Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The question of suffering, particularly of vicarious suffering, is one which, from the intimate nature of its bearing on the spiritual as well as on the physical aspect of human consciousness, gives rise to certain apparent irreconcilable differences between the religious and the scientific interpretation of its place and meaning in the scheme of life. On the one hand we have the point of view derived from that type of mind which cannot dissociate suffering from sin, regarding each as a concomitant consequence of a derangement of the divine and originally perfect order of Creation by reason of the intervention of Evil in opposition to God's Will for Good. Such is the creed of pessimistic suffering--a practical denial of the progressive action of the Spirit of Love. On the other hand, there is the point of view derived from that type of mind which believes the susceptibility of organisms to contrasting sensations to be a necessary factor in spiritual as well as in physical evolution. Such is the creed of optimistic suffering--the affirmation of the inherence of the divine Spirit of Life in all creatures, whereby pain and evil are shown to be as truly ordained by God as those opposing elements of consciousness known to us as joy and good, to the end that for evil so much good more, for sorrow so much joy more, may be evolved through the transmuting and progressive purpose of His Will.

Here, then, are two aspects of the phenomenon of suffering--two pictures of life drawn from two points of view--the one apparently so irreconcilable with the other as to make it difficult to realise that it is indeed one and the same objective which is subjected to critical inquiry, _i.e._ the compatibility of sin and suffering in a world created and controlled by a God of Love. But we are not justified in condemning, on the score of dissimilarity of conception and treatment, either representation as incorrect or worthless. The point of focus is responsible for their seeming contradiction. May not, therefore, some adjustment of our powers of critical discernment give us a point of focus which shall embrace both aspects, reconcile their seeming contradictions and differences, and enable us to draw one comprehensive conclusion from them both, to the enlightenment of our intellectual and spiritual consciousness? Our analytical appreciation is directed towards a fair consideration of different aspects of a natural phenomenon. Is it not possible to attain a vantage-ground above the divergence of aspects high enough to allow us to behold the spiritual and physical signification of suffering as one harmonious accompaniment of spiritual and physical evolution, in accord with the divine directing Will of Love?

As, within the physical universe, sound-waves, once set in motion, must circulate for ever, ripple on ripple, in widening vistas of echoing reproduction, unless broken in their course by contact with some barrier capable of arresting and absorbing the progress of vibration; so, in spiritual consciousness, the influences for good and evil which emanate from all effort, whether individual or collective, volitionary or involuntary, must circulate for ever throughout Infinity, unless checked, broken, absorbed, cancelled by centralization in some interposing and receptive agent. And so, within the Communion of Love, the saints on earth, chosen by God as worthy to co-operate in the divinely appointed regenerating purpose of life, may summarise and transmute the effects of evil into good by means of their own suffering; may so sanctify their minds and bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, that they may be found worthy to share the passion of Incarnate Love in the redemption of the world. It is the Will of God, it is the Law of Life, that we bear each other's burdens; that the just suffer for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the pure for the impure! Not in ourselves or by ourselves alone can sins of commission and omission be expiated; not by our own unaided efforts can we arrest the consequences of action. Life is a whole, and individual thought and action touch the whole, and their effects are felt by the whole. We derive no virtue in ourselves from ourselves alone. Do we not owe our very ability to discriminate between good and evil, our standard of right and wrong, our civilization, our culture--nay, in short, the whole of our evolving realization of the Love of God--to the collective consciousness of Creation, which is a continual revelation of God? Do not we stand to-day as inheritors of wisdom accumulated by the united efforts of mankind in past times, and as guardians of this, the world's increasing consciousness of God, revealed throughout all Time, throughout all Creation? According as our forefathers struggled and attained, do we in our generation enter upon the inheritance of the earth. Thus the progressive spiritual consciousness of the world is at once our inheritance and our trust. We are debtors to the past and custodians of the future generations of our kind. Through the infinite condescension of God in employing mankind as a medium of His revelation, the privilege of realising the increasing purpose of His Will is placed within our keeping. Made in the image of God, man is endowed with the creative faculties of his Maker. The Creator wills that His creatures shall consciously share in the glory of creation, whereby through the perfecting of spiritual apprehension is revealed the Kingdom of God. Are we willing to take up the cross of sacrifice and suffer gladly with and in the passion of Incarnate Love? If we are indeed judged worthy of use in the elimination of evil by conversion through suffering of the effects of evil into elements of good, must we not rejoice in our participation with Divine Love in the revelation of the glory of God? If we are called upon to surrender ourselves, our minds and souls and bodies, as a reasonable sacrifice in the service of Love; if we are chosen by God to suffer in Love and with Love in the progressive redemption of the world from evil by the translation and transmutation of its effects in ourselves through suffering into recreated good; shall we not uplift our hearts and minds and souls in praise, prayer and thanksgiving, in that we are thus consciously brought into the Holy Communion of Love?

