{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61771/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61771","id":"gutenberg_61771","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61771","summary":null,"tags":["Atonement","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Prayer -- Christianity"],"text":"The Double Search\n\nStudies in Atonement and Prayer\n\n\n\n\nOther Books by the Same Author\n\n\n  ELI AND SYBIL JONES: THEIR LIFE AND WORK.\n        12mo, 300 pages. (1889)\n\n  PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY.\n        12mo, 206 pages. (1899)\n\n  A DYNAMIC FAITH.\n        12mo, 105 pages. (1901)\n\n  A BOY\u2019S RELIGION FROM MEMORY.\n        16mo, 145 pages. (1902)\n\n  GEORGE FOX; AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.\n        12mo, 2 vols., 584 pages. Illustrated. (1903)\n\n  SOCIAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD.\n        Studies in Human and Divine Inter-relationship.\n          12mo, 272 pages. (1904)\n\n\n\n\n  THE\n  DOUBLE SEARCH\n\n  STUDIES IN\n  ATONEMENT AND PRAYER\n\n  BY\n\n  RUFUS M. JONES, A.M., Litt.D.\n\n  Professor of Philosophy in Haverford College\n\n\n  1906.\n  PHILADELPHIA,\n  THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1906\n  BY THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                      PAGE\n\n  INTRODUCTION                           9\n\n\n  CHAPTER I\n\n  THE HISTORICAL AND INWARD CHRIST      21\n\n\n  CHAPTER II\n\n  THE ATONEMENT                         57\n\n\n  CHAPTER III\n\n  PRAYER                                89\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\n\u201cWe are always gathered around the Divine Centre of our being; and,\nindeed, if we could withdraw from it, our being would at once be\ndissolved away, and we should cease to exist at all. But, near as it\nis to us, often we do not direct our eyes to it. When, however, we do\nso direct our gaze, we attain to the end of our desires and to the\nrest of our souls, and our song is no more a discord, but, circling\nround our Centre, we pour forth a divinely inspired chorale. And in\nthe choral dance we behold the source of our life, the fountain of our\nintelligence, the primal good, _the root of the soul_.\u201d\n\n                                                  _Plotinus, Ennead VI._\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThere is a famous myth in Plato\u2019s Symposium told to explain the origin\nof love. This myth says that primitive man was round, and had four\nhands and four feet, and one head with two faces looking opposite ways.\nHe could walk on his legs if he liked, but he also could roll over and\nover with great speed if he wished to go anywhere very fast.\n\nBecause of their fleetness and skill these \u201cRound people\u201d were\ndangerous rivals in power to Zeus himself and he adopted the plan of\nweakening them by cutting each one of them in two. In remembrance of\nthe original undivided state each half, ever since unsatisfied and\nalone, seeks eagerly for the other half. Each human being is thus a\nhalf--a tally--and love is the longing to be united. The two halves\nare seeking to be joined again in the original whole. Such in briefest\ncompass is the myth.\n\nBut as the dialogue advances love is traced to a higher source. It is\ndiscovered to be a passion for the eternal, a passion which rises in\nthe soul at the sight of an object which suggests the eternal, from\nwhich the soul has come into the temporal. The soul is alien here and\nits chief joy in the midst of the shows of sense is joy at the sight of\nsomething which reminds it of its old divine home. Thus, again, Plato\ntells us that love has its birth in the division of what was once a\nwhole. We yearn for that from which we have come.\n\n      \u201cThough inland far we be\n  Our souls have sight of that immortal sea\n      That brought us hither.\u201d\n\nWe may ignorantly stop at some mid-way good and miss the homeward path,\nbut our real search, our master passion, is for that divine Other to\nwhom we belong. So at last Plato poetizes.\n\nWe have discovered through other lips, what he could not tell us, that\nthe search is a double search. We have learned that the Divine Other\nwhom we seek is also seeking us. The myth, told at the beginning, is\nmore suggestive than it seemed. It may perhaps do for a parable of the\nfinite and the Infinite, the soul and its Father. May they not once\nhave been in union? May not our birth in time be a drawing away into\nindividuality from the Divine whole? And then may not the goal of the\nentire drama of personal life be the restoration of that union on a\nhigher spiritual level? May it not be, that we are never again to fuse\nthe skirts of self and merge into a union of oblivion, but rather that\nwe are to rise to a love-union in which His will becomes our will--a\nunion of conscious co-operation? So at any rate I believe. But this\nlittle book is not a book of speculation. It is not written to urge\nsome fond belief.\n\nWe have learned, I say, that life reveals a double search. Man\u2019s search\nfor God is as plain a fact as his search for food. He has, beyond\nquestion, blundered at it and frequently missed the trail, but that\nman in all lands and in all times has maintained some kind of search\nfor an invisible Companion is a momentous fact.\n\nThe other half of the story is, I think, still more momentous. It\nis full of pathos and tragedy, but laden with the prophecy of final\ntriumph. I have tried to tell again this story, surely an old, old\nstory, but always needing to be retold in the current language and\nthe prevailing conceptions of the time. The main feature of this book\nis its insistence on the facts of experience. Its terms are not those\nof theology, but those of life, or if I have used theological words I\nhave endeavored to re-vitalize them. I shall assume that my readers are\nfamiliar with the idea of the _conjunct life_ which I have expounded\nat length in a former book.[1] It is now well known that \u201cisolated\u201d\npersonality is impossible. He who is to enjoy the rights and privileges\nof personality must be conjunct with others. He must be an organic\nmember in a social group, and share himself with his fellows, while at\nthe same time he receives contributions from them. This principle of\nthe conjunct life reaches beyond the finite social fellowship in which\na man forms and expresses his personality. God and man are conjunct.\nThe ground for this position will not be gone over here. It has been\nsufficiently presented elsewhere.\n\nI believe, however, that no psychological discovery has ever thrown so\nmuch light upon the meaning of atonement and prayer as this fact of the\nconjunct life does, and I hope that many others may come to feel the\nfreshness and reality of these deepest religious truths as I have felt\nthem.\n\nIn touching these two subjects we are touching the very pillars of\nreligion. If atonement--God\u2019s search for us--and prayer--our search for\nHim--are not real, then religion has no permanent ground of reality.\nBut there can be no question that our age has witnessed a serious\nweakening of faith in both these central aspects of religion. The\ndoctrine of the atonement does not grip men as it did once, and there\nare persons all about us who are perplexed about the place and efficacy\nof prayer. It is no frivolous questioning. It is not the result of\na lazy attitude of mind. It is stern and serious. There is only one\nway to change this condition. We must make men feel again the reality\nof the atonement and the reality of prayer. That is the task which\nlies before those of us who believe. The day for dogmatic assertion\nis past. It rolls off most minds now as water rolls from oiled silk.\nThe truths which march with power are the truths which are verified\nby, and buttressed with, facts. We must, then, learn how to carry the\nlaboratory method into our religious teaching and ground our message in\nactual reality.\n\nThis slender book is an attempt to approach these two\nsubjects--atonement and prayer--in this spirit and by this method. We\ncan never get the telescope or microscope turned upon the objects of\nspiritual experience and we cannot use the mathematical method which\nhas worked such wonders in the physical realm. There will always be\nsome who cannot _see_ the evidence. But it is worth while to show that\nthese two pillars of religion do rest--not on air--but on experience\nwhich can be verified and tested; that they rest in fact on the\nelemental basis of life, upon which we live our common social life\ntogether.\n\nI trust it will help some to find the trail, and that it will convince\nsome perplexed, though honest, readers that however their own quest has\nfared there is another search beside their own,--the quest of a Divine\nCompanion who spares no pain or cost to bring us all into a fellowship\nwith Him.\n\n  _Haverford, Pennsylvania,\n  New Year_ 1906.\n\n\n\n\nThe Historical and the Inward Christ\n\n\n  \u201cAll who since Jesus have come into union with God have come into\n  union with God _through Him_. And thus it is confirmed in every way\n  that, even to the end of time, all wise and intelligent men must\n  bow themselves reverently before this Jesus of Nazareth; and that\n  the more wise, intelligent and noble they themselves are, the more\n  humbly will they recognize the exceeding nobleness of this great and\n  glorious manifestation of the Divine Life.\u201d\n\n                       _Fichte\u2019s \u201cWay Toward the Blessed Life,\u201d p. 391._\n\n  \u201cChrist is the Eternal Humanity in the life of the Infinite.\u201d\n\n                     _George A. Gordon\u2019s \u201cThe Christ of Today,\u201d p. 136._\n\n  \u201cThe word of God is continually born anew in the hearts of holy men.\u201d\n\n                                      _Epistle to Diognetus, A. D. 125._\n\n\n\n\nTHE HISTORICAL AND THE INWARD CHRIST.\n\n\nThere was once a widespread fear that exact methods of historical\nresearch would deprive us of that luminous divine Figure toward whom\nthe world had reverently turned its face for more than eighteen\ncenturies. Some suspected that our records of His life were crowded\nwith myth and legend, others believed that the singular story which\nhad so profoundly touched the world\u2019s heart was the creation of highly\nwrought enthusiastic disciples. To-day, after more than half a century\nof critical sifting and acute probing, this luminous Life is more\nfirmly established as the central fact of history than ever before.\n\n  \u201cThat one Face, far from vanish, rather grows\n  Or decomposes but to recompose\n  Becomes my universe which loves and knows.\u201d\n\nIt is not my purpose at present to retell the story, or to point out\nhow much criticism has left unshaken. I want rather to show how the\nhistorical Christ, as a revelation of God, fits into a cosmic system of\nevolution and how He is related to the Spirit that witnesses with our\nspirits and is the inward life of the Saints of all ages and lands.\n\nI shall not use the language or the methods of theology. I shall feel\nmy way along the great arteries of human experience and try to throw\nlight and suggestion rather than to establish some final and complete\ndogma. To begin at once with the problem before us, how shall we think\nof Christ? Was He man? Was He God? Was He some miraculous union of two\nessentially unrelated natures? Here are the questions which have split\nthe Christian world up into camps and which have busied schoolmen in\nall the centuries.\n\nThe difficulty in almost all the theological discussions on the\nsubject has been that they started with God and man isolated,\nseparated, unrelated. No true revelation of such a God ever could be\nmade through a human life, for divinity and humanity on this theory\nare conceived as two totally diverse natures. Modern psychology and\nrecent studies of social life have made us familiar with a deeper\nview of human personality and have prepared for a more adequate study\nof Divine personality than was possible when the historic creeds were\nformulated. We know that God and man are _conjunct_ and that neither\ncan be separated absolutely from the other. There never has been any\ndoubt of man\u2019s need of God, but we now know that God also needs us and\nthat our lives are mutually organic. Every clew which leads us to God\nshows Him to us as a spiritual and social Being--in no sense solitary\nand self-sufficient. Our own self-consciousness, our own ideals, our\npassion for the unrealized, imply and involve more than an impersonal\nenergy at the heart of things. There must be a spiritual matrix for\nthis living, throbbing, growing social organism in which personal\nlife is formed. Our own experience carries in itself the implication\nof a genuinely spiritual Person at the heart of the universe of whom\nwe all partake. The spiritual history of the race has forever settled\nthis elemental fact, at least for all who feel the full significance of\nlife. It is not an assumption, it is not a mere belief--it is involved\nin all we feel and know and are. But a spiritual, personal Being must\nreveal Himself. An unmanifested God--unknown and unknowable--is no God\nat all. He would be abstract and unreal. The least human person who\npoured his life out into those about him--who loved and suffered for\nthe sake of another--would be a higher being than an infinite God shut\nup in the closed circle of His own self life. It is a law as old as\nthe morning star that one must lose himself to find himself, must give\nto get, must go forth bearing precious seed in order to come again with\nsheaves of harvest. The moment it is settled that there is a divine\nPerson as the ultimate reality of the universe, it is also settled\nthat He will reveal Himself, that He will put His Life into manifold\nmanifestations and that He will find His joy in \u201cworking all things up\nto better,\u201d to use Clement\u2019s phrase.\n\nSo long as the processes of evolution were confined to the plant\nand brute there could be no revelation of anything but force; or at\nmost there could be only dawnings of anything higher. The forms of\nlife which won in the struggle and survived were manifestations of\npower--they hardly implied anything more. The tough spine and the\nstrong jaw and the sharp claw were all that mattered. Everything that\nappeared was pushed into existence by a force from behind. There was no\nsign or hint of freedom, or of life formed under the sway of a vision\nor an ideal. Things moved \u201cfor a million aeons through the vast, waste\ndawn\u201d toward a goal, but the goal was never in sight and it played no\npart in the process.\n\nJohn Fiske has, somewhere, denied the truth of the proverb that \u201cnature\nabhors leaps,\u201d and he has given a beautiful illustration from the\ncutting of a cone. If you pass a plane parallel to the base of a cone\nyou cut a circle. If you tilt the plane slightly the curve becomes an\nellipse. The ellipse grows more eccentric as the tilting increases and\nfinally without any warning your plane cuts a parabola whose sides\ncurve off into infinity and never touch ends again. Some such mighty\nleap appears in the process of evolution. Up to a certain point life\nevolved by forces working _a tergo_.[2] There is a slight tilt in the\nsystem and a being appears capable of selecting a goal for himself and\nof acting to attain it, a being who could live in some degree for a\nworld as it ought to be.[3]\n\nThis is what in America we call \u201cthe great divide\u201d--the watershed which\ndetermines the streams of a continent. As soon as there was a being\nwho could select ideals and live for conscious ends a new kind of\nevolution began. The other side of \u201cthe divide,\u201d evolution had been\nphysical,--body, and body function had been the goal. This side \u201cthe\ndivide,\u201d it was spiritual and social, and the goal was the evolution of\nthe man within man. The things which mattered now were love, sacrifice,\nservice, goodwill rather than \u201ctooth and claw.\u201d Before, nature\u2019s goal\nhad been along the line of least resistance. Now, the line of march set\nstraight against instinct and along the line of greatest resistance.\nThere could be advance on this side \u201cthe divide,\u201d only as the ideal\nbecame clearer and its sway more coercive.\n\nEver since man was man he has transcended the actual and lived by\nvision, which means, I think, that finite and infinite are not sundered\nand that we always partake of more than just ourselves. Beyond the edge\nof what we are there is always dawning a farther possibility--that\nwhich we ought to be--the _a fronte_ compulsion.[4] This is one of\nGod\u2019s ways of revealing Himself. It is a man\u2019s chief glory--the glory\nof the imperfect.\n\n  \u201cGrowth came when, looking your last on them all\n  You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day\n  And cried with a start--what if we so small\n  Be greater and grander the while than they?\n  Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?\n  In both, of such lower types are we\n  Precisely because of our wider nature;\n  For time, theirs--ours, for eternity.\n  Today\u2019s brief passion limits their range;\n  It seethes with the morrow for us and more.\n  They are perfect--how else? They shall never change.\n  We are faulty--why not? We have time in store.\u201d[5]\n\nThis slow unveiling of the ideal, of the goal, is, I believe, the\ndivine method of making man, and it makes us feel at once how nearer\nthan near God is and how all the way on and up He is in the very tissue\nand fabric of our lives--no foreign creator who moulded us out of clay\nand left us to run, or to run down, like a clock.\n\nFor centuries man won his slender spiritual victories, cultivated his\nrugged virtues, sloughed off some marks of ape and tiger and formed\nhabits of altruism under the influence of ideals which the highest\npersonal types of the race revealed. These types of men were focus\npoints, manifesting in some feeble measure the ultimate reality and\ncasting out hints of the line of march. Sometimes they were conscious\nthat they were organs of a larger Life which used them, sometimes they\nwere girded, like Cyrus, for a divine mission, though they knew not\nHim whom they served. Thus the unbroken revelation of the infinite was\nslowly made, as the age could bear it--\u201cGod spake at sundry times and\nin divers manners.\u201d\n\nStrangely enough the loftiest men of the pre-Christian period were\nalways vaguely or dimly forecasting a diviner life than any ordinary\ntype of man revealed. The human heart was always groping for an\nunveiling of God which would set the race to living on a new level.\nThis longing rose among the Hebrews to a steady passion which burned\nbrighter as the clouds in their national sky grew blacker. There was\na Christ ideal centuries before Christ actually came in the flesh,\nthough this ideal was always deeply tinged and colored by the age which\ngave it birth. But even so, it lighted the sky of the future and gave\nmany a man heart and hope through long periods of dreary pessimism.\nWhen lo, a tilting of the plane, and the ellipse becomes a parabola\nwith infinite stretch of curve!\n\n\u201cIn fullness of time God sent forth His Son.\u201d How shall we think\nof Jesus that is called the Christ? Speaking first in the terms of\nevolution, _I_ think of Him as the type and goal of the race--the\nnew Adam, the spiritual norm and pattern, the Son of Man who is a\nrevelation of what man at his height and full stature is meant to\nbe; and this is the way Paul thought of Him: \u201cTill _we all_ come in\nthe unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto\na perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of\nChrist.\u201d Eph. IV, 13. \u201cWhom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be\nconformed to the image of his Son that _He_ might be the first born\namong many brethren.\u201d Rom. VIII, 29. \u201cThe expectation of the whole\ncreation is waiting for the manifestation of sons of God.\u201d Rom. VIII,\n19.\n\nThe actual fact is that this Life has, profoundly or remotely, touched\nevery personal life in Europe for a thousand years and has been the\ngoal and standard for all aspiring souls. He is the pattern in the\nmount, the _a fronte_ force which has drawn the individual and the race\nsteadily up to their higher destiny. On the spiritual side of \u201cthe\ngreat divide\u201d the goal is in sight and the goal is an efficient factor\nin the process of the evolution of the man within man.\n\nBut this pattern-aspect of the Christ life is only one aspect, and we\nmust not raise it out of due balance and perspective. _Christ is God\nhumanly revealed._ As soon as we realize that personality is always\na revelation of the ultimate reality of the universe there are no\nmetaphysical difficulties in the way of an actual incarnation of God.\nIt is rather what one would expect. There is no other conceivable way\nin which God could be revealed to man. If He is a personal being; if\nHe is love and tenderness and sympathy, and not mere force, only a\nPerson can show Him. And if we are not kindred in nature, if we have\nnot something in common, in a word if we are not _conjunct_, then it\nis hard to see how any revelation of Him could be made which would mean\nanything to us. But if we are _conjunct_, as our own self-consciousness\nimplies, then an incarnation, a complete manifestation in Personality,\nor as Paul puts it, \u201cin the face of Jesus Christ,\u201d is merely the crown\nand pinnacle of the whole divine process.\n\nIf we are wise we shall not bother ourselves too much over the\nmetaphysical puzzles which the schoolmen have formulated. We no longer\nhave the puzzle which was so urgent with them, how two natures,\npole-wide apart, could be united in one Person, for we now know that\ndivinity and humanity are not pole-wide apart. There is something human\nin God and something divine in man and they belong together.\n\nWe shall not, again, be over-anxious about the question of nativity.\nNote the grandeur and the simplicity of Paul\u2019s text about it: \u201cGod sent\nforth His Son born of a woman,\u201d and there he stops with no attempt\nto furnish details. John is equally lofty: \u201cThe Word became flesh\nand dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.\u201d There is no appeal to\ncuriosity. There is no syllable about the _how_. Two synoptic gospels\nhave given us a simple story of the nativity which has profoundly\nimpressed men in all ages and which will always appeal to the deepest\ninstincts in us. But the _method_ of Christ\u2019s coming, embodied in these\ntwo accounts, must not be forced. The devout soul must be free, as both\nPaul and John were free, to leave the _how_ wrapped in mystery. That\nHe came out of our humanity we shall always believe. That He came\ndown out of the highest divinity we shall equally believe. That He was\na babe and increased in wisdom, that He learned as He grew, that He\nwas tempted and learned through temptation, are all necessary steps,\nfor there is no other path to spiritual Personality and He must have\nbeen \u201cmade perfect through sufferings,\u201d or He could not have been the\nCaptain of salvation.\n\nSpeculations and dogmas have taken men\u2019s thoughts away from verifiable\nfacts. Here was a life which settled forever that the ultimate reality\nis Love. He brought into focus, or rather He wove into the living\ntissue of a personal life, the qualities of character which belong to\nan infinitely good being and with quiet simplicity He said, \u201cIf you\nsee me you see the Father.\u201d\n\nI have spoken, perhaps, as though the revelation of the human goal,\nand the unveiling of the divine Character were two different things.\nChrist does both, but both are one. If you bring a diamond into the\nlight you occasion a double revelation. There is a revelation of the\nglorious beauty of the jewel. While it lay in the dark you never\nknew its possibilities. It was easily mistaken for a piece of glass.\nNow it flashes and burns and reveals itself because it has found the\nelement for which it was meant. But there is also at the same time a\nrevelation of the mystery of light. You discover now new wonders and\nnew glories in light itself. Most objects absorb part of its rays and\nimperfectly transmit it to the eye. Here is an object which tells you\nits real nature. Now you see it as it is. So Christ shows us at once\nman and God. In a definite historic setting and in the limitations of\na concrete personal life, Christ has unveiled the divine nature and\ntaught us to say \u201cFather\u201d and He has, in doing that, showed us the goal\nand type of human life. The Son of God and the Son of Man is one person.\n\nNow comes our second question how shall we think of the inward, the\nspiritual, the eternal Christ? The first interpreters, notably Paul and\nJohn, early in their experience, came to think of Christ as a cosmic\nBeing. They read the universe in the light of His revelation and soon\nused His name to name the entire manifestation of God: \u201cIn Him,\u201d says\nPaul, \u201call things consist.\u201d \u201cAll things were made by Him,\u201d says John,\n\u201cand without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life\nand the life was the light of men.\u201d John 1, 2, 3. It was through Him\nthat they first learned that God is Spirit, it was through Him that\ntheir own spiritual life was heightened and that they became conscious\nof a Spirit surging into their own souls and they connected this whole\nwider manifestation of God with Him. They were right too in doing\nso. Christ\u2019s revelation of God had produced such spiritual effects\nupon them that they could now find Him within themselves, for God\u2019s\nspiritual presence in us is always proportioned to our capacity to have\nHim there. And then, too, they were now for the first time able to\ninterpret that which they felt within themselves. If they found God,\nit was because they had found Christ.\n\nBut they were right in a deeper sense. If we think of the historical\nChrist, as I have tried to set forth, as the manifestation of the\nDivine and the human in a single personal Life then wherever man\nfinds God humanly revealed he properly names the revelation with the\nhistoric name. The historic incarnation was no final event. It was\nthe supreme instance of God and man in a single life--the _type_ of\ncontinuous Divine-human fellowship. God\u2019s human revelation of Himself\nis not limited to a single date. As Athanasius so boldly said: He\nbecame man that we might become divine. Christ is the prophesy of _a\nnew humanity_--a humanity penetrated with the life and power of God\nand this continued personal manifestation of God through men is Christ\ninwardly and spiritually revealed.\n\nIt is a primary truth of Christianity that God reaches man directly. No\nperson is insulated. As ocean floods the inlets, as sunlight environs\nthe plant, so God enfolds and enwreathes the finite spirit. There is\nthis difference, however, inlet and plant are penetrated whether they\nwill or not. Sea and sunshine crowd themselves in _a tergo_. Not so\nwith God. He can be received only through appreciation and conscious\nappropriation. He comes only through doors that are _purposely_ opened\nfor Him. A man may live as near God as the bubble is to the ocean and\nyet not find Him. He may be \u201ccloser than breathing, nearer than hands\nor feet,\u201d and still be missed. Historical Christianity is dry and\nformal when it lacks the immediate and inward response to our Great\nCompanion; but our spirits are trained to know Him, to appreciate\nHim, by the mediation of historical revelation. A person\u2019s spiritual\nlife is always dwarfed when cut apart from history. Mysticism is\nempty unless it is enriched by outward and historical revelation. The\nsupreme education of the soul comes through an intimate acquaintance\nwith Jesus Christ of history. One who wished to feel the power of\nbeauty would go to some supreme master of color and form who could\nexhibit them on canvas and not merely lecture about them. One who\ndesired to feel the power of harmony would go, not to the boy with\nhis harmonica, but to the Beethovens or Mozarts of the race who have\nrevealed what an instrument and a human hand can do. So he who wishes\nto realize and practice the presence of God must inform himself at the\nsource and fount, must come face to face with Him who was the highest\nhuman revelation of God. No one of us can interpret his own longings\nor purposes until he reads them off in the light of some loftier\ntype of personality. That person understands himself best who grows\nintimate in fellowship with some noble character. And any man who\nwishes to discover the meaning of the inward voice and to interpret the\ndivine breathings which come to human souls needs to be informed and\nilluminated by the supreme revelation of the ages.\n\nWith perfect fitness, then, we speak of the inward Presence as the\nspiritual Christ. It is the continuation of the same revelation which\nwas made under the \u201cSyrian blue.\u201d\n\nThe procession of the Holy Ghost is a continuous revelation and\nexhibition of Christ within men. Whether we use the expression Holy\nSpirit or Christ within or spiritual Christ, we mean God _operating\nupon human spirits and consciously witnessed and appreciated in them_.\n\u201cThe Lord is the Spirit,\u201d cries Paul when, with unveiled face, he\ndiscovers that he is being transformed into His image from glory to\nglory. \u201cJoined to the Lord in one Spirit,\u201d is another testimony of the\nsame sort.\n\nUnfortunately the doctrine of the Christ within--\u201cthe real\npresence\u201d--has generally been held vaguely, and it has easily run\ninto error and even fanaticism. The most common error has come from\nthe prevalent view that when the Spirit--the inward Christ--comes in,\nthe man goes out. It has been supposed that the finite is suppressed\nand the infinite supplants it and operates instead of it. This view\nis not only contrary to Scripture, but also contrary to psychological\npossibility. What really happens is that the human spirit through\nits awakened appreciation appropriates into its own life the divine\nLife which was always near and was always meant for it. The true\nview has been well put by August Sabatier[6]: \u201cIt is not enough to\nrepresent the Spirit of God as coming to the help of man\u2019s spirit,\nsupplying strength which he lacks, an associate or juxtaposed force,\na supernatural auxiliary. Paul\u2019s thought has no room for such a moral\nand psychological dualism, although popular language easily permits it.\nHis thought is quite otherwise profound. There is no simple addition\nof divine power and human power in the Christian life. The Spirit\nof God identifies itself with the human me into which it enters and\n_whose life it becomes_. If we may so speak, it is individualized in\nthe new moral personality which it creates. A sort of metamorphosis,\na transubstantiation, if the word may be permitted, takes place in\nthe human being. Having been carnal it has become spiritual. A \u2018new\nman\u2019 arises from the old man by the creative act of the spirit of God.\nPaul calls Christians [Greek: pneumatikoi], properly speaking, \u2018the\ninspired.\u2019 They are moved and guided by the Spirit of God. The spirit\ndwells in them as an immanent virtue, whose fruits are organically\ndeveloped as those of the flesh. Supernatural gifts become natural, or\nrather, at this mystical height, the antithesis created by scholastic\nrationalism becomes meaningless and is obliterated.\u201d That is precisely\nmy view and if I had not found it here so well said I should have put\nthe same idea into my own words. There are no known limits to the\npossible translation of the Spirit of God--the Eternal Christ--into\nhuman personality. There are all degrees and varieties of it as there\nare all degrees and varieties of physical life. One stands looking at\na century-old oak tree and he wonders how this marvelous thing ever\nrose out of the dead earth where its roots are. As a matter of fact it\ndid not. A tree is largely transformed sunlight. There is from first to\nlast an earth element to be sure, but the tree is forever drawing upon\nthe streams of sunlight which flood it and it builds the intangible\nlight energy into leaf and blossom and fibre until there stands the\nold monarch, actually living on sunshine! But the little daisy at its\nfeet, modest and delicate, is equally consolidated sunshine, though it\npushes its face hardly six inches from the soil in which it was born.\nSo one spirit differs from another spirit in glory. Some have but\nfeebly drawn upon the Spiritual Light out of which strong lives are\nbuilded, others have raised the unveiled face to the supreme Light and\nhave translated it into a life of spiritual beauty and moral fibre.\nThus the revelation of God in the flesh goes on from age to age. The\nChrist-life propagates itself like all life-types--the last Adam proves\nto be a life-giving spirit. He is the first born among many brethren.\nThe actual re-creation, the genuine identification of self with Christ\nmay go on until a man may even say--\u201cChrist lives in me;\u201d \u201cI bear in my\nbody the marks of the Lord Jesus;\u201d \u201cIt has pleased God to reveal His\nSon in me.\u201d\n\n  \u201cSee if, for every finger of thy hands,\n  There be not found, that day the world shall end\n  Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ\u2019s word,\n  That He will grow incorporate with all,\n  With me as Pamphylax, with him as John,\n  Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?\n  Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do.\n  Call Christ, then, the illimitable God.\u201d\n  I DO.\n\n\n\n\nThe Atonement\n\n\n\u201cMerely to repeat His words is not to continue His work; we must\nreproduce His life, passion and death. He desires to live again in\neach one of His disciples in order that He may continue to suffer, to\nbestow Himself, and to labor in and through them towards the redemption\nof humanity, until all prodigal and lost children be found and brought\nback to their Father\u2019s house. Thus it is that, instead of being removed\nfar from human history, the life and death of Christ once more take\ntheir place in history, setting forth the law that governs it, and, by\nceaselessly increasing the power of redemptive sacrifice, transform and\ngovern it, and direct it towards its divine end.\u201d\n\n                            _Auguste Sabatier, \u201cThe Atonement,\u201d p. 134._\n\n\n\n\nTHE ATONEMENT.\n\n\nIt is a bold and hazardous task to say anything on this subject and\nI must tread with bare, hushed feet, for it is a holy realm which we\nare essaying to enter. It must be understood from the first that I am\nnot going to thresh over a heap of theological straw. I am not going\ninto that realm of abstract metaphysics where one can always prove\nany thesis one may happen to assume at the start. I shall keep close\nto human experience. The pillars of our faith must be planted, not on\nsome artificial construction of logic, but deep down in the actual\nexperience of Life. There are external principles of the spiritual\nLife which are as irresistible and compelling as the laws of physics\nor the propositions of Euclid. The task of the religious teacher is to\ndiscover and proclaim these elemental truths, but we always find it so\nmuch easier to fall back on dogma and theories which have been spun out\nof men\u2019s heads! In the Gospels and in Paul\u2019s letters the laboratory\nmethod prevails--the writers ground their assertions on experienced\nfacts, they tell what they have found and verified, and they always ask\ntheir readers to put their truths to the test of a personal experience\nlike their own. Our modern method must be a return to this inward\nlaboratory method.\n\nNo one can carefully study the theories of the atonement which\nhave prevailed at the various epochs of Christian history without\ndiscovering that there has been in them a very large mixture of\npaganism. They have been deeply colored by mythology and by the crude\nideas of primitive sacrifice. They start, not with the idea of God\nwhich Christ has revealed, but with a capricious sovereign, angry at\nsorely tempted, sinning man, and forgiving only after a sacrifice has\nsatisfied Him. They treat sin not as a fact of experience, but as the\nresult of an ancestral fall, which piled up an infinite debt against\nthe race. They all move in the realm of law rather than in the domain\nof personality. They are all, more or less, vitiated by abstract and\nmathematical reasoning, while sin and salvation are always affairs of\nthe inward life, and are of all things personal and concrete. The first\nstep to a coercive conception of the atonement is to get out of the\nrealm of legal phrases into the region of personality.\n\nSin is no abstract dogma. It is not a debt which somebody can pay\nand so wash off the slate. Sin is a fact within our lives. It is a\ncondition of heart and will. There is no sin apart from a sinner.\nWherever sin exists there is a conscious deviation from a standard--a\nsag of the nature, and it produces an effect upon the entire\npersonality. The person who sins disobeys a sense of right. He falls\nbelow his vision of the good. He sees a path, but he does not walk in\nit. He hears a voice, but he says \u201cno\u201d instead of \u201cyes.\u201d He is aware of\na higher self which makes its appeal, but he lets the lower have the\nreins. There is no description of sin anywhere to compare with the\npowerful narrative out of the actual life of the Apostle Paul, found in\nRomans VII: 9-25. The thing which moves us as we read it is the picture\nhere drawn of our own state. A lower nature dominates us and spoils our\nlife. \u201cWhat I would I do not; what I would not that I do.\u201d\n\nThe most solemn fact of sin is its accumulation of consequences in the\nlife of the person. Each sin tends to produce a _set_ of the nature. It\nweaves a mesh of habit. It makes toward a dominion, or as Paul calls\nit, a _law of sin_ in the man--\u201cWretched Man,\u201d who sees a shining\npossible life, but stays below, chained to a body of sin. Sin, real\nsin, and not the fictitious abstraction which figures in theories, is\na condition of personal will and action much more than a debt to be\npaid or forgiven. The problem is far deeper. The only possible remedy\nhere is to get a new man, a transformation of personality. Relief\nfrom _penalty_ will not stead. Forgiveness is not enough. Relief\nfrom _penalty_, forgiveness alone, might spoil us, and make us think\ntoo lightly of our own sin. No, it is not a judicial relief which\nour panting, sin-defeated hearts cry out for. We want more than the\nknowledge that the past is covered and will not count on the books\nagainst us. We want blackness replaced by whiteness, we want weakness\nreplaced by power, we want to experience a new set of our innermost\nnature which will make us more than conquerors. We seek deliverance not\nfrom penalty and debt--but deliverance from the life of sin into a\nlife of holy will.\n\nThere is still another aspect to sin which must be considered before\nwe can fully appreciate the way of salvation which the Gospel reveals.\nSin not only spoils the sinner\u2019s life and drags him into slavery. It\nseparates him from God. It opens a chasm between him and his heavenly\nFather, or to vary the figure it casts a shadow on God\u2019s face. God\nseems far away and stern. The sense of warmth and tenderness vanishes.\nThe sinner can see God only through the veil of his sins. This is a\nuniversal experience. The same thing happens in our relations with\nmen. As soon as we have injured a person, treated him unfairly, played\nhim false, a chasm opens between our life and his. We transfer our\nchanged attitude to him. We dislike to meet him. We have no comfort in\nhis presence. We interpret all his actions through the shadow which\nour deed has created. Our sense of wrong-doing makes us afraid of the\nperson wronged.\n\nThe conduct of little children offers a good illustration of this\nsubjective effect of sin, because in them one catches the attitude at\nits primitive stage before reflection colors it. Some little child has\ndisobeyed his father and discovers, perhaps for the first time, that\nhe has \u201csomething inside which he cannot do what he wants to with,\u201d as\na little boy said. When he begins to think of meeting his father he\ngrows uncomfortable. It is not punishment he is afraid of, he has no\nanticipation of that. He is conscious of wrong doing and it has made\na chasm between himself and his father. He reads his father\u2019s attitude\nnow in the shadow of his deed. He has no joy or confidence in meeting\nhim. Something strange has come between them.\n\nWhat does the little fellow do? He instinctively feels the need of some\nsacrifice. He must soften his father by giving him something. He breaks\nopen his bank and brings his father his pennies, or he brings in his\nhand the most precious plaything he owns, and acts out his troubled\ninward condition. He wants the gap closed and he feels that it will\ncost something to get it closed.[7] That is human nature. That feeling\nis deep-rooted in man wherever he is found. He is conscious that sin\nseparates and he feels that something costly and precious is required\nto close the chasm. Sacrifice is one of the deepest and most permanent\nfacts of the budding spiritual life. Its origin is far back in history.\nThe tattered papyrus, the fragment of baked clay, the pictorial\ninscription of the most primitive sort, all bear witness to this\nimmemorial custom. It is as old as smiling or weeping, as hard to trace\nto a beginning as loving or hating. It is bound up with man\u2019s sense of\nguilt, and was born when conscience was born. Dark and fantastic are\nmany of the chapters of the long story of man\u2019s efforts to square the\naccount. Priests have seized upon this instinctive tendency and have\ntwisted it into abnormal shapes, but they did not create it--it is\nelemental. The idea of an angry God who must be appeased and satisfied\nwas born with this consciousness of guilt, it is a natural product of\nthe shadow of human sin.[8] The historic theories of the atonement,\ninherited from the Roman church, were all formulated under the sway of\nthis idea.\n\nThe two fundamental aspects of sin, then, are (1) its inward moral\neffect upon the soul, its enslaving power over the sinner, and (2)\nits tendency to open a chasm between God and man, to make God appear\nfull of wrath. How does Christ meet this human situation? What is the\nheart of the Gospel? First of all, Christ reverses the entire pagan\nattitude. He reveals God as a Father whose very inherent nature is\nlove and tenderness and forgiveness. In place of a sovereign demanding\njustice, He shows an infinite Lover. We must either give up the parable\nof the Prodigal Son, or accept this view of God. But this parable fits\nthe entire Gospel. John was only uttering what Jesus Christ taught by\nevery act of His life and what He exhibited supremely on His cross,\nwhen He said \u201cGod is Love.\u201d To surrender this truth, and to start with\nthe assumption of a God who must be appeased, or reconciled or changed\nin attitude is to surrender the heart of the Gospel, and to weave the\nshining threads of our message of salvation in with the black threads\nof a pagan warp. He who came to show us the Father, has unmistakably\nshowed Him full of love, not only for the saint, for the actual son;\nbut also for the sinner, the potential son. Either God _is_ Love, or we\nmust conclude that Christ has not revealed Him as He is.\n\nBut the great difficulty is that so many fail to see what Divine Love\nand human sin involve when they come together. It has superficially\nbeen assumed that if God is a loving Father He will lightly overlook\nsin and cannot be hard upon the sinner. They catch at a soft view of\nsin and patch up a rose water theory of its cure. This soft view has\nappealed to those who like an easy religion, and it has often driven\nthe evangelical Christian to an opposite extreme, which finds no\nsupport in the Gospel. To arrive at a deeper view we must go back to\nChrist and go down into the deeps of love as we know it in actual human\nlife.\n\nTrue love is never weak and thin, and unconcerned about the character\nof the beloved. The father does not \u201clay aside\u201d his love when he\npunishes his erring boy, and keeps him impressed with the reality of\nmoral distinctions. It is the father\u2019s intense love which wields\nthe rod. All true corrections and chastisements flow out of love.\nEven Dante knew this, when he wrote on the door of Hell, \u201cLove was my\nmaker.\u201d It is an ignorant and mushy love that cannot rise above kisses\nand sugar plums, and it is extremely superficial to set up a schism\nbetween love and justice.\n\nBut that is not all. Love always involves vicarious suffering. Love\nis an organic principle. It carries with it the necessity of sharing\nlife with other persons, and in a world of imperfect persons, it means\nnot only sharing gains and triumphs, it means, too, sharing losses and\ndefeats. No man can sin in a sin-tight compartment. Suffer for his\nown sin the sinner assuredly will. But he does not stop there. Many\ninnocent persons will suffer for it, too. This is one of the tragic\naspects of life which has baffled many a lone sufferer like Job. Those\nwho are nearest and closest to the sufferer will suffer most, but his\nsin has endless possibilities of causing suffering upon persons far\nremote in time and space. That ancient figure of the ripples from the\nlittle pebble, which sends rings to the farthest shores of the sea,\nis not overdrawn. Not one of us can estimate the havoc of his sin, or\nforecast the trail of suffering which it will leave behind it. So long\nas life remains organic there will be vicarious suffering.\n\nBut that is only one side of life. Holiness also involves a like\nsuffering. There are no holiness-tight compartments. No man can be holy\nunto himself. Just as far as he has any rag of holiness he must share\nit--he must feel himself a debtor to others who lack--he must take up\nthe task of making others holy. _That costs something._\n\nYou cannot command or compel people into holiness, you cannot increase\ntheir spiritual stature one cubit by any kind of force or compulsion.\nYou can do it only by sharing your life with them, by making them feel\nyour goodness, by your love and sacrifice for them. When a martyr\ndies for some truth, men suddenly discover for the first time how\nmuch it is worth and they eagerly pursue it over all obstacles. In\nspiritual things we always make our appeal to the _cost_ of the truth\nor the principle. Think of the blood which has been shed for freedom\nof conscience! Remember what a price has been paid in blood for the\nprinciple of democracy! Thus we speak of all the privileges of life.\nThey are ours because somebody has felt that they were worth the cost,\nbecause somebody has died that we might freely have them. It is the\ntragedy of human life that we must suffer through the sin of others,\nand we must suffer also if we would carry goodness or holiness into\nother lives. Every bit of goodness which ever prevails anywhere in this\nworld has cost somebody something.\n\nThis principle of vicarious suffering is no late arrival; it appears\nat every scale of life, heightening as we go up--becoming less blind\nand more voluntary. It was a central truth of Christ\u2019s revelation that\nthis principle does not stop with man; it goes on up to the top of the\nspiritual scale. It finds its complete and final expression in God\nHimself. God\u2019s life and our lives are bound together, as a vine with\nbranches, as a body with members. _So corporate_ are we that no one\ncan give a cup of cold water to the least person in the world without\ngiving it to Him! But He is perfect and we are imperfect, He is holy\nand we sin. If the wayward boy, who wastes his life, pains the heart\nof his mother whose life is wrapped up in him, can we fling our lives\naway and not make our Heavenly Father suffer? The cross is the answer.\nHe has undertaken to make Sons of God out of such creatures as we are,\nto take us out of the pit and the miry clay, to put spiritual songs in\nour mouths and write His own name on our foreheads, will that cost Him\nnothing? Again, the cross is the answer.\n\nHere we discover--it is the main miracle of the Gospel--that the\noriginal movement to bridge the chasm comes from the Divine side.\nWhat man hoped to do, but could not, with his bleating lamb and timid\ndove, God Himself has done. He has reached across the chasm, taking\non Himself the sacrifice and cost, to show the sinner that the only\nobstruction to peace and reconciliation is in the sinner himself. \u201cThis\nis love, not that we loved Him, but that He loved us,\u201d and this is\nsacrifice, not that we give our bulls and goats to please Him, but that\nHe gives Himself to draw us.\n\nBrowning puts it all in a line:\n\n  \u201cThou needs must love me who have died for thee.\u201d\n\nThis is the key to Paul\u2019s great message which won the Roman Empire.\nIt was not a new philosophy. It was the irresistible appeal to love,\nexhibited in Christ crucified. \u201cHe loved me and gave Himself for\nme;\u201d \u201cWe are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.\u201d \u201cI am\npersuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,\nnor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor\ndepth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from\nthe _love of God_, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.\u201d Sacrificing\nlove, the Divine Heart suffering over sin, God Himself taking up the\ninfinite burden and cost of raising men like us into sons of God like\nHimself; this is the revelation in the face of Jesus Christ. The heart\nthat can stand _that_ untouched can stand anything.\n\nThe power unto salvation, the dynamic of the Gospel is in the cross,\nwhich exhibits in temporal setting the eternal fact, that God suffers\nover sin, that He takes upon Himself the cost of winning sons to glory\nand that His love reaches out to the most sin-scarred wanderer, who\nclutches the swine husks in his lean hands.\n\nBut the appeal of love and sacrifice is not the whole of the truth\nwhich this word atonement covers. We have been seeing, in some feeble\nway, how God in Christ enters into human life, identifies Himself with\nus, and reveals the _energy of Grace_. But we cannot stop with \u201cwhat\nhas been done for us without us.\u201d Sin, as has been already said, is\nan affair of personal choice--it is a condition of inward life. It is\nnot an abstract entity, in a metaphysical realm. It is the attitude\nof heart and will in a living, throbbing person who cannot get free\nfrom the lower nature in himself. So too with Salvation. It cannot be\na _transaction_ in some realm foreign to the individual himself. It is\nnot a plan, or scheme. It is an actual deliverance, a new creation.\nIt is nothing short of a redeemed inward nature. Such a change cannot\nbe wrought without the man himself. It cannot come by _a tergo_\ncompulsion. It must be by a positive winning of the will. A dynamic\nfaith in the man must cooperate with that energy from God. Something\ncomes down from above, but something must also go up from below. Paul,\nwho has given the most vital interpretation of both sides of the truth\nof redemption--the objective and the subjective--that has ever been\nexpressed, uses the word \u201cfaith\u201d to name the human part of the process.\n\nFaith, in Paul\u2019s sense of it, means an identification of ourselves\nwith Christ, by which we re-live His life. As He identified Himself\nwith sinning humanity, so, by the attraction of his love, we identify\nourselves with His victorious Life. We go down into death with Him--a\ndeath to sin and the old self--and we rise with Him into newness of\nlife, to live henceforth unto Him who loved us.\n\nThere is no easy road out of a nature of sin into a holy nature. It\nis vain to try and patch up a scheme which will relieve us of our\nshare of the tragedy of sin--or to put it another way, the travail\nfor the birth of the sons of God. The Redeemer suffers, but He does\nnot suffer in our stead--He suffers in our behalf, [[Greek: hyper]\nnot [Greek: anti]]. He makes His appeal of love to us to share His\nlife as He shares ours. It is Paul\u2019s goal--a flying goal, surely--\u201cto\nknow Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His\nsufferings, being made conformable unto His death.\u201d The boldest word\nwhich comes from his pen was: \u201cI rejoice in my sufferings _on your\nbehalf_; and fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ\n_in my flesh_, for His body\u2019s sake, which is the Church.\u201d (Col. 1, 24.)\nIt is not repeating His words that saves us, it is reliving His life,\nco-dying, and co-rising with Him, and entering with a radiant joy,\ncaught from His face, into the common task of redeeming a world of sin\nto a kingdom of love and holiness.\n\nIn that great book of spiritual symbolism--the Book of\nRevelation--those who overcome are builded, as pillars, into the Temple\nof God, and He writes His new name upon them. The new name is Redeemer.\nThose who have come up through great tribulation and have washed their\nrobes in the blood of the Lamb are builded in as a permanent part of\nthe Temple, where God reveals Himself, and they share with Him in the\ngreat redeeming work of the ages.\n\nWhatever it has meant in the past, in the ages when the races were\nsloughing off their paganism, in the future the atonement must be\nvital and dynamic. It must be put in language which grips the heart,\nconvinces the mind, and carries the will. It will name for us the\nDivine-human travail for a redeemed humanity. It will cease to signify\na way by which God was appeased and it will come to express, as it\ndid in the apostolic days, the identification of God with us in the\nperson of Christ, and the identification, by the power of His love, of\nourselves with Him. We shall pass from the terms which were inherited\nfrom magic and ancient sacerdotal rites and we shall use instead the\nlanguage of our riper experience. We shall abandon illustrations\ndrawn from law courts and judicial decisions and we shall rise to\nconceptions which fit the actual facts of inward, personal experience\nwhere higher and lower natures contend for the mastery. The drama will\nnot be in some foreign realm, apart from human consciousness, it will\nrise in our thought into the supreme drama of history--the tragedy\nof the spiritual universe--the battle of holiness with sin--the blood\nand tears which tell the cost of sin and create in response a passion\nfor the Divine Lover who is our Father. It will stop at no fictitious\nrighteousness which is counted unto us, as though it were ours. We\nshall demand an actual redemption of the entire self which has become\nrighteous, because it lives, in Christ\u2019s power, the life which He lived.\n\nWe shall learn to tell the story in such a way that the cross will\nnot seem to be brought in, as an afterthought, to repair the damage\nwrought by an unforeseen catastrophe. It will stand as the consummation\nof an elemental spiritual movement and it will be organic with the\nentire process of the making of men. With charm and power, Ruskin has\ntold how the black dirt that soils the city pavement is composed of\nfour elements which make, when they follow the law of their nature,\nthe sapphire, the opal, the diamond and the dew drop. The glory and\nsplendor do not appear in the black dirt, but the possibilities are\nthere. When the law of the nature of these elements has full sweep\nthe glory comes out. Man was not meant for a sinner, and to live a\ndark, chaotic life. There are far other possibilities in him. He is a\npotential child of God. The full nature has broken forth in one life\nand men beheld its glory. \u201cTo as many as receive Him, to them gives\nHe power to become the sons of God.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nPrayer\n\n\n  By prayer, I do not mean any bodily exercise of the outward man; but\n  _the going forth of the spirit of Life towards the Fountain of Life,\n  for fullness and satisfaction: The natural tendency of the poor,\n  rent, derived spirit, towards the Fountain of Spirits_.