Chapter II: Part 2

It was in the stirring days of the revolutionary period that the American spirit was fully awakened. That consciousness naturally found expression in a type of song. It was such songs as “Yankee Doodle” that gave it voice. In the heat and fervor of our next great war was born the majestic national anthem to which the recent trials have given a new meaning.

The fraternal strife of the Civil War naturally required two sets of songs to express its spirit. The North sang its courage up with “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the Boys are Marching,” “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” and “Marching Through Georgia.” At the same time, the soul of the South was speaking in the words and music of such songs as “Dixie,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” and “Maryland, My Maryland.”

The Spanish-American War and the World War just ended each brought its contribution of song to the lore of our times. Those who come after us will long be able to recall the spirit of these two periods by singing their songs again.

We have also had our lyric age in America. The quality of its output does not even suggest comparison with that of the Elizabethan work, but we have had it. The crude backwoodsmen who occupied the stage during the earlier days of our wilderness life were normal people. They not only had their loves, hopes, joys, and sorrows, but they also sang about them. The result was often pitifully sentimental, but it was sincere.

Down to a recent time, there was more militarism in the American spirit than most people realized. We had a goodly supply of the courage of battle left over from our several wars and their corresponding victories. America found expression for that spirit in the work of such men as John Philip Sousa, and others of similar, though less widely recognized talent. For a long while, the sound of the stately march has served as an outlet for our patriotic feelings. We now share the general decline in militaristic feeling, but the march will remain. If war dies from the earth, as so many fondly hope it will, our stirring marches will still be treasured as tone pictures of the days that were.

Particularly is the folk song a page from the history of a people. One might gather more of the spirit of the old South from hearing a collection of its songs than from the reading of many pages of its story. The same would be true of any section of any land.

Ragtime and Jazz represent two successive steps in the development of the recent world spirit. It was a spirit of nervousness and restlessness, a spirit willing to go to any length for the sake of novelty and action. It helped to make the world war possible and is still keeping the planet in a turmoil of restlessness and dissatisfaction. Jazz has been defined as animalism expressed in tone. It might also be called the anarchy of music.

There are those who hope for a calmer day in the world’s temper and feeling. When that time comes, its spirit will express itself in a renewal of dignified and stately music. We may assume this to be true because the thought and action of any age, whatever its spirit, is traced upon the long scroll of time in the form of a golden thread of song.

We have noted only the products of the lesser musical ability of America. To fail to call attention to the fortunate exceptions would be to fail to do justice to the better culture and taste of our country. The fact that we have had some real masters is one not to be overlooked. Our Cadmans and MacDowells bear testimony to the fact that our faces are forward. There is a spirit of culture in America, and it has found expression in some of the finer and more enduring forms of musical composition. It has obstacles to surmount, but it makes progress. America has a national future. It follows that she has a musical future. The one vouchsafes the other. The other expresses the one.

Correspondence (1929)

Two important influences go out from an office. One is that of the representatives who make outside personal contacts. The other is the stream of correspondence that issues forth into the outside world. The second is no less important than the first.

As good correspondence is an art, so a good correspondent is an artist. He is not easy to find. It is as surprising as it is regrettable how few people have taken the trouble really to master the use of the English language. One can more easily find a master of mechanics than a master of words any time. Yet each person owes it not only to his language but to himself to know how to use his native tongue correctly and effectively.

In all writing, and especially in writing letters upon which great interests turn, two things are important. One is to say the right thing. The other is not to say the wrong one.

The president of a great bank once said to me: “I write my own advertisements and dictate my own letters, not necessarily because I know better than anyone else what to say, but rather because I probably do know better than anyone else what not to say.”

The other day I saw a series of collection letters supposed to have been prepared by an expert. They were verbose and flowery. They were supposed to be seasonal—something about which both collector and collectee care exactly nothing. They had a jollying and blarneying tone which is always nauseating. The clear, courteous, definite letter is the one that wins.

I once saw an irate letter that came to the director of a money-raising project for a philanthropic interest. It told him plainly that the writer objected to the whole scheme, and would consider it an insult to be asked for a subscription. A secretary answered the letter patiently, courteously, and explainingly, but without asking for a subscription. Return mail brought a letter from the erstwhile objector enclosing a subscription for fifty dollars. The right kind of correspondence will contribute largely toward the success of any business.

