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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 49

First Principles [Discourses, 1st Series, No. 1]

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First Principles.

Discourses

1st Series. No. 1.

T. A. & R. A. Reid, Printers. Providence

1882.
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First Principles.

Some things are special, some universal; some artificial, some natural; some speculative, some practical. The special belongs to an individual, a family or a race; the universal belongs to all men. The artificial is acquired, the natural inheres in humanity. The speculative relates to something beyond our reach, the practical to that immediately about us, and over which we may, if we will, exert an influence. The house we live in, the church we attend, the nation which is our fatherland, the religious system within which we are born and brought up—these belong to the special; that is to say, all mankind do not possess the same house, the same form of worship, the same country, the same manifestation of religion : but houses of some sort are universal, worship is universal, patriotism is universal, religion is universal; because all acquire shelter, all worship in some way, all recognize citizenship, all seek a better than they have realized for themselves and their fellows. So forms of belief which we accept from our ancestors without questioning, customs we take on because our fathers had them before us, and things we do from mere force of habit—these are artificial; but that which we grow into by the laws of our own beings, that which enters into our life-blood and becomes a part of us, so that we may say it belongs to us, as the leaves belong to the tree—that is natural. So what may happen next year, what may be taking place on the distant planets, where the human soul comes from and where it goes to, is there a first cause, and if so, what is the character of the same—these are speculative problems which we are at present in no condition to page 4 solve; but how to make the circumstances of life on this planet and in this era of our existence favorable to growth in holiness and love, how to establish the kingdom of heaven right here in America—these are practical problems, plainly within finite comprehension, and subject to finite action. The special, the artificial, the speculative, may be good beyond criticism in their respective places, but they are always secondary to the universal, the natural, the practical, which cover all space, include all time, and constitute the work which our hands find to do.

Now, religion in the past has been based on the secondary elements; it has been special, it has been artificial, it has been speculative. But religion in the future is to be based on the fundamental elements; it is to be universal, it is to be natural, it is to be practical. Let me try to demonstrate the correctness of this statement by proposing and answering, as well as I may, three questions. First—What is the difference between a special and a universal religion; second—What is the difference between an artificial and a natural religion; and third—What is the difference between a speculative and a practical religion.

It is found upon examination that some characteristics are common to all religions and some peculiar to each of them. A special religion then, we may say, is one which thinks its peculiarity a vital prerequisite to the highest human welfare; and a universal religion is one which thinks those the most vital principles which are held in common. The Roman Catholic Church has a long line of priestly authority tracing directly back to an ecclesiastical head-centre. With the edicts of this succession the individual reason has nothing to do. They are to be accepted without question as infallible dogmas. If the church says the priest can forgive sins, no matter how unreasonable it may appear, he can do it, because the authority regarded as infallible says so. The unqualified rule of this church means the subjection of the human mind. Its peculiarity in our day is its bold denial of the right of free thought. The Protestant page 5 Church, though opposed to Rome, has never quite accepted the unlimited sway of Reason. It set out with its face Zionward, but it has lingered by the way. Rejecting one authority, it has established another, at each advance conceding a little more to the spirit of liberty. For this reason we find the Protestantism of our own time accepting not one, but many degrees of authority. Conservative Orthodoxy clings to its old creeds. It demands belief in the Trinity; in Adam as the original father of the human race and the cause of its downfall; in total depravity, eternal punishment and the atonement. When a man becomes a professor in one of its institutions, or even joins one of its churches, he is expected to subscribe to all this as the vital part of his belief. Progressive Orthodoxy rejects some of these principles, but holds up the Bible as an infallible guide specially inspired by the Creator. Conservative Unitarianism recognizes defects in the Bible, but proclaims Jesus to be the Lord and Saviour of mankind, less than God but more than man. While Liberal Unitarianism simply insists upon wearing the Christian label and recognizing in the Unknown a power whom it can justly call "Our Father."

