; then, notwithstanding our high rank on other matters, our lack of the right purpose, at even a single point, makes us guilty of the whole; we are unfit for His kingdom.

Jesus' principle of Love, though for clearness and incisiveness often stated in terms of mere altruism, or regard for others, yet taken in its total context, in the light of His never absent reference to the Father's will and the Kingdom of Heaven, is much deeper and broader than that. It gives each man his place and function in the total beneficent system which is the coming Kingdom of God, and then treats him not merely as he may wish to be treated, or we may wish to treat him, but as his place and function in that system require.

Mere altruism is often weakly kind, making others feebly dependent on our benefactions instead of sturdily self-supporting; making others unconsciously egotistic as the result of our superfluous ministrations or uncritical indulgence; and even fostering a subtle egotism in ourselves, as the result of the fatal habit of doing the easy, kind thing rather than the hard, severe thing that is needed to lift them to their highest attainment. A true mother is never half as sentimentally altruistic toward her child as a grandmother or an aunt; she does not hesitate to reprove and correct, when that is what the child needs to suppress the low and lazy, and rouse the higher and stronger self. The just administrator discharges the incompetent and exposes the dishonest employee, not merely because the good of the whole requires it; but because even for the person discharged or exposed, that is better than it would be to allow him to drag out an unprofitable and cumbersome life in tolerated uselessness or countenanced graft.

"Treat both others and yourself as their place and yours in God's coming Kingdom require;" that is the Golden Rule in its complete form. "All things, therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you" (remembering that both you and they have places and functions in the Father's Kingdom of Love); "even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets."

This fulfilment of law is a very different thing from selfishly breaking the law. That such a reformer as Jesus ever took the conservative side of any question seems at first sight so preposterous that most candid critics believe that He never said the words attributed to Him about breaking one of the least of these commandments, or else that He said them in a lost context which would greatly alter their meaning. That, however, is not quite sure. For Love at its best is never rudely iconoclastic. Every good law in its original intent is aimed to lift men out of their sensuality and selfishness into at least an outward conformity to the requirements of social well-being. And however grotesque, fantastic, and superfluous such a law under changed conditions may become, its original intent will always keep it sacred and precious, even after its purpose can be accomplished better without it. To fulfil is not to destroy, or to take delight in destruction. "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth shall pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished."

At the same time Love is always changing and superseding laws and institutions by pressure of adjustment to the changing demands of individual and social well-being. Laws and institutions are made for men, rather than men for institutions and laws; and the instant an old law ceases to serve a new need in the best possible way, Love erects the better service into a new law or institution, superseding the old. Any law that fails to promote the physical, mental, social, and spiritual good of the persons and the community concerned, thereby loses Love's sanction and becomes obsolete. Law for law's sake, rather than for the sake of man and society, is the flat denial of Love. To exalt any tradition, institution, custom, or prohibition above the human and social good it has ceased to serve, is to sink to the level of the scribe and Pharisee--the deadliest enemies of Jesus, and all for which He stood. "For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."

In Love's eyes all anger, contempt, and quarrelsomeness are as bad as murder--indeed are incipient murder, stopped short of overt crime through fear. The look, or word, or deed of unkindness, the thought, or wish, or hope that evil may befall another, even the attitude of cold indifference, is murder in the heart. And it is only because we lack the courage to translate wish into will that in such cases we do not do the thing which, if done without our responsibility, by accident or nature, we should rejoice to see accomplished.

From a strange and unexpected source there has come the confirmation of this New Testament conception of the prevalence, not to say the universality, of murder. A brilliant but grossly perverse English man of letters was sentenced to imprisonment a few years ago for the foulest crime. From the gaol in which he was confined there came a most realistic description of the last days and final execution within its walls of a lieutenant in the British army, who was condemned for killing a woman whom he loved.

The poem has the exaggeration of a perverted and embittered nature; but beneath the exaggeration there is the original truth, which underlies Jesus' identification of murder and hate. After describing the last days of the condemned man, his execution and his burial, the poem concludes as follows:--

"In Reading Gaol by Reading town There is a pit of shame, And in it lies a wretched man Eaten by teeth of flame, In a burning winding sheet he lies And his grave has got no name.

"And there, till Christ call forth the dead, In silence let him lie: No need to waste the foolish tear, Or heave the windy sigh: The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.

"And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word: The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword."

Charge up against ourselves as murder the bitter looks, the hateful words, the unkind thoughts, the selfish actions, which have lessened the vitality, diminished the joy, wounded the heart, and murdered the happiness of those whom we ought to love, whom perhaps at times we think we do love, and who can profess to be guiltless?

The harboured grudge, the unrepented injury, the offence for which we have not begged pardon, the employer's refusal to "recognise" his employees or their representatives, and treat with them on fair and equal terms, the workman's cultivated attitude of hostility to his employer, are all such flagrant violations of Love that acts of formal piety or public worship on the part of a person who harbours such feelings are an affront.

Controversies, lawsuits, industrial or political warfare in mere pride of opinion, class prejudice, or greed of gain, without first making every effort to respect the rights and protect the interests of the other party and so bring about a reconciliation, are all violations of Love and doom the person who is guilty of them to dwell in the narrow prison-house of a hard and hateful secularity, where the last farthing of exacted penalty must be paid, and hate is lord of life. "Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire. If, therefore, thou art offering thy gift at the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the last farthing."

Marriage to the Christian is an infinitely higher and holier estate than it could have been to any of the earlier schools. It is an opportunity to share with another person the creative prerogative of God. It brings opportunity for Love enhanced by the highest of complementary differences, under circumstances of tenderest intimacy, with the requirement of lifelong constancy.

From Love's point of view any lack of tender reverence for the person of another, whether in or out of marriage sinks man to the plane of the brute. Not that the normal exercise of any appetite or passion is base or evil in itself. All are holy, pure, divine, when Love through them assumes the lifelong responsibilities they involve. All that falls short of such tender reverence and permanent responsibility is lust. Jesus established chastity on the broad, rational basis of respect for the dignity of woman and the sanctity of sex. The logic of His teaching on this point is to place chastity on the eternal rock foundation of treating another only as Love and a true regard for the other's permanent welfare will warrant. In other words, Jesus permits no man to even wish to treat any woman as he would be unwilling another man should treat his own mother, sister, wife, or daughter. For, from His standpoint, all women are our sisters, daughters of the most high God. This standard is searching and severe, no doubt; but it is reasonable and right. There is not a particle of asceticism about it. And the man who violates it is not merely departing a little from the beaten path of approved conventionalities. He is doing a cruel, wanton wrong. He is doing to another what he would bitterly resent if done to one whom he held dear. And what right has any man to hold any woman cheap, a mere means of his selfish gratification, and not an object of his protection, and reverence, and chivalrous regard? The worst mark of uneliminated brutality and barbarism which the civilised world is carrying over into the twentieth century, to curse and blacken and pollute and embitter human life for a few generations more, is this indifference to the Spirit of Love, as it applies at this crucial point.

To destroy a wife's health, to purchase a moment's pleasure at the cost of a woman's lasting degradation, or to participate in practices which doom a whole class of wretched women to short-lived disease and shame, and early and dishonoured death (a recent reliable report estimates the cost of lives from this cause alone in a single city as 5000 a year) is so gross and wanton a perversion of manhood, that in comparison it would be better not to be a man at all.