The Sabbath Desecration (1910)

We are sometimes accustomed to make rather gloomy comparisons between our days and those of our fathers. The ground for our doing so is oftener grounded in sentiment than fact, and yet there are some differences which are deplorable. This is especially true with reference to the observance of the precepts laid down in our religious teachings. We feel painfully lacking when we reflect upon the sturdy faith of the pioneers who blazed the way not only for our economic but also for our religious advancement. Perhaps nowhere do we feel that there is more discouraging contrast than in the matter of Sabbath observance. A little girl in one of our large cities heard the minister say in his sermon, one Sunday, that in heaven every day would be like Sunday. She told her mother, upon arriving home, that she expected to find heaven a grand place, for if every day were to be like Sunday, then the ceaseless round of theaters, cards, and ball games would certainly be delightful. Between this conception of the Sabbath Day and that of the stern Puritan who refused to allow his children to play and be happy on Sunday, there lies a long distance. Both are extreme views and neither could be said to be altogether desirable, but if American life continues in its present direction, the one may become as real as the other once was. We do not want our Sabbath Day to be a season of agonizing gloom and long faces. Nothing could be farther from the apparent attitude of Jesus toward it. Neither do we want it to be a day of selfish pleasure and frivolity. But we do want it to be a day of meditation, prayer, and quiet service. To keep the day holy does not necessarily imply absolute passivity, but in a Christian land, the Sabbath Day should be a day of rest. And yet the doors of many business houses are wide open; petty amusements reap a harvest of small coin, theatrical performances are given, and often the authorities fail to close even the saloons. Not only must we face these facts, but also that many so called Christians fail in very questionable ways to keep the day sacred. We may well ask whence this great difference between our age and that of the preceding generation. We are so justified by the fact that every effect has a cause.

The tempter has many ways of accomplishing his purposes. He can not only quote to his purpose, but he can also utilize the social forces to his own advantage. Where such a force is the cause of men doing that which they should not do, we can best do the work of our Lord by fighting the force and not the act. We can not kill the dragon by cutting off the heads; we must strike at the life-giving root of the evil.

One reason why the Sabbath is less a day of rest than formerly is probably to be found in the fact that this is more an age of idleness than was the former one. Our fathers appreciated and observed their day of rest because they could not help but feel their need of it. They worked hard in the woods or fields from the early morning till late at night, and moreover, their work was of such a muscular nature that their evenings and Sundays found them both weary in body and hungry in mind. The Sunday rest would relieve the one, and attendance upon Sunday services would satisfy the other. Thus, it was apparently to their own advantage to live the day unto the Lord. Not only this, but the father did not toil out his days to maintain his sons and daughters in lives of idleness and profligacy. Every member of the family had his or her share in the work of making ends meet. Thus, the whole family found itself weary enough to be ready for rest and prayer on the Sabbath. It is but natural that one who loafs the week away or goes on a continual round of pleasure-seeking should fail to realize any need for rest and relaxation on Sunday. They are the people who are usually found complaining that the preachers and Christians want to make a man sit still all day Sunday and do nothing. The argument that laboring men want ball games and other amusements to occupy themselves on Sunday is fallacious. If they work on week days as they ought to work, they will not be found complaining of too much rest on Sunday. Then, in this case, it is not so much against Sabbath desecration as it is against idleness that we need wage our war. If we can remove the cause, its effects must disappear. A sermon on honest week-day labor is really a sermon on Sabbath observance.

But all Sabbath breakers are not idlers. Some of them work as steadily as the sturdy pioneer ever worked. But the occupation is of a different nature. Where our fathers toiled with their hands, men now toil with their brains. Our fathers wore out their bodies, while men now shatter their nervous systems. Tired limbs induce rest, while weary minds and unstrung nerves only hinder it. It is easy when evening comes to let go of the ax or the plow, but it is not so easy to forget the knotty business problem or perplexing professional difficulty. The need of such toilers is recreation. We need to get such men to take down the almighty dollar from its place as their guiding star and hang the higher and better things of life in its place. In this case, a sermon against the “ambition which o’erleaps itself” is a sermon against Sabbath desecration.

The two facts mentioned above as causes of Sabbath breaking contribute to making this an extremely nervous age. Humanity is restless. It wants to be about doing something, and it seems not to know just where to direct its efforts. People seem to be afraid of themselves, and hence the quiet chamber and closet of secret prayer is often unappreciated. If we chance to feel a serious thought coming upon us, we get afraid, and at once seek the crowd for fear that it may mature in our minds. We forget that great visions must be seen in solitude and then carried out among the crowd. Our lonely Sinais must precede our deeds of leadership. Every Calvary is preceded by its Gethsemane, and quietness and solitude are not to be despised. We need to learn the lesson of Isaiah, “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength; in returning and rest shall ye be saved.” Only small minds are always tossing upon a sea of restlessness. Great lives know how to be tranquil. Such hearts know how to keep the Sabbath holy. Thus, when we preach and work against restlessness, feverishness, and worry, we preach and work against Sabbath desecration.

