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the first daring missionaries, full of zeal for the
new creed, set forth from Rome to carry the glad tidings
into old Britain, they found there a race just budding
into civilization. They must have had much the same
feeling towards the inhabitants of that far-off province
that we find in ourselves toward the dwellers in Darkest
Africa or the Islands of the Utmost Sea. Buoyed by an
unquestioning faith, they went fearlessly forward to
carry the Word, the only truth, to those who sat in
impenetrable darkness, as it seemed to them. There could
be no question in their mind as to the saving value
of the new belief. They preached with conviction and
warmth, because they believed with fervour and without
[Page 253] equivocation. And it would
hardly occur to them to look for anything of good in
the ancient earthly beliefs they were so eager to supplant.
With that singleness of purpose, that persistency of
sublime confidence to which nothing is denied, they
went about their task with unquenchable ardour and decision.
A mere handful of devoted souls at first, following
the footsteps of the chosen Twelve to whom the Message
was originally entrusted, they went cheerfully about
the business of persuading the known world to their
way of thinking. How well they succeeded, let modern
civilization attest.
Let
us never depreciate the power of so supreme a faith,
a devotion so consuming and so noble; for that is the
very spirit we need at all times, a spirit of hopeful
belief in the ultimate triumph of ideals. But we have
come at this end of time to look upon the earth and
our own history with a more dispassioned eye, and to
regard the events of our racial evolution with a certain
mental detachment, [Page 254] which
we call the scientific spirit. And that is well, too;
for we must have the absolute truth, at all costs, for
our peace of mind, just as we need ultimate goodness
for our peace of heart, and utmost beauty for our enjoyment
of life. We have come to see in the outworn religions
of the earth which Christianity has supplanted, not
mere heathenish superstition, but the first crude efforts
of the human soul, endeavouring to formulate its instincts
for righteousness, its intuitions of the sublime, its
inherent belief in a divine origin and outcome for all
things. The beautiful gods of pagan Greece, whose cult
has given to modern art and literature such an immeasurable
stimulus; the pitiful gods of the Polar night; the subtle
and still-living gods of the mysterious Orient; the
lore of all these human creeds is not to be despised,
but to be studied. Very likely they are inadequate in
their conception of the universe, and unwise in many
of their moral sanctions; still they stand there in
testimony of man’s [Page 255] reach
after the infinite. Pan and Vesta and Hanuman and the
unrecorded divinities of outlandish tongues are neither
hateful nor despicable, but only imperfect. They are,
surely one must believe, partial revelations of the
truer Truth, the better Goodness, the more imperishable
Beauty.
So,
too, we may be sure that the rude worship of our ancient
fathers in the wilderness of Britain, little as we know
of it, was not without lovely traits and touches of
aspiration. Those watchers who gathered to see the sun
rise over Stonehenge last midsummer day must have been
impressed by a solemn regard for the old druidical faith
which planted those monoliths in their significant ring,
so that the great light of day at his summer solstice
enters exactly through the door of that primitive temple.
Not sun-worshippers, perhaps, but nature-worshippers
our fathers must have been, when the new teaching came
to them in their island fastnesses. In the names Yule
and Easter, [Page 256] marking certain
pagan festivals of nature, vague records of these Northern
religions come down to us, and upon the dates of those
festivals other festivals of the Christian cult were
grafted. So that when we celebrate our winter holiday,
we are not merely keeping the memorial of Christ’s
nativity, but, all unconsciously, are following the
immemorial rites of an earlier custom, strange and barbarous,
yet natural, after all.
In
the story of all peoples there will be things too far
off to be remembered save in the most shadowy tradition.
The worship of Linus or Adonis among the earliest Greeks
is surrounded with impenetrable mystery. It had changed
and been lost before the time of records began; but
we know it was something typical of the changing seasons,
the pulse of life and death through the revolving year.
We may fancy, in the same way, that the most elemental
facts of nature, the waxing and waning of the days from
summer to winter, the perishing of the year at autumn
and its [Page 257] revival in spring,
would be the first to be celebrated in forms of worship
among a people so dependent on the favour of the sun.
They would see in the great luminary, if not a divinity,
at least a direct administration of the Divine Mind.
And, as it passed in its huge pendular swing from solstice
to solstice, from the long days of an English June to
the brief and reluctant hours of the shortest day of
winter, they would feel their dependence on the Unknown,
their need of a beneficent Providence, their pleasure
in abundant warmth, their shrinking at the pinch of
cold, and their helplessness before the vagaries of
every season’s vicissitudes. The winds and rains
of spring, with the returning birds in the forest; the
heats of summer setting all the land at leisure; the
ripening of fruits in autumn; these things would make
their hearts unfold. The generous year would enter their
blood to mitigate the darker strain of human sorrow
and inexplicable death. They would grasp quickly at
the poetic analogy between [Page 258] the
life of man and the life of nature through the season’s
progress. Seeing all nature die down and revive, they
would eagerly guess at a future for the soul, an eternal
springtime supervening upon the autumn of mortality.
The
feast of Yule, we may guess, was one of merrymaking,
because then the year was at its bitterest, hope apparently
at the last ebb with the ebbing sun, and men, therefore,
driven indoors for intercourse and entertainment. For
frost, in moderation, is a great civilizer, necessitating
the home and the fireside. It is difficult to play the
vagrant in a country where you cannot sleep under the
stars, but must have a rooftree above you and a fire
to keep you from perishing. It is in cold countries
that men’s energies are knit up to the point of
accomplishment, and their physique tempered and hardened
to endurance. Cold that congeals the ground and the
running streams, consolidates men, too, and favours
that concerted action which is the [Page 259]
beginning of civic liberty and free institutions.
In a land of rigorous climate men are accustomed to
struggle. Their life from day to day is an unremitting
warfare with the elements, and breeds in them fortitude,
endurance, resourcefulness, and a light-hearted eagerness
to cope with difficulty. The north wind, whipping about
their ears, stings the blood to the cheek, stirring
courage from the bottom of the heart at the same time;
and those happiest zones, where nature is neither so
bountiful as to encourage idleness, nor so bitter as
to discourage and stultify growth, give us our best
of humanity.
In
such a country men attain a certain poise of mind, not
too sober nor yet too frivolous, and come to look upon
the world with discretion, with serenity, with temperate
joy. Their intimate life is infused with a tincture
of natural piety, unaffected and wholesome. And whatever
revealed religion (as it is called) is imported to their
shores must be coloured and modified by the original
temperament [Page 260] of the race.
So that old traditions and customs and superstitions
and habits of thought are found surviving amid the pure
doctrines of newer belief, as blackened stumps survive
a forest fire to be found long afterward, when the young
green is tall and luxuriant all about them.
In
every Christian land there are customs and tales and
scraps of folk-lore, held in popular regard, which are
not quite believed, perhaps, but which are kept alive
in memory none the less. They are surviving remnants
of creeds which once had a religious value and now retain
no more than a sentiment of their former sanction. They
may once have been obligatory as a duty, a votive commemoration,
an expiatory offering; but their earlier use is forgotten
and we cannot tell why we observe them any more, —
so tenacious are we of forms and ceremonies, so oblivious
of spiritual origins. We hang up our childish stockings
for the good little saint to fill with gifts and gewgaws,
or we stick a spray of [Page 261] mistletoe
in the chandelier — a dare to bashful youth —
and never guess how came these customs nor what they
may once have signified. So there linger about all the
festivals of the Church — Christmas, St. John’s
Eve in midsummer, of Hallowe’en — legends
and simple rites, which are lightly held memorials of
some older faith, once, perhaps, significant and stupendous.
For religion is not only from above but from below (if
we may permit ourselves to use that manner of speech),
not only the living Word sent down to us from the clear
skies, as we are apt to fancy, but the whisper breathed
from the ground as well. Whether natural or revealed,
the source of our religious aspirations is the same.
The eternal spirit utters itself obscurely in the dark
hearts of heathen kings, or speaks in articulate clear
words through the radiant minds of chosen seers and
glowing young prophets, with equal authority. The same
spirit of truthfulness, desiring only that beautiful
goodness should be accomplished on the [Page
262] earth, whispered in the ear of Buddha,
dwelt with the aged John in Patmos, was a law of righteousness
to the King Poet of Israel, spoke in accents threatening
as thunder at the shrine of Delphi, and makes itself
heard at a hundred unknown altars in the far corners
of the earth to-day. For there are not a thousand such,
but only One, though the inventive mind of man has imagined
a thousand forms in which He has been supposed to reside.
His true residence, all the while, has been neither
at Paphos nor Cumæ nor upon Sinai, but in the
human heart, — in the house of the soul.
A
Christmas meditation for many of us must partake of
the character of a philosophic or poetic reverie, rather
than of religious exaltation. The touch of the supernatural
has disappeared; but that does not mean that the feeling
of wonder has vanished; it only means that the sentiment
of worship is more natural than ever. If we cannot feel
the awe and terror of a personal Supervisor of the universe,
[Page 263] as in our childhood, we
can feel much more certainly and definitely the presence
of an unmeasured Power within ourselves, more real and
beneficent than the Deity of our infant fancy.
It
was said that in a certain house there are many mansions;
and I cannot help believing that hospitable edifice
is designed to shelter the unbeliever as well as the
believer. Indeed, I cannot imagine such a creature as
an unbeliever, though many there be (and excellent souls,
too) who subscribe to none of the tenets of established
creeds. I must leave to others the expounding of Christian
doctrine as upheld by this church or that with so much
vigour and confidence, and content myself with the modest
irresponsible task of looking upon the teaching of the
Man of Nazareth, his life and work, with the innocent
eye of a bystander. Had I all the learning of the ancients
and moderns, I fear I should never have the temerity
to be a preacher, — to offer to others as sure
and indubitable [Page 264] fact what
is in its essence so changing and volatile and dependent
upon personal sentiment. For my part, I would rather
have the simplest moral reflection from an old woodsman
or a young scholar, whose life was clean and whose mind
was free, than all the gravest homilies of bishops,
hedged by tradition and restricted by instituted authority.
Is the breath of God less free than the sweet wind of
heaven? or is it less likely to form itself into an
unmistakable message to you or me than it was to call
to the saints of old? The great ones of all time, whose
august names inspire us still, whose philosophy forms
the basis of our common wisdom about life, were born
to no greater possibility of inspiration than those
children dancing in the street below. Whatever our fund
of inspired revelation, we are awaiting other revelations
fresher still. The story of the world is not finished.
There are other years to come, other centuries, other
peoples, and civilizations unimagined. Will they, think
you, lack their [Page 265] poets and
philosophers and prophets? The last word of inspiration
has not been uttered, nor will it be, until the last
man’s lips are still.
It
was the habit of our Puritan progenitors to discountenance
the merrymaking of old England, and only to lay stress
on the purely spiritual side of life. Old customs savoured
to them of ungodliness, and they must have only the
soberest truth at all times. Our more liberal tenor
of mind allows us to revert to many of the old usages
which were discarded by those stern New Englanders,
and we incline to make merry with as hearty a goodwill
as our fathers used before Puritanism was heard of.
Without at all discrediting the austere creed, we may
be glad that its extreme rigour has been mitigated with
much of the old spirit of joviality. For joy and light-hearted
mirth are not heathenish, but truly of the essence of
the religion of love, which we profess. It is only logical,
too, that the generous promptings of the heart [Page
266] should find vent and freedom and play,
that kindly thoughts should express themselves in kind
deeds. Moreover, the good deed induces better thoughts,
and through the custom of charity we are insensibly
led to charitable tenderness of heart.
We
may be glad, then, of the outward and visible signs
of Christmas, and never fear they will impair its inward
and spiritual grace. I like to have in mind all the
old pagan piety attaching to this Festival of The Shortest
Day, as well as the better and braver sentiments which
Christianity gave to it. Surely there is no need to
cast aside any pleasant and innocent scrap of ancient
faith as vicious, simply because we need it no more.
Superstition is only faith out of date; and is only
bad because it is antiquated, and because, if we hold
it, it interferes with knowledge. A little harmless
superstition (so long as we do not actually believe
in it) often lends charm to our faith, as a smile may
soften a strong face; and many quaint observances [Page
267] may be kept alive to add grace to our
too monotonous life. When it comes to the veritable
spirit of the Christmas season, what are we to say?
We may leave all the theological pronunciamentos, which
the churches have repeated so often, to be repeated
once again from desk and pulpit, and yet have our own
thoughts on Christmas quite beyond the pale of authority.
No amount of fine logic nor thunderous oratory can shake
my quiet soul from its own convictions. Very likely
you and I, my friend, shall have to find ourselves in
the position of onlookers in the church on Christmas
Day, if indeed we cross the threshold. But for all that,
we need not count ourselves unbelievers. It behoves
us to stand for our right to be numbered among the faithful,
though we subscribe to no single tenet of orthodoxy.
Truth and goodness are not natural monopolies, but are
free as light and air. They form the wholesome atmosphere
of an intellectual and moral being. Shall I pay toll
for a breath of the sweet wind of [Page 268]
heaven, or enjoy the sunlight at another man’s
pleasure? No more will I receive without question any
man’s idea of the truth or beauty or goodness,
though I will hear all gladly. The truth that comes
to me over the pulpit rail must be perverted indeed,
if it cannot stand this test, if it dare not take its
chances with my reason. This is the attitude of our
modern world toward religion. The mistake we make is
in thinking it a dangerous attitude. Surely the soul
of man is the only tabernacle of the veritable God.
The sense of living humanity as to what is true, what
is good, what is beautiful to see, is the only sanction
for belief. You and I, standing outside the reach of
an obsolete authority, believe and cherish the words
of the Sermon on the Mount not because Christ uttered
them, but because in our inmost being we cannot help
assenting to their lofty truth. It is a mark of truth
that it must win our belief in the long run; it is a
mark of goodness that it must command our love; just
as it is a mark [Page 269] of beauty
that it must arouse our admiration. So that the sublime
teachings of Christianity are quite secure, without
all the artificial sanctions with which men have invested
them. They only need to be separated from superstition,
to appeal to us with all their charm and power. Think
what a stir any one of the four Gospels would make if
it could be published to-morrow for the first time.
Would we not at once receive it with eagerness, and
set it among our treasured books? “More sublime
than Emerson,” we would say — “More
subtle than Maeterlinck.” And I believe it is
only when we approach the words of Christ with just
such an open mind and expectant spirit that we perceive
their beauty and truth to the fullest.
But
see, how in all this overcareful considering of the
matter we miss the very germ of the gospel, which is
the spirit of love. We worry ourselves over forms and
patterns of conduct; we strain our logic to find out
the truth; our sensitive and scrupulous mind [Page
270] will be satisfied with nothing less than
exact science; we give our days and nights to lay up
knowledge; we shed rivers of blood for this creed or
that dogma; and all the while the greater truth, the
spiritual kernel of life, lies by the roadside waiting
to be picked up. You think love an easy matter, and
the Golden Rule the simplest of moral laws? Reflect
that men, with all their good intentions, have never
been able to make love the lodestar of the world for
a single day in its history. It is the distinction of
Christ’s teaching that he offered us a rule of
conduct which still remains approachable but unrealized,
drawling our fullest assent to its impracticable sublimity.
And why impractical? Only because of our lack of courage.
No man dares square his action according to his most
generous impulse, for fear his neighbour will get the
better of him. So that our whole system of civilization
is infected with this sordid poltroonery, and we continue
in a state of distrust and social strife, divorcing
our faith from our life. [Page 271] Knowing
in our hearts the goodliness of love, the efficacy of
kindness, we still carry on the concerns of life with
a cowardly disregard to our ideals and aspirations.
The
more welcome, then, is this greatest of all festivals,
when we commemorate the birth of the Master whose life
still stands as the most eminent reproof to our timidity
and self-seeking. Once a year, at least, we are put
in mind of the Better Way, the way of the glad heart,
the open hand, the unsuspicious mind. You say that no
business could be successfully conducted on Christian
principles, under modern conditions? Then let us do
without business. You say that cities could not thrive,
nor nations grow, nor individuals prosper in an age
of strenuous competition, if they attempted to abide
by the law of love? Then let us do without prosperity.
The
fact remains that all our contrivances for outward reformation
of institutions are but futile tinkering with the body
of society, [Page 272] when it is the
soul of man that needs attention. A little more honesty,
a little more love, a little more courage, a little
more kindliness and gentleness and helpful generosity
in the heart of average men and women, — these
are more important than the passage of a thousand laws
or the instituting of any new schemes of social betterment.
Love is an old, old remedy for the unhappy plight of
the world. The curious thing is that, while we all profess
to believe in it efficacy, we cannot summon up enough
resolution to put it to the test. It has never been
thoroughly tried yet; for most of our attempts, though
some of them have been brave enough, have been but half-hearted.
Suppose
we try to carry a little of the Christmas elation over
into the New Year. Suppose we try to make the new year
a little less heathenish, a little less full of cruelty
and noise and terror and greed, a little less absurdly
at variance with all our professions of religion than
most of these nineteen [Page 273] hundred
years have been! The Golden Age is never far away, but
is only waiting until we adopt the Golden Law, to return
with gladness among men. [Page 274]
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