All the devices for gratifying sexual passions without the assumption of permanent responsibilities, such as seduction, prostitution, and the keeping of mistresses, Christianity brands as the desecration of God's holiest temple, the human body, and the wanton wounding of His most sensitive creation,--woman's heart. The Greeks placed little restriction on man's passions beyond such as was necessary to maintain sufficient physical health and mental vigour to perform his duties as a citizen in peace and in war. If the individual is complete in himself, with no God above who cares, no Christ who would be grieved, no Spirit of Love to reproach, no rights of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to be sensitively respected and chivalrously maintained, then indeed it is impossible to make out a valid claim for severer control in these matters than Plato and Aristotle advocate. If there are persons in the world who are practically slaves, persons who have no claim on our consideration, then licentiousness and prostitution are logical and legitimate expressions of human nature and inevitable accompaniments of human society. Christianity, however, has freed the slave in a deeper and higher sense than the world has yet realised. Christianity does not permit any one who calls himself a Christian to leave any man or woman outside the pale of that consideration which makes this other person's dignity, and interest, and welfare as precious and sacred to him as his own. Obviously all loose and temporary sexual connections involve such degradation, shame, and sorrow to the woman involved, that no one who holds her character, and happiness, and lasting welfare dear to him can will for her these woful consequences. One cannot at the same time be a friend of the kindly, generous, sympathetic Christ and treat a woman in that way. It is for this reason, not on cold, ascetic grounds, that Christianity limits sexual relations to the monogamous family; for there only are the consequences to all concerned such as one can choose for another whom he really loves. If Christianity, at these and other vital points, asks man to give up things which Plato and Aristotle permit, it is not that the Christian is narrower or more ascetic than they; it is because Christianity has introduced a Love so much higher, and deeper, and broader than anything of which the profoundest Greeks had dreamed, that it has made what was permissible to their hard hearts forever impossible for all the more sensitive souls in whom the Love of Christ has come to dwell.

"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell."

Divorce is a confession of failure in Love's supreme undertaking. No two Christians, who have caught and kept alive the Spirit of Love in the married state, ever were or ever will be, ever wished to be or ever can be, divorced. No one Christian who has the true Christian Spirit of Love toward husband or wife will ever seek divorce unless it be under such circumstances of infidelity or brutality, neglect or cruelty, as render the continuance of the relation a fruitless casting of the pearls of affection before the swinishness of sensuality. The determination of the grounds on which divorce shall be granted belongs to the sphere of the state, and is a problem of social self-protection. The Christian church makes a serious mistake when it spends its energies in trying to build up legal barriers against divorce. Its real mission at this point is to build up in the hearts of its adherents the Spirit of Love which will make marriage so sweet and sacred that those who once enter it will find, as all true Christians do find, divorce intolerable between two Christians; and tolerable even for one Christian only as a last resort against hopeless and useless degradation. To translate Christ's Spirit into the life of the family is a much more Christian thing to do than to attempt to enact this or that somewhat general and enigmatical answer of His into civil law. It is generally a mistake, a departure from the Spirit of the Master, when the Christian community as such turns from its specific task of positive upbuilding of personality to the legal prohibition of the things that are contrary to the Christian Spirit. Laws and prohibitions, statutes and penalties against drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, theft, murder, gambling, and divorce, we must have. But those laws and penalties are best devised and enforced by the state, as the representative of the average sentiment of the community as a whole, rather than by the distinctively Christian element in the community, which in the nature of things is very far above the average sentiment. Undoubtedly the Christian Spirit is the only force strong enough to save the family from degeneration and dissolution in this intensely individualistic, independent, materialistic, luxurious age. But we must rely mainly on the Spirit working within, not on a law imposed from without; on the healing touch of the gentle Master, not on the hasty sword of the impetuous Peter.

"It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery."

Love fulfils at once the law of truth-telling and the law against swearing; for words spoken in Love need no adventitious support. The appeal to anything outside one's self, and one's simple statement, is clear evidence that there is no Love, and therefore no truth within. Love has no desire to deceive, and hence no fear of being disbelieved. To back up one's words with an oath is to confess one's own lack of confidence in what one is saying, and to invite lack of confidence in others. Anything more than a plain statement of fact or feeling comes out of an insincere or unloving heart. Of course here, as in the case of divorce, what is the obvious and only law for the disciple of Jesus may or may not be wise for the civil authorities to enact into law and impose upon all. If the state and the courts think an oath helpful, the sensible Christian usually will conform to public custom and requirement; even though for him the practice is superfluous and meaningless.

"Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; but I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; and whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one."

Love is slow to take offence, and quick to overlook. Selfishness is sensitive to slights, resentful at wrongs; for it sees others only as their acts affect us. Love seeks out the whole man behind the harsh word or bad deed, takes his point of view, and tries to discover some clue to his concealed better self.

Whether he does well or ill, Love lets us appeal to nothing less than his best self, and do nothing less than what on the whole is best for him and for the community to which he and we both belong. Hence, whether we give or withhold what he specifically asks (and Love enlightened by modern sociology tells us we usually must withhold from beggars and tramps what they ask), in either case we shall not consult merely our personal convenience and impulse, but do what we should wish to have done to us, for the sake of society and for our own good as members of society, if we were in his unfortunate plight. "Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil, but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

Love is kind to the evil and vicious, and magnanimous to the hostile and hateful. Kindness in return for favours received or in hope of favours to come; kindness to those whose conduct and character we admire, is all very well in its way, but is no sign whatever that he who is kind on these easy terms is a true child of Love. To share the great Love of God one must go out freely to all, regardless of return or desert,--be impartial as sunshine and shower.

When our enemy is plotting to harm us, to break down our good name, to injure those whom we love, even while we defend ourselves and our dear ones against his malice and meanness, we must be secretly watching our chances to do him a good turn, and win him from hatred to Love. Nothing less than this complete identification with the interests of all the persons we in any way touch, however bad some of their acts, however unworthy some of their traits, can make us sharers and receivers, agents and bestowers of that perfect Love which is at once the nature of God, the capacity of man, the fulfilment of law, and the condition of social well-being.

"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

III

THE COUNTERFEITS OF LOVE

Just because Love is so costly, it has a host of counterfeits. These counterfeits are chiefly devices for gaining the rewards and honours of Love, without the effort and sacrifice of loving. One of the most obvious rewards of Love is being thought kind, generous, good. But this can be secured, apparently, by professing religion, joining the church, repeating the creed, giving money to the poor, subscribing large sums to good causes,--all of which are much cheaper and easier than being kind, and true, and faithful, and considerate in the home, on the farm, in the factory, in the store. Yet Jesus tells us that unless we have Love in the close and intimate relations of our domestic, economic, social, and political life, all symbols of its presence elsewhere, all "services" directed otherwise, become intolerable nuisances, whose places would be better filled, and whose work better done, if they were once well out of the way and decently buried. All this, however, is not to deny, but by contrast to affirm, the great indispensable uses of symbols, officers, and institutions that are genuinely and effectively devoted to the cultivation and propagation of Love.

The pure gold of the Spirit is most conveniently and effectually circulated when mixed with the alloy of rites, ceremonies, creeds, officers, and organisations. Though no essential part of the pure Gospel, yet these forms and observances, these bishops and clergy, these covenants and confessions, are as practically useful for the maintenance and spread of the Christian Spirit as courts and constitutions, governors and judges, are for the orderly conduct of the state. Their authority is founded on their practical utility. When their utility ceases, when they come to obscure rather than reveal the Spirit they are intended to express, then schism and reformation serve the same beneficent purpose in the church that declarations of independence and revolution have so often achieved in the state. That form of church government is best which in any given age and society works best; and this may well be concentrated personal authority in one set of circumstances, and democratic representative administration in another. Each has its advantages and its disadvantages.

Modes of worship rest on the same practical basis. Spontaneous prayer or elaborate ritual, much or little participation by the people, long or short sermons, prayer-meetings or no prayer-meetings,--all are to be determined by the test of practical experience. It is absurd to profess to draw hard and fast rules about these matters from the precept or practice of Jesus and His Apostles, or the early church fathers, working as they did under conditions so widely different from our own. Probably centralised authority and elaborate ritual are most effective when bishops and priests can be found who will not abuse their power for their own aggrandisement. Until then, more democratic forms of worship and of government are doubtless more expedient. The friendly competition of the two systems side by side helps to keep sacerdotalism modest and make independency effective.