If we can but induce men to so toil that they will become body-weary and soul-hungry, we shall not only further God’s creative plan, but we shall also help humanity to really understand the worth of a Sabbath Day of rest. The anxious nervousness of the masses and the cupidity of enterprising amusement promoters spring to meet each other as by magnetic attraction. When the masses learn to love the quiet of the home and sanctuary and no longer so persistently seek that which does not satisfy their nameless and misunderstood hunger, then such cupidity will no longer be sustained and encouraged. When we learn the habits of health, and life, and work that helped to make our fathers strong, then shall we have back again the faithful observance of the holy Sabbath Day that helped to make our fathers good.

The Light (1915)

The bringing into existence of light had an early and important place in the creation of the universe. It has held an important place in all the age-long continuance of the creative process which has been going on ever since that early day—so much so that it has marked the Creator as essentially a God of light, neither in whom nor in whose purposes is there any darkness at all.

In the different realms of life, light must take different forms. In the physical universe, it takes the form of the illuminating ray that makes daylight out of darkness. In the life of man, it takes the form of the knowledge of the truth which makes him free. Wherever the influence of God goes, it carries with it the illuminating agency of schools, teachers, and books. No land remains ignorant under the sway of the gospel. The Christianization of a land is simply the carrying of the creative process on into new realms of life, and early in every such creative process is heard the majestic edict: “Let there be light.” The answer to the edict is ever the same: “And there was light.”

God permitted darkness as a stage in creation, but never as a permanent condition. He may permit the darkness of ignorance or sin or both—for they go hand in hand—in a life as a stage in its development. But wherever a continuance of the conditions is insisted upon a day longer than necessity requires, the results must be disastrous.

There is a certain life-giving strength in light. There is a wide difference between the pale and twisted plant that grows under a board in the garden and the plant from the same parent that has had the good fortune to grow in the sunlight. Much the same difference may be observed in the case of two lives between which there has been a similar difference.

There is nothing in the purpose or the kingdom of God that needs fear the light. What will not stand the light is not of His designing. The best that His gospel and His power can ask is to be investigated and tested. There need be no fear of what will happen when all men investigate for themselves.

The Yoke (1915)

There seems to exist a general misconception of the purpose of a yoke. Because of it the command of Jesus to accept and wear His yoke is often much more dreadful than there is reason that it should be. We often fail to catch or refuse to believe the added assurance that “the yoke is easy.” This assurance is true both in figure and fact.

Anyone who has been personally familiar with the working of oxen under the yoke is sure to understand that the yoke is used not to increase the burden they bear, but to furnish them with a means of bearing the burden they already have.

A yoke does not demand the use of more energy than would otherwise be called into play. The beast of burden would expend the same amount of energy in a day’s time. If that strength were not expended in the performance of a useful task it would be wasted. The yoke concentrates the energy at command to the performance of a task worth while. The burden-bearer is no wearier, neither has it borne any greater burden. It has only borne the same burden with greater ease and to better purpose.

Laziness is often a harder taskmaster than industry, and sin is always a harder taskmaster than righteousness. Each life will, in the course of its passage through the world, exert itself to just about the same degree, whether it works or plays. Nature and life are sure to lay upon it some burdens to bear, and it must bear them whether it is willing or not. Whether the life takes its mission seriously or frivolously, the amount of energy expended will be about the same. However, the life has its choice between finding that expenditure difficult or easy, useful or useless.

For, early in its days, the Yoke Giver comes to it and offers His yoke as a means of bearing its burden more easily and usefully. It is pitiable how often the offer is misconstrued as an attempt to increase the burden when it really amounts to an offer to help in carrying it.

The Crowded Inn (1916)

If I were to try to paint a picture of that night in Bethlehem, there is one thing I would be sure not to omit.

I would paint the rifted sky, opened to release the mingled praise of angels. I would depict the shepherds, listening in their wonder.

I would hang the wondrous star in its place in the sky—heaven’s sign of hope to a broken world. The peaceful village, the lowly manger, the quiet cattle in their stalls—all these should have a place.

But somewhere in the distance I would set the inn with its lighted windows, its gayety within, and its crowded space—a house with a closed door, a place with room for all except the family of an artisan who was to be trusted with the rearing of a King.

Through the centuries this has been a most tragic story. It has been the most tragic because it has represented the most widespread condition. It has been the saddest because it has been the least realized.

Some have tried to drive the King from the world with violence, but no violence has even been able to match the strong, sweet, silent influence which pervaded His life and which He set adrift in the world, and which, in spite of opposition, grows from more to more.