Now Constructive Radicalism, if I understand it, has no desire to find fault with these different manifestations of the religious nature. It is disposed to hold that the most mistaken of them may have contained some kernel of truth, and may still be doing a good work in the world. Certainly it has no quarrel with Christianity. Its protest is against the exclusiveness of sects and systems. So far as Jesus is concerned, it not only admits, it earnestly affirms, the exceptional beauty of his teachings; but it cannot forget that probably two-thirds of the human race have never heard his name. It regards the Bible as a series of books of great import to humanity, to be studied as such and to be revered as such; but it cannot forget that only the minority of the world's inhabitants know there is such a volume, and only the smallest fraction of this minority are acquainted with its teachings. It recognizes in the Christian system a mighty force for good, but it cannot forget that it has page 6 a past of only about two thousand years. Covering but a small portion of space and a smaller portion of time, it belongs to the special precisely as do the denominations within itself. And the only reason why they or it were ever regarded as universal is found in the ignorance of their devotees. Progress always undermines narrowness, and every new fact discovered helps to batter down old error. The change in the conception of religion which has followed the study of the old religious systems is as marvelous as the last fifty years' advance in physical science. By means of this study we have already learned that the Unknown is not without a witness in any human soul; that the disciples of Confucius, of Buddha, of Zoroaster, of Mahomet, may be just as near the central Light and Life as if they had been reared under Christian institutions and had become what are called followers of Christ. In other words the one Saviour of mankind was not born in Palestine any more than in India or China. The one sacred book is not the Christian any more than it is the Persian or the Hindu Bible. The one channel for the in flowing of the Eternal Spirit is neither here nor there, for all holy men, and all holy books, and all holy influences carry it by divine commission to human hearts and lives. The value of the golden rule does not lie in the fact that it fell from the lips of Jesus in Judea, and before him from the lips of Confucius in China, but in the degree of truth it contains. It is their greatness not its which is derived from their expression of it. The beauty of overcoming evil with good is neither greater nor less because Jesus and before him Gautama advocated it. Their advocacy of it made their characters more beautiful, it could not gild what was already refined gold; it could not by painting improve what was already one of nature's pure white lilies! The idea of human brotherhood,—who will dare to-day credit it exclusively to Christianity, which has carried the fire of persecution among its enemies, when he reflects that it has adorned nearly every system of religion now known to man, a dream in them all, not yet a fact in one. Jesus said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Zoroaster said, "Do as you would page 7 be done by." Confucius said, "The good man loves all men. All within the four seas are his brothers." Buddha said, "My doctrine makes no distinction between high and low, rich and poor. It is like water, which washes and purifies all alike. It is like the sky, for it has room for all." And Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca, and Menander, and Cicero, and all the great souls of ancient and of modern times have uttered similar sentiments. What does it indicate that without pre-arrangement a great principle finds expression under all forms and shines serene in all skies? What but the universality of the principle? And which, pray tell me, is the more important, the thing universal which is expressed, or the system, limited and special, which is the medium of its expression? Therefore, I say Truth is not great because Christianity expresses it; Christianity is great in so far as it expresses Truth. Thus we reach the conclusion that any truth which is universal must have existed before, and independently of, the special system which brings it to us. In other words we get down to one of the fundamental principles of religion and accept as our supreme leader not the head of a system, but that spirit of Truth which underlies all systems. Now we exclaim with Lucretia Mott, "Truth for Authority, not Authority for Truth."

I wonder if we all realize, friends, just how much that means? When one says, Nothing shall come between me and truth, he has reached the logical antithesis of Rome. He has abolished all adjectives, even the Christian. Henceforth, absolute freedom of thought is his method, the discovery of unqualified truth his ideal aim. To him, now, Christianity becomes one of many religious systems, not less honored because standing side by side with its fellows; the Bible becomes one of many sacred books, each more valuable for the truths all express in common; and Jesus is seen to be one of a brotherhood of great souls, together guiding, blessing, redeeming mankind. Such is the difference between a special and a universal religion, or the special and the universal in religion. One is a part, the other is the whole; one is a segment, the other is the sphere.