All creation groaneth and travaileth together, but it is not given to all forms of life to suffer consciously and willingly in co-operation with the divine government of life. Participation in the redemption and salvation of the world through Love is the privilege of those only who are born into spiritual apprehension of their essential unity with God, and who thus become one with Him in the transmuting purpose of His Will. These are they who, obeying the command of Love to resist not evil, become agents of the divine Alchemist. But the power thus to suffer willingly in the transmuting process of spiritual progress implies a dual susceptibility of physical and psychical consciousness which is the peculiar privilege of mankind. The whole organic world lies under that law of suffering which ordains that the sacrifice of individual interest shall form the collective and increasing good of life. But to humanity alone as yet has been given perception and power to share consciously in the divine government of Creation. As part of the organic world we are bound by the law of suffering, but we are not condemned to suffer in total ignorance of the purpose behind the working of the Will of God. We are spiritual beings, made in the image of God, and endowed with a birthright of free-will. We are called upon to suffer _gladly_ in Love and for Love, so that the Creator may be glorified in His creatures. We are chosen instruments of the divine Will, but we are free to accept or refuse our election into active service in the Communion of Love. Shall we give ourselves to God in willing co-operation with the divine regenerating purpose of life? Or shall we resent the sacrifice of ourselves in the forwarding of His Will? We are offered co-operation with the Spirit of Life, whereby we may become the agents of divine healing in the progressive redemption of the world, and whereby the effects of evil may be transmuted into elements of good. We are called upon to share the passion of Incarnate Love and to take up _willingly_ the cross of sacrifice. If we disregard the divine command to suffer gladly, we reduce ourselves to the level of the unenlightened brute creation, thereby proving ourselves unworthy of our vocation to conscious and active membership of the Communion of Love, inasmuch as we stultify the divinely implanted powers of transmutation and redemption within us, and hinder the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth.

For, if men are responsible to a certain extent for their own suffering and disease of mind and body; if payment in their own persons is exacted as a just result of ignorance, or as the punishment of abuse of knowledge; yet the consequences of thought and action are not thereby entirely arrested. Life is a Whole, and the conduct of the members of the spiritual Communion of Love must affect the Whole for evil or good. By our willing acceptance of our suffering as the transmuting agent for the conversion of the effects of ignorance and of active evil into elements of recreated good; by our endeavours to add to the world's accumulating consciousness of the Love of God by means of our own rightly directed thought and action; by our readiness to suffer in ourselves the physical and psychical effects of evil, and translate them into good, may we not prove ourselves more worthy of our high vocation to the Communion of Love?

IV

THE HERITAGE OF PAIN

IN the foregoing pages has been set forward some attempt to explain how the transmuting action of the creed of optimistic suffering operates in a progressive revelation of the spiritual unity of the Whole of Life, whereby pain appears as the agent of the Will of a God of Love in the conversion of evil into good, and whereby the perfecting consciousness of Creation may be drawn into willing co-operation with the Creator.

Such an interpretation of the presence of evil and pain in the world is in agreement with that advanced by Science in support of the supposition that evolutionary growth entails the susceptibility of organisms to contrasting sensations. But is it also compatible with that other explanation of the origin of evil which holds the sin of Adam accountable for the suffering of the whole world, and upon which is based the ecclesiastical doctrine of the need of the Christian Atonement?

While affirming the interdependence of sin and suffering, there is drawn a careful distinction between the two, observation of which is necessary by the man who would avail himself of the Church's aid in the salvation of his soul. Supported as allegorical truth, if not as actual historical occurrences, the Hebrew legends of the Creation and the Fall have been adopted as an explanatory foundation for the need of a new covenant between man, whose sinful conduct marred an originally perfect world, and his justly offended Deity.

Before the advent of Christ the souls of men are held to have been in bondage to the spirit of evil. But through the death of Christ the wrath of God was appeased, and redemption of the sins of all who should acknowledge His redemptive power was secured.

The Catholic Church, as the accredited representative of the divine authority of Christ, teaches that by sacramental agency men may obtain remission and absolution of sins. But there is no concomitant remission of suffering, which is the consequence of evil-doing. The painful labour of men and the travail of women are the result of sin committed by their progenitors, Adam and Eve. It is one thing to forgive a wrong action, but another to arrest its mischievous effects. Man, having marred God's scheme of Creation, must suffer to the end of time from the ineradicable presence of evil in the world, although individual responsibility for its existence is secured by belief in the power of absolution claimed by the Catholic Church in the carrying on of Christ's mission of redemption.

Ecclesiasticism hails Christ as the Saviour of the world, inasmuch as His death was a sacrifice sufficient to atone for the sins of all men. But it is reserved for Science to confirm the truth of this spiritual recognition of the Divine Redeemer, Love, by evidential testimony adduced from proven facts of so-called natural law, whereby Christ is seen as the expounder of doctrine that controverts the theory of evil and suffering as opposing forces to the Will of a God of Love, and reveals their purpose in the spiritual evolution of mankind.