The violence which sought His annihilation only aided Him in the fulfillment of His mission. There need be no fear of those who go out with swords and staves against Him.

There have been those, too, who have tried to banish Him from the world by persecution. They, too, have failed. Faith was never stronger nor did ever more immovable convictions burn in the hearts of His people than when they fled from the hand of persecution or perished for the faith before the eyes of scoffers.

From the Israelite down, the people of God have thrived on persecution. The real problems of Christianity arose after, and not before, the Roman state became its ally. Better far had been the bread of bitterness which they had eaten than the reduction to a system and a tool which they then suffered. The persecutor only speeds the day of the King’s dominion.

There have been those who have tried to drive Him from the world by argument. This, likewise, has been of no avail. Atheism, agnosticism, and skepticism all fail before the living fact of the power of His presence in the world.

One clear case of regeneration or one well-defined overruling of providence is sufficient to dispose of every argument of mere premise and conclusion which can be constructed against Him. The only argument against Him is an unfaithful follower, and that is refuted by a follower who is true.

For Him the sword has no terrors. He never will flee persecution. There is no danger that He will ever be driven out. If there is any danger for Him today, it is that He be crowded out.

There is one thing and one thing only which can defeat His purpose. That is the unwelcoming life, the closed heart, the master of the inn who says, “No room.”

Let us not blame the innkeeper of the long ago. He did [not] know whom he was turning from his doors. He did not act in the light which twenty intervening centuries have given us. He was simply an innkeeper to whom business was business, and whose preference was naturally for the richest guests. Let us be moderate in our censure of him. Let us turn to the present. Let us find whether the doors of the throne rooms of our own hearts are open.

Not many say they hate the Master or His Kingdom. Not many say they do not believe in Him. Not many are disposed to persecute. Not many even care to argue. But many say, “I haven’t time.”

Lose what else we may in this busy time, we must find a place for Him and His words and His ways. A good watchword for this day of opportunity might be: “Make room for Jesus!”

The Price of Liberty (1916)

On the old battlefield of Sempach, where in 1386 the Swiss won a notable victory over the Austrians, there stands a monument of recognition to Arnold von Winkelried, a Swiss peasant, who on the day of that battle gave his life as the price of victory for his country.

The Austrians were massed together with presented spears—“A living wall, a human wood.” There was only one hope of breaking through the armed line and that was for some one to dash against the phalanx and make an opening—at the cost of his life. Suddenly there was a cry: “Make way for liberty,” and Arnold von Winkelried rushed forward, gathering an armful of Austrian lances into his own breast, but opening a breach through which his comrades poured themselves against their foes.

The Swiss marched to victory that day, but it was over the dead body of a man who loved them and their cause even unto death, a man who was moved by the love which lays down its life for its friends.

There is another spot—a place unmarked by any monument—where earth’s supremest hero yielded up His life to make way for the liberty of His people. He gathered the wrath and the sting of a great world’s sin into His own heart, and led the way where others dared not tread.

In the hour that Jesus died, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the breach was made through which every man might make his way to the feet of his God and to the glory of the eternities. The tragedy of Calvary opened up the way to liberty—the liberty of the truth, the liberty of pardon, the liberty of eternal life.

So through the ages His people have been marching to the supreme hour of joy in forgiveness and assurance, to success in the conquests of righteousness, and through the gates of glory at the last. Each step of the way they have found full of joy. But it has all been over the dead body of one whose love was too great to know a fear, and whose devotion was unfailing even in the hour of supreme agony.

Paul’s Ideal Sufficient (1918)

It is as easy as it is dangerous for those of us who have upon our hearts a work of reform to become victims of fads. When new principles, directly or indirectly related to religious work, are discovered and announced, it is not difficult for our appreciation of their worth to become so enthusiastic as to eclipse everything else in our system of reform with an overdeveloped sense of their importance.

They usually are important as having bearing upon the great problem we work to solve. The world, however, is apt to wonder if we know just what we are about when we lay one fad aside for another, just as we had laid earlier fads aside for the one, and it does not always place the most liberal construction upon our enthusiasm.

As a way out, we should properly appreciate and use each new discovery which has bearing upon our task. We should not, however, allow it to assume the proportions of a fad so far as we are concerned. Our attitude toward our ideal and its realization must be broad enough to take in more than one side of it at once.

So far as the Church and its task is concerned it will be found that the ideal Paul had for it is not likely to receive a successful addition. Each social institution has one task to perform, and it will be found to be unable to perform more than that one task well. We have agencies for the various forms of service to society. Not one of the others, however, approaches closely the field which the Church was designed to fill. Its ministry is purely spiritual and when it leaves that field and takes its stand in any other it is not only overlapping upon the work of other social agencies, but it is leaving undone a work which there is no other agency to do.

