1902
Don't crowd your world with hate, anger, envy, regrets, fears, disorder, discord and disharmony. Every second brighten your world with love and joy and peace and hope, every minute expand your world by unfolding yourself. Every hour open your eyes wider to the grand and beautiful sights in your world; open your ears to the delightful and inspiring strains of divine music which comes of love, brotherhood, tenderness, kindness, gentleness, cheerfulness and contentment. Then from hour to hour, day by day, year by year your world will become more beautiful.
Showing posts with label optimism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label optimism. Show all posts
Friday, March 14, 2008
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Many Clowns in the Pulpit
1905
Prominent Clergyman Makes Startling Statement at Chautauqua
Chautauqua, New York, dispatch — Dr. James M. Buckley, chairman of the episcopacy committee of the Methodist Episcopal church, declared in an address that a clergyman has no right to make his congregation laugh and that to do so is irreverence. "Yet there are a good many clowns in the pulpit," he concluded.
The Secret of Happiness
The man who can drill his thoughts, so as to shut out everything that is depressing and discouraging and see only the bright side even of his misfortunes and failures, has mastered the secret of happiness and success. He has made himself a magnet to draw friends, cheer, brightness and good fortune to him. His presence is like a sunbeam on a dull day.
There is no accomplishment, no touch of culture, no gift which will add so much to the alchemic power of life as the optimistic habit — the determination to be cheerful and happy no matter what comes to us. It will smooth rough paths, light up gloomy places, and melt away obstacles as the sunshine melts snow on the mountain side. — Success.
Prominent Clergyman Makes Startling Statement at Chautauqua
Chautauqua, New York, dispatch — Dr. James M. Buckley, chairman of the episcopacy committee of the Methodist Episcopal church, declared in an address that a clergyman has no right to make his congregation laugh and that to do so is irreverence. "Yet there are a good many clowns in the pulpit," he concluded.
The Secret of Happiness
The man who can drill his thoughts, so as to shut out everything that is depressing and discouraging and see only the bright side even of his misfortunes and failures, has mastered the secret of happiness and success. He has made himself a magnet to draw friends, cheer, brightness and good fortune to him. His presence is like a sunbeam on a dull day.
There is no accomplishment, no touch of culture, no gift which will add so much to the alchemic power of life as the optimistic habit — the determination to be cheerful and happy no matter what comes to us. It will smooth rough paths, light up gloomy places, and melt away obstacles as the sunshine melts snow on the mountain side. — Success.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Good Cheer in Religion
1902
It is a happy thing to live. It is a happy thing to die. Our religion has the promise of the life that now is and also of that which is to come. It makes the world ours and all things in it.
We rejoice in its beauty and its joys, the laughter of little children, the love of young men and maidens, the grave friendship of the old, the confidence of life and the calm and trust which belong to us all. Our religion now tells us to look upon these and all the beautiful things of life, and to take them, holding them in holiness as the happy gifts of our glad God.
And, above all these, and in all these, Christ is now revealed to us. He was and He will be. Yea, and He is. No other day ever set Him so high or loved Him so dearly. To be sure, there is enough that is dark still, and the shadows could be drawn heavily, sadly, but this hour let us see the sunshine and play in it.
The Lord Christ! He is the good cheer of religion to-day, as He has been in all days. If our good cheer is better and cheerier than any of old, it is because we see him more clearly and love Him more dearly because we have gone a little further in making our life His and Him our life. — Congregationalist.
Rewards of Life
The man who sees in life the opportunity to express himself in the highest terms, who after ascertaining what faculties he has determines to develop them to the highest possible efficiency, who is capable of seeing the sweetness and joy that he has about him, who, being proud, does not allow his body or mind to be defiled, he is the one who obtains the big rewards, the big successes. — Mental Growth and Control.
It is a happy thing to live. It is a happy thing to die. Our religion has the promise of the life that now is and also of that which is to come. It makes the world ours and all things in it.
We rejoice in its beauty and its joys, the laughter of little children, the love of young men and maidens, the grave friendship of the old, the confidence of life and the calm and trust which belong to us all. Our religion now tells us to look upon these and all the beautiful things of life, and to take them, holding them in holiness as the happy gifts of our glad God.
And, above all these, and in all these, Christ is now revealed to us. He was and He will be. Yea, and He is. No other day ever set Him so high or loved Him so dearly. To be sure, there is enough that is dark still, and the shadows could be drawn heavily, sadly, but this hour let us see the sunshine and play in it.
The Lord Christ! He is the good cheer of religion to-day, as He has been in all days. If our good cheer is better and cheerier than any of old, it is because we see him more clearly and love Him more dearly because we have gone a little further in making our life His and Him our life. — Congregationalist.