To the scientific mind, sin is non-existent apart from recognition of moral law. Reason asserts that a knowledge of evil is necessary to a knowledge of good, discrimination between the two being preliminary to the establishment of moral law; that such discrimination is chiefly obtained through the sensibility of organisms, the degree of whose susceptibility determines their relative positions in the evolutionary scale--a degree which terminates in man, who manifests the highest consciousness, estimated by his ability to feel, and the highest form of intelligence of any known creature.

Although sensory consciousness may be regarded as a register by which the relative positions of organisms in the evolutionary scale may be determined, the increasing inability to speak positively with regard to distinction between living and non-living matter forbids any dogmatism as to the impropriety of applying the term "conscious" to the inorganic world.

It is, perhaps, here permissible to suggest a possible point of reconciliation between the natural desire of men to obtain evidence of their spiritual survival of organic decay and that disregard of individual importance and advantage which is characteristic of a purely secular interpretation of the laws of Nature. The Christian, whose creed includes immortality as the birthright of his soul and the crown of his religious faith, resents the exclusion of all personal interest from the consideration of natural phenomena. For instance, with regard to the effect which physical death is supposed to exercise on his individuality, Science and Religion, regarding the phenomenon from different points of view, appear to be in opposition of opinion. But is this really the case? Is there not in reality fundamental unity between the secular and sacred aspects of all natural phenomena?

It has been suggested that the sliding scale of physical consciousness has its psychical counterpart in moral ideals, from which the aspirations and perceptions of men reach out towards spiritual apprehension. Can endorsement of this supposition be drawn from the realm of Natural Science? What reasonable evidence is forthcoming in support of the conjecture?

Although dogmatic distinction between the organic and inorganic kingdoms can be of no permanent value (since what is to-day classified as non-living matter may possibly to-morrow be declared to belong to the organic world), yet there is justification--drawn from observation of the simple characteristics of clearly defined organic and inorganic matter--for remarking the former to be distinguished by apparent sensory consciousness, which may therefore be called an active ingredient of manifested life; but the latter shows no such apparent consciousness, and can therefore be called a passive ingredient. Both forms of matter react upon each other, and are inextricably present in life contemplated as a whole. And both forms of matter are interdependent upon a logical sequence of action, by which the supreme Spirit of Life pervades and controls all manifested life. By this maintained interaction, perpetual manifestation of life is carried on, and the cycle of Birth and Death as a recurring demonstration of being is shown to be the transmuting accompaniment of the progressive will of the Spirit of Life. Continuance of sensation in an individual is dependent upon the maintenance of correspondence between its organisation and its environment, cessation of which is synonymous with death. In other words, matter hitherto possessing an individual consciousness, manifested by response to its environment, is resolved into particles of matter which show no united susceptibility to environment, and which are therefore not deserving of description as an individual living organism. Conversely, birth is a resolution of (in the above sense) inorganic matter into organic.

The more complicated an organism the wider its environment, and to the degree of its susceptibility the more liable to resolution into inorganic matter, unless a corresponding degree of ability to protect itself from danger continues to accompany its evolution. In the case of man, knowledge of how to maintain his bodily health must keep pace with intellectual development if the balance between physical consciousness and psychical apprehension is to be properly sustained. Psychical apprehension can be translated into physical comprehension only through the medium of sense, and appreciation of the meaning and value of spiritual life through the medium of the brain. Health of body is necessary for health of mind, and the co-operation of mind and body is necessary for the apprehension of spiritual truths.

Now consciousness, both in its physical and psychical aspects, is manifested by the response of an organism to its environment, and in the case of organisms characterised by the possession of brain, more particularly by the power to register sensation. Human consciousness is achieved largely by an ability to perceive and register _contrast_ in the impressions conveyed to the understanding, and it is the exercising of this faculty which leads to an established recognition of Moral Law. Appreciation of the existence of shadow and darkness presupposes the existence of light, and distinction between these contrasts is summarised by the sense of sight. In like manner, the perception of truth rests upon the power to recognise falsehood, and an estimation of what constitutes honesty on a corresponding idea of dishonesty. The sensation of pleasure is obtained from the possession of a correspondingly acute capacity to feel pain, discrimination placing value on either polaric contrary proportionate to the sensory capacity involved. In short, the register of abstract qualities is more or less dependent upon an appreciation of their antitheses--the moral worth of virtue being determinable by the degree of perceptive discrimination displayed in recognition of its contrast. Just as vision is a result of light, only known to us as vision and formulated as such by reason of its contrast or absence, darkness, which spells blindness, so the idea of good is only known to us by force of its contrast, evil. Registration of the alternating sides of the swing of this polaric machinery of sense makes for an advance in moral and spiritual, as well as in physical consciousness. Evil, on the moral plane of consideration, is as entirely a result of ignorance and absence of good as blindness on the physical plane of actuality is the consequence of perpetual darkness, or insensibility to light. The negative elements of both conditions possess a potential possibility of transmutation into positive elements--the operation of psychical and physical alchemism forming the dual revelation of a God of Love, whereby those who are blind in spirit and body are made to see, to the end that the whole consciousness of man may be confirmed by his increasing knowledge of the glory of his Creator.