Creeds likewise have their practical usefulness, especially in times of theological ferment and transition, serving the purposes of party platforms in a political campaign. But it is the grossest perversion of their function to make assent to them obligatory on all who wish to enjoy the most intimate Christian fellowship, or to test Christian character by their formulas. One might as well refuse citizenship to every person who could not assent to every word in some party platform or other. The creed is an intellectual formulation of the results of Christian experience, interpreting the Christian revelation; and it will vary from age to age with ripening experience, and maturer views of the content of the revelation. No creed was altogether false at the time of its formulation. No creed in Christendom is such as every intelligent Christian can honestly assent to. The attempt to make creed subscription a test of church membership, or even a condition of ministerial standing, is sure to confuse intellectual and spiritual things to the serious disadvantage of both. The most sensitively honest men will more and more decline to enter the service of the church, until subscription to antiquated formulas, long since become incredible to the majority of well-trained scholars, ceases to be required either literally or "for substance of doctrine." It is sufficient that each candidate for the ministry be asked to make his own statement, either in his own words or in the words of any creed he finds acceptable, leaving it for his brethren to decide whether or not such intellectual statement is consistent with that spiritual service which is to be his chief concern. Unless Christianity, in the persons of its leaders as well as of its laity, can breathe as free an intellectual atmosphere as that of Stoic or Epicurean, Plato or Aristotle, it will at this point prove itself their inferior. Infinitely superior as it is in every other respect, it is a burning shame that its timid and conservative modern adherents should endeavour, at this point of absolute intellectual openness and integrity, to place it at a disadvantage with the least noble of its ancient competitors. The pure Spirit of Love will win the devotion of all honest hearts and candid minds. But the insistence on these antiquated formulas is sure to repel an increasing number of the most thoughtful and enlightened from organised Christian fellowship. The only serious reason for preferring the independent to the hierarchical forms of church organisation at the present time is the tendency of the latter to keep up these forms of intellectual imposition and imposture. Until the church as a whole shall rise to the standards of intellectual honesty now universally prevalent in the world of secular science, the mission of the independent protest will remain but partially fulfilled. "Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men."

Any thought of the reputation or respectability or honour a right act will bring, just because it puts something else in place of Love, destroys the rightness of the act and the righteousness of the doer. Righteousness will always remain a dry, dreary, forbidding, impossible thing until we welcome right as the service of those whom we love, and the promotion of interests we share with them; and shrink from wrong as what harms them and defeats our common ends. Without Love, righteousness either dries up into a cold, hard asceticism, or evaporates into a hollow, formal respectability; and in one way or the other misses the spontaneity and expansion of soul which is Love's crown and joy. "Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of them: else ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."

Love is too intent on its objects to be aware of itself or call attention to its own operations. The air of doing a favour takes all the Love out of an act; for Love gives so simply and quietly that it seems to ask rather than bestow the favour. In this way both giver and receiver together share Love's distinctive reward of two lives bound together as one in the common Love of the Father.

"When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee."

Professed Love, if unfruitful or pernicious, is false. If we make no one happier; help no one over hard places; bind no wounds; comfort no sorrows; serve no just cause; do no good work; still worse, if we make any one's lot harder; add to his burden or sorrow; corrupt public officials; break down beneficent institutions; plunder the poor, even if within technical legal forms; drive the weak to the wall; and connive in the perversion of justice,--then the absence of good fruits, or the presence of bad ones, is proof positive that we have never seen or known Love, that our profession of Love is a lie, our proper place is with Love's foes, and our destiny with the doers of evil.

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

Neither eloquent speech nor elegant writing, neither ornate ceremonial nor orthodox symbol, nor anything short of actual toil to serve human need and help human joy can translate Love into life. Though the most beautiful idea in the world, the mere idea of Love is of no more value than any other mere idea. If it fails of expression in hard, costly deeds, its ritualistic or verbal profession is a sham. In Love's service, so far as things done are concerned, there is no high or low, first or last. To preach sermons and conduct religious services, to teach science in the university, or make laws in Congress, is no better and no worse than to make shoes in the shoeshop or cook food in the kitchen. All work done in Love counts, stands, endures. All work done in vanity and self-seeking, all work shirked with pretence of religion, or excuse of wealth, or pride of social station, leaves the soul hard, hollow, unreal, and fails to stand Love's searching test.

"Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall thereof."

THE WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS OF LOVE

Love asks for the whole heart or nothing; and all the heart has, be it little or much, must go with it. The pursuit or possession of wealth, as an end in itself, or a means to mere selfish ends, will drive Love out of the soul.

All the wealth we can give to Love's service is most useful and welcome; but the retention of any for miserly pride, or vain ostentation, or indolent uselessness for ourselves or our children, fills the heart so full of self that Love can find there no room. Not that giving away all one has is essential or desirable; but that every dollar one gives, spends, keeps, invests, or controls be held subject to the orders of Love.

Wealth is not so essential to the Christian as it was to Epicurus and Aristotle, for God can be glorified and man can be served with very little furniture of fortune; and therefore the Christian is able, in whatsoever material state he is, therewith to be content. On the other hand, the Christian cares more for money than either the Stoic or Plato; for there are ranges in God's universe of beauty, truth, and goodness which cannot be aesthetically appreciated and artistically and scientifically appropriated without large expenditure of labour and the wealth by which labour is supported; and there are wide spheres of business enterprise and social service essential to human welfare which only the rich man or nation can effectively promote. Divine and human service is possible in poverty; it is more effective and at the same time more difficult in wealth. The Christian rich and the Christian poor serve the same Lord, and have the same Spirit; but the accomplishment of the Christian rich man can be so much greater than that of the Christian widow with her mite, that the Christian who is strong enough to stand it is in duty bound to treat money as a talent which in all just ways he ought to multiply. On the contrary, the moment it begins to make him less sympathetic, less generous, less thankful, less responsible, he must give it away as the only alternative to the loss of his soul, the deterioration of his personality.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also."

Toward science and art, business and politics, the application of the Christian Spirit is different from anything we have met before. The Christian will not shirk these things, like the Epicurean and the Stoic; because they are ways of serving that truth, beauty, welfare, and order which are included in the Father's will for all His human children. In all these things we are co-workers with God for the good of man. Diligence and enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice in one or more of these directions is the imperative duty, the inestimable privilege of every one who would be a grateful and obedient son of God, a helpful and efficient brother to his fellow-men.

Yet in all his devotion to science or art, in all the energy with which he gives himself to business or politics, the Christian can never forget that God is greater than any one of these points at which we come in contact with Him; and that, when we have done our utmost in one or another of these lines, we are still comparatively unprofitable servants in His vast household. As God is more than the thing at which we work, so the Christian, through relation to Him, is always more than his work. He never lets his personality become absorbed and evaporated in the work he does; but ever renews his personal life at the fountain which is behind the special work he undertakes to do. Thus the true Christian is never without some useful social work to do; and he never lets himself get lost in doing it. To keep this balance of energy in the task and elevation above it, which enables one to take success without elation and bear failure without depression, is perhaps the crowning achievement of practical Christianity.

"The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

He who heartily loves and serves others will trust Love in God and his fellows to take proper care of himself. One who really loves others will take reasonable care not to be a burden to them, and to the world, and will avail himself of the insurance company, the savings bank, and the bond market as the devices of a complex modern society to distribute losses and conserve gains to the common advantage of all. Love does not make the individual or his family a parasite on the economy and industry of society. Love makes a man bear his own permanent burden as a preliminary to being of much use and no harm to his family, his friends, and his community. Such prudent provision of the means of Love's independence and service is consistent with entire absence of worry about one's personal fortunes. The essential question which Love, and Jesus as the Lord and Master of Love, puts to a man is not "How much money have you?" but "What use do you intend to make of whatever you have, be that little or much?" If that aim is selfish, and the money is either saved or spent in sordid, worried selfishness, that low aim makes the money a curse. If held subject to whatever drafts Love may make upon it,--whether gifts to the poor, or support of good causes, or employment of honest workmen, or development of industrial enterprises, be the form Love's drafts take,--then all wealth so held is a blessing to the world and an honour to its owner, a glory to God and a service to man.

"Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."

Though material means sought as ends are fatal to Love, Love's ends kept in view insure needed means. To worry about to-morrow is to fail in devotion to the tasks of to-day, and so spoil both days. To do our best work to-day is to gain power for to-morrow. Competition complicates, but does not render insoluble, the problem of making all that we have and all that we do express Love to all whom our action affects. To be sure, there are city slums, uninsured accidents and sickness, unsanitary tenements, unjust conditions of labour, where even the service of Love does not bring to the worker appropriate means and rewards; but it is because Love has not quite kept pace at these points with swift-moving modern conditions. But public spirit, political progress, economic reform, are more sensitive to these violations of its laws than ever before, and eagerly bent on finding and applying the remedy,--more Love of all for each, and each for all.