In other words, the Church will probably not be able to define a higher mission for itself than that expressed in one of the letters to Timothy—a pillar and ground of the truth—a stay and foundation of that which is everlasting.

The Religion of the New Age (1919)

The world is being torn down like an outworn and antiquated structure. When the work of wrecking it is completed, it will be built over. The result will be a world the builders of which will have tried to profit by the mistakes and experiences of the ages. A Bible prophecy heralds a new heaven and a new earth. The postbellum reconstruction period will help to realize at least the latter part of that hope.

It is already apparent that religion will share in the general readjustment. The war has stimulated the world’s thinking. It has seen, as it did not take time to see in the old days, the needs in the religious field. Any reform is rapid when men once get to thinking. The case is hopeless so long as apathy and lethargy prevail.

We probably need not look for any revolutionary change in the fundamentals of religion. These do not change. Being rooted and grounded in the truth, they are fixed and permanent. It is not with either the substance or the mission of religion that the difficulty lies.

The difficulty lies at the points of interpretation and application. It is possible for these to advance with growing knowledge, and the new world will unquestionably see to it that they do so. The earth has always been round, and it will remain round as long as it exists. Men have not, however, always understood the fact of its roundness. There was a time when geographical authority insisted that it was flat. Then there came a time when better knowledge existed. The fact had not changed in the least. Only human interpretation had undergone progress. The facts of religion can not change, but humanity can achieve progress in rightly interpreting them and in rightly adapting itself to them.

It need not be supposed, either, that the religion of the new age will be a denatured one. It bids fair, on the contrary, to be a positive and vital one. It will probably be less and less the fashion to parade moral laxity under the false banners of liberal thinking. The coming period will not be superficial. It will need a religion of power and significance. It will try religious principles to the limit, and if such a religion can not be had, it will have none at all. Fortunately, a definite and positive faith can be had. The people who are really living want a religion which is more than a fashion or a convenience. It must include a working program which means something and is not too easy.

The new religion will be composite, because it will be unified. Only in the reactionary centers is any real difference now apparent between Protestant Christian bodies. Now, under the unifying influence of a great common cause, Protestant, Catholic, and Jew are combining forces for the religious good of the soldier. That unity will probably increase and continue.

Most carefully thinking people stand together on the things which are really vital. All understand that no ecclesiastical body can possess a monopoly of the truth. We go on and work faithfully, each for his own church household, but we all understand that both good and bad and both truth and error dwell in each of our many camps.

All the world has been searching for the same God. Different peoples have called the Deity by different names and sought him in different ways. It is not the name or the method, but the spirit and motive that count most. Various peoples have reached various stages in their search. Probably all will, sooner or later, find the world’s one perfect image of the divine Father in Jesus. We must be patient, however, with those who are only on the way. In the finished faith, the chaff of all the world’s beliefs will have been cast away, and the abiding in them all will remain. There is nothing in the spirit of the cross to violate that which is good in any of them.

The new religion will be a religion of practical standards. It will find its expression in terms that men know about, and its form will be one which can really be adapted to the needs of everyday living. The tendency in this day of human problems is to bring each line of human thought and investigation down to earth. It is with religion just as with science or philosophy. The demand is that it shall be practical in all its standards and methods.

The world has not found the theology born upon a study table sufficient. The cry is for a theology based wholly upon the facts of life. Truth does not always follow the processes of formal logic. The tests of faith are not to be found in the syllogism but in life’s great laboratory. The authority of the great Teacher came largely from his fixed habit of talking about real things in practical terms. His only theology was life. In conforming our religion more and more to this principle, we shall not be getting away from Jesus. We shall rather be getting back to him.

The new religion will be a socialized religion. In this, it will but bear the fruit of agitation which has already been going on for years. Religion can not be worth while without a definite object. Its object is not the appeasing of an arbitrary Deity. It is rather to bring the touch of a tender Father’s grace into the lives of his children. In other words, the object of religion is humanity. For the good of men are all laws established, all warnings issued, and all promises given.

