Chapter VIII: The Providence of God in Human History (2)

3. _The development of personal liberty_--that is, of independent thought and self-originated action. This is the period of youth. The youth passes from the control of his parents and teachers, and begins to think and act for himself.

4. _The training and discipline of the will under social law_--that is, the voluntary obedience to laws imposed by society, submission to regulations imposed for the public good. This is the period of manhood. The young man passes into society, he becomes a member of the body politic, and freely acts, not simply as an individual, but as a member of a corporation and of a state.

5. _The development of active philanthropy._ The man advances beyond the claims of social law, and acts from the promptings of love and good-will toward all men. Passing through all the varied stages in the progressive development of human character, and retaining the results of each, he becomes the perfect man.

And now it will be promptly recognized that this has been the order of progress in humanity as a whole--that is, the progress of history and of civilization. The first corresponds with _Oriental_, the second with _Hebrew_, the third with _Greek_, the fourth with _Roman_, and the last with _Christian_ civilization.

It will also be observed that each epoch in the development of the individual has demanded new conditions, and has taken place in a new sphere. The first stage in the development of individual character is infoldment in the arms of the parent. He is still held, as it were, within the circle of maternal life. He is bewildered by the vastness and variety of external nature, and he sinks back into his mother's arms. The second sphere is in the bosom of the family and amid the scenes of domestic life, where he recognizes relations and becomes conscious of duties. The third is in the school and the outer world, where thought awakens, and, enjoying more freedom of movement, he becomes more conscious of his personal liberty. The fourth is in society, the state, the arena of political life, where his movements must be regulated by law; and the pursuit of his own pleasure or aggrandizement must not interfere with the rights of his fellow-man. The fifth and last is in the church, the home of religious life, where he is called to ascend from the region of mere law to that of holy love. So also each epoch in the development of humanity has had its separate sphere and its new conditions, first in Asia proper, next in Palestine, on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, then on the peninsula of Greece, then in Italy, and lastly in Continental Europe, England, and America.

1. Asia, as we have seen, was the cradle of the race. Here, in the infancy of humanity, Oriental Civilization dawns. Amid the extended plains and lofty mountains of Asia, those stupendous and massive forms of Oriental nature, man felt himself absolutely dependent. To the river he looked as the fertilizer of the soil; to the animal which roamed in the desert, and the almost spontaneous vegetation of the earth, for his food; to the sun, as the fountain of light and heat, the giver of life and death.[393] He was environed and overpowered by nature. Almost unconscious of his own freedom, he lay in her bosom, as the child reposes in the arms of its mother. Underlying all the massive forms of Oriental nature he recognized an invisible Power and Presence, and he worshiped nature as an impersonation of God. Every thing inspired him with the sense of the Infinite, the consciousness of dependence on an absolute Will. The patriarchal government, imposed by nature, restrained his personal liberty. His property and life were at the disposal of his chief--an absolute autocrat, who exercised over him an unlimited power. Oriental civilization unquestionably represents the _infancy_ of man.

2. In Hebrew civilization we have, as an especial feature, the discipline of the conscience. The child-man comes more directly under the power of moral culture. The government and discipline to which he is now subjected aim to develop in his mind the idea of the just, the right, the pure. He is receiving instruction in what he ought and ought not to do. His conceptions of the moral character of God are to be enlarged, the idea especially of the holiness of God is to be developed in his mind through the medium of material symbols and religious rites. The call of Abraham sets forth at once the central lesson of faith in an unseen personal God. The history of the patriarchs brings into clearer light the sovereignty of God as opposed to the mere dominion of nature and fate. A nation grows up in presence of Egyptian culture, and after the purpose of God in the discipline of Egypt is accomplished, they are led into the wilderness, and God now reveals Himself as a Lawgiver and Judge, and a ritual is given which teaches at once the holiness of God and the exceeding sinfulness of sin.[394]

For the achievement of this object a new sphere is demanded--the seclusion and isolation of family life. Accordingly Abraham was called to leave Chaldæa, the scene of Oriental civilization, and led into Canaan, that he might become the father of a great nation, and the source of a new and better civilization. The mountainous region of Palestine was admirably fitted to be the theatre of this new civilization. No other land on the globe was so peculiarly fitted to fulfill this office. The northern half of Syria was not so favorable a locality; for traversed as it was by the great highway from Asia Minor to Assyria, it was subject to the influence of foreign travel from the earliest times. But Palestine lay surrounded by populous countries, and yet isolated from them. In the midst of the six great nations of antiquity--the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Medes, Persians, Phœnicians, and Egyptians--it was separated from them all.[395] Thus secluded and isolated from the rest of mankind, the Hebrews dwelt alone as one great _family_. The first form of government was a patriarchy--the father of the family and of the tribe being the ruler. The second was a theocracy, in which God, the Father of the families of all the earth, becomes the immediate ruler. The third was a monarchy--the government of a man appointed and sustained in his authority by God. And the history of this nation is little else than one of instruction, discipline, and chastisement--a tutelage in which the people were under law and not under grace. The Hebrew civilization represents the _childhood_ of humanity.

And the lessons here taught were not lost to the race. They were carried to Assyria and Babylonia during the period of the two captivities; and in the colonies which were founded in Asia Minor, Rome, and Alexandria the influence exerted by Judaism was considerably greater than that which was exerted upon it. The union of Judaism and Platonism is fully represented in Philo the Alexandrian Jew.

3. In Grecian civilization we have the development of personal freedom of thought and action. The Divine discipline of the Jews, as we have seen, was essentially a moral discipline--a discipline of the conscience. This, however, was not a complete discipline of our whole nature. The reason demands culture as well as the conscience. The process and the issue in the two cases were widely different, but they were in some sense complementary; and the one succeeds the other in the order of time. The Divine kingdom of the Jews was just overthrown when free speculation arose in the Ionian colonies of Asia; and the teaching of the last prophet nearly synchronizes with the death of Socrates.[396]

This new civilization could not be achieved on the continent of Asia, and therefore a new theatre is prepared. "Europe may be called a continuation of Central Asia. It surpasses its Oriental neighbor in the advantage of having no internal mountain barrier to divide its north and south. Thus Europe has been able to develop itself more independently and freely in consequence of the number of its peninsular forms.... The three characteristic features in the formation of Europe that are the physical grounds of the development of its nations are its large extent of seaboard, its peninsular forms, and the number of its islands."[397] On the peninsula of Greece, on the shores of the Ægean and Ionian seas, there was freedom of movement, facility of intercourse with the surrounding nations, and inducements to maritime enterprise. These conditions were undoubtedly favorable to a higher development. "The inland sea, the magnificent river," says Cousin, "is the natural symbol of _movement_." These represent the activity of nature, and they become natural centres of progress. The sea is the highway of commerce, and commerce is the grand channel of ideas, the medium through which the knowledge acquired by one people can flow readily into other lands. Amid such conditions the mind awakes to activity, and the _period of youth_ commences. Awakening thought is first directed to the outer world, and attempts an explanation of its phenomena. Greek philosophy thus becomes, at its first appearance, a philosophy of nature, and the Ionian school was a school of physicists. Here the great names which appear at the dawn of mental activity are Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclites, and Diogenes. From the study of nature the human race advances to the study of man. The new school is a school of moral and mental philosophy, or, more correctly, of psychology and ethics, adorned by such immortal names as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In Greece, philosophy, poetry, eloquence, the fine arts, were extensively cultivated. As this was an age of great activity of thought, so it was also an age of great political freedom. The government was in many respects a government of the people, a democracy. "Every thing, in fact, in Greece bears evidence of the preponderance of human personality, and the energy of individual character."[398] Grecian civilization represents the _youth_ of humanity.

The results of this culture were carried to other lands by the conquests of Alexander, and subsequently by the conquering Romans. The poets, the architects, the sculptors, the historians, the philosophers of Greece, are still the guides and models of the men of thought and taste in all cultivated nations. The Greek is still, in a peculiar sense, the teacher of the world.

4. In Roman civilization we have the discipline of the will under social and civil law, the more perfect organization of society and of government, the development of the science of jurisprudence.

This social and political organization was a new work, a higher civilization, and it demanded a new and, in fact, a larger sphere. The centre of the civilized world now changes place, and, moving westward, establishes itself in the peninsula of Italy. By successive conquests its circumference enlarges, and finally it embraces at once the South and the East and the West. The place which Rome occupied, in the very middle of the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, seemed to foreshadow that she was destined to become the metropolis of all the civilized nations who dwelt upon its shores. Rome extended its conquests to Spain, Gaul, Britain, Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Africa, and the islands of the Mediterranean--over, in fact, six hundred thousand square leagues of the most fertile country; and all but realized the dream of the world's great conquerors--a universal empire. It was defended by a regular army of five hundred thousand men, ranged in the order of the famous legions, which constituted the most effective military organization known. The government of an empire of such vast proportions and diversity of populations demanded the greatest political skill. To establish durable ties between these diverse peoples, and to combine in the same social network all the civilized nations of the world, demanded the highest legislative talent, and gave birth to the science of jurisprudence, which, next to that of theology, is the most important and useful to man. The inability of the Greek to achieve this great work is clearly evinced by the terrible Peloponnesian War and the lamentable history of the empire of Alexander and his successors. Greece represents individuality; Rome, association, unity, and, in some degree, the equality of all races of men.

This was unquestionably a marvelous development: "In public law, the extension, step by step, through many a civil commotion, of the full rights of citizenship from the narrow circle of a few score of favored families to the entire sphere of the free subjects of the empire; in private law, the equal communication among various classes of the rights of property and dominion over the national soil; the abolition of territorial privileges; the readjustment, by gradual and peaceful manipulation, of the cadastral map of the empire; the relaxation, by slow and experimental process, of the patriarchal authority of the head of the family; of the father over the son, whom at first he might punish, sell, or slay; of the husband over the wife, whom at first he received from her parents as the spoil of his own spear, and ruled as the chattel he had plundered;[399] of the master over the slave, absolute at first, final and irresponsible to law, custom, or conscience; the gradual replacement of the strictly national and tribal ideas on these subjects by views of right, justice, and virtue to mankind in general; the slow but constant growth of principles of natural and universal law, and their application, searchingly and thoroughly, to every subject of jurisprudence, and to all the dealings of man with man."[400]

This vast Roman Empire combined all the elements of civilization characteristic of former periods. The philosopher, the lawyer, and the statesman were united in the person of her great men, as Cicero and Cato, and sometimes also the warrior, as in the case of the first of the Cæsars. The days of the Roman Republic present the most brilliant social and political epoch in the history of the ancient world. The life of a Roman citizen was emphatically a public life. The love of country was carried to the highest pitch, and was paramount to every other consideration. The laws and jurisprudence of Ancient Rome have furnished models for the whole civilized world. "The world-wide elastic system of jurisprudence by which the great Roman Empire, with all its boundless variety of races, creeds, and manners, was for ages harmoniously and equitably governed; which was accepted and ratified as an eternal possession by the same empire when it became Christian; and has been proved to satisfy the principles of law and justice announced by a religion which alone proclaimed the unity and equality of man;... finally, a jurisprudence which has been incorporated into the particular legal systems of, I suppose, every modern nation in Christendom," marks a high degree of civilization, and justifies us in regarding Roman civilization as representing the _manhood_ of our race.

5. And now comes, last of all, the Christian civilization, or the age of philanthropy. When the Roman Empire had attained its zenith, and all civilized nations were brought under one government; and the world was at peace; and the philosophy of Greece and the jurisprudence of Rome had prepared the way for a higher and a nobler civilization, then, "in the fullness of time"--the ripeness and maturity of the ages or dispensations--"God sent his Son, made under the law, to redeem them that are under the law, that we might receive the _adoption of sons_." He came to exhibit completely the truth which had been partially revealed to Plato, that "_God is Love_"--that "Love is creation's final law"--and that the completeness and perfection of humanity is "_resemblance to God_."[401] He came to announce and enforce the brotherhood of mankind, and the equality of all classes and races in the sight of God. He proclaimed the equal worth of all human souls in the estimation of the heavenly Father; and to prove that all men are alike the objects of Divine care and solicitude, He laid down his life as "a propitiation for the sins of the whole world." For the reception of this gospel of universal brotherhood and equal rights the Grecian and Roman civilizations had prepared the way. And now He gives to the race the "new commandment," which is the fundamental law of the Kingdom of God, and is finally to become the universal law for all nations, that "_Men should love one another, as He loved all men, and laid down his life for them._" The whole spirit and tendency of this crowning form of civilization can not be misapprehended. Its sympathies are all with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; it can not fail to overthrow castes and aristocracies, to destroy tyranny, oppression, and slavery, and at last to unite all men in bonds of love to each other and to God.

And now to what people shall be committed the office of diffusing and perpetuating this noblest and highest civilization? Not to the Jewish nation, for it was exclusive and selfish; not to the Greek, for it had become effete; not to the Roman, for it had become corrupt. Christianity, it is true, was born on Jewish soil, but it was soon transferred to a more favorable clime. The Church was early planted in Rome, but achieved its grandest conquests among another people. The fierce Germanic tribes of the North conquer the Roman Empire, and are conquered by its Christianity. Already the Germans had the conception of an illimitable Deity, toward whom they looked with solemn and reverential awe.[402] Having penetrated into the midst of the Roman Empire, they came fully into the presence and under the influence of Christianity. Their conversion was speedy and comparatively complete. The constant intercourse now maintained between Rome and Central and Northern Europe in a short time carried this new civilization across the Alps; the circle rapidly widens, and embraces all Europe in a common faith.

All the rich treasures of the past are appropriated by Christianity--the moral culture of the Hebrew, the poetry and philosophy of Greece, the jurisprudence of Ancient Rome. All these--in so far as they are pure and good--are absorbed by Christianity, and ennobled and baptized by the Christian spirit. In Christian Europe poetry, philosophy, science flourished as they had never flourished in any preceding age, and they lay their richest tribute at the feet of Christ, the Divine King of the world. Nature, also, herself becomes more and more subject to man, and to the religion of the God-man. Science multiplies the means of diffusing knowledge and the facilities of intercourse among the nations of the earth. The discovery of the art of printing opens the Book of Life to the millions of our race. Space has been annihilated by railroads; by the help of steam continents are united; the electric telegraph is binding the nations in one. And now the genius of Christianity begins more signally to reveal itself as a power acting on the social life of man. The forms and conditions of his earthly lot are being wonderfully transformed and improved. Science is emancipating labor, and constantly overcoming the sources of human suffering. Hygienic science is preserving life and extending the term of human existence. Mankind is rising above the sphere of mere law, into the sphere of noble love. Philanthropic institutions are being daily multiplied, humanitarian and Christian enterprises most vigorously prosecuted, and a noble benevolence is rapidly supplanting the ignoble selfishness of former ages. Chalmers, Howard, Wilberforce, Hitchcock, Amos Lawrence, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Gladstone, are representative men and women of the new age.

Christian civilization is no longer the property of any one nation alone. Now it embraces in its purposes and plans the evangelization of all the nations of the earth. The world is now its field. The accumulated waves of light and power from Hebrew and Grecian and Roman civilizations, to which Christianity has added a new life and force, are destined to roll back a tide of blessing upon the remnants of those ancient nations, and sweep northward and southward--

"Till like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole."

The crowning achievement of a Christian civilization will be the political regeneration of the nations--the establishment of all human governments on the principles of human equality, natural rights, and the brotherhood of man. The glory of this achievement, in all its fullness, is not, however, the work of Europe. She inherits too positively the martial spirit of Ancient Rome. Ancient customs and prescriptions, hereditary castes, aristocracies, and kings, and an ecclesiastical polity moulded by these, stand in the way of a Christianity of equality, of freedom, and of universal brotherhood. Europe has her roots too deeply infixed in the past to adapt herself, fully and readily, to the enlarged principles of a thoroughly Christian civilization. A new country is therefore needed, a _New World_, where Christianity can remodel human society, and reconstruct human governments upon her own principles, and the human race can enter upon the last stage in its progress toward the now visible portals of its final goal. "The East," says Ritter, "represents _hope_, the West, _fulfillment_." That new continent was discovered just at the proper hour. Had North America been discovered earlier, it would have been peopled by Catholic nations, and the noble civilization which Christianity was designed to achieve would have been cramped and fettered by the hand of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. The New World reposed quietly in the bosom of a yet untraversed ocean awaiting the advent of the Protestant Reformation. Luther drew the Bible from its concealment in the library of the University of Erfurt at the same time (1502) that Columbus discovered the American continent.[403]

The first settlers in New England were eminently Protestant. They were men who loved the Word of God, and they sought to organize society in this new country upon its holy principles. This new colonization had its birth amid the agonizing throes of martyrdom. The "Pilgrim Fathers" had been persecuted and driven from home for Christ's sake. They sought the desert that they might have freedom to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences; and they braved the dangers of the almost untraveled deep, and the perils of an inhospitable shore in mid-winter, to lay the foundations of a new empire which should be the home of liberty, and the sanctuary of piety for themselves and their children. The Puritan love of freedom and reverence for religion has left its impress on the mind and character of the American people, upon their modes of thought, and upon the institutions of their country. The ideas of universal liberty and equal justice are interwoven in her Constitution, and, in general, the spirit of her legislation has been in accordance therewith. A relic of barbarism landed at Jamestown, in Virginia, which after a fierce struggle of years was finally conquered, and the rank offense was expiated by tears and blood. God has destroyed slavery in America by "the breath of his mouth," and its death-knell has sounded all over the globe. The cause of freedom is stronger in Europe as the reflex of her triumphs here.

Finally, a remarkable characteristic of the civilization of the New World is the emancipation of man from the dominion of nature. By an amazing fertility of mechanical contrivance man is here rapidly "subduing the earth." Released from merely local and hereditary ties, he spreads freely over the vast territory, and rapidly multiplies the means of easy locomotion. The soil is being extensively cultivated; the climate, even, modified; the physiognomy of nature changed by the intelligence of man; and a regenerated earth is to be, at last, the consequence of a regenerated race. Physical nature sympathizes with the intellectual and moral condition of man. Science is anticipating the time "when the earth will only produce cultivated plants and domestic animals; when man's selection shall have supplanted 'natural selection;' and when the ocean alone will be the only domain in which that power can be exerted which for countless cycles of ages ruled supreme over the earth."[404] "The whole creation has groaned and travailed together in pain until now,... waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God."

"Verily there is a God" that not only judges in the earth, but guides and instructs the nations, and who in the development of the earth and of history "worketh all things according to his eternal counsel and purpose," that for the rational creation "God may be all in all."