"But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Love throws off all that hampers its action, as a runner his coat for a race. Love requires the sound body, the clear mind, the strong will, the sensitive heart, and foregoes all indulgences that impair these things, though in themselves innocent as eating and drinking. Yet Love makes no fuss about its sacrifices, takes them as a simple matter of course, not worth mentioning; for what Love gives up in mere sensuous indulgence is as nothing to the widened affections and enlarged interests gained. To be solemn or sad over what we give up, to proclaim or parade one's self-denials, would be an insult to Love; it would show that the persons we love and the causes we serve are not really as dear to our hearts as the pitiful things we forego for their sake--would show that our Love was a sham.

All pleasure that comes from healthy exercise of body, rational exercise of mind, sympathetic expansion of the affections, strenuous effort of the will, in just and generous living, is at the same time a glorifying of God and an enrichment of ourselves. All pleasure which sacrifices the vigour of the body to the indulgence of some separate appetite, all pleasure which enslaves or degrades or embitters the persons from whom it is procured, all pleasure which breaks down the sacred institutions on which society is founded,--is shameful and debasing, a sin against God, and a wrong to our own souls. The Christian will forego many pleasures which Epicurus and even Aristotle would permit, because he is infinitely more sensitive than they to the effect his pleasures have on poor men and unprotected women whose welfare these earlier teachers did not take into account. On the other hand, the Christian will enter heartily into the joys of pure domestic life, and the delights of struggle with untoward social and political conditions, from which Plato and the Stoics thought it honourable to withdraw. Where God can be glorified and men can be served, there the Christian will either find his pleasure, or with optimistic art, create a pleasure that he does not find.

"Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen of men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou be not seen of men to fast, but of thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall recompense thee."

Just because Love includes the interests of all the persons we deal with, it excludes all mean, selfish traits from our hearts. There can be no pride and guile, no lust and cruelty, no avarice and hypocrisy, no malice and censoriousness, in a heart which welcomes to its interest and affection, and serves and loves as its own, the aims and needs of its fellows. That is why Love's true disciples are few, and the slaves of selfishness many. Ask how many,--not entirely succeed, for none do,--but how many make it the constant aim of their lives to treat others as more widely extended aspects of themselves, and, in order to do that, endeavour to keep out all the greed, hate, lust, pride, envy, jealousy, that would draw lines between self and others, and we see the answer: that the way must be narrow, a way few find, and still fewer follow when found.

"Enter ye in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it."

THE CULTIVATION OF LOVE

Love is so akin to our nature, so eager to enter our souls, that to want is to get it; to seek is to find it; to open our hearts to its presence is to discover it already there. Whoever knows what true prayer is--the intense, eager yearning for good of insistent, importunate hearts--knows that there never was and never can be one unanswered prayer. No man who has longed to have Love the law of his life, and struggled for it as a miser struggles for money, or a politician strives to win votes, ever failed to get what he wanted. For every person we meet gives occasion for Love, and every situation in life affords a chance to express it. The difficulty is not to get all we want, but to want all we can have for the asking.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you, for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone, or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Love will not grow in our hearts without deep, unseen communion with the Spirit of Love, who is God. To dwell reverently on the Infinite Love; to keep in one's heart a sacred place where His holy name is adored; to eagerly seek for Love's coming in our own hearts, in the hearts of all men, and in all the affairs of the world; to gratefully receive all material blessings as gifts for use in Love's service; to beseech for ourselves and bestow on others that forgiveness which is Love's attitude toward our human frailties and failings; to fortify ourselves in advance against the allurements of sense, and the base desire to gain good for ourselves at cost of evil to others; to remember that all right rule, all true strength, all worthy honour inhere in and flow from Love, and Love's Father, God,--to do this day by day sincerely and simply without formality or ostentation,--this is to pray, and to insure prayer's inevitable answer--a life through which Love freely flows to bless both the world and ourselves.

"And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them; for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

Our only ground of assurance that Love forgives us is our loving forgiveness of others. In the light of that fact of experience it is easy and obvious to believe that the Father whose children we are, is not less loving and forgiving than we. If we restore to our esteem and friendship those who have wronged us, then we are sure that Love at the heart of the Universe, Love in the Father, Love in all the Father's true children, fully and freely forgives us. If we have this experience of our own forgiveness of our fellows, we know that Love would not be Love, but hate, God would not be God, but a devil, if any sincerely repented wrong or shortcoming of which we have been guilty could remain unforgiven.

"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

To judge harshly another man's failings, however bad they may be, shows that we are less loving than he. For he may have failed through strength of appetite, or heat of passion,--failings that are still consistent with Love; but harsh judgment has no such excuse, and is therefore a deadly--that is, loveless--sin. We would never think of proclaiming to the idly curious or the coldly critical the failings of one whom we love; hence proclamations of any one's failings is a sure sign that we have no Love for him, and as long as there are any whom we do not love and protect, we have no part or lot in the great Love of God. Yet such charitableness does not forbid our practical judgment of the difference between sheep and wolves, good men and bad, when important issues are involved. That Love requires. What it forbids is the rolling as a sweet morsel under our tongue, and the gleeful recital to others, of the mistake or the sin of another, as something in which we take mean delight because we think it makes him inferior to ourselves.

"Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye, and lo, the beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Love will waste no time trying to explain itself to the selfish. If Love does not commend itself by its own light and warmth to a man, no forms of words can make him understand it. The sensual, the greedy, the hard, and the cruel Love will treat as gently and kindly as circumstances permit; yet expect as a matter of course that they will interpret Love's justice as hardness, kindness as weakness, temperance as asceticism, forbearance as cowardice, sacrifice as stupidity. Those who love will not mind being misunderstood by those who do not; knowing that any attempted explanation would only increase their conceit and hardness of heart, and so make a bad matter worse.

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you."

Since Love is "the greatest thing in the world," we are bound to stand ready with girt loins, and trimmed, burning lamps, to shed its light far and wide. To cover it up would be to deprive ourselves and our fellows of the one sight in all the world best worth seeing, and so to hinder its spread. False modesty that would keep Love's good works out of sight is as bad as false pride that would thrust oneself forward. Though works done merely to be seen are not good at all, yet good works genuinely done for Love's sake gain added influence and lustre when frankly and freely allowed to be seen as the beautiful things that they are. The Christian is under spiritual compulsion to be a missionary. Other systems draw their little circles of disciples about them, as Jesus drew His twelve. One cannot hold what he believes to be a true and helpful view of life without wishing to communicate it to others. Yet this tendency, which is natural to every principle, is characteristic of Christianity in a unique degree. For the Christian Spirit consists in Love, the desire to give to others the best one has. And what can be so good, so desirable to impart, as this very Spirit of Love, which is Christianity itself? That is why the Christian must, in some form or other,--by journeying to foreign lands, by contribution to missionary work at home, by gifts to Christian education, by support of settlement work, or perhaps best of all by the silent diffusion of a Christian example in the neighbourhood, or the unnoticed expression of the Christian Spirit in the home,--be a propagator of the Spirit of Love he has himself received.

"Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

THE BLESSEDNESS OF LOVE

Does virtue bring happiness? is a question every philosophy of life must meet. Yet before it can be rightly answered it must be rightly put.

For if by virtue you mean something negative, conventional,--not lying, not cheating, not swearing, not drinking; and if by happiness you mean something passive, external,--riches, offices, entertainments, and honours; then virtue and happiness do not necessarily go together in life, and no philosophy can show that they should.

If a man were to persuade himself that they do go together, and should seek this sort of happiness by cultivating this sort of virtue, he would miss true virtue and true happiness. For both virtue and happiness are positive, active; so interrelated that the happiness must be found in that furtherance of our common social interests in which the exercise of virtue consists.

Jesus bids us take an active, devoted interest in the interests of others and of society. Now whoever shares and serves a wide range of interests has an interested, and therefore an interesting, life. But the interesting life is the happy life. Love, whether it has much or little wealth and station, always has interests and aims; always finds or makes friends to share them,--in other words, is always happy.

The beatitudes are illustrations of this deep identity between interest taken and happiness found; statements of the truth that Love going out to serve and share the interests and aims of others, and blessedness flowing in to fill the heart thereby enlarged for its reception, are the outside and inside of the same spiritual experience.

To think little of self is the key to the joy that goes with much thought for others.