The achieving of the present and future salvation of people demands not the successful performance of some mystical process of indoctrination. It calls for the actual application of religious principles in everyday thinking and action. It has not achieved its end until testimony to its power and blessing is borne by all social life and by every social institution. It is nothing until it has come to be expressed in terms of life. Without surrendering any of its hope in the promise of a world to come, the religion of the future will lay a larger emphasis upon the life of the world in which we dwell. More and more men are realizing that the only hope we can have of gaining any other world depends upon our treatment of this one. The path to heaven lies directly through the earth. Two attitudes toward this world can never fit in with a thoughtful and reasonable faith. One is the attitude that this is a world of selfish opportunity and sensuous pleasure, and that the highest object of life is the satisfaction of the flesh. The other is the attitude that this is only a vale of tears to be endured, despised, and neglected until such time as we can get out of it into a happier realm. This is a life of opportunity, to be lived out with full appreciation and emphasis upon the sweetness and the worth-whileness of each day and hour. Real religion will strive to make it more and not less beautiful.

The new religion will be one of optimism. It will understand that nothing is so easy as cynicism and nothing so cheap as the continual discounting of other people. It will find its strength not in emphasizing the badness of people, but in believing in them. After all these years, it will come to realize that Jesus saved by believing in sinners. Whoever follows in his footsteps will certainly have to learn to do the same. The human heart shrivels under accusation. It blossoms under the radiant influence of someone’s confidence. The new religion—an evolved form of the old—will count the roses and forget the thorns, and it will strive to emphasize the divinity in every man.

The new religion will be the old reduced to its simplest and most workable terms. God will be upon its throne. Jesus will stand as his perfect expression in the flesh. The cross will overshadow all. It will be a religion of service, for there is much to do. It will be a religion of sacrifice, for this is a needy world. Reasonably interpreted, the Bible will be its message. Its aim will be to bring out the divinity implanted in all things, and its test will be its product.

Christianity and Americanism (1920)

Religion plays an important part in the making of any nation. The spirit of faith and the spirit of patriotism seem to have a genuine affinity for each other. The national hope of Israel was born in the heart of a man whose name has been handed down as that of the father of the faithful. It was finally realized under the leadership of a man chosen of God as the mouthpiece through which the law was given. Long before nationality was an achieved fact, the love of God and the hope of a country were intermingled in the hearts of the sons of Jacob. This is probably a chief reason for the deathlessness of the race.

Through the fabric of American history, the Christian religion is woven like a golden thread. Many things have contributed to the glory of our past, but nothing else has contributed quite so much as has this fact. Many things enter into the making of our hope for the future, but this is the most important among them all.

The Pilgrims came seeking a spiritual refuge. It was on bent knees that they first greeted the country which they had chosen for their home. Their memory is perpetuated by a monument which stands near the place where they landed. It carries five symbolic figures, representative of Pilgrim qualities. It is appropriate that the central one among them is the figure of Faith. It was in the spirit of faith that they laid the foundations of American life in their section of the country.

What was true of the northern settlements was true of the southern ones as well. Practically everything that was a part of the old Jamestown settlement is gone. It is significant that one of the most abiding of the old landmarks at Jamestown was the ruins of an old church in which the colonists first lifted their voices in the praise of God.

Among the American people, the church and state have always been organically separate, but they have always been spiritually united. The state has guaranteed protection to the church. In return, the church has given moral and spiritual support to the state.

The state can well afford to maintain such an attitude. It has no other bulwark so strong as is the church. The perpetuity of the state depends most largely upon the very things for which the Christian religion stands. Among them are virtue, loyalty, and fraternity.

Statesmanship is a necessity in the activities of a nation, but it is not the fundamental necessity. Diplomatic shrewdness may often be helpful, but it is not a foundation upon which rests the existence of any country. Rich economic development, splendid cities, cultured citizenship—all these are things that enter into the highest grade of national life, but they are not the fundamental requirements of existence and strength. The hardy virtues that make good men are the foundation stones upon which any sound national life must be built.

This is true because it is from the people that the national life flows. It does not come from executive offices, legislative chambers, nor judicial tribunals. These are only instrumentalities in the carrying on of its affairs. Its essence depends upon the people who make the state. It roots in the places where they live and work. It is never any better nor any worse than they are. It is tempered to the home life, the industrial life, and the social life of the land. It is as good as human virtue makes it, or as bad as the lack of human virtue leaves it. It is, therefore, more largely dependent upon Christian agencies than upon any other one influence.

Without the Christian church, the land would never have had these qualities that make life sound and strong. Deprived of the Christian church, it would soon cease to have them. With their departure, the sanctity would die out of family relations, the spirit of mutual helpfulness would perish from community life, and citizenship would be deprived of the attitude of loyalty to flag, country, and law. While these virtues are maintained, the state stands strong and firm. When they decay, the state goes to pieces as a barrel falls to staves when the supporting hoops are removed.

This is sufficient to indicate that the state can hardly place too high a value upon the church, and that it cannot place too high a value upon the faith for which the church stands. A few words should be now said to the point that since the church and the faith have served the country so well in years gone by, they cannot afford to miss the present supreme opportunity to serve it.