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Turn we now to our second question—What is the difference between an artificial and a natural religion? Let me say that in using these terms, I do not mean to imply that they every where signify the same things. What is artificial to-day may not have been artificial always. Men in early ages of extreme ignorance and superstition, grew naturally into the observance of certain forms and ceremonies which are no longer admissible. They prayed in fear and trembling to the awful power whose voice was the thunder, and whose flaming wrath was the lightning. Possibly the mutilations of the body practiced among the Brahmins and some of our Indian tribes may not be as artificial as they seem. But I am not referring to barbarous ages and nations, I am speaking of our own people and time, of a condition of things where knowledge is general, if not universal; of a civilization wherein Science is accorded an honorable place. The child of to-day does not take to the forms of the church as a duck does to the water. It has to acquire a taste for ecclesiastical diet. One hundred years ago, our fathers taught in the New England Primer a theology at which we smile now. There was no smiling about it then. It was a constant warfare on human nature.

"In Adam's fall
We sinned all,"

was its lugubrious song, but somehow the little folks would reflect the sunshine in their faces, even on Sunday. They knew nothing about sin, and less about the fall, and it was Natural Religion in their hearts which made them shout and laugh in response to Nature's greeting through her buttercups and daisies. You must not act thus on the Sabbath day, came the stern reproof. You must remain in the house, you must read the Bible, you must keep a sober face. That was Artificial Religion driving out Natural Religion. How often in history the same contest has been waged with the same result. Do you suppose that without a suggestion outside its own consciousness any child ever knelt before getting into bed and said understandingly: page 9

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take?"

Many people can remember the time when they were taught as children that it was their duty thus to pray. They can remember how hard they tried to perform this duty and to make it seem real. But somehow the active mind of childhood which asks why before the hardest problem and expects an answer, would not be quieted. Who is the Lord to whom I am talking? What have I to do with him and he with me? Why is it that I cannot see him? Who was ever able to answer such queries in a way to satisfy the mind of a little child? You know that sort of thing is an artificial form to-day. You know the creative force does not mock the children of men by speaking something to their reason which will damn their souls? You know the solicitations contained in prayers of that character have as little effect upon the Eternal Administration as upon the solid rock of our Granite Hills. John Weiss says, "The only ground for an act of faith is furnished gradually by discovering how this world is constructed, for it is the stem on which our souls blossom." I think child and man alike want facts. Neither courts deception. The little ones still enjoy a Santa Claus, but they know all the same that he does not ride through the air with his tiny reindeer. They may sit entranced over Arabian Nights stories, but they are not deceived by wonderful lamps, they know there is no "truly" fairy-land. What they accept is what they grow into and up to naturally. If you want to find religion for a child, help him to find it for himself; not in your way but in his. You will not need to send him out, he will go out of his own desire to the garden, the fields, the woods, and by the sea. "Oh, sec this pretty flower," he exclaims, as he revels in the clover patch. "Oh, hear this funny noise," he says, as the sea-shell sings its song in his ear. He is at home everywhere in the great temple of Nature—this little autocrat. He is experiencing religion all the while without knowing it. Every new object of wonder and beauty is a new Messiah, page 10 which makes his blessed little heart throb closer to the Infinite Heart and his sunny face reflect more directly, the Infinite Smile.

And how is it with us older children? Why, we maintain religious institutions so-called, just as we maintain systems of etiquette—for respectability. They are a kind of thin veneering, a sweet frosting, to the substance of our lives, but quite distinct therefrom in character. People do not believe one-half they say they do in their creeds, nor one-half the forms in which they participate imply. I read the other day in one of our papers, and the article containing it has been widely circulated, this: "It is a necessity that religious creeds be reconstructed, or the churches will lose their hold upon the people more and more every year." What is that but a confession that the church is to-day offering mankind a forced, foreign, artificial thing. To accept such a commodity is not worship. When one is struggling to overcome some bad habit, when he recognizes his own weaknesses, when he is doing his best to reach what for the moment seems the unattainable, then it is that he is worshiping. The longing in your heart for the True, the Beautiful, the Good,—that is prayer. The tender solicitude with which you look at your children's faces in sleep the last thing before you go to your own night's rest,—that is prayer. The aspiration of your soul that you may exert an influence in the world for sober, refined, holy character,—that is prayer. It is the only kind of prayer to which we have any right to expect an answer,—this natural desire of the man nerving him to renewed and successful struggle toward an ever-advancing ideal. In the presence of such worship as this the formal lip-service of the sects shrinks to a subordinate place in human estimation until in good time it shall be sloughed off as the relic of a bygone age.