Love is so going out to others as to make them as real as self. But that is what no man puffed up with self-importance can do. Where self is much in the foreground others are pushed to the rear. Self-importance and Love cannot dwell together in the same house of clay. As one goes up in the scales of the balance the other goes down. To be rich in the shared lives of others one must be poor in his own self-esteem. The two are in inverse proportion. Modesty is impossible of direct cultivation. It isn't safe to talk or even think about it much. As Pascal remarks, "Few people talk of humility humbly." Like Love it is the manifestation of something deeper than itself. Unless one is in intimate personal relations with one whom he reveres as greater, stronger, better than himself, it is obviously impossible for him to be modest. If he is in such relations, it is equally impossible for him not to be modest. Hence, as Love is the inmost quality of the Christian, the inevitable manifestation to his fellow-men of what the Father is to him, so modesty is the surest outward sign of this inward grace. Conceit is a public proclamation of the poverty of one's personal relations. For if this conceited fellow, this vain woman, really had the honour of the intimate acquaintance of some one better and greater than their petty, miserable selves, they could not possibly be the vain, conceited creatures that they are. Every one who lives in the presence of the great Father, and walks in the company of His glorious Son, is sure to find modesty and humility the natural and spontaneous expression of his side of these great relationships. "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Our shortcomings frankly confessed prepare us for Love's consolation.

We all fall short of that patient consideration, that courteous kindliness, which makes the feelings and interests of others as precious as our own. Some of us fail in one way, some in another. But we all are unprofitable servants of the Love that would make our lives one with all the lives that we touch. To forget or deny that we fail is to lose sight of Love altogether. He who thinks he succeeds thereby shows that he fails; he who knows and laments that he fails comes as near as man can to the goal.

Love neither asks nor expects a clean record; else it would have no disciples. Love fully and freely forgives, at the eleventh hour welcomes the idler, and offers its fulness of joy to all who, whatever their repented past may have been, make service and kindness to others their eager present concern. For no sin frankly confessed, no wrong deed sincerely repented, no loss squarely met, no bereavement bravely endured, can shut out from Love's consolation those who serve with the best there is in them the persons who still need their aid. "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted."

To meet criticism with kindness, crossness with geniality, insult with courtesy, and injury with charity is the way to conquer the world.

By nature we are creatures of suggestion. A hateful look, an ugly word, a spiteful sneer, a cruel blow, make us hateful and ugly and spiteful and cruel in turn. For the empty heart flashes back in resentment whatever attitude another's act suggests.

Meekness greets as a friend the just critic, and for unjust and unkind treatment makes allowance as due to the blindness or hardness or weakness of the pitiful person who has nothing better to give. Meekness makes the soft answer that turns away wrath, and treats one who wrongs us all the more gently. Thus the meekness of Love gives both power to possess our own souls in patience under all provocation, and power, not indeed to coerce the bodies of others, but to win the consent of their souls. "Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth."

Righteousness is something of which we can have no more and no less than we wish.

He who is good enough is not good at all, and never will be any better. For righteousness is right relation to others; and so long as there are things we can do to help others, its infinite task is unfinished. Yet though the goal ever advances and never comes within reach, aspiration is achievement; progress is attainment. If we could come to the end of our journey; if we could see the world's claims on us met, the deeds of which we are capable done, that moment would mark the death of our souls. Just because Love grows by loving and serving, and makes ever greater and greater demands, it prophesies there shall be forever and ever things to do that will make life worth while. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled."

The depth of our sympathy for those below us in secular service and station measures our worth in the eyes of those spiritually higher than we.

Love is like a tree; if it is not to be scorched in the blaze of ambition and withered in the heat of competition, its roots of sympathy must go down as deep into the soil of the obscure and lowly lives on whose humble toil we depend as its branches spread into the upper air of social distinction and station.

Unless we have much sympathy for those who toil on the farm and on the sea, in the factory and the mine, behind the counter and the desk, in the kitchen and laundry, what we call courtesy in the drawing room, or charity on the platform, is hollow mockery and Pharisaic sham. "Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy."

In order for Love to shine through them there must be nothing else in our hearts.

Love demands everything or nothing. It refuses to dwell in quarters or halves of our souls. The least flaw of pride, greed, or lust is enough to make them opaque. Greed, lust, pride, hate, so blind our eyes to the real selves of others that we cannot see or treat them as they really are; that is, cannot love them. It reduces them to mere means and tools of our passions and pleasures; and one who so regards persons can never love either them or any person aright. Only the pure can see Love; for only the pure can experience that union of one's whole self with the whole self of others in which Love consists. "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God."

Just so sure as we love two or more persons we shall do all in our power to keep them from hating each other.

We wish everyone to love those whom we love. If anybody hates one we love, it hurts us as much as it does the one hated, even more than it would to be hated ourselves. And if anyone whom we love is hating another, we are even more sorry for him than we are for the person he hates, and make all haste to deliver him from this most dreadful condition. The more we love our fellows, the more we hate to see misunderstanding, ill-will, strife, between them.

Not that the Christian is unwilling or afraid to fight. Where deliberate wrong is arrayed against the rights of men, where fraud is practised on the unprotected, where hypocrisy imposes on the credulous, where vice betrays the innocent, where inefficiency sacrifices precious human interests, where avarice oppresses the poor, where tyranny tramples on the weak, there the man who shares the Father's Love for His maltreated children, the man who walks daily in the companionship of the Christ who owns all the downtrodden as His brothers, will be the most fearless and uncompromising foe of every form of injustice and oppression. Property, reputation, position, time, strength, influence, health, life itself if need be, will be thrown unreservedly into the fight against vice and sin. He cannot keep in with the Father and with Christ and not come out in opposition to everything that wrongs and injures the humblest man, the lowliest woman, the most defenceless little child.

Fighting, however, is not altogether uncongenial to the descendants of our brute progenitors. To fight our own battles, and occasionally a few for our neighbours, comes all too naturally to most of us. Fighting God's battles on principle is a very different thing. To feel entirely tranquil in the midst of the combat; to know that we are not alone on the side of the right; to have the real interests of our opponents at heart all the time; to be ever ready to forgive them, and to ask their forgiveness for any excess of zeal we may have shown; to have the peace of God in our hearts, and no trace of malice, in deed, or word, or thought, or feeling,--this is not altogether natural, and the man who does his fighting on that basis gives pretty good assurance of dwelling in the Christian Spirit. No other adequate provision for maintaining peace in the midst of effective warfare, and making peace for others as well as for ourselves the instant the need for war is over, has ever been devised. The peacemakers of this fearless, earnest, strenuous type have the unmistakable right to be called the children of God. "Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God."

All who love must expect to be hated by the foes of those whom they love.

Because Jesus loved the common people and sought to deliver them from their fears and errors, the men who traded on those fears and errors put Him to an ignominious death. If we love and serve the despised, the abused, the plundered, those who despise and abuse and plunder them will do to us the worst they dare. The road of Love is marked at every turn by a cross. Whoever in business, society, or politics makes as real as his own the interests and the wrongs of all whom he can reach and touch, will be disliked, criticised, misrepresented, vilified, condemned. He will pay Love's price of persecution.

Christian sacrifice closely resembles Greek temperance and courage. There is, however, this essential distinction. The Christian takes on not merely the pains and privations which are essential to his personal welfare, or the welfare of his community or state; he takes on whatever suffering the Father's Love for all His children calls him to undergo; gives up whatever indulgences the service of Christ requires him to dispense with; adopts whatever mingling of hardship and self-denial will keep him in most effective and sympathetic fellowship with those who have discovered the same great spiritual secret as himself. Thus, though to the uninitiated outsider much of his life looks hard and severe, on the inside it is easy and light; for the companionship with the Father, with Christ, and with Christian people is so much greater and dearer than the material and sensuous delights it may incidentally take away, that on the inside it does not wear the aspect of loss and sacrifice at all, but rather that of a glory and a gain. Still, since this element of pleasant things foregone, and hard things endured, is ever present, and since it has to be judged by people on the outside as well as by those on the inside of the experience, in recognition of this truth Christianity has made its symbol before the uninitiated world the cross. As in the life of the Master, so in the life of every faithful disciple, the cross must be borne, the perpetual sacrifice must be made, as the price of Love's presence in a world of selfishness and hate; but the cross is transfigured into a crown of rejoicing, the sacrifice is transformed into privilege and pleasure by those precious personal relationships which are the supreme glory and gladness of the soul, and which could be maintained on no cheaper terms. The sacrifice that the Christian makes to get his Father's will, his Master's mission, accomplished in the world which so sorely needs it, is like the sacrifice a mother makes for her sick and suffering child,--the dearest and sweetest experience of life. The cross thus gladly borne, the yoke of sacrifice thus unostentatiously assumed, is the supreme expression of the Christian Spirit.

Like all high-cost things, sacrifice for Love's sake carries a high premium. It admits, as nothing else does, to the inner circle of the immortal lovers of their fellows, to the intimate fellowship of the Lord of Love, Jesus Christ.

Joy follows incidentally and inevitably from the maintenance of these great Christian relationships. A gloomy, depressed, despondent tone and temper, unless it be demonstrably pathological, is public proclamation that the deep mines of these Christian relationships, with their inexhaustible resources, are either undeveloped or unworked. For no man who looks through sunshine and shower, through food and raiment, through family and friendship, through society and the moral order of the world, up into the face of the Giver of them all as his Father; who knows how to summon to his side the gentle and gracious companionship of Christ, alike in the pressure of perplexity and in the quiet of solitude; who knows how to unlock the treasures of Christian literature, to appropriate the meaning of Christian worship, and to avail himself of the comfort and support that is always latent in the hearts of his Christian friends,--no man in whom these vast personal resources are developed and employed can ever long remain disconsolate.

Even in prosperity, popularity, and outward success it takes considerable mixture of these deeper elements to keep the tone of life constantly on the high level of joy. But adversity is the real test. Then the man without these interior resources gives way, breaks down, becomes querulous, fretful, irritable, sour. On the other hand, the man who can make mistakes, and take the criticism they bring, and go on as cheerfully as if no blunder had been made and no vote of censure had been passed; the man who can be hated for the good things he tries to do, and condemned for bad things he never did and never meant to do; the man who can work hard, and contentedly take poverty for pay; the man who can serve devotedly people who revile and betray him in return; the man who can discount in advance the unpopularity, misrepresentation, and defeat a right course will cost, and then resolutely set about it; the man who takes persecution and treachery as serenely as other men take honours and emoluments,--this man, we may be sure, has dug deep an invested heavily in the field where the priceless Christian treasure lies concealed.

"Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."

VII

THE SUPREMACY OF LOVE

Jesus' Spirit of Love is capable of absorbing into itself whatever we have found valuable in the four previous systems.

The Epicurean's varied and spontaneous joy in life is not diminished, but enhanced, by the Christian Spirit, which multiplies this joy as many times as there are persons whom one knows and loves. The Epicurean lives in the little world of himself, and a few equally self-centred companions. The Christian lives in the great world of God, and shares its joys with all God's human children. It is the absence of this larger world, the exclusive concern for his own narrow pleasures, that makes the consistent Epicurean, with all his polish and charm, the essentially mean and despicable creature we found him to be.

To be sure, Mill, Spencer, and others have endeavoured to graft the altruistic fruits of Christianity on to the old Epicurean stock. There is this great difference, however, between such Christianised Epicureanism as that of Mill and Spencer, and Christianity itself. These systems have no logical bridge, no emotional bond by which to pass from the pleasures of self to the pleasures of others. They can and do point out the incompleteness of merely egoistic Epicureanism; they exhort us to care for the pleasures of others as we do for our own. But the logical nexus, the moral dynamic, the spiritual motive, is lacking in these systems; and consequently these systems fail to work, except with the few highly altruistic souls who need no spiritual physician.

This logical bond, this moral dynamic, this spiritual motive which impels toward altruistic conduct, the Christian finds in Christ. He certainly did love all men, and care for their happiness as dearly as He cared for His own. But this same Christ is the Christian's Lord and Master and Friend. Yet friendship for Him, the acceptance of Him as Lord and Master, is a contradiction in terms, unless one is at the same time willing to cultivate His Spirit, which is the Spirit of service, the Spirit which holds the happiness and welfare of others just as sacred and precious as one's own. He that hath not this Spirit of Christ is none of His. Hence what men like Mill and Spencer preach as a duty, and support by what their critics have found to be very inadequate and fallacious logical processes, Christianity proclaims as a fact in the nature of God, as embodied in Christ, and a condition of the divine life for everyone who desires to be a child of God, a follower and friend of Jesus Christ. Christianity, therefore, includes everything of value in Epicureanism, and infinitely more. It has the Epicurean gladness without its exclusiveness, its joy without its selfishness, its naturalness without its baseness, its geniality without its heartlessness.

In like manner Christianity takes up all that is true in the Stoic teaching, without falling into its hardness and narrowness. The truth of the Stoic teaching consisted in its power to transform into an expression of the man himself, and of the beneficent laws of Nature, whatever outward circumstance might befall him, Now put in place of the abstract self the love of the perfect Christ, and instead of universal law the loving will of the Father for all His children, and you have a deepened, sweetened, softened Stoicism which is identical with a sturdy, strenuous, and virile Christianity.

If a man has in his heart the earnest desire to be like Christ, and to do the things that help to carry out Christ's Spirit in the world, it is absolutely impossible that he should ever find himself in a situation where what he most desires to do cannot be done. Now a man who in every conceivable situation can do what he most desires to do is as completely "master of his fate" and "captain of his soul" as the most strenuous Stoic ever prayed to be. And yet he is saved from the coldness and hardness and repulsiveness of the mere Stoic, because the object of his devotion, the aim of his assertion, is not his own barren, frigid, formal self, but the kindly, sympathetic, loving Christ, whom he has chosen to be his better self. Like the Stoic, he brings every thought into captivity; but it is not the captivity of a prison, the empty chamber of his individual soul, swept and garnished; it is captivity to the most gracious and gentle and generous person the world has ever known,--it is captivity to Christ.

When misfortune and calamity overtakes him, he transforms it into a blessing and a discipline, not like the mere Stoic through passive resignation to an impersonal law, as of gravitation, or electricity, or bacteriology, but through active devotion to that glory of God which is to be furthered mainly by kindness and sympathy and service to our fellow-men. The man who has this love of Christ in his heart, and who is devoted to the doing of the Father's loving will, can exclaim in every untoward circumstance, "I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me." He can shout with more than Stoic defiance: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" In all the literature of Stoic exultation in the face of frowning danger and impending doom, there is nothing that can match the splendid outburst of the great Apostle: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Everything that we found noble, and strong, and brave in Stoicism we find also here; the power to transform external evil into internal good, and to hold so tightly to our self-chosen good that no power in earth or heaven can ever wrest it from us,--a good so universal that the circumstance is inconceivable in which it would fail to work. Yet with all this tenacious, world-conquering strength, there is, drawn from the divine Source of this affection a gentleness, and sympathy, and tenderness, and humble human helpfulness, which the Stoic in his boastfulness, and hardness, and self-sufficiency could never know.

The Christian abhors lying and stealing, scolding and slandering, slavery and prostitution, meanness and murder, not less but far more than the Stoic. But he refrains from these things, not under constraint of abstract law, but because he cares so deeply and sensitively for the people whom these things affect that he cannot endure the thought that any word or deed of his should bring them pain or loss or shame or degradation. Thus he gets the Stoic strength without its hardness, the Stoic universality without its barrenness, the Stoic exaltation without its pride, the Stoic integrity without its formalism, the Stoic calm without its impassiveness.

Christianity is as lofty as Platonism; but it gets its elevation by a different process. Instead of rising above drudgery and details, it lifts them up into a clearer atmosphere, where nothing is servile or menial which can glorify God or serve a fellow-man.

The great truth which Plato taught was the subordination of the lower elements in human nature to the higher. In the application of this truth, as we saw, Plato went far astray. His highest was not attainable by every man; and he proposed to enforce the dictates of reason by fraud and intimidation on those incapable of comprehending their reasonableness. Thus he was led into that fallacy of the abstract universal which is common to all socialistic schemes. Christianity takes the Platonic principle of subordination of lower to higher; but it adds a new definition to what the higher or rather the highest is; and it introduces a new appeal for the lowliest to become willing servants and friends of the highest, instead of mere constrained serfs and slaves. This highest principle is, of course, Love of the God who loves all His human children, friendship to the Christ who is the friend of every man. Consequently there are no humble working-men to be coerced and no unfortunate women to be maltreated; no deformed and ill-begotten children to be exposed to early death, as in Plato's exclusive scheme. To the Christian every child is a child of God, every woman a sister of Christ, every man a son of the Father, and consequently no one of them can be disregarded in our plans of fellowship and sympathy and service; for whoever should dare to leave them out of his own sympathy and love would thereby exclude himself from the Love of God, likeness to Christ, and participation in the Christian Spirit.