\n\n                                                      _Isaac Penington._\n\n\n  \u201cI, that still pray at morning and at eve,\n  Loving those roots that feed us from the past,\n  And prizing more than Plato things I learned\n  At that best Academe, a mother\u2019s knee,\n  Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed,\n  Thrice, stirred below my conscious self, have felt\n  That perfect disenthralment which is God.\u201d\n\n                                                 _Lowell\u2019s \u201cCathedral.\u201d_\n\n  \u201cThe aim of prayer is to attain to the habit of goodness, so as no\n  longer merely to have the things that are good, but rather to be\n  good.\u201d\n\n                                                _Clement of Alexandria._\n\n\n\n\nPRAYER.\n\n\nWe come now to the human search for a divine fellowship and\ncompanionship. Its complete history would be the whole story of\nreligion. In this little book I shall speak only of certain definite\nhuman ways of seeking fellowship with God, namely, of prayer.\n\nPrayer is an extraordinary act. The eyes close, the face lights up,\nthe body is moved with feeling, and (it may be in the presence of\na multitude) the person praying talks in perfect confidence with\nsomebody, invisible and intangible, and who articulates no single word\nof response. It is astonishing. And yet it is a human custom as old as\nmarriage, as ancient as grave-making, older than any city on the globe.\nThere is no human activity which so stubbornly resists being reduced\nto a bread and butter basis. Men have tried to explain the origin of\nprayer by the straits of physical hunger, but it will no more fit into\nutilitarian systems than joy over beauty will. It is an elemental and\nunique attitude of the soul and it will not be \u201cexplained\u201d until we\nfathom the origin of the soul itself!\n\nBut is not the advance of science making prayer impossible? In\nunscientific ages the universe presented no rigid order. It was easy to\nbelieve that the ordinary course of material processes might be altered\nor reversed. The world was conceived as full of invisible beings who\ncould affect the course of events at will, while above all, there was\na Being who might interfere with things at any moment, in any way.\n\nOur world to-day is not so conceived. Our universe is organized and\nlinked. Every event is _caused_. Caprice is banished. There is no such\nthing in the physical world as an uncaused event. If we met a person\nwho told us that he had seen a train of cars drawn along with no\ncouplings and held together by the mutual affection of the passengers\nin the different cars we should know that he was an escaped lunatic\nand we should go on pinning our faith to couplings as before. Even the\nweather is no more capricious than the course of a planet in space.\nEvery change of wind and the course of every flying cloud is determined\nby previous conditions. Complex these combinations of circumstances\ncertainly are, but if the weather man could get data enough he could\nforetell the storm, the rain, the drought exactly as well as the\nastronomer can foretell the eclipse. There is no little demon, there\nis no tall, bright angel, who holds back the shower or who pushes the\ncloud before him; no being, good or bad, who will capriciously alter\nthe march of molecules because it suits our fancy to ask that the chain\nof causes be interrupted. What is true of the weather is true in every\nphysical realm. Our universe has no caprice in it. Every thing is\nlinked, and the forked lightning never consults our preferences, nor\ndo cyclones travel exclusively where bad men live. As of old the rain\nfalls on just and unjust alike, on saint and sinner. The knowledge of\nthis iron situation has had a desolating effect upon many minds. The\nheavens have become as brass and the earth bars of iron. To ask for the\ninterruption of the march of atoms seems to the scientific thinker the\nabsurdest of delusions and all fanes of prayer appear fruitless. Others\nresort to the faith that there are \u201cgaps\u201d in the causal system and that\nin these unorganized regions--the domains so far unexplored--there are\nrealms for miracle and divine wonder. The supernatural, on this theory\nis to be found out beyond the region of the \u201cnatural,\u201d and forcing\nitself through the \u201cgaps.\u201d Those of this faith are filled with dread\nas they see the so called \u201cgaps\u201d closing, somewhat as the pious Greek\ndreaded to see Olympus climbed.\n\nThere are still others who evade the difficulty by holding that God\nhas made the universe, is the Author of its \u201claws,\u201d is Omnipotent and\ntherefore can change them at Will, or can admit exceptions in their\noperation. This view is well illustrated in the faith of George M\u00fcller,\nwho writes: \u201cWhen I lose such a thing as a key, I ask the Lord to\ndirect me to it, and I look for an answer; when a person with whom I\nhave made an appointment does not come, according to the fixed time,\nand I begin to be inconvenienced by it, I ask the Lord to be pleased to\nhasten him to me, and I look for an answer; when I do not understand\na passage of the word of God, I lift up my heart to the Lord that He\nwould be pleased by His Holy Spirit to instruct me, and I expect to be\ntaught.\u201d\n\nThis view takes us back once more into a world of caprice. It\nintroduces a world in which almost anything may happen. We can no\nlonger calculate upon anything with assurance. Even our _speed_, as we\nwalk, is regulated by the capricious wish of our friends. But that is\nnot all, it is a low, crude view of God--a Being off above the world\nwho makes \u201claws\u201d like a modern legislator and again changes them to\nmeet a new situation, who is after all only a bigger man in the sky\nbusily moving and shifting the scenes of the time-drama as requests\nreach him.\n\nNone of these positions is tenable. The first is not, for prayer is a\nnecessity to full life, and the other two are not, because they do not\nfairly face the facts which are forced upon those who accept scientific\nmethods of search and of thought. This physical universe is a stubborn\naffair. It is not loose and adjustable, and worked, for our private\nconvenience, by wires or strings at a central station. It is a world\nof order, a realm of discipline. It is our business to discover a\npossible line of march in the world _as it is_, to find how to triumph\nover obstacles and difficulty, if we meet them--not to resort to \u201cshun\npikes\u201d or cries for \u201cexception in our particular case.\u201d\n\nThe real difficulty is that our generation has been conceiving of\nprayer on too low a plane. Faith is not endangered by the advance of\nscience. It is endangered by the stagnation of religious conceptions.\nIf religion halts at some primitive level and science marches on to\nnew conquests of course there will be difficulty. But let us not\nfetter science, let us rather _promote_ religion. We need to rise to a\ntruer view of God and to a loftier idea of prayer. It is another case\nof \u201cleveling up.\u201d On the higher religious plane no collision between\nprayer and science will be found. There will be no sealing of the lips\nin the presence of the discovery that all is law.\n\nThe prayer which science _has_ affected is the spurious kind of prayer,\nwhich can be reduced to a utilitarian, \u201cbread and butter,\u201d basis. Most\nenlightened persons now are shocked to hear \u201cpatriotic\u201d ministers\nasking God to direct the bullets of their country\u2019s army so as to kill\ntheir enemies in battle, and we all hesitate to use prayer for the\nattainment of low, selfish ends, but we need to cleanse our sight\nstill farther and rise above the conception of prayer as an easy means\nto a desired end.\n\nIt is a fact that there are _valid prayer effects_ and there is plenty\nof experimental evidence to prove the _energy of prayer_. It is\nliterally true that \u201cmore things are wrought by prayer than this world\ndreams of.\u201d There are no assignable bounds to the effects upon mind and\nbody of the prayer of living faith. Some of those particular cases of\nGeorge M\u00fcller\u2019s are quite within the range of experience. The prayer\nfor the lost key may well produce a heightened energy of consciousness\nwhich pushes open a door into a deeper stratum of memory, and the man\nrises from his knees and goes to the spot where the key was put. So\ntoo with the passage of Scripture. No doubt many a man has come back\nfrom his closet where the turmoil of life was hushed and where all\nthe inward currents set toward God, many of us I say, come back with\na new energy and with cleared vision and we can grasp what before\neluded us, we can see farther into the spiritual meaning of any of\nGod\u2019s revelations. There is perhaps never a sweep of the soul out into\nthe wider regions of the spiritual world which does not heighten the\npowers of the person who experiences it. Profound changes in physical\ncondition, almost as profound as the stigmata of St. Francis, have in\nour own times followed the prayer of faith and many of us in our daily\nproblems and perplexities have seen the light break through, as we\nprayed, and shine out, like a search light, on some plain path of duty\nor of service. There is unmistakable evidence of incoming energy from\nbeyond the margin of what we usually call \u201courselves.\u201d\n\nWe have not to do with a God who is \u201coff there\u201d above the sky, who\ncan deal with us only through \u201cthe violation of physical law.\u201d We\nhave instead a God \u201cin whom we live and move and are,\u201d whose Being\nopens into ours, and ours into His, who is the very Life of our lives,\nthe matrix of our personality; and there is no separation between us\nunless we make it ourselves. No man, scientist or layman, knows where\nthe curve is to be drawn about the personal \u201cself.\u201d No man can say\nwith authority that the circulation of Divine currents into the soul\u2019s\ninward life is impossible. On the contrary, Energy does come in. In\nour highest moments we find ourselves in contact with wider spiritual\nLife than belongs to our normal _me_.\n\nBut true prayer is something higher. It is immediate spiritual\nfellowship. Even if science could demonstrate that prayer could never\neffect any kind of utilitarian results, still prayer on its loftier\nside would remain untouched, and persons of spiritual reach would go\non praying as before. If we could say nothing more we could at least\naffirm that prayer, like faith, is itself the victory. The seeking is\nthe finding. The wrestling is the blessing. It is no more a means to\nsomething else than love is. It is an end in itself. It is its own\nexcuse for being. It is a kind of first fruit of the mystical nature of\npersonality. The edge of the self is always touching a circle of life\nbeyond itself to which it responds. The human heart is sensitive to God\nas the retina is to light waves. The soul possesses a native yearning\nfor intercourse and companionship which takes it to God as naturally\nas the home instinct of the pigeon takes it to the place of its birth.\nThere is in every normal soul a spontaneous outreach, a free play of\nspirit which gives it onward yearning of unstilled desire.\n\nIt is no mere subjective instinct--no blind outreach. If it met no\nresponse, no answer, it would soon be weeded out of the race. It would\nshrivel like the functionless organ. We could not long continue to pray\nin faith if we lost the assurance that there is a Person who cares,\nand who actually corresponds with us. Prayer has stood the test of\nexperience. In fact the very desire to pray is in itself prophetic of\na heavenly Friend. A subjective need always carries an implication of\nan objective stimulus which has provoked the need. There is no hunger,\nas Fiske has well shown, for anything not tasted, there is no search\nfor anything which is not in the environment, for the environment has\nalways produced the appetite. So this native need of the soul rose out\nof the divine origin of the soul, and it has steadily verified itself\nas a safe guide to reality.\n\nWhat is at first a vague life-activity and spontaneous outreach of\ninward energy--a feeling after companionship--remains in many persons\nvague to the end. But in others it frequently rises to a definite\nconsciousness of a personal Presence and there comes back into\nthe soul a compelling evidence of a real Other Self who meets all\nthe Soul\u2019s need. For such persons prayer is the way to fullness of\nlife. It is as natural as breathing. It is as normal an operation as\nappreciation of beauty, or the pursuit of truth. The soul is made\nthat way, and as long as men are made with mystical deeps within,\nunsatisfied with the finite and incomplete, they will pray and be\nrefreshed.\n\nVague and formless, in some degree, communion would always be, I think,\napart from the personal manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. As soon\nas God is known as Father, as soon as we turn to Him as identical in\nbeing with our own humanity, as suffering with us and loving us even\nin our imperfection, this communion grows defined and becomes _actual\nsocial fellowship_ which is prayer at its best. Paul\u2019s great prayers of\nfellowship rise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God\nwhom we know, because He has been humanly revealed in a way that fits\nour life. We turn to Him as the completeness and reality of all we want\nto be, the other Self whom we have always sought. The vague impulse to\nreach beyond our isolated and solitary self gives place to an actual\nexperience of relationship with a personal Friend and Companion and\nthis experience may become, and often does become, the loftiest and\nmost joyous activity of life. The soul is never at its best until it\nenjoys God, and prays out of sheer love. Nobody who has learned to\npray in this deeper way and whose prayer is a prayer of communion and\nfellowship, wants logical argument for the existence of God. Such a\nwant implies a fall from a higher to a lower level. It is like a demand\nfor a proof of the beauty one feels, or an evidence of love other than\nthe evidence of its experience.\n\nPrayer will always rise or fall with the quality of one\u2019s faith, like\nthe mercury in the tube which feels at once the change of pressure in\nthe atmosphere. It is only out of _live faith_ that a living prayer\nsprings. When a man\u2019s praying sinks into words, words, words, it means\nthat he is trying to get along with a dead conception of God. The\ncircuit no longer closes. He cannot heighten his prayer by raising his\nvoice. What he needs is a new revelation of the reality of God. He\nneeds to have the fresh sap of living faith in God push off the dead\nleaves of an outgrown belief, so that once more prayer shall break\nforth as naturally as buds in spring.\n\nThe conception of God as a lonely Sovereign, complete in Himself and\ninfinitely separated from us \u201cpoor worms of the dust,\u201d grasshoppers\nchirping our brief hour in the sun, is in the main a dead notion.\nPrayer to such a God would not be easy with our modern ideas of the\nuniverse. It would be as difficult to believe in its efficiency as it\nwould be to believe in the miracle of transubstantiation in bread and\nwine. But that whole conception is being supplanted by a _live faith_\nin an Infinite Person who is corporate with our lives, from whom we\nhave sprung, in whom we live, as far as we spiritually do live, who\nneeds us as we need him, and who is sharing with us the travail and\nthe tragedy as well as the glory and the joy of bringing forth sons of\nGod.\n\nIn such a kingdom--an organic fellowship of interrelated\npersons--prayer is as normal an activity as gravitation is in a world\nof matter. Personal spirits experience spiritual gravitation, soul\nreaches after soul, hearts draw toward each other. We are no longer\nin the net of blind fate, in the realm of impersonal force, we are in\na love-system where the aspiration of one member heightens the entire\ngroup, and the need of one--even the least--draws upon the resources of\nthe whole--even the Infinite. We are in actual Divine-human fellowship.\n\nThe only obstacle to effectual praying, in this world of spiritual\nfellowship, would be individual selfishness. To want to get just for\none\u2019s own self, to ask for something which brings loss and injury to\nothers, would be to sever one\u2019s self from the source of blessings, and\nto lose not only the thing sought but to lose, as well, one\u2019s very self.\n\nThis principle is true anywhere, even in ordinary human friendship.\nIt is true too, in art and in music. The artist may not force some\npersonal caprice into his creation. He must make himself the organ of a\nuniversal reality which is beautiful not simply for this man or that,\nbut for man as man. If there is, as I believe, an _inner kingdom of\nspirit_, a kingdom of love and fellowship, then it is a fact that a\ntiny being like one of us can impress and influence the Divine Heart,\nand we can make our personal contribution to the Will of the universe,\nbut we can do it only by wanting what everybody can share and by\nseeking blessings which have a universal implication.\n\nSo far as prayer is real fellowship, it gives as well as receives.\nThe person who wants to receive God must first bring himself. If He\nmisses us, we miss Him. He is Spirit, and consequently He is found only\nthrough true and genuine spiritual activity. In this correspondence of\nfellowship there is no more \u201cviolation of natural =law=\u201d than there\nis in love wherever it appears. Love is itself the principle of the\nspiritual universe, as gravitation is of the physical; and as in the\ngravitate system the earth rises to meet the ball of the child, without\n_breaking any law_, so God comes to meet and to heighten the life of\nanyone who stretches up toward Him in appreciation, and there is joy\nabove as well as below.\n\nAll that I have said, and much more, gets vivid illustration in the\n\u201cLord\u2019s prayer,\u201d which Christians have taken as a model form, though\nthey have not always penetrated its spirit. It is in every line a\nprayer of fellowship and co-operation. It is a perfect illustration\nof the social nature of prayer. The co-operation and fellowship are\nnot here confined, and they never are except in the lower stages, to\nthe inward communion of an individual and his God. There is no _I_ or\n_me_ or _mine_ in the whole prayer. The person who prays spiritually\nis enmeshed in a _living group_ and the reality of his vital union\nwith persons like himself clarifies his vision of that deeper Reality\nto whom he prays. Divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood are born\ntogether. To say Father to God involves saying \u201cbrother\u201d to one\u2019s\nfellows, and the ground swell of either relationship naturally carries\nthe other with it, for no one can largely realize the significance of\nbrotherly love without going to Him in whom love is completed.\n\n\u201cHallowed be thy name\u201d is often taken in a very feeble sense to\nmean \u201ckeep us from using thy name in vain,\u201d or it is thought of as\nsynonymous with the easy and meaningless platitude, \u201cLet thy name\nbe holy.\u201d It is in reality a heart-cry for a full appreciation of\nthe meaning of the Divine name, i. e., the Divine character. It is\nan uprising of the soul to an apprehension of the holiness of God\nand the fullness of His life that the soul may return to its tasks\nwith a sense of infinite resources and under the sway of a vision of\nthe true ideal. This Lord\u2019s prayer begins with a word of intimate\nrelationship and social union--\u201cOur Father.\u201d It then goes out beyond\nthe familiar boundaries of experience to feel the infinite sweep of\nGod\u2019s completeness and perfectness and to become penetrated with solemn\nawe and reverence which fit such companionship,--\u201cOur Father of the\nholy name.\u201d\n\nThis is the prelude. The true melody of prayer, if I may say so, begins\nwith the positive facing of the task of life:--\u201cThy kingdom come, Thy\nwill be done on earth as it is in heaven.\u201d Here again we have the\nloftiest Fellowship. The person who prays this way is linked with God\nin one mighty spiritual whole. The last vestige of atomic selfishness\nis washed out. There are those who say these words of prayer with\nfolded hands and closed eyes, and then expect the desired kingdom\nto come by miracle; they suppose that if the request is made often\nenough a millennium age will drop out of the skies. Ah, no! If God is\nSpirit and man is meant to be spiritual, such a millennium is a sheer\nimpossibility. This prayer involves the most strenuous life that ever\nwas lived. To pray seriously for the coming of the kingdom of heaven\nmeans to contribute to its coming. It _has_ come in any life which is\ncompletely under the sway of the holy Will and which is consecrated to\nthe task of making that holy Will prevail in society. It is no \u201cfar\noff Divine event.\u201d It is always coming.\n\n  \u201cFor an ye heard a music, like enow\n  They are building still, seeing the city is built\n  To music, therefore never built at all\n  And therefore built forever.\u201d\n\nIn a plain word, it is the total task of humanity through the ages. It\nis the embodiment in a temporal order of the eternal purpose. It is the\nweaving in concrete figure and color of the Divine pattern. It is the\nslow and somewhat painful work of making an actual Divine society out\nof this rather stubborn and unpromising potential material. But it is\nour main business, and this prayer is the girding of the loins for the\nsublime task of helping God make His world.\n\n  \u201cMan as yet is being made, and e\u2019er the crowning age of ages,\n  Shall not aeon after aeon pass and touch him into shape?\n  All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade,\n  Prophet eyes may catch a glory, slowly gaining on the shade,\n  Till the people all are one and all their voices blend in a choric\n  Hallelujah to the Maker, \u2018It is finished; man is made.\u2019\u201d\n\nFellow laborers with God in truth we are. Prayer ends in labor and\nlabor ends in prayer. But it is not a cry for miracle. It is an inward\neffort at co-operation.\n\nThere is a beautiful mingling of the great and the little, the cosmic\nand the personal. The universal sweep of Divine ends does not\nswallow up, or miss, the needs of the concrete individual. While the\nspiritual universe is building, men must have daily bread and they must\nconstantly face the actual present with its routine and monotony. Here\nagain prayer is no miraculous method of turning stones into bread.