Artificial religion then, is that in which profession is one thing and life another thing. Natural religion is that in which profession and life are one. In artificial religion we pray to an external authority who, it is claimed, will hear and answer our supplications from without. In natural religion we pray to an page 11 internal authority, the godlike within us, whose summons at times all feel and own. In the one the soul is out on a journey, a stranger in a strange land. In the other it is at home, breathing its native air and drinking the elixir of life from its own mountain streams. In the one the outward appearance, the compliance with custom is what tells. In the other it is the inward attitude of the spiritual nature, the orderly growth toward the perfect and divine. Thus we find the second fundamental principle of religion in the natural gravitation of humanity toward the ideal.

And now we are brought face to face with our last question—What is the difference between a speculative and a practical religion? The Andover creed says, among other things:—I believe there is one and but one living and true God; that in the Godhead are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and that these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; that Adam, the federal head and representative of the human race, was placed in a state of probation, and that in consequence of his disobedience, all his descendants were constituted sinners; that the only Redeemer of the elect is the eternal Son of God, who, for the purpose of delivering man out of his sin and misery, became man, and continues to be God and man, in two distinct natures and one person forever; that the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and that the wicked will wake to shame and everlasting contempt, and with devils be plunged into the lake that burnetii with fire and brimstone forever and ever. Well, that, if I mistake not, is rather speculative. You say they qualify it somewhat now. That is true, but the point is that every one of the clauses I have quoted treats of something about which men never knew anything, do not know anything to-day, and, so far as we can see, are not likely to know anything in this world. It is a good thing, perhaps, to speculate concerning the character of the Unseen; it certainly is a wise thing to speculate concerning the origin of man; speculation is often page 12 the way to discovery. But to make guesses and assumptions take the place of verified truth; to say this and that matter of pure speculation is vital, and that our particular interpretation of the theories involved must be accepted; that is indeed the height of absurdity.

Somehow men have been possessed with the idea that religion means other worldliness. So for a long time they did not give that attention to affairs on this planet which is necessary to a recognition of the relations of cause and effect within human control. That is a suggestive fact to which Hawthorne calls attention in the Scarlet Letter, that the founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery and another portion as the site of a prison. Add to the burial of the dead, and the shutting up of the sinners, the saving of souls for a hereafter, and you have nearly covered what was once the whole range of human duties. Gradually ideas of untheological education have crcpt in; gradually the disposition to organize charities has grown; gradually the reform of social and industrial conditions has become an object of thought; until at length a larger amount of time, energy and money than ever before is given to ennobling human life here and now. In the church on Sunday you will still hear the old ideas preached and see the old forms more or less closely adhered to, but men of all persuasions are thinking more and more of the duty which lies at their doors. The homes of poverty and filth, the suffering and crime caused by intemperance and prostitution, the growing tyranny of accumulated wealth, the degradation of woman, the strength and weakness of universal suffrage,—why there is scarcely a limit to the long list of subjects of this nature challenging our attention. The discussion of such themes in the home, on the street, in the counting-room and the public gathering, is an indication of the tendency of the hour toward practical religion. It is difficult for us to appreciate the change in this respect which has taken place within our own life-times.

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How sharply drawn once was the line between what was called the religious and the secular, but what was really the speculative and the practical. We had religious books and secular books, religious music and secular music, religious days and secular days. Of course traces of such distinctions still exist. You can find in these times, as formerly, grave inconsistencies between creed and deed. But when you get down to the underlying motives of human action, you discover, if I am correct, a pretty general recognition of the idea that a religion which can be divorced from daily conduct is not worth talking about. Every good book is now a religious book; every inspiring strain of music is a religious strain; every day which bears witness to a pure thought or an unselfish act is a religious day.

The backbone of nearly all the creeds, from the most conservative to the most liberal, is an assent to certain unproven mental propositions. The backbone of the real moving religion of mankind is personal faithfulness, according to the light one possesses, in practical every-day affairs. Morality is coming to the front. Who cares to-day what Washington and Jefferson, Sumner and Lincoln believed concerning the character of God and a future existence. They lived high, aspiring, religious lives, every one of them; they were faithful to great principles; they left the world better for their sojourn in it; that is all we need to know; on that basis, so long as conscious being shall endure, they will be enshrined in our love and veneration. "I had rather have one great act of social justice," said Wendell Phillips once, "I had rather have one great act of social justice, acceptable and intelligible to the workingmen and women of New England, than a million of pulpits preaching the Sermon on the Mount." Not because the Sermon on the Mount is not a sublime instruction, not that a million pulpits is not a necessary auxiliary, he added, but because they are inadequate; because they do not reach the difficulty of the time. So I say to-day, as long as religion, in or out of the church, fails to exert an influence for practical ethics and universal equity; so long as it can seal its lips in the presence of social indulgence, busi page 14 ness trickery, political injustice, and industrial serfdom; it is inadequate to the work to be done; it is sacrificing the practical to the speculative. But when, in the church or out of it, putting itself in the place of the drunkard in the gutter, the prostitute in the house of shame, the unwary in trade, the ignorant and unfortunate at the loom, it says, I cannot preserve my self-respect, I cannot discharge my duty to my clients if I accept the proffered wine cup, if I "turn from dirty stockings" and bow to "vice, married to ribbons and a little gay attire," if I wink at commercial dishonesty and shut my eyes to the slavery of poverty and sin, then it is equal to all emergencies, then it is practical in the sublimest sense, reaching down to the lowest of the needy, and up to the immortal stars. And this practical character of religion is the third element in our trinity of fundamentals.

We may sum up this brief and imperfect study by saying that while as late as a century ago our fathers cherished a religion which was special and speculative, and which seems to us at this day to have been artificial in its character, the tendency of development has been away from that to a religion which recognizes the universality, the naturalness, and the practicability of virtue. Truth, Justice, and Love, we say now, are universal—that is, they belong to all men. They are natural—that is, they are the ideal leading all men. They are practical—that is, they can and should be applied to all men. These are our First Principles, the acceptance of which constitutes all that is absolutely essential to make the religious life. Other things may be important in their places, but these we believe are the vital and supreme conditions of personal salvation in this world, if not in every other.

Dost thou believe then in a Heavenly Father? No matter. Dost thou believe in the immortality of the soul? No matter. Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of men? No matter. But stand up, look me in the eye, and answer these questions: Art thou as honest as thou knowest how to be? Art thou as loving as thou knowest how to be? Art thou as page 15 just as thou knowest how to be? Art thou as pure as thou knowest how to be? If thou canst say Yes, I am, then thou needest not to wait for the "Well done, good and faithful servant"; thou hast already entered into the joy of thy Lord. The Eternal Order has won thy heart, and the "still, sad music of humanity" as it strikes gently thy simple faith, is transformed into the prolonged aspiration of the soul for the realization of its Divine Ideals.

"'Tis not the wide phylactery,
Nor stubborn fast, or stated prayers,
That make us saints; we judge the tree
By what it bears.

And when a man can live apart
From work, on theologic trust,
We know the blood about his heart
Is dry as dust.

We hold that saving grace abounds
Where charity is seen; that when
We climb to heaven, 'tis on the rounds
Of love to men."

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The Index,

A Radical Journal,

Which aims to present the best thoughts of the day on all subjects relating to human welfare. It is the foe of superstition and the advocate of the religion of Reason and Humanity.

William J. Potter, Editor

B. F. Underwood, Editor

Among the contributors are Felix Adler, T. W. Higginson, D. A. Wasson, M.D. Conway, George Jacob Hoi.Voake, F. M. Holland, John W. Chadwick, M. J. Savage, W. H. Spencer, Prof. W. D. Gunning. W. I. Gill, A.M., B. W. Ball, Mrs. E. D. Cheney, Mrs. C. H. Dall, Geo. Martin, Allen Pringle, W. D. Le Sueur, Anna Garlin Spencer, M. A. Hardaker, Sara A. Underwood.

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