Rewards of Life
The man who sees in life the opportunity to express himself in the highest terms, who after ascertaining what faculties he has determines to develop them to the highest possible efficiency, who is capable of seeing the sweetness and joy that he has about him, who, being proud, does not allow his body or mind to be defiled, he is the one who obtains the big rewards, the big successes. — Mental Growth and Control.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
A Plea for Hopefulness
1910
Pessimism is a Sin, the Pessimist a Man to Avoid
Hopefulness is a true sign of greatness. It means a conviction that we are greater than our troubles, greater than the world itself, greater than death, and can hold our own whenever it comes, in the universe anywhere and through all eternity.
Such conviction makes a man a god. It is better than riches or high position. It makes a poor man a king. A person who constantly fears or worries is practically an atheist. He has no faith in himself or any other being, He does not usually live long. Worry kills more than whisky; it really hardens the arteries.
No man has a right to kill his friends by a sad, morose countenance. A long face is a mark of religion. It is out of date just now and forever. Sour-looking people should be shut up in jail; they are dangerous. It is a good thing to throw back your shoulders, walk erect, and believe that you own the whole city. You do as really as anyone else, and you feel better for the belief.
Most of our troubles are fear for the future, only "bogies" which disappear when you walk up to them. There is a good time coming. It is here already, if we only knew it.
"To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."
Recipe for a Long Life
He who would live long, healthfully and happily in the land should avoid all anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, fear, anxiety and worry. He should earnestly cultivate those two great virtues, calmness and kindliness. For calmness and kindliness are not only moral virtues, but are the most valuable of all hygienic influences.
Pessimism is a Sin, the Pessimist a Man to Avoid
Hopefulness is a true sign of greatness. It means a conviction that we are greater than our troubles, greater than the world itself, greater than death, and can hold our own whenever it comes, in the universe anywhere and through all eternity.
Such conviction makes a man a god. It is better than riches or high position. It makes a poor man a king. A person who constantly fears or worries is practically an atheist. He has no faith in himself or any other being, He does not usually live long. Worry kills more than whisky; it really hardens the arteries.
No man has a right to kill his friends by a sad, morose countenance. A long face is a mark of religion. It is out of date just now and forever. Sour-looking people should be shut up in jail; they are dangerous. It is a good thing to throw back your shoulders, walk erect, and believe that you own the whole city. You do as really as anyone else, and you feel better for the belief.
Most of our troubles are fear for the future, only "bogies" which disappear when you walk up to them. There is a good time coming. It is here already, if we only knew it.
"To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."
Recipe for a Long Life
He who would live long, healthfully and happily in the land should avoid all anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, fear, anxiety and worry. He should earnestly cultivate those two great virtues, calmness and kindliness. For calmness and kindliness are not only moral virtues, but are the most valuable of all hygienic influences.
Friday, June 8, 2007
The Man Christ Jesus
1874
May God Hasten the Consummation
Jesus Christ has trod the world. The trace of the divine footsteps will never be obliterated. And the divine footsteps were the footsteps of a man.
The example of Christ is such as men can follow. On! until mankind wears his image. On! toward yon summit on which stands, not an angel, not a disembodied spirit, not an abstract of ideal and unattainable virtues, but the man Christ Jesus.
It is something to have a clear margin left for effort, a clear possibility marked for improvement. When humanity has become like His humanity, we may pause; we shall then be aware that the clouds above our heads have beamed into the unutterable beauty of Heaven, that the lilies of the field have glowed with immortal amaranths.
May God Almighty hasten the consummation, and may we, with passionate, steady, burning, unquenchable ardor, strive to know and imitate Christ. — Peter Bayne.
May God Hasten the Consummation
Jesus Christ has trod the world. The trace of the divine footsteps will never be obliterated. And the divine footsteps were the footsteps of a man.
The example of Christ is such as men can follow. On! until mankind wears his image. On! toward yon summit on which stands, not an angel, not a disembodied spirit, not an abstract of ideal and unattainable virtues, but the man Christ Jesus.
It is something to have a clear margin left for effort, a clear possibility marked for improvement. When humanity has become like His humanity, we may pause; we shall then be aware that the clouds above our heads have beamed into the unutterable beauty of Heaven, that the lilies of the field have glowed with immortal amaranths.
May God Almighty hasten the consummation, and may we, with passionate, steady, burning, unquenchable ardor, strive to know and imitate Christ. — Peter Bayne.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
M. Emile Coue's Idea is Subject of Sermon
California, 1922
M. Emile Coue's Gospel of Auto-Suggestion will be the subject of the sermon at the First Unitarian church tomorrow morning by Rev. Clarence Reed, the pastor. In speaking of the reasons of selecting this sermon topic, Rev. Reed stated: "The Living Age, in commenting upon the interest in the addresses and clinic of M. Coue during his recent visit to England, says he is the most talked of man in London. Lord Curzon, the foreign minister of Great Britain, states that he was recently cured of a serious ailment in ten days by the methods of M. Coue, after all other treatments had failed.
"During the past two months, edition after edition has been exhausted of M. Coue's little book, 'Self Mastery Through Conscious Auto-Suggestion,' in which he explains in simple and clear language his theory and method of auto-suggestion.
"This great French psychologist has had a clinic at Nancy, France, for twenty years, and during that time many persons have been restored to health through the use of conscious auto-suggestion. There is nothing mysterious, supernatural and occult in his method. He does not claim to have cured a single person. They cure themselves."
Rev. Reed states that he will speak of the value of the method of M. Coue, not only in the treatment of physical diseases, but also in the development of moral character.
Unusual interest is being manifested in the course of addresses that Rev. Reed is giving in Wendte hall of the church. The subject tomorrow evening at 8 will be "The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ." His purpose in these addresses, according to Rev. Reed, is to state the authentic facts in regard to the life and teachings of Jesus. At the close of his address, within the limit of the time, he will answer any written question on the Bible in the light of modern Biblical research.
—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Oct. 7, 1922, p. 2 last section.
Coue System Old, Says Pastor
The ideas emphasized by Emile Coue, the French apostle of auto-suggestion are not new, according to Rev. Clarence Reed, pastor of the First Unitarian church, who pointed out in his sermon yesterday on "Emile Coue's Gospel of Self Mastery Through Auto-Suggestion," that the idea was thousands of years old.
"His great contribution," declared Rev. Reed, "is that he has given to the world in language easy to understand a helpful philosophy of life and placed within the reach of every person a method which will tend to keep people healthy and help them recover their health when they become sick.
"The fame of Coue is rapidly spreading throughout the world. In every land people are discussing the remarkable cures resulting from the clinic in his garden in Nancy, France, where he treats about 40,000 patients a year. Day by day the people come to Coue's home in great pain and mental distress. Many of them go away cured in body and happy in mind without the use of drugs, operations, physical exercises or special system of diet.
"Although he is a man of very moderate means Coue does not make any charge for imparting his method to others, nor does he accept money from those who consult him. He has not only used his own money in making experiments to ascertain the value of auto-suggestion but he has also freely given his life to the service of mankind. He often works fifteen hours a day in his clinic, although he is seventy years of age."
—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Oct. 9, 1922, p. 11.
M. Emile Coue's Gospel of Auto-Suggestion will be the subject of the sermon at the First Unitarian church tomorrow morning by Rev. Clarence Reed, the pastor. In speaking of the reasons of selecting this sermon topic, Rev. Reed stated: "The Living Age, in commenting upon the interest in the addresses and clinic of M. Coue during his recent visit to England, says he is the most talked of man in London. Lord Curzon, the foreign minister of Great Britain, states that he was recently cured of a serious ailment in ten days by the methods of M. Coue, after all other treatments had failed.
"During the past two months, edition after edition has been exhausted of M. Coue's little book, 'Self Mastery Through Conscious Auto-Suggestion,' in which he explains in simple and clear language his theory and method of auto-suggestion.
"This great French psychologist has had a clinic at Nancy, France, for twenty years, and during that time many persons have been restored to health through the use of conscious auto-suggestion. There is nothing mysterious, supernatural and occult in his method. He does not claim to have cured a single person. They cure themselves."
Rev. Reed states that he will speak of the value of the method of M. Coue, not only in the treatment of physical diseases, but also in the development of moral character.
Unusual interest is being manifested in the course of addresses that Rev. Reed is giving in Wendte hall of the church. The subject tomorrow evening at 8 will be "The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ." His purpose in these addresses, according to Rev. Reed, is to state the authentic facts in regard to the life and teachings of Jesus. At the close of his address, within the limit of the time, he will answer any written question on the Bible in the light of modern Biblical research.
—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Oct. 7, 1922, p. 2 last section.
Coue System Old, Says Pastor
The ideas emphasized by Emile Coue, the French apostle of auto-suggestion are not new, according to Rev. Clarence Reed, pastor of the First Unitarian church, who pointed out in his sermon yesterday on "Emile Coue's Gospel of Self Mastery Through Auto-Suggestion," that the idea was thousands of years old.
"His great contribution," declared Rev. Reed, "is that he has given to the world in language easy to understand a helpful philosophy of life and placed within the reach of every person a method which will tend to keep people healthy and help them recover their health when they become sick.
"The fame of Coue is rapidly spreading throughout the world. In every land people are discussing the remarkable cures resulting from the clinic in his garden in Nancy, France, where he treats about 40,000 patients a year. Day by day the people come to Coue's home in great pain and mental distress. Many of them go away cured in body and happy in mind without the use of drugs, operations, physical exercises or special system of diet.
"Although he is a man of very moderate means Coue does not make any charge for imparting his method to others, nor does he accept money from those who consult him. He has not only used his own money in making experiments to ascertain the value of auto-suggestion but he has also freely given his life to the service of mankind. He often works fifteen hours a day in his clinic, although he is seventy years of age."