Thus Christianity gives us all that was wise and just in the Platonic principle of the subordination of the lower elements in our nature to the higher; but its higher is so much above the highest dream of Plato that it guards certain forms of social good at points where, even in Plato's ideal Republic, they were ruthlessly betrayed.

Christianity finally gathers up into itself whatever is good in the principle of Aristotle. The Aristotelian principle was the devotion of life to a worthy end and the selection of efficient means for its accomplishment. On that general formula it is impossible to improve. "To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world," is Jesus' justification of His mission, when questioned by Pontius Pilate. "One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," is Paul's magnificent apology for his way of life. The concentration of one's whole energy upon a worthy end, and the willing acceptance of pains, privations, and penalties which may be incidental to the effective prosecution of that end, is the comprehensive formula of every brave and heroic life, whether it be the life of Jew or Gentile, Greek or Christian. It is not because it sets forth something different from this wise and brave prosecution of a noble end that Christianity is an improvement on the teaching of Aristotle; it is because the end at which the Christian aims is so much higher, and the fortitude demanded by it is so much deeper, that Christianity has superseded and deserves to supersede the noblest teaching of the greatest Greeks. What was the end which Aristotle set before himself and his disciples? Citizenship in a city state half free and half enslaved, with leisure for the philosophic contemplation of the learned few, bought by the constrained toil of the ignorant, degraded many; the refined companionship of choice congenial spirits for which it was expected that the multitude would be forever incapacitated and from which they would be forcibly excluded. Over against this aristocracy of birth, opportunity, leisure, training, and intelligence Jesus sets the wide democracy of virtue, service, Love. Whoever is capable of doing the humblest deed in Love to God and service to man becomes thereby a member of the kingdom of the choicest spirits to be found in earth or heaven, and entitled to the same courteous and delicate consideration which the disciple would show to his Master. The building up of such a kingdom and the extension of its membership to include all the nations of the earth and all classes and conditions of men within its happy fellowship, and in its noble service, is the great end which Jesus set before himself and which He invites each disciple to share.

Whatever hardship and toil, whatever pain and persecution, whatever reviling and contumely, whatever privation and poverty may be necessary to the accomplishment of this great end the Master himself gladly bore, and He asks His followers to do the same. In a world full of hypocrisy and corruption, pride and pretence, avarice and greed, cruelty and lust, malice and hate, selfishness and sin, there are bound to be many trials to be borne, much hard work to be done, many blows to be received, much suffering to be endured. All that is inevitable, whatever view one takes of life. Christ, however, shows us the way to do and bear these things cheerfully and bravely as part of His great work of redeeming the world from the bondage and misery of these powers of evil, and establishing His kingdom of Love. To keep the clear vision of that great end before our eyes, to keep the sense of His companionship warm and glowing within our hearty never to lose the sense of the great liberation and blessing this kingdom will bring to our downtrodden, maltreated brothers and sisters in the humbler walks of life, Jesus tells us is the secret of that sanity and sacrifice which is able to make the yoke of useful toil easy, and the burden of social service light; and to transform the cross of suffering into a crown of joy.

Each of these four previous principles is valuable and essential; and the fact that Christianity is higher than them all, no more warrants the Christian in dispensing with the lower elements, than the supremacy of the roof enables it to dispense with the foundation and the intervening stories. Both for ourselves, and for the world in which we live, we need to make our ideal of personality broad and comprehensive. We need to combine in harmonious and graceful unity the happy Epicurean disposition to take fresh from the hand of nature all the pleasures she innocently offers; the strong Stoic temper that takes complacently whatever incidental pains and ills the path of duty may have in store for us; the occasional Platonic mood which from time to time shall lift us out of the details of drudgery when they threaten to obscure the larger outlook of the soul; the shrewd Aristotelian insight which weighs the worth of transient impulses and passing pleasures in the impartial scales of intellectual and social ends; and then, not as a thing apart, but rather as the crown and consummation of all these other elements, the generous Christian Spirit, which makes the joys and sorrows, the aims and interests, of others as precious as one's own, and sets the Will of God which includes the good of all His creatures high above all lesser aims, as the bond that binds them all together in the unity of a personal life which is in principle perfect with some faint approximation to the divine perfection.

The omission of any truth for which the other ancient systems stood mutilates and impoverishes the Christian view of life. Ascetic Puritanism, for instance, is Christianity minus the truth taught by Epicurus. Sentimental liberalism is Christianity without the Stoic note. Dogmatic orthodoxy is Christianity sadly in need of Plato's search-light of sincerity. Sacerdotal ecclesiasticism is Christianity that has lost the Aristotelian disinterestedness of devotion to intellectual and social ends higher and wider than its own institutional aggrandisement.

The time is ripe for a Christianity which shall have room for all the innocent joys of sense and flesh, of mind and heart, which Epicurus taught us to prize aright, yet shall have the Stoic strength to make whatever sacrifice of them the universal good requires; which shall purge the heart of pride and pretence by questionings of motive as searching as those of Plato, and at the same time shall hold life to as strict accountability for practical usefulness and social progress as Aristotle's doctrines of the end and the mean require. It is by some such world-wide, historical approach, and the inclusion of whatever elements of truth and worth other systems have separately emphasised, that we shall reach a Christianity that is really catholic.

To take the duties and trials, the practical problems and personal relationships of life up into the atmosphere of Love, so that what we do and how we treat people becomes the resultant, not of the outward situation and our natural appetites and passions, but of the outward situation and Love within our hearts,--this is what it means to live in the Christian Spirit; this is the essence of Christianity. Strengthened character and straightened conduct are sure to follow the maintenance of this spiritual relationship. Not that it will transform one's hereditary traits and acquired habits all at once, or save one from many a slip and flaw. Even the Christian Spirit of Love takes time to work its moral transformation. The tendency of it, however, is steady and strong in the right direction; and in due time it will conquer the heart and control the action of any man who, whether verbally or silently, whether formally or informally, maintains this conscious relationship to that Love at the heart of things which most of us call God. Jesus and all who have shared His spiritual insight tell us that the maintenance of this relationship, close, warm, and quick, is the pearl of great price, the one thing needful, the potency of righteousness, the secret of blessedness; and that there is more hope of a man with a bad record and many besetting sins who honestly tries to keep this relationship alive within his breast, than there is of the self-righteous man who boasts that he can keep himself outwardly immaculate without these inward aids.

Christianity of this simple, vital sort is the world's salvation. Criticised by enemies and caricatured by friends; fossilised in the minds of the aged, and forced on the tongues of the immature; mingled with all manner of exploded superstition, false philosophy, science that is not so, and history that never happened; obscured under absurd rites; buried in incredible creeds; professed by hypocrites; discredited by sentimentalists; evaporated by mystics; stereotyped by literalists; monopolised by sacerdotalists; it has lived in spite of all the grave-clothes its unbelieving disciples have tried to wrap around it, and holds the keys of eternal life.

INDEX

Accident, Stoic explanation of, 83-85.

Adversity, test of Christian character, 276.

Altruism, 10-15, 222.

Ambition, 143-144, 182.

Amputation of morbid reflections, 33.

Apperception, 66-70.

Aristotle-- Limitations of, 212-213. Summary of, 213-214. On-- Celibacy, 180-181. Chastity, 202-204. Courage, 204-206. Friendship, 209-212. Need of instruments, 191-194. Pleasure, 160-175. Prudence, 200. Social nature of man, 176-179. Temperance, 201. Test of character, 184. The end, 179-191. The mean, 194-198. The virtues, 199-208. Wealth, 192. Wisdom, 199. Completed in Christianity, 284-287.

Arnold, Matthew, 100, 107.

Avarice, 146-147.

Bacteria, on the whole beneficent, 84-85.

Beatitudes, 265.

Blessedness of Love, 264-277.

Boss, political, evolution of, 150-151.

Carlyle, 160-161, 190.

Celestial Surgeon, 19.

Celibacy, 180-181.

Chastity, 202-204, 229-232.

Cheerfulness, 19.

Christian-- Church government, 240. Forgiveness, 259-260. Joy, 275. Modesty, 265. Peace, 270-272. Sacrifice, 254-256, 273-274. Use and misuse of creeds, 241-243. Worship, 240. Interpretation of-- Art, 249-251. Business, 249-251. Divorce, 233-235. Marriage, 228. Murder, 225-228. Pleasure, 255. Politics, 249-251. Profanity, 235. Science, 249-251. Wealth, 248-252.

Christianity-- The completion of-- Aristotle, 284-287. Epicureanism, 277-279. Plato, 282-284. Stoicism, 279-282. Missionary character of, 262-263. In need of intellectual honesty, 241-243. Supremacy of, 277-291.

Christmas Sermon, Stevenson's, 19.

Circumstances alter acts, 129.

Cleanthes' hymn, 97-99.

Clubs, women's, 188-189.

Commandments, Aristotelian, 213.

Cosmopolitanism, Stoic, 94-95.

Courage, 204-206.

Cowardice, 128.

Creeds, 241-243.

Cynicism, 82.

Cynic's prayer, 96-97.

Death, Christian triumph over, 281. Epicurean disposition of, 7, 8, 45. Stoic view of, 73, 77. Whitman on, 18.

Degeneration, Plato's stages of, 143-153.

Democracy, ancient and modern, 122. Plato on, 147-149.

Depression, 32-33.

Diet, 5, 21-22, 124-126.

Difficulty, Stoic attitude toward, 75-76.

Divorce, logical outcome of Epicureanism, 44. Christian attitude toward, 233-235.

Education, Plato's scheme of, 131-138.

Egoism, duty of adequate, 10-15.

Electricity, beneficent, 84.

Eliot, George, 46-51.

Emerson, 165-167.

End, not justification of means, 178-179.

Epictetus, 71-77, 81, 84, 87, 88, 89, 96, 97.

Epicurean-- Day, 34-35. Definition of personality, 37, 51. Gods, 9, 95. Heaven, 45. Man, 40-41. Woman, 42-44.

Epicureanism, defects of, 36-45, 110, 159, 169-172. Merits of, 23-25, 52-53. Parasitic character of, 40, 44-45, 52.

Epicurus, 1-9.

Equality, Plato on, 148.

Evil, Stoic solution of, 87-90.

Eye of good man upon us, 6.

Fighting, a Christian duty, 270-272.

Fitzgerald, 15-16.

Forgiveness, 79, 259-260.

Fortitude, 126-129.

Friendship, 6, 166-167, 209-212.

Gentleness before all morality, 19.

Gilbert, W.S., To the Terrestrial Globe, 108.

Gluttony, 125.

Golden Rule, 223.

Good, the, according to Plato, 130.

Gravitation, beneficent, 83-84.

Gyges' ring, 115-116.

Handles, two to everything, 71.

Happiness and Virtue, 264.

Harmony, effect of, in education, 134.

Health, 10-13, 69.

Henley, To R. T. H. B., 100.

Heretic, definition of, 53-54.

Honesty, intellectual, 241-243.

Horace, Ode on Philosophy of Life, 10.

Humility, 265.

Hurry, 29-30.

Imaginary presence of good man, 6.

Independence of outward goods, 4, 74.

Indifference to external things, 71, 77-78, 81.

Intellectual honesty, 241-243.

Jesus' three ways of teaching, 215-218.

Joy, 275.

Judas meets himself, 79.

Judging others, 260.

Judgment, Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic, and Aristotelian, 183. Christian, 220-221.

Kant, categorical imperative, 86. Good-will only real good, 85-86. Uncompromising modern Stoic, 85.

Law, Jewish, transcended by Christianity, 219-238. Stoic reverence for, 82-86.

Liberty, excess of, leads to slavery, 149.

Lincoln's letter to Greeley, 198.

Literature in education, 132-135.

Love, Christian, 215-291.

Lucretius, 8-9.

Marcus Aurelius, 77, 96.

Marriage, 228.

Mean, Aristotle's doctrine of the, 194-198.

Meekness, 268.

Melancholy, 33-34.

Mental healing, 30, 66, 70.

Mercy, 269.

Mill, Christian elements in his doctrine, 63. Definition of happiness, 54. Distinction in quality of happiness, 55-57. Incompleteness of doctrine, 277-278. Inconsistency of, 57-58, 63-65. On social nature of man, 60-62.

Missionary character of Christianity, 262-263.

Modesty, 265.

Morrow, how meet most pleasantly, 7.

Murder, Christian definition of, 225-228.

Mysticism, 164.

Narrow way, 256.

Natural desires, 3.

Neoplatonism, 161-164.

"New Thought," 162.

Oaths, 235.

Obligation not to be relaxed, 167-168.

Office, good for one, bad for another, 186-187.

Omar Khayyam, 15-17, 38.

Opinion in our power, 74-75, 87.

Optimism, superficiality of modern, 82.

Otherworldliness, 36.

Pain, 2, 4.

Parasitic character of Epicureanism, 40, 44-45.

Patience, 128.

Penitence, 267.

Perfectionism, 92-93.

Persecution, 272-276.

Pessimism, 37-38.

Philosophers, as kings, 138.

Plato-- Defects of, 120-122, 162-168. Merits of, 159-162, 278. On-- Athletics, 136. Cardinal virtues, 123-131. Democracy, 147-149. Education, 131-138. Literature in education, 132-135. Philosophers as kings, 138. Riches and rich men, 145-147. Righteousness, 113-223, 138-142, 153-159. The good, 130, 137. Completed in Christianity, 282-284.

Play, 26-28.

Pleasure, 2-4, 20, 39, 30-65, 110-111, 169-175, 255.

Politician, 117-119, 150-152.

Poverty, 4.

Power, things in our, 74.

Prayer, 257-258, 268.

Present, the time to live, 6, 36.

Procrastination, 6-7.

Prudence, 5-6, 20, 251.

Purity, 270.

Reading Gaol, 226.

Religion of Stoics, 95-100.

Reverence, 215.

Rewards and penalties not essential to virtue, 112-115.

Riches, 4-5, 67-69, 89, 145-147, 248-252.

Righteousness, 113-123, 138-142, 153-159.

Romola, 46-51.

Sacrifice, 254-256, 273-274.

Self-regard and excessive self-sacrifice, 10-15.

Seneca's pilot, 77.

Sexual morality, 202-204, 270.

Sin, 93.

Sleep, 22.

Social nature of man, 60-62, 176-179.

Socrates' prayer, 159.

Sorrow, Stoic attitude toward, 76-77.

Spencer, 10-15, 277-278.

Spirit, one of three elements in our nature, 126-128.

Stevenson, 18, 19, 201.

Stoic-- Acceptance of criticism, 103. Attitude toward sorrow, 76-77, 78, 80, 101-102. Cosmopolitanism, 94-95. Doctrine of no degrees in vice, 90-92. Equanimity, 103-105. Fortitude, 105-106. Indifference, 71-81. Paradoxes, 90-95. Perfection of the sage, 93-93. Religion, 95-103. Resignation, 97, 104-105. Reverence for law, 82-86. Solution of problem of evil, 87-90.

Stoicism, coldness of, 107-109. Completed in Christianity, 279-282. Defects of, 106-109, 159. Permanent value of, 101-106, 279-282. Two principles of, 101.

Temperance, 200-204.

Theatre, 27.

Tito Melema, 46-51.

Tranquillity, 75.

Travel, foreign, the paradise of Epicurean women, 42.

Trial, Stoic endurance of, 75,89-90.

Tyranny, Plato on, 149-153.

Tyrant, most miserable of men, 153.

Unrighteousness the greatest evil, 140-141, 154-157.

Vexation, Stoic formula for, 78.

Virtue, 87-88, 110-116, 199-208.

Wealth, 4-5, 67-69, 145-148, 182, 248-252.

Whitman, Walt, 17, 18.

Wisdom, 129-131, 199.

Work, excessive, 10-15, 23-25.

Worry, folly of, 24, 29-30, 33, 252-253.

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