\nIt is no easy substitute for toil. It is the joyous insight that in\nthe avenues of daily toil, God and man are co-operating and that in\nvery truth the bread for the day is as much God given as it is won\nby the sweat of brow. The recently discovered \u201csaying of Jesus\u201d best\ninterprets this prayer. \u201cWherever any man raises a stone or splits\nwood, there am I.\u201d He consecrates honest toil.\n\nNext we come to the profound word which shows how completely our lives\nare bound together in organic union, above and below: \u201cForgive us as\nwe forgive.\u201d What a solemn thing to say. Dare we pray it! And yet few\nwords have ever so truly revealed the nature of prayer. It is, one\nsees, no easy, lazy way to blessings. Once more, it is co-operation.\nForgiveness is not a gift which can fall upon us from the skies, in\nreturn for a capricious request. The blessing depends on us as much as\nit does on God. A cold, hard, unforgiving heart can no more be forgiven\nthan a lazy, slipshod student can have knowledge given to him. Like all\nspiritual things, forgiveness can come only when there is a person who\nappreciates its worth and meaning. The deep cry for forgiveness must\nrise out of a forgiving spirit. It is always more than a transaction,\nan event. It is an inward condition of the personal life, and the soul\nthat feels what it means to love and forgive is so bound into the whole\ndivine order that love and forgiveness come in as naturally as light\ngoes through the open casement, or the tide into an inlet.\n\nThe next word is surely to be thought of as a human cry: \u201cTake us not\ninto testing.\u201d It is the natural shrinking of the tender, sensitive\nsoul, and it is the right attitude. Most of us know by hard experience\nthat trial, proving, testing, yes, even actual temptation, have a\nmarvelous ministry. No saint is made in the level plain, where the\nwaters are still and the pastures green.\n\n  \u201cNever on custom\u2019s oil\u00ebd grooves\n  The world to a higher level moves,\n  But grates and grinds with friction hard\n  On granite boulder and flinty shard.\n  The heart must bleed before it feels,\n  The pool be troubled before it heals.\u201d\n\nAll this we know. We know that the stem battle makes the veteran. But\nthis prayer is the childlike cry, the shrinking fear, which are always\nsafer than the bold dash, the impetuous plunge. It is the utterance of\nan instinctive wish to keep where safety lies, and, humanly speaking,\nit is right, though, in a world whose highest fruit is character,\nwe may expect that bitter cups and hard baptisms will be a part of\nour experience. Like all that has gone before, it is an effort at\nco-operation. It is a sincere aspiration for green pastures and still\nwaters joined with a readiness to be fed at the table in presence of\nthe enemy, if need be, readiness for the perilous edge of conflict, for\n\u201chigh strife and glorious hazard.\u201d\n\nLast of all there rises the cry for deliverance from the power of\nevil. Once more we realize that this is not an occasion for magical\ninterference, no call for a fiery dart out of the sky to pierce a black\ndemon who is pushing us into sin. The drama is an inward one and the\nenemy, called of many names, is a part of our own self. Each soul has\nits own struggle with the immemorial tug of brute inheritance--the sag\nof lower nature.\n\n  \u201cWhen the fight begins within himself,\n    A man\u2019s worth something. God stoops o\u2019er his head,\n  Satan looks up between his feet--both tug--\n  He\u2019s left, himself, i\u2019 the middle: The soul wakes\n    And grows.\u201d\n\nBut here supremely appears our principle of co-operation. Prayer for\ndeliverance from evil cannot end on the lips. There is no conquest of\nthe flesh, no killing out of ape and tiger, until we ourselves catch at\nGod\u2019s skirts and rise to live for the Spirit and by the Spirit. There\nis no deliverance till the soul says, \u201cI will be free\u201d and God and man\ntug on the same side. Wherever any citadel of evil is battered God and\nman are there together. God finds a human organ and man draws on the\ninexhaustible resources of God.\n\nPrayer, whether it be the lisp of a little child, or the wrestling\nof some great soul in desperate contest with the coils of habit or\nthe evil customs of his generation is a testimony to a divine-human\nfellowship. In hours of crisis the soul feels for its Companion, by\na natural gravitation, as the brook feels for the ocean. In times of\njoy and strength, it reaches out to its source of Life, as the plant\ndoes to the sun. And when it has learned the language of spiritual\ncommunion and knows its Father, praying refreshes it as the greeting\nof a friend refreshes one in a foreign land. We ought not to expect\nthat prayer, of the true and lofty sort, could be attained by easy\nsteps. It involves appreciation of God and co-operation with Him. One\ncomes not to it in a day. Even human friendship is a great attainment.\nIt calls for sacrifice of private wishes and for adjustment to the\npurposes of another life. One cannot be an artist or a musician without\npatient labor to make oneself an organ of the reality which he fain\nwould express. He must bring himself by slow stages to a height of\nappreciation. Prayer is the highest human function. It is the utterance\nof an infinite friendship, the expression of our appreciation of that\ncomplete and perfect Person whom our soul has found. \u201cLord, teach us\nhow to pray.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_The United States a Christian Nation._\n\nBY\n\nHON. DAVID J. BREWER,\n\n_Associate Justice of the Supreme Court United States_.\n\n_Haverford College Library Lectures, 1905._\n\n\nIn this book the Distinguished Christian Jurist has discussed three\nimportant topics:\n\n  _First._ \u201cTHE UNITED STATES A CHRISTIAN NATION,\u201d in which he shows\n  why our Republic should be so classified, basing his argument upon\n  the Decisions of the Supreme Court, Colonial Charters, Constitution\n  of the United States, and National and State Legislation.\n\n  _Second._ \u201cOUR DUTY AS CITIZENS.\u201d A strong plea for Business Honesty\n  and Integrity, for Liberty and the Rights of Man, for Education, for\n  Peace and Temperance.\n\n  _Third._ \u201cTHE PROMISE AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE.\u201d An earnest\n  and eloquent exhortation to the young men of America to temper their\n  devotion to country with fidelity to the teachings of the Gospel.\n\n_Issued October 1, 1905._\n\n12mo. 100 pp. Price, postpaid, $1.00.\n\n\nTHE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.\n\nPHILADELPHIA, PA.\n\n\n\n\nSOCIAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD\n\nStudies In Human and Divine Inter-Relationship\n\nBY\n\nRUFUS M. JONES, A.M., LITT. D.\n\n_Professor of Philosophy in Haverford College, Pa._\n\nThis is a fresh interpretation of the deepest problems of life.\nIt discusses the most interesting phases of recent psychological\ninvestigation into spiritual subjects.\n\n\u201cProfessor Jones offers here a series of studies on the nature and\nmeaning of Personality. He is at home in modern psychology and tells\nit effectively for his purpose in freedom from technicalities.\u201d--_The\nOutlook._\n\n\u201cThe author has written the twelve chapters of this book dealing\nwith such subjects as The Meaning of Personality, The Realization of\nPersons, The Sub-Conscious Life, The Inner Light, etc., etc., with an\naim to show through Psychology, as Drummond showed through Biology,\nthat life can be unified from top to bottom.\u201d--_Christian Work and the\nEvangelist._\n\n\u201cThe author bears a unique equipment for the task, having studied\nPhilosophy at Harvard under Royce and Palmer, and acquired the art of\npresenting it to untrained thinkers in his capacity of Professor of\nPhilosophy at Haverford College.\u201d--_British Friend._\n\n_12mo. 272 pages. Extra Vellum Cloth, Gilt Top, Uncut Edges. Price\n$1.25 Net (Postage 10 Cents)._\n\nTHE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY\n\nPHILADELPHIA, PA.\n\n\n\n\n_A History_\n\nOF\n\n_The Society of Friends in America_\n\nBY\n\nALLEN C. THOMAS, A.M.\n\nHAVERFORD COLLEGE\n\nAND\n\nRICHARD H. THOMAS, M.D.\n\nBALTIMORE, MD.\n\n\nNEW AND REVISED EDITION, 1905\n\nBrought down to date and including valuable statistics and information\nin regard to the Society of Friends in America.\n\n  \u201cA work on \u2018The History of the Society of Friends in America,\u2019\n  which is likely for many days to be a standard text-book on the\n  subject.\u201d--_The London Friend._\n\n  \u201cWe have read it with interest. It gives evidence of much research\n  and of a disposition to observe the impartiality of faithful\n  historians.\u201d--_The Friend_, Philadelphia.\n\n\n12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00 Net\n\n(Postage, 15 Cents)\n\n\nTHE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.\n\nPHILADELPHIA, PA.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[1] \u201cSocial Law in the Spiritual World,\u201d Philadelphia, 1904.\n\n[2] The term _a tergo_ causation means that what happens is produced\nentirely by the push or the pull of forces. There is an exact\nequation--the antecedent _determines_ the consequent.\n\n[3] It is not true, of course, that there is an absolute \u201cbreak\u201d in the\nupward processes of life. Even in the lower forms of life there are\nhints of higher possibilities. There is an elemental struggle for the\nlife of others which has in it the potentiality of love and sacrifice.\nBut there is no \u201csign\u201d on the lower levels--before self-consciousness\ndawned--of any capacity for an ideal, or of _any power to develop by\nthe forecast and vision of the goal_.\n\n[4] The term _a fronte_ compulsion means the compelling power of an\nideal which influences by an attraction from in front.\n\n[5] Browning\u2019s \u201cOld Pictures in Florence.\u201d\n\n[6] Sabatier, \u201cReligions of Authority,\u201d p. 307.\n\n[7] I am aware that this feature of child life will seem to some of my\nreaders to be overdrawn. Some Mothers say that no such tendency was\nobserved in their own children. That is quite likely. All children do\nnot express their subtle and complex emotions in the same way. I do not\nmean to imply that every child _expresses_ a need of sacrifice when he\ndoes wrong. But careful observers of children have frequently noted the\nfacts which I have emphasized in the text, and I have often met them in\nmy own experience with children.\n\n[8] It has been shown by Robertson Smith and others that the Hebrews\nthought of sacrifice not as a gift to appease Jehovah but as a sharing\nof a common meal with him. Such a lofty view of sacrifice is surely\nnot primitive. When sacrifice had come to be thought of, as of a\ncommon meal, it had already been purified and transformed by centuries\nof development and the heightening presupposes a series of unnamed\nprophets before the list of great revealers whose names we know.\nIn the earliest stages religion is only very slightly ethical. The\nmoralization of religion is one of the most tremendous facts of human\nhistory.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\n  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.\n\n  Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.","title":"The Double Search: Studies in Atonement and Prayer","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":15642}