—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Oct. 9, 1922, p. 11.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
July 4 — Christ Gives the True Liberty of Soul
1886
By Rev. D. J. Baldwin
A Sabbath school lesson for the 4th of July comes before us. Can the teachers and scholars turn aside from the noise and confusion of celebrations and give a quiet hour to Bible study?
We stop right at the beginning of this lesson to consider the source of all our liberty, and why we have such a marked day while other nations do not thus celebrate one. Most certainly special blessings have fallen to us and the gifts of God have been abundant. "Thou last not dealt so with any people." Christ came to give liberty to the captives, and here he has most wonderfully shown the power of his spirit in making men free.
We all like to celebrate the blessings of civil liberties and the glory of our republic; but where would be found the glory of our national life if Christ had not opened blind eyes, and turned into the hearts of men the love of God? No true and lasting liberty ever come to men apart from the teachings of Christ and the power of his truth. Christian nations can alone be free nations; and the glory of the cross can alone give us true civil liberty. It is the power of Christ's spirit that has opened the eyes of the blind, and we owe all of our progress in national glory to him. Let us acknowledge this fact.
There will be an unusual amount of rejoicing and thanksgiving this year. Notwithstanding all that has come up on the nation in the way of trouble or disaster, still there has been wonderful progress seen in all that pertains to true life. We are advancing year by year and no one can fail to see this who reads or notices the changes that are taking place on all sides of us.
We have not yet attained into full liberty, but we have in our churches and Sunday schools laid the foundations of such liberty, and a new generation is coming on to declare the work of God and make strong the defenses of the Christian church.
How many blind eyes has Christ opened the last year? How many souls have been made free from the guilt and power of sin? There are actual results enough of the work of Christ among men to cause every one to praise God for his goodness. We are coming out into the liberty of the sons of God. We are learning to love light and truth and the souls of our fellow men. This is one of the facts that we come forward to celebrate; and one of the causes of rejoicing that touches every loyal heart in this nation to-day.
The shadows of spiritual darkness may be over us but the light is breaking. The morning of a better day has dawned; and let all true patriots praise God for it. There is liberty of soul and peace of conscience for every believer in Christ. We do not deny that much sin and spiritual darkness still reigns among the people. When Christ was on the earth he never opened all of the blind eyes. Thousands went down under his touch who never saw the light of day. He could not change the laws of life and death at once, but he could give his grace and love for all men and this should bring in the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, in God's own time.
Christ is present among men to-day, and every miracle of the past is a sign, and a glorious one, of the power of his Gospel. If Christ was anxious to have a man born blind see the glory of God in the natural world, how much more must he desire that the soul should see the glory of God in the spiritual realm!
Hence he says no one sins because he is born blind, but because he refuses to be made whole. There is too much love in Christ to allow him to leave us in our blindness. He will flash out the rays of light and truth upon our hearts, and every year shall show how much he has done for those who are walking in darkness and the shadows of death.
Even now, as we go over the old songs of a liberty loving people, and hear again the stories of a nation's salvation, we do not forget who opened the eyes of one born blind and laid the true foundation of all our blessings in church and state.
In the midst of our enthusiasm and love of country let us go back and give the Savior of lost men his right and true place in our hearts, and acknowledge him as the only true light that shines into the hearts of men.
—The Kellogg Enterprise, Kellogg, Iowa, July 2, 1886.
By Rev. D. J. Baldwin
A Sabbath school lesson for the 4th of July comes before us. Can the teachers and scholars turn aside from the noise and confusion of celebrations and give a quiet hour to Bible study?
We stop right at the beginning of this lesson to consider the source of all our liberty, and why we have such a marked day while other nations do not thus celebrate one. Most certainly special blessings have fallen to us and the gifts of God have been abundant. "Thou last not dealt so with any people." Christ came to give liberty to the captives, and here he has most wonderfully shown the power of his spirit in making men free.
We all like to celebrate the blessings of civil liberties and the glory of our republic; but where would be found the glory of our national life if Christ had not opened blind eyes, and turned into the hearts of men the love of God? No true and lasting liberty ever come to men apart from the teachings of Christ and the power of his truth. Christian nations can alone be free nations; and the glory of the cross can alone give us true civil liberty. It is the power of Christ's spirit that has opened the eyes of the blind, and we owe all of our progress in national glory to him. Let us acknowledge this fact.
There will be an unusual amount of rejoicing and thanksgiving this year. Notwithstanding all that has come up on the nation in the way of trouble or disaster, still there has been wonderful progress seen in all that pertains to true life. We are advancing year by year and no one can fail to see this who reads or notices the changes that are taking place on all sides of us.
We have not yet attained into full liberty, but we have in our churches and Sunday schools laid the foundations of such liberty, and a new generation is coming on to declare the work of God and make strong the defenses of the Christian church.
How many blind eyes has Christ opened the last year? How many souls have been made free from the guilt and power of sin? There are actual results enough of the work of Christ among men to cause every one to praise God for his goodness. We are coming out into the liberty of the sons of God. We are learning to love light and truth and the souls of our fellow men. This is one of the facts that we come forward to celebrate; and one of the causes of rejoicing that touches every loyal heart in this nation to-day.
The shadows of spiritual darkness may be over us but the light is breaking. The morning of a better day has dawned; and let all true patriots praise God for it. There is liberty of soul and peace of conscience for every believer in Christ. We do not deny that much sin and spiritual darkness still reigns among the people. When Christ was on the earth he never opened all of the blind eyes. Thousands went down under his touch who never saw the light of day. He could not change the laws of life and death at once, but he could give his grace and love for all men and this should bring in the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, in God's own time.
Christ is present among men to-day, and every miracle of the past is a sign, and a glorious one, of the power of his Gospel. If Christ was anxious to have a man born blind see the glory of God in the natural world, how much more must he desire that the soul should see the glory of God in the spiritual realm!
Hence he says no one sins because he is born blind, but because he refuses to be made whole. There is too much love in Christ to allow him to leave us in our blindness. He will flash out the rays of light and truth upon our hearts, and every year shall show how much he has done for those who are walking in darkness and the shadows of death.
Even now, as we go over the old songs of a liberty loving people, and hear again the stories of a nation's salvation, we do not forget who opened the eyes of one born blind and laid the true foundation of all our blessings in church and state.
In the midst of our enthusiasm and love of country let us go back and give the Savior of lost men his right and true place in our hearts, and acknowledge him as the only true light that shines into the hearts of men.
—The Kellogg Enterprise, Kellogg, Iowa, July 2, 1886.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Can Human Nature Be Changed?
1910
Curiously enough, in every generation since Christ was born there have been large numbers of men, often followers of this very Christ, who have held as a sort of fundamental postulate their philosophy that you cannot change human nature. One who reads the literature of the ages carefully will see that often the great stumbling block in the way of human progress and emancipation has been this obsession of good people. So deep-rooted has it been that it has passed into proverbs: "Whatever has been must always be," "Whatever is, is right," "As is a boy so is the man," and, quoting an older cynic, "Can a leopard change his spots," "Temperament is a fixed quantity," "Human nature is the same in every age." These proverbs are generally coined by good people. It has been in the church that this philosophy has been prevalent, as well as among the scoffers.
And yet the fact of transformation of human nature is the very center and core of Christ's Gospel, and how his disciples could ever doubt it, and remain his disciples, is one of the mysteries and paradoxes of history. It is simply another of those strange misunderstandings of the Gospels that one witnessed among those Christians who could not see that slavery and Christianity had no part together. But this is not the strangest thing. Far stranger is the fact that fully half of the Christians of today are still under the spell of this delusion. Not long ago a great writer called the attention of the world to the fact that if reformers would only take human nature as it is, they would stop reforming. To his mind reforms originate in an idealizing of human nature it cannot stand. Many Christians share that view. On our way home from church one Sunday a good Christian mother, worried by some tendencies of her young boy, remarked that she supposed there was no hope of changing him because he was born so. You cannot change human nature, half of our Christians believe.
Now, the Christians of the early ages, and even of the middle ages, had only the promise of the Gospel to convict them of error — and, to be sure, that ought to have been enough — but the Christians of today have that and this fact, too, that history and most literature is nothing but the record of a gradual transformation of human nature. And not only in individuals, but in whole nations and communities. For civilization is nothing but the collective expression of the human nature of the time.
The passing of civilization from barbarism to the semi-Christian civilization of the middle ages is the history of the transformation of human nature. The passage from the cruelty and feudalism and vice of the middle ages to our more Christian civilization of today is further story of the alchemistic change in the human heart by the deeper and larger application and understanding of the Gospel. The promise of Christianity is the transformation of human nature into divine nature, the subduing of the animal in man by the rising, conquering, spiritual. This needs no proof. It is the whole asservation of the Gospel. If it fail, then Christianity is a failure. But perhaps it might be helpful to us, and deepen our faith in the power of Christianity to accomplish what it purposes to do. If we find that history, as we said, is the record of the fulfillment of this promise we think we can show it is by looking at two or three great spheres of human conduct where the change has been manifested.
There is a passage in Sienkiewicz's "Quo Vadis," where a wretch named Chilo, who has been plotting against the Christians — it is the time of the first Christians in Rome — falls into the hands of the Christians, and one of them, the giant slave Ursus, is ready to crush him to death, when the Apostle Peter rises from the table and speaks these words: "The Saviour said this to us: 'If thy brother has sinned against thee, chastise him; but if he is repentant, forgive him.' " Then Glaucus, against whose life Chilo had been especially plotting, turns to Chilo and says: "May God forgive thy offenses, as I forgive them in the name of Christ." The point is that Chilo cannot believe his own ears and eyes. When at last he finds himself free and tells the Romans they will not believe it.
In every century, even within the church, men keep on saying that forgiveness of the enemy is impossible; revenge is the natural law of life, of man as well as of the animal; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is all humanity is capable of. Even today one meets Christians who cannot believe in this possibility of forgiveness as a law of life. And yet we find that every age in history has been full of exquisite instances of it. We find many a soul, like St. Francis, practicing it. Today there are millions of Christians practicing it, and thousands, from Tolstoy to the humblest apostle, preaching it. The church enjoins it upon every new member. We have seen thousands of unforgiving natures since Christ's day so transformed by the divine alchemy of Christ's Gospel that they have begun to practice it with ease. It has become the universal law of thousands, yet good men have said, and still say, you cannot change human nature.
As you go up and down Europe you find everywhere dungeons where slaves were kept. When Christ was born slavery was as common an institution and as much accepted as in the order of society as marriage. As the divine leaven of Christianity began to beget in men the worth and dignity of the human soul and the doctrine of brotherhood and human rights, the prophets began to see the evil of slavery and its inherent contradiction to the spirit of the new religion. But as they spoke they heard the same old story: Slavery has always been. It seems to have been a sort of divine institution. One cannot make over the human race. We did make over the human race and no one is now left, since 1860, to lift his voice for its existence. The owning of man by man is gone, and soon other indirect forms of industrial slavery will go with it.
Some time ago we were in Nuremberg. We climbed the hill to the old castle, and there we were shown through the great tower where all the torture machines are preserved. We saw the roasting pans, the racks for stretching and crushing bones, the other instruments too horrible to mention, along with the iron virgin, who once embraced hundreds of miserable creatures in her spiked arms. And the awful thing was not that men practiced this torture, but that they enjoyed it and flocked to see it. But one day a prophet arose in Nuremberg and said: "This torture is horrible, utterly inhuman, against all the sweet mercy and pity of Jesus Christ, unworthy of our civilization. It must stop." When he had spoken it was the good people who discouraged him. They said: "Yes, it is inhuman and un-Christian, but you cannot stop it. People have always tortured, therefore they always will. It is part of the order of civilization, because it has always been. You cannot change." Needless to say, it was stopped in all civilized countries in 100 years, and where once the whole city loved it, not one but who would shudder at it now. You can change human nature completely.
One of the last great barbarities, most inhuman of all, a pagan institution to linger on in our Christian civilization, is war. The prophetic souls know that it is doomed and must go, because it is an anachronism in Christianity, and because the forces are now at work before which it needs must fall. But the one thing that prevents its going in a generation is this obsession of good people, that you cannot change human nature. The church alone could stop wars tomorrow did it believe its own Gospel had power to do what it claims to do, and did it dare believe that human nature could be so changed as to see the reasonableness of Christian settlement of national disputes as already it settles individual differences. It has been changed to do that. Once all men settled personal disputes with fists. That passed, and the duel came. That has gone, and we have the courts. More and more private quarrels are now adjudicated before they even reach the courts, by diplomacy. This evolution has gone on side by side with all this absurd talk of not being able to change human nature. And the change from wars as the method of adjudication between groups of people to international courts is in this inevitable evolution; but it limps and halts because good people cling to this outgrown obsession: You cannot change human nature. Wars have always been, therefore they must always be.
We are writing this editorial to call the attention of these good people to the effect that this obsession will prove false here as it has everywhere. You can do away with war soon because you can change human nature. The earth is full of the signs that human nature is changing very fast in this regard. The calendar of 1909 printed in our last two issues is only a slight indication of what is going on in the mind of the world. Read it carefully, and remember that 50 years ago one could not have written one. World unity, international peace, world federation, Hague courts, arbitration treaties, brotherhood of man — these are the growing words everywhere. They betoken a change coming over human nature. Link yourself up to it and hasten the transformation with your Christian faith. The change of human nature is easy to a Christianity really believed. — The Christian Work and Evangelist.
--Reprinted in The Daily Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Feb. 21, 1910, p. 7.
Note: OK, here, this has to be the classic article, if there ever was one, on the progress of humanity, the changing of human nature, because of religion. We've probably all heard it, that there was this sense before World War I, then great disillusionment for such a point of view, made much worse by the next war. And add to that the various things of psychiatry, Freud, Jung, and things were never so optimistic again, although of course their aim was reconciliation and adjustment for at least good coping.
Curiously enough, in every generation since Christ was born there have been large numbers of men, often followers of this very Christ, who have held as a sort of fundamental postulate their philosophy that you cannot change human nature. One who reads the literature of the ages carefully will see that often the great stumbling block in the way of human progress and emancipation has been this obsession of good people. So deep-rooted has it been that it has passed into proverbs: "Whatever has been must always be," "Whatever is, is right," "As is a boy so is the man," and, quoting an older cynic, "Can a leopard change his spots," "Temperament is a fixed quantity," "Human nature is the same in every age." These proverbs are generally coined by good people. It has been in the church that this philosophy has been prevalent, as well as among the scoffers.
And yet the fact of transformation of human nature is the very center and core of Christ's Gospel, and how his disciples could ever doubt it, and remain his disciples, is one of the mysteries and paradoxes of history. It is simply another of those strange misunderstandings of the Gospels that one witnessed among those Christians who could not see that slavery and Christianity had no part together. But this is not the strangest thing. Far stranger is the fact that fully half of the Christians of today are still under the spell of this delusion. Not long ago a great writer called the attention of the world to the fact that if reformers would only take human nature as it is, they would stop reforming. To his mind reforms originate in an idealizing of human nature it cannot stand. Many Christians share that view. On our way home from church one Sunday a good Christian mother, worried by some tendencies of her young boy, remarked that she supposed there was no hope of changing him because he was born so. You cannot change human nature, half of our Christians believe.
Now, the Christians of the early ages, and even of the middle ages, had only the promise of the Gospel to convict them of error — and, to be sure, that ought to have been enough — but the Christians of today have that and this fact, too, that history and most literature is nothing but the record of a gradual transformation of human nature. And not only in individuals, but in whole nations and communities. For civilization is nothing but the collective expression of the human nature of the time.
The passing of civilization from barbarism to the semi-Christian civilization of the middle ages is the history of the transformation of human nature. The passage from the cruelty and feudalism and vice of the middle ages to our more Christian civilization of today is further story of the alchemistic change in the human heart by the deeper and larger application and understanding of the Gospel. The promise of Christianity is the transformation of human nature into divine nature, the subduing of the animal in man by the rising, conquering, spiritual. This needs no proof. It is the whole asservation of the Gospel. If it fail, then Christianity is a failure. But perhaps it might be helpful to us, and deepen our faith in the power of Christianity to accomplish what it purposes to do. If we find that history, as we said, is the record of the fulfillment of this promise we think we can show it is by looking at two or three great spheres of human conduct where the change has been manifested.
There is a passage in Sienkiewicz's "Quo Vadis," where a wretch named Chilo, who has been plotting against the Christians — it is the time of the first Christians in Rome — falls into the hands of the Christians, and one of them, the giant slave Ursus, is ready to crush him to death, when the Apostle Peter rises from the table and speaks these words: "The Saviour said this to us: 'If thy brother has sinned against thee, chastise him; but if he is repentant, forgive him.' " Then Glaucus, against whose life Chilo had been especially plotting, turns to Chilo and says: "May God forgive thy offenses, as I forgive them in the name of Christ." The point is that Chilo cannot believe his own ears and eyes. When at last he finds himself free and tells the Romans they will not believe it.
In every century, even within the church, men keep on saying that forgiveness of the enemy is impossible; revenge is the natural law of life, of man as well as of the animal; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is all humanity is capable of. Even today one meets Christians who cannot believe in this possibility of forgiveness as a law of life. And yet we find that every age in history has been full of exquisite instances of it. We find many a soul, like St. Francis, practicing it. Today there are millions of Christians practicing it, and thousands, from Tolstoy to the humblest apostle, preaching it. The church enjoins it upon every new member. We have seen thousands of unforgiving natures since Christ's day so transformed by the divine alchemy of Christ's Gospel that they have begun to practice it with ease. It has become the universal law of thousands, yet good men have said, and still say, you cannot change human nature.
As you go up and down Europe you find everywhere dungeons where slaves were kept. When Christ was born slavery was as common an institution and as much accepted as in the order of society as marriage. As the divine leaven of Christianity began to beget in men the worth and dignity of the human soul and the doctrine of brotherhood and human rights, the prophets began to see the evil of slavery and its inherent contradiction to the spirit of the new religion. But as they spoke they heard the same old story: Slavery has always been. It seems to have been a sort of divine institution. One cannot make over the human race. We did make over the human race and no one is now left, since 1860, to lift his voice for its existence. The owning of man by man is gone, and soon other indirect forms of industrial slavery will go with it.
Some time ago we were in Nuremberg. We climbed the hill to the old castle, and there we were shown through the great tower where all the torture machines are preserved. We saw the roasting pans, the racks for stretching and crushing bones, the other instruments too horrible to mention, along with the iron virgin, who once embraced hundreds of miserable creatures in her spiked arms. And the awful thing was not that men practiced this torture, but that they enjoyed it and flocked to see it. But one day a prophet arose in Nuremberg and said: "This torture is horrible, utterly inhuman, against all the sweet mercy and pity of Jesus Christ, unworthy of our civilization. It must stop." When he had spoken it was the good people who discouraged him. They said: "Yes, it is inhuman and un-Christian, but you cannot stop it. People have always tortured, therefore they always will. It is part of the order of civilization, because it has always been. You cannot change." Needless to say, it was stopped in all civilized countries in 100 years, and where once the whole city loved it, not one but who would shudder at it now. You can change human nature completely.