To be unable to suffer would entail insensibility to pleasure, and no moral meaning could in this case be evolved from and attached to the idea of feeling. But it is precisely by reason of his attainment of a high degree of consciousness, manifested by the ability to register sensation, that man can claim a comparatively high position in the evolutionary scale; and if suffering and death be indeed a result of his prehistoric interference with an originally painless scheme of Creation, it is difficult to reconcile the benefits he appears to have thereby gained with the idea of such being a punishment for his wrong-doing inflicted upon him by God. For since perception of contrast in abstract quality is absolutely necessary for the obtaining of conscience on the moral plane of thought--that is, for recognition of good and evil, and for the ability to transmute evil into good--it follows that where such perception does not exist there can be no moral responsibility attaching to individual action, no possibility of attaining a dominant spiritual consciousness, and no question of sharing the redemptive mission of Love. In the words of Christ, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth" (St John ix. 41).

It is conceivable that just as that which to the eyes of men appears as darkness is not in the same degree dark to creatures whose habits have developed visual organs differing from those of man, so on the moral plane that which appears as evil to one man may to his differently developed brother seem less evil, and to creatures less highly organised than man, even good. No quality, physical, moral or spiritual, can be restricted or finally actualised; and no one man's opinion of what is estimable can stand as a perfectly true expression of any but his own ideas.

To sum up. The existence of pain is as necessary to the appreciation of pleasure as the existence of evil is to the appreciation of good. Therefore we may regard the sliding scale of consciousness as a register of sensation, a scale adapted to actual physical life and necessary for its continuity and development; and a scale which has its exact psychical counterpart in moral ideals, from which the evolving aspirations and perceptions of men reach out towards spiritual life. The degree of all quality, physical and moral, appears to be primarily dependent upon the capacity to feel--the capacity of consciousness. And upon the perception of contrast rests the possibility of attaining to a dominant plane of spiritual consciousness, and the power to become an active and willing agent in the divinely ordered transmuting, redemptive, and progressive government of life.

It is especially with regard to the spiritual consciousness of man, and of man's participation in the divine government of life, that the doctrine of Christ controverts the idea of suffering as an evil. In His verbal teaching, and in His rite of communion established as a symbolic epitome of His spiritual convictions, there is a clear acknowledgment of the fundamental unity of Nature--a basic point of argument which is also adopted to-day by every scientist in all departments of research. Christ laid particular emphasis upon the spiritual unity of man with God, He Himself speaking as a son of God--a manifestation of the divine Spirit of Life. He urged the following of His example upon His disciples, trying to open the blind eyes and deaf ears of men who had as yet so imperfect an understanding of spiritual things. He tried to teach them to look at life from His point of view. Did He not regard the son of man as the expression of God, recognition of which spiritual truth gave Him, as it can give to all, assurance of eternal life? The Spirit of Life which is in every man cannot die, for it is part of God, who is Life without beginning and without end. Only the expression or medium of spirit, only the finite form, is mortal. Spirit is infinite and immortal.

Such sayings as the following, attributed to Christ and His disciples, are expressive of the relation of man to God, and each may be seen to form a logical corollary of the other:--

"I and my Father are one" (St John x. 30). This is the simple summary of Christ's conviction of fundamental union between the Spirit of Life, God, and manifested being.

"My Father is greater than I" (St John xiv. 28) expresses the fact that the Spirit of Life as a whole is greater than its manifested parts, although those parts are contained by the whole and are at one with the whole.

"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (St John xiv. 9). Here Christ speaks of Himself as a manifested part of the Spirit of Life, in which sense every man can see in his fellow-creatures the same manifested Spirit, who is God. He who looks at the son of man as the incarnate Son of God is following the example of Christ, who taught the brotherhood of man.

"No man hath seen God at any time" (St John i. 18)--shows the futility of imagining it possible to confine the supreme Spirit of Life in any one form at any one period of time. All form is manifested Spirit, but the Spirit of Life is not only in all, but over all.

The following, among very many other sayings, are also susceptible of the same interpretation:--

"I came from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father" (St John xvi. 28).

"As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (St John v. 26).

This doctrine of Christ, indicative of His sense of union between God as the supreme Spirit of Life and of individual being--a union unbroken by the incidents of birth and death attendant upon the manifestation of the Spirit--harmonises with the scientific doctrine of the unity of nature, and if accepted as a fundamental clue to His reported words and deeds, very many of the difficulties and supposed inconsistencies apparent in a purely ecclesiastical interpretation of His person and mission melt away, leaving a beautiful coherency of religious truth in accord with the revelations of natural science.

When men look at life from Christ's point of view, thereby attaining recognition of God as their Father, they become spiritual creatures who hold the moral responsibility of their beings in trust to the Spirit of Life. Christ lived in advance of the intellectual thought of His day, having intuitive knowledge of the unity of nature, but no scientific evidence to offer in its support. But His life and doctrine afford convincing illustrations of His spiritual convictions, and the key to the mystery of His miraculous works of love may perhaps be found in our realisation of His sense of kinship with all living creatures. His acquiescence with natural laws, known by Him to be the working of the will of the Spirit of Life, gave Him influence over all persons with whom He was able to establish a spiritual relation--with all who were willing to co-operate with Him in the alchemistic law of love. His own self-command gave Him dominion over those weaker than Himself, who did not resist His will, who, in the language of Scripture, "had faith in Him." Without such faith we are told He could do no mighty works. But given this receptive attitude of mind, He was able to infuse strength into a sick person and thus to stimulate the Spirit to resume its normal correspondence with the functions of the flesh.

Realisation of union with God as the supreme Spirit of Life entails an awakening to the significance of the unity of nature, and calls for an adjustment of the physical equipment of sense into accord with what is perceived to be the will of the Spirit of Life. With the desire to be at one with the Will of God, consciousness of those influences hitherto dimly apprehended to control existence as though by autocratic law, widens into perception of a progressive government of the whole of life, in the ordinance of which men may take an active part. Here, surely, is that recognition of God possible to all, to which Christ referred in the words, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (St John iv). This is that heaven of light and truth, to be excluded from which is to dwell in the outer darkness of spiritual ignorance. And this is the new birth unto righteousness with a death unto sin which is the epitome of the ethical teaching of Christ.

But, it will be asked, how does this view of life eliminate suffering as an evil from the world? How can it be shown that disease and death, the fear and danger of which cast a perpetual shadow over life, are not evil things, responsible as such for the suffering of all creatures? Granted that man has attained his present high position in the evolutionary scale chiefly through his ability to feel, to suffer; granted that the establishment of morality, brought about largely by registration of contrast in sensation, leads directly to realisation of spiritual life; granted that we may be privileged thereby to exercise a transmuting influence upon evil and its effects, thus making us partakers in the progressive government of life; if our future evolution, proceeding on the same lines of development, entails an ever greater capacity to suffer, is it a desirable thing? Have not less highly organised creatures, with correspondingly lower degrees of consciousness and with less knowledge of the governing principle of life and their own responsibility towards that government, happier lives than men? Whither are we tending? What is the ultimate goal of the recurring cycle of birth and death, manifested by the operation of natural laws, in the general scheme of life in which the evolution of man is but a part?

The welfare of individual man has no meaning apart from its relation to the benefit of mankind as a progressive whole. If a man participate in the common habits of his fellows, he must take his share in those dangers to individual existence which the development of his race necessitates. The advantages which we to-day derive from our employment of social and scientific contrivances common to civilised communities have been wrought from the effort and suffering of men of past times. We are debtors to our ancestors who, by their own labour and sacrifice, have given us a better equipment for the battle of life than was their own inheritance from their forefathers. We are under an obligation to our race which, whether we discharge it willingly or no, is drawn from us by the operation of forces beyond our own control, as the just equivalent of our gain. We cannot separate ourselves, humanly speaking, from our kind. Inasmuch as the spirit of humanity reaches out towards immortality from one generation to another, our lives are not our own. Rather are they hostages to fortune, to that evolutionary principle which, while allowing us as individuals to participate in the benefits actualised to-day as the results of the labours of past generations of men, also exacts from us our own contribution towards the slow perfecting of our kind.

It is indubitable that suffering is an important factor in the evolution of the mind as well as of the body of man. Inefficiency and defect in scientific and social contrivances are made apparent by accident, which, having entailed human suffering, is therefore productive of effort to rectify the cause of danger, and thus of reducing the risk of further punishment.

Could perfect correspondence between an organism and its environment be perpetually maintained, physical death could only occur as the final stage in the gradual decline of the medium of the spirit. Such natural dissolution appears to be part of the order of manifested life, requisite for its continuity and for the evolution of species, and necessary for the development of the spiritual desire for immortality. It is not of necessity a painful process, since the slow decline in physical vitality implies a corresponding decrease in sensibility, or, in other words, a decrease of physical consciousness. Premature death, the result of disease and accident, and accompanied by more or less suffering, constitutes the wages of ignorance, and only in this sense can pain and death be said to be a punishment for sin inflicted by God. If man, individually and socially, does not know how to protect himself from danger, he must pay the penalty for ignorance. Only a perfected organism, maintaining a permanent correspondence with its environment, could be permanently capable of combating physical death. And since the cycle of the birth and death of all forms of life constitutes the central principle of natural law, it is difficult to imagine an eventual eternal preservation of individual physical life to be the ordained end of the evolution of humanity.

When life is looked at as a whole--a point of view entailing perception of God as the supreme Spirit of Life informing and governing all matter--there appears no injustice in the suffering of the human race,or of other organisms whose evolution requires their conscious susceptibility to environment. Men must suffer for their ignorance in order to become wise, and to get wisdom they must eat from the tree of good and evil. Those who are ignorant of what is necessary for the preservation of health receive the wages of their imperfection--suffering, and premature death unto the third and fourth generations--not as the vindictive vengeance of an offended Deity, but as the remedial vindication of a persisting will of love, a transmuting process which must endure until the result of fatal ignorance is expurgated from a progressive world.

If individual thought, individual free-will and action, were more generally recognised to be the prime factors by which human evolution is forwarded or deterred; if concern for the preservation of individual advantage were dominated by a desire to promote the welfare of the race; if the willing transmutation by vicarious suffering of the effects of evil into elements of good were more readily accepted as the privilege of the members of the communion of love; we are justified in believing that unnatural suffering and death, with their manifold accompaniment of sorrow and fear, would be gradually eliminated from the lives of men according as they grew into a more perfect wisdom and understanding of the meaning and purpose of life.

Like Christ, we must be perfected through suffering. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together, to the end that the incarnate purpose of life may be fulfilled, and that the increasing sum of the spiritual consciousness of creation may be brought into co-operation with the Divine Creator and so actively and willingly share in the divine government of life.

V

THE VESTURE OF GOD

WHEN Paul of Tarsus reproved the men of Athens for ignorantly worshipping an unknown God, he was virtually denouncing the tendency towards idolatry which is inherent in all religious symbolism. Public worship of an unknown and unseen God must be more or less symbolic in order to express any particular idea of the nature of the supposed divinity. But a stranger in a strange land, uninitiated into the symbolism of the religious faith there practised, is apt to infer idolatry in the ritual he witnesses simply because he cannot discriminate between the thing seen and its esoteric significance. The programme of Christianity delivered by St Paul to the Athenians practically excluded ceremony as a necessary accompaniment of worship. He preached a known God, a seen God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, and requiring no likening unto gold, silver, or stone images, graven by art and men's devices.

It is noteworthy that every religion in its infancy is but sparely attended by forms and ceremonies, the more or less elaborate ritual that accompanies its subsequent growth being an almost inevitable result of its consolidation into a definite creed which shall stand as the supposed likeness of its original spiritual conception. This rise of ritual is largely responsible for the need of periodical reform which is a common occurrence in the development of every religion that has outlived its infancy. The history of Christianity, with which alone we have here to deal, affords recurring examples of agitation directed against a perverted religious symbolism--a dangerous degeneration which, by crushing the spirit beneath the letter of observance, leads to hypocritical and idolatrous practices.

It is difficult to think that St Paul, when condemning the symbolic worship of the Athenians and Ephesians, foresaw the growth of that elaborate ritual, formulated gradually as symbolic evidence of Christian doctrine, which has become so inextricably a part of the Catholic faith as taught in the Church to-day. Christ's remark, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. xviii. 3), might with advantage be applied to religious organisations as well as to individuals. But although as a reformer of the Jewish faith He denounced symbolism, which had become corrupt, inasmuch as undue stress was laid upon the letter to the neglect of the spirit of the law, He yet submitted to the ordinance of the law in all particulars, perceiving that a proper attention to the spirit did not necessarily entail neglect of the letter of its observance. He was a reformer, not an iconoclast. He came not to destroy, but to fulfil. But His outspoken denunciation of the hypocritical and idolatrous practices of the Scribes and Pharisees roused an active hostility to His teaching, since reversion to the simple ethical principles such as was advocated by the later prophets, with a proper appreciation of symbolism as symbolism, implied the downfall of those whose tenure of authority over the masses of the people depended upon the strict maintenance of a complicated and mystifying ritual.

Symbolic worship is an attestation to an unseen God, its ostensible purpose being of course that a gradual revelation of God may be vouchsafed to the pious devotees of sacraments and ceremonies. The inaugurator of a rite, desiring to express his ideas of abstract or absolute truth, contrives a symbol, a work of art that shall stand as the likeness of his thoughts--a likeness capable of carrying significance according to the discriminating intelligence of all who may behold it. He cannot be held responsible for any subsequent confounding of his artistic symbol with its esoteric meaning; but to those who cannot distinguish between an image and its significance--who interpret the letter as synonymous with the spirit of a rite--the observance of symbolic worship becomes perforce an introductory step towards idolatry, the practice of which is fatal to intellectual and spiritual progress.

Not only with regard to religion, but in every branch of art, in the common habits of daily life, in the very language that clothes thought, this dangerous tendency of the human mind towards idolatry may be observed. Thus, worship of beauty for beauty's sake is idolatrous. But its recognition as the outward sign of inner grace is one of the lay sacraments of life which link the real to the ideal realm of thought and give an added glory to human existence. Is not man a dual creature? Is not his body an artistic expression of the divine Spirit of Life, in whose likeness he is made? And are not his works representations of his creative and executive powers, even as the works of nature are representations of the supreme Spirit of Life?

The minds of individuals, as of races, find expression in their works, the worth of all artistic symbols of endeavour (whether of so-called secular or sacred significance) being determined by the evidential testimony they convey of abstract and absolute truth. Now, illumination of unproven supposition being prefatory to its establishment as fact, the evidence of things unseen and unknown is resolved into the foundation of comprehension. The execution of a work of art is only truly estimable when its realism affords an adequate expression of its maker's mind--when, in short, it forms the outward sign of inward meaning, and is recognisable as such.

Thus considered, words stand as symbols, language being evidence of thought. The extent of a man's vocabulary may be taken as a fair criterion of his ideas about the things of which his words are the expression, always supposing he does not fall into idolatrous worship of words as words, to the neglect of their proper significance and value. Again, figures as symbols of calculative thought, while valueless in themselves, are of inestimable importance when rightly utilised as an effective means to an end. Through the science of mathematics, the relation between magnitudes only conceivable to the mathematician by his employment of calculative symbols, can be correctly ascertained, and a working hypothesis for practical purposes thereby obtained. Mathematical formulæ thus regarded appear as the outer signs of a reasoning process that resolves the unseen and unknown into proven facts.

The rituals of religious creeds, regarded as combinations of symbols as infinite in variety and arrangement as the needs of men, may surely be designated as works of art if it be remembered that admiration and imitation of natural objects is mainly responsible for the conception of those several deities whose supposed supernatural authority forms the summit of each particular creed, and whose character stands not only as a summary of a people's appreciation of what is admirable in human conduct, but also as an expression of artistic feeling.

Growth of art is proportionate to intellectual development. That is to say, expression follows conception--a precept evidenced by the progressive works of men, which bear witness to their makers' increasing power to give utterance to what has hitherto been unutterable because incomprehensible. Thus considered, symbolism appears as the _alphabet of truth_, whereby men may read the history of past days, and write the record of their own achievements in the Book of Time. It is the link between seen and unseen, real and ideal, knowledge and mystery, finite and infinite. It is the seal of divinity set upon man who, made in the image of God--an artistic expression of the supreme Spirit of Life--is endowed with the attributes of his Creator, thereby enabled to manifest his creative energy in his own works of art and so to offer continual testimony to the indwelling and divine Spirit of his life. Thus the glory of the Creator is made visible to His creatures not only in the wonders of the natural world scientifically revealed in the course of intellectual development, but also in a correspondingly progressive spiritual revelation of essential truth behind the vesture of symbolic being.

Contemplative life is to men the reflection of their minds, Nature acting as the mirror of those mental visions which connect thought with spiritual perception. And since psychical ideals are regulated by intellectual limitations, _understanding_ of spiritual truths must be proportionate to intellectual insight.

Jesus Christ offered no evidence of the essential truth of His spiritual convictions save by symbolism. Like all idealists, He sought by means of art to convey His ideas to the understanding of His disciples. This was done in three ways. He spoke in parables; His actions were dramatically contrived to illustrate His verbal teaching; and He ordained a ceremony, the performance of which should perpetuate the epitome of His doctrine. His view of life being the reflection of His spiritual ideals, and more or less dependent upon His intellectual perceptions, it was necessary, in order to make others see as He saw, to teach them to look at life from His point of view.

He saw the earth and the fulness thereof as the outer sign of the supreme Spirit of Life--Nature being the vesture of God, the cloak of spirit, making all creatures likenesses of God and manifestations of the divine will. God's works of art--natural phenomena--are variously interpreted, because men's spiritual perception is regulated by their intellectual capacity to understand what they perceive. In the same way the symbolic works of art employed by Christ to illustrate His teaching are variously interpreted according to men's ability to grasp the true inner meaning behind the vesture of parable and ritual. His symbolic teaching was interpreted literally by the materialists among His audiences. Only a few understood that He spoke in parables, and that His actions were intended to illustrate spiritual truths. Even His chosen disciples failed sometimes to distinguish between the outer signs of His doctrine and their inner significance. But Christ looked to the future for a wider acceptance of His gospel of love and its application to the whole scheme of life. He foresaw that by the spirit of truth inherent in all knowledge and emanating from the supreme Spirit of Life, His teaching would be tested and purged of whatever false interpretations idolatrous generations of men might place upon it. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt. xxi. 35). Truth is not bounded by the duration of men's finite term of earthly life.

For the sake, therefore, of unborn generations of men He desired to safeguard the perpetuation of His ideas of truth, so that they might carry their message to a future and more spiritually minded age. Would not a comprehensive symbol, a rite, carrying significance proportionate to the discriminating intelligence of those who should witness it, combat the danger of His doctrine becoming irretrievably corrupted? The foundation of His gospel of love lay in His sense of union between God as the supreme Spirit of Life and individual being--every form of life appearing to Him as a manifestation of God and a part of the Divine essence. The symbol He contrived must be closely associated with Himself and with this doctrine. It must be the likeness of His idea, and as a true work of art it must be capable of conveying its meaning to all able to recognise a spiritual truth beneath its outward form. It must be the epitome of all that was of vital importance in His teaching. It must be suited to all countries, and to all manner of men at all times. And in order to ensure its faithful perpetuation, it must be inaugurated as a personal memorial of Himself, to be celebrated through all ages as a symbol of the spiritual unity of life. What more fitting material for His purpose than the common daily food and drink of people of all classes? What could better illustrate the bond of union existing throughout Nature than a ceremony which should show how living creatures are sustained by the fruits of the earth, and which should emphasise the fact that animate and inanimate Nature is pervaded by the same Spirit of Life which works through a recurring cycle of birth and death for a perpetual manifestation of God, _who is Life_, the vital principle of being? What could better illustrate this Spirit of Life dwelling in men's bodies and making them temples of God than a rite which drew attention to the fact that nourishment of the body is necessary for the continuance of the manifestation of the Spirit? Bread, the staff of life, is in some form or other the daily food of all peoples. The tilling of the fields, the garnering of the grain, the grinding of the corn, bring men into intimate relation with Nature, and fittingly demonstrate that connection between natural laws and the lives of men fundamental to their existence and necessary for the maintenance of life. The vine served as the subject of some of Christ's most beautiful parables; it was an object of familiar interest to the people of Judæa; its cultivation was associated with the habits of their daily lives. Its fruit was thus another suitable symbol of intercommunion between the products of the earth and the bodies of men.

The accounts of the inauguration of the rite of communion given by St Matthew, St Mark, and St Luke agree in the statement that it occurred when Christ and His disciples met together to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, immediately before the betrayal by Judas. The occasion was clearly chosen by Christ as suitable in all respects for the institution of the ceremony He had conceived as adequately embodying a symbolic epitome of His doctrine. Throughout His mission He had rigorously observed the letter of the Jewish law, it being in accord with His office as a reformer of a distorted religious symbolism to utilise existing ritual in order to expatiate on its neglected spiritual significance. The keeping of the Passover with His twelve disciples could be made to signify very much. It would be the last Passover He would keep with them. Nay, more, it would be the last meal. When the Feast next occurred this present celebration would be remembered as the last occasion when He had broken bread with them. All that He had then said and done would be graven on their memories as the last words and deeds of their beloved Master before He was taken from them to undergo His trial and death. He would appeal, therefore, to their affectionate memory of Him in order to induce a faithful performance of the rite He was inaugurating. Though they might fail to grasp its full spiritual significance, their attachment to Him would ensure the carrying out of His command to fulfil it in memory of Him. If the faithful celebration of the rite were secured, there was made possible a fuller understanding of its meaning by future and more enlightened generations, who would subject His doctrine to the test of the Spirit of Truth, proceeding from the supreme Spirit of Life, and inherent in all knowledge.

St John gives no account of the institution of the rite at the time of the Passover, although he alone of the four Evangelists reports Christ's verbal teaching of the doctrine thus embodied on occasions other than its inauguration as a symbol of communion. In the sixth chapter of his gospel we find Christ reported as using the same symbolic phraseology with regard to His flesh and blood that He employed in His speech introducing the rite at the Last Supper. We read of the disciples and the Jews disputing Christ's words, interpreting them literally, and calling forth His explanation that "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." Notwithstanding the implied injunction that His doctrine of the unity of life was to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, we find that "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him."

Since then, how many literal interpreters of Christ's symbolic utterances have turned aside from following after Him, and have been led away into idolatrous worship of the letter of His teaching to the neglect of its spiritual significance!

It would appear that the symbolic epitome of the doctrine of communion had been conceived by Christ some time before He introduced it as a rite on the occasion of the Last Supper; that the idea had already been verbally expounded by Him; and that its consolidation into the form eventually chosen was achieved as a dramatic finale to the whole of His previous teaching. If the fourth gospel be the work of John, the disciple whom Christ loved, it is significant that he alone reported the injunction that Christ's words were to be interpreted in a spiritual sense. The doctrine of the unity of life, incorporated in the rite of communion, permeates the whole of the gospel, and lends strength to the supposition that its writer had in some special way known personal intimacy with Christ. Union between God as the supreme Spirit of Life, and the Word as the expression of God, is the basis of its doctrinal construction; and the institution of the rite of communion, duly reported in the other gospels, is here shown to be the logical conclusion, in the form of a symbolic epitome, of the premisses adopted by the writer.

Supposition, however, is not evidence. In order to determine the significance of the rite of communion, and thus to arrive at some idea of its importance in Christian doctrine, it is necessary to subject it to that test which Christ Himself declared to be the proper criterion of merit--the Spirit of Truth. In these later days, nearly two thousand years since He utilised the loving obedience of His disciples to institute symbolic evidence of the spiritual unity of life--a rite designed to give light to untold generations to come--how have men obeyed His injunction to test His words and deeds by the Spirit of Truth?

"The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (St John xiv. 26).

"When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me" (St John xv. 26).

"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you" (St John xvi. 12).