America is passing through a great transition stage. No one can say just what the outcome is to be, but every one recognizes the presence of a national ferment which is certain to result in something positive in the not distant future. There is probably small ground for alarm. Ours is a nation of thoughtful people. Whatever they do in the end will be tempered with wise judgment. As it has been in other days, they will choose the wise course, and we shall only find ourselves better situated than before. The fact stands, however, that we are now in a transition period. The whole world is entering into a new period in its existence.

It is desirable that this new period shall be really an evolution of the old. The best of the past should survive, having added to it the best thought and talent the new age can furnish. Those revolutionary minds who think the new order will be some sudden substitution for an old one wrecked by the hand of annihilating violence are in the hopeless minority. Sound judgment will prevail, but a change is on the way. In fact it is already partially realized.

In such a time of social unrest and upheaval as this, it is easier than at other times to make blunders. Other lands have felt this fever before ours, and some of them at that time wrote pages into their history which they have spent all the years since wishing they could erase. Just now the popular mind needs in an unusual degree the steadying influence of a great faith. The Christian faith is sufficiently conservative to be careful, and sufficiently progressive to be fearless in the face of vision. It is, therefore, supremely adapted to meet the needs of the times.

The Christian Gospel is the great solvent of modern problems. The problems of the age are ethical and social. Fundamental to ethical and social problems are spiritual conditions. The Christian Gospel is an ethical and social message based on spiritual principles.

The Gospel should, therefore, be spread to-day with such an earnestness as its prophets have never known before. From pulpit, in Bible school, and by means of printed page, it should be given the freest possible course to the minds of men. It should certainly be made a more common topic of everyday conversation. Let no one think it is unwelcome. The human race realizes its present situation, and it is anxious to hear about anything that holds out any hope or promise. The world is strangely Gospel hungry at the present time. It is impatient of substitutes, but anxious for the real article.

In years past the forces of the Kingdom have been an incalculable support to the government. The church has carried the interests of the nation to the throne of grace. When necessary it has given men to defend the flag. The Bible and the flag have advanced together. It is safe to assume that in the present time the nation will find all the old-time help in the church and in the religion for which it stands.

The Christian Program (1920)

Jesus loved to set forth the nature of the Kingdom in terms of growing things. He likened it to a grain of mustard seed which grew into a tree, and to a lump of leaven which leavened the whole of three measures of meal.

These are both apt pictures of the Kingdom and His plan for its growth. Its realization depends upon the germination and final fruition of the truth. It therefore depends upon the passing from one to another of its master secret.

The dream of Jesus was a pretentious one. It meant not only the conquest of the planet but the conquest of it at its most difficult point. In such a conquest guns and navies are helpless. A greater than a military program is necessary. Jesus chose the greatest of all plans—the passing of the message from lip to lip through the channels of everyday conversation. Under his plan, each person is charged to be a witness of what he knows.

The result of any problem in progression is startling. It is surprising how quickly a whole planet could be evangelized if the message grew in its sweep according to such a mathematical law. If each person who knows Jesus passed the knowledge of his experience on to two others, the outward rim of things could be touched in a little while. Such a plan is not only numerically adequate, but it is the only plan which is numerically adequate.

The Christian program tends to the making of more and better Christians because the plan of personal evangelism makes every believer an evangelist. One is a little more wholly committed to the gospel he has passed on to others. A philosophy of words is very apt to become a philosophy of life. The sense of being a witness has steadied many a trembling Christian to a new strength and resolution. Responsibility is a wonderful tonic.

Contributed essay to a symposium on “The Church and Young People” (1920)

The status of the church in its relation to youth to-day is generally disappointing. Unless it is improved, the kingdom will become a victim of race suicide. In certain larger lines, the world seems to be advancing; in the simpler matters of personal ideals and moral standards, many people think it to be losing ground.

The origin of our problem is threefold. It comes, first, from a growing reign of carnality in the world—the seeking of wealth and pleasure at any cost. It comes, secondly, from the surrender of erstwhile righteous as well as indifferent homes to the notion that, since one is young but once, he should be encouraged to spoil the only youth he is to have. It comes, thirdly, from a condition in social institutions and community life which makes it difficult for one to live the better life without severing the social ties that bind him to others.

Young people cannot pass through the public schools of the average city without making a choice between being worldly and being wall flowers. It even seems that a young man cannot go through a great war for humanity without having the tobacco habit forced upon him as a part of a great propaganda for commercial purposes. Boys and girls can hardly attend a social function without seeing indecent attire and being invited to participate in things which deteriorate faith and ideals.

Our equipment for meeting the situation is generally inadequate. We have plenty of organization, but it is too general, too miscellaneous, and too much interested in funds and reports. We have too many young people’s organizations and too little life in any of them. This is a general trouble with Methodism. We would do better with one tenth of our present machinery and nine times more use of that one tenth.

Our program should probably cover the following points, all of which are old and simple: _(1) A warm spiritual life and a high personal ideal for all_. There are no exceptions for age or youth in the standards of the kingdom. _(2) An emphasis on family faith and practice, with a revival of proper parental authority_. If the children must rule, let the parents at least retain veto power in the interest of right living. _(3) A program of community reconstruction_ which will ultimately make schools and other public institutions as respectful of the ideals of evangelical Christians as they now are of those of Jews and Roman Catholics. _(4) Simple but effective organization for the recognition of the young people of the church as a normal social group_ and for their development along the lines indicated in the growth of Jesus—wisdom, stature, favor with God, and favor with man. There is no better program of training than that which includes mind, body, religious instinct, and social relationships.

Beyond this I see little that the church and its agencies can do. Nothing is to be gained by compromising with the mind of the flesh, which is death. We should get the right kind of attitude, organization, and equipment. We should use them at their best and then stand our ground. The right-minded will respond to nothing less than a Christian appeal. The wrong-minded we shall not win anyway—until a revolution has taken place in their point of view.

The Message of an Empty Tomb (1920)

One Sunday morning twenty centuries ago a woman stood musing beside an empty grave. She had come there early in the morning to bring the tribute of a final service to a departed friend whose name was Jesus. He had died on a cross the preceding Friday. Being poor, his body had received the hospitality of a kind-hearted citizen of Arimathea.

The visitor at the grave of the Nazarene met with a surprising situation. She did not find things as she expected—if she really expected anything. Probably her thoughts were little more than vague impressions, and she was taking it for granted that the grave still claimed its own.

She did not find it so. The seal was broken; the door was open; and the former occupant was gone. The garden was silent, but not with the silence of the dead. Its stillness seemed rather to speak of life. It was like a battlefield upon which a great struggle has taken place, and a great principle vindicated. The very voicelessness seemed eloquent of victory.

Mary need not have been surprised. Jesus had often told his friends that such a thing would happen. His emphasis had never been upon dead people nor dead things. His life had been a message of life triumphant. He had even released others from the fetters of the grave.

The world has always had strange ways, however, of putting an indefinite construction upon the words of Jesus. Men often remark upon the wonder of them, but living the truth of them is quite another thing. People are willing to admit their beauty. Here and there are those who are even willing to admit their truth. They are not so many, however, who venture to take them for a life program.

The same old story was repeated in this case. The assurance of Jesus that the tomb should be but a temporary habitation had been listened to with respect, but it had not been really taken seriously. It had become a forgotten promise. Whether Mary disbelieved, or only failed to believe, she acted upon the assumption that Jesus was dead. Others had remained in their graves. She took it for granted that she would find him in his. She had not learned her right to expect marvelous things. She cannot be blamed much. She only did what most people do. To her credit it must be said that she learned that day that hers was not a dead, but a living Lord. It is to be hoped that others have learned as much.

The silences were eloquent, aided as they were by the shock of a great surprise. They spoke very clearly to Mary as she stood thoughtfully by the vacant tomb that morning. Indeed, they spoke so clearly that across all the intervening generations we can still hear some of the things they said.

They told her that life laughs at fetters. Whoever thinks to bind it with stones and seals plans the impossible. It is made for the universal spaces and for the everlasting years. The life of Jesus possessed altogether too much vitality to long remain hidden behind the stone walls of a sepulcher.

The world is strewn with graves. We have dug them in countless numbers, and departed generations made so many that the vast majority of them have long been forgotten. They are all as empty as was the tomb of Jesus that Sunday morning. We look at the earth and think of it as hiding those whom we have loved when we ought to look upward and think of them as in the keeping of another world. We look backward and think of their lives as belonging to the past when we ought to look onward and think of them as belonging to the boundless future.

The silences of the garden must have told her, too, that the Lord had reached one of the final points in his leadership of men. His was largely a mission of demonstration. For ages men had been frankly doubting that true godliness and actual immortality were possible. Jesus demonstrated the fact that the divine spirit fits normally into both the affairs of life and the experiences of the hour of death. He proved that it was possible not only to live like a god, but also to die like one.

He had led the way through the most trying experiences that life can bring. He had gone ahead into the valley and the shadow of death. On the first Sunday morning after his crucifixion he demonstrated his power to lead the world out of the grave as well as into it. Mary was the first witness to that demonstration.