One of the last great barbarities, most inhuman of all, a pagan institution to linger on in our Christian civilization, is war. The prophetic souls know that it is doomed and must go, because it is an anachronism in Christianity, and because the forces are now at work before which it needs must fall. But the one thing that prevents its going in a generation is this obsession of good people, that you cannot change human nature. The church alone could stop wars tomorrow did it believe its own Gospel had power to do what it claims to do, and did it dare believe that human nature could be so changed as to see the reasonableness of Christian settlement of national disputes as already it settles individual differences. It has been changed to do that. Once all men settled personal disputes with fists. That passed, and the duel came. That has gone, and we have the courts. More and more private quarrels are now adjudicated before they even reach the courts, by diplomacy. This evolution has gone on side by side with all this absurd talk of not being able to change human nature. And the change from wars as the method of adjudication between groups of people to international courts is in this inevitable evolution; but it limps and halts because good people cling to this outgrown obsession: You cannot change human nature. Wars have always been, therefore they must always be.
We are writing this editorial to call the attention of these good people to the effect that this obsession will prove false here as it has everywhere. You can do away with war soon because you can change human nature. The earth is full of the signs that human nature is changing very fast in this regard. The calendar of 1909 printed in our last two issues is only a slight indication of what is going on in the mind of the world. Read it carefully, and remember that 50 years ago one could not have written one. World unity, international peace, world federation, Hague courts, arbitration treaties, brotherhood of man — these are the growing words everywhere. They betoken a change coming over human nature. Link yourself up to it and hasten the transformation with your Christian faith. The change of human nature is easy to a Christianity really believed. — The Christian Work and Evangelist.
--Reprinted in The Daily Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Feb. 21, 1910, p. 7.
Note: OK, here, this has to be the classic article, if there ever was one, on the progress of humanity, the changing of human nature, because of religion. We've probably all heard it, that there was this sense before World War I, then great disillusionment for such a point of view, made much worse by the next war. And add to that the various things of psychiatry, Freud, Jung, and things were never so optimistic again, although of course their aim was reconciliation and adjustment for at least good coping.
Humanity's Great Helper — The Divine Friend
1910
The long foretold advent of Jesus the Divine Friend has made a tremendous difference for the race. We are not now living in the feted atmosphere of the Roman decadence, nor are our higher interests mocked by the Hellenic frivolity. The whole tone of life is better, and its promise fairer. And the glory of all this mental quickening and moral improvement belongs to Jesus Christ.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea it meant that God had sent to humanity a helper. Humanity of and by itself is poor and weak and wanting; it requires assistance from beyond itself, and the help that it most urgently requires is salvation. The world's greatest need is a Saviour, and Jesus Christ came to be that redeemer. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus," said the angel, "for he shall save his people from their sins."
Comment: It's common to hear that before the World Wars there was a more optimistic outlook on human nature through the spread of religion and at least the conventional acceptance of its tenets. Then after World War I, the depths of sin were seen to be still pretty well ingrained, maybe not the same degree of progress as imagined. This tiny article doesn't get into all that in any explicit way. But you can see a hint of it in the contrast that Christianity brought between now and the long-ago decadence and frivolity. The difference is a "mental quickening and moral improvement," which is the phrase that brings this to mind. Society getting better and better, then the Lord comes!
Little articles like this, unless attribution is given to a publication, are apparently just little orphans of thought. They were obviously distributed far and wide by some syndicating agency for a fee, and used as fillers and content. I imagine someone hacking them out, hack writing, or maybe, like this one in particular, they're snippets from sermons.
The long foretold advent of Jesus the Divine Friend has made a tremendous difference for the race. We are not now living in the feted atmosphere of the Roman decadence, nor are our higher interests mocked by the Hellenic frivolity. The whole tone of life is better, and its promise fairer. And the glory of all this mental quickening and moral improvement belongs to Jesus Christ.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea it meant that God had sent to humanity a helper. Humanity of and by itself is poor and weak and wanting; it requires assistance from beyond itself, and the help that it most urgently requires is salvation. The world's greatest need is a Saviour, and Jesus Christ came to be that redeemer. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus," said the angel, "for he shall save his people from their sins."
Comment: It's common to hear that before the World Wars there was a more optimistic outlook on human nature through the spread of religion and at least the conventional acceptance of its tenets. Then after World War I, the depths of sin were seen to be still pretty well ingrained, maybe not the same degree of progress as imagined. This tiny article doesn't get into all that in any explicit way. But you can see a hint of it in the contrast that Christianity brought between now and the long-ago decadence and frivolity. The difference is a "mental quickening and moral improvement," which is the phrase that brings this to mind. Society getting better and better, then the Lord comes!
Little articles like this, unless attribution is given to a publication, are apparently just little orphans of thought. They were obviously distributed far and wide by some syndicating agency for a fee, and used as fillers and content. I imagine someone hacking them out, hack writing, or maybe, like this one in particular, they're snippets from sermons.
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