THIS is a great age, an age pregnant with untold possibilities, an age rich in direct and aggressive effort for the good of mankind. There is abroad, in this and other lands, an overmastering passion for righteousness, and an intense longing for the fulfilment of those ideals that have throbbed in the hearts of holy men throughout the generations. Never before were so many religious books and periodicals read; never before was such solicitude manifested for the welfare of childhood. Modern civilization has robbed us of many an ancient blessing, but the gain which offsets the apparent loss should not be forgotten. The human heart was never so tender and active; the spirit of research was never so penetrating and thorough. Since the Reformation new sciences have arisen, and they have added to our store of knowledge. Archaeological research, and the natural sciences, have thrown a flood of light on the history and sacred writings of Palestine, Greece, Egypt and the Roman Empire. The languages of Scripture, and the literature written in these languages, are better known than before at the dawn of this century. The Western mind is more familiar with the habits, thoughts and religious beliefs of the Oriental world. There is a greater desire than ever to know as much as there is to be known about Christ—His personality, ideals, feelings, thoughts, and the bearing of His ethics upon labour, womanhood, slavery, intemperance, and the colossal accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few. This new feeling for, and this new interest in Christ, is seen in the great sales of popular lives of Him. Recite to a convention of working-men the creeds of the various sects, and you cannot fail to notice an expression of weariness on their faces. Not that they are sceptics; probably you would find that a great number of them are professing Christians and regular communicants. But speak to them about Christ—the greatness of His soul, the profundity of His thoughts, the purity of His feelings, and what purposes were His, and for which He gave His life—and they will listen to you with respect; they may even applaud you. The element of mercy is at a high premium at this hour. Never were there such efforts to deal with the taproots of those evils that oppress the poor, that deteriorate the mind and tone of the nation. Nevertheless, it remains true that devotion to material good was never more prominent. By materialism is meant three things: First, life without high ideals, without moral vistas, without poetic vision—life without that moral sense or ultimate dream that invests it with sanctity and power. Second, a life identified with pride and prodigality, with vulgar glamour and gaiety. Third, a life based upon the love of money and greed of gain, the passion for fame and power—a life devoid of conscience and of consideration for the interests and claims of others, accumulating riches for the sake of the reputation it brings, oblivious of every noble instinct, defiling the affections, stupefying the imagination, and resulting in a non-appreciation of the value of things spiritual and unseen. There has been a wonderful development of financial, commercial and colonial expansion. There has been aroused a national delirium for wealth and dominion. Discoveries of precious stones and metals, of gold and diamond mines, are being dangled before the gloating eyes of avarice and ambition. Christian people are falling more and more under the rule of the newspaper press, which is daily becoming more braggart and noisy, which announces events before they happen, and eulogizes and condemns books before reading them. Even education must be practical—must be such that it shall fit our boys and girls to earn money. Life is being made a question of finance. To be poor is to be weak. To fail in the race for riches is to be miserable.
There is another side. Thousands of well-ordered and God-fearing men and women find their life a treadmill grind for existence. For a mere pittance they have to work early and late. Their chief and constant concern is how to find what is simply necessary for the physical comfort of those who depend upon them. Of what value are our creeds to them? It is easy to say that God is good, and that life is sweet, when there is bread enough and to spare; but not so easy when one is willing to toil and to sweat, but is denied the opportunity, or where the hours of labour are long and dreary, and the pay out of all proportion to the claims of the toiler. Such social and industrial conditions do not predispose men to religion. You say that “God is not in all their thoughts.” What wonder? This utter absorption in things material on the part of those who are consumed with the passion for money-making, affects their manners, morals, amusements and ideals. It makes them hard, selfish and inhuman. What real comfort can there be in such a sterile, perverted existence?
It often happens that this worship of wealth is combined with puritanic habits. Their behaviour may be irreproachable; they may be highly abstemious, and regard with a critical eye those who waste money on such trifles as books and travel. Not that money in itself is an evil: it would be as reasonable to denounce steam or electricity. The genius for money-making is as much of a genius from God as the genius for preaching or for writing poems. Wealth represents an accumulation of human force; and under proper conditions may, when rightly used, be among the greatest means of serving the greatest end. But the motive and the ideal are the twin-elements that make riches either a curse or a blessing. It is this that fills the contemplation of the lives of many millionaires with a sense of dreariness, repugnance and disillusionment. Some of them have never known a moment of unguarded generosity. They have no social sympathies and no patriotic idealism. In the Middle Ages whatever had been acquired by genius, industry or ambition, was continually returning in the form of charity for the use of the community. Kings, nobles and merchant-princes adorned and enriched the cities of their times with religion, with education, and with charitable institutions.
What is the general effect of this modern passion for gold and gain—this utter absorption in things material and transitory? It is to crowd out of the heart the thought of God, of personal responsibility, and the contemplations of spiritual life. The verdict of history is, that something more than the ordinary routine of Church work is necessary to head off this inrushing tide of humanity, and to concentrate its attention upon the great verities of religion.
During the last Welsh Revival men who had never been impressed either in their imagination or conscience by the prayers and preaching to which they had listened for years, were swayed as trees by a mighty rush of wind. They were compelled to feel, confess and repent in spite of themselves. Such was their spiritual paralysis, that the most heroic remedies were necessary to awaken them from the sleep of death.
It is a mistake to suppose that methods once used with success can always be used with success. This general insistence of Christian people upon conventional ways and methods is a great hindrance to the harvesting of souls. What is nothing but a means to an end is often regarded as an end in itself. There is no longing to extend the spiritual reach of the soul, and to enrich the inner life, by a closer communion with Divine realities. Is feeling an end? Is preaching? Is worship? No, not one of them is an end. Even righteousness is not an end: it is incidental.
Moreover, the question has to be considered not only in relation to the materialism of the age, but also to the doubt of modern civilization. Since human history began no age has been so marked by unbelief in the supernatural. The materialism of the hour is both a sign and a cause of the decay of faith in the existence of a supernatural life. People who believe strongly in God will not be absorbed in the pursuit of material gain and of gaiety, of vulgar sheen and pride, of low ideals and prodigality. On the other hand, people who devote themselves to the accumulation of property and soul-soiling sensations are almost certain to forget the existence of a spiritual life and the moral government of God.
Natural science, in so far as it has developed itself, does not foster faith in a personal God and in the superhuman side of religion. But to eliminate the super-natural from Christianity is to eliminate Christianity itself, and to leave in its place theism, if not agnosticism. The progress of scientific knowledge dispels superstition, and creates a critical spirit not only among men who are technically educated, but also in the great popular mind. Many effects once deemed miraculous are now looked upon as purely natural. Such, for instance, is the migration of a comet, and the eclipse. This critical spirit has also emphasized the importance of fact in comparison with theory or speculation. The study of literature, and especially sacred literature, shows fable, myth and imaginative narration to be some of its strong characteristics. Even history, until a very late date, has had highly imaginative elements; but it is becoming more realistic every day. This is equally true of fiction. The photographic quality is in the ascendant. The great fascination of ‘Adam Bade’ lies in the fact that, when we read it, we are looking at life. The stage novel is fast disappearing. Hall Caine portrays life in its sunshine and gloom, and delineates the lives of suffering men and enduring women. The ethical element predominates, and the right is always triumphant, even if it be over the open grave. This preference for facts will be more characteristic of the future than of the present. The sphere of its operation is being widened as the years go by. It embraces even the life and character of Jesus. We are frankly told that a barbarous and superstitious age gave Him the reward of deification, just as the Pharaohs and Alexanders and Caesars were deified. His memory was surrounded by clouds of miracle and marvel during the first four generations that passed before the Gospels took any settled form. It is contended that in the centuries since the Reformation, the human reason has done much to disengage Christ in the Protestant mind from these mythical encumbrances; it is also claimed that by relieving Him of all supernatural attributes and powers, the pathos and heroism of His life will be vastly heightened.
Let us look at the progress of this critical spirit in its bearing upon the young. They are passing through a period of danger and difficulty. A new world has been opened up for them. They are being laughed out of their religious scruples and home-made modesty; they are being warned against the cultivation of moral dreams and the pursuit of spiritual shadows. Nothing is sacred, they say, but what is sanctioned by reason. Thus it is that many a pious and humble youth, brought up in an atmosphere of reverence, with a father’s blessing and a mother’s prayers, is found sitting in the seat of the scornful. Religious fervour is despised; the habit of prayer, faith, and respect for the Sabbath and for the Word, are thought of as the vagaries of wild fanatics or mystical enthusiasts. Of course, there are doubters and doubters. In ‘Robert Rismere’ we have four types: the worldly in the squire, the misanthrope in Langham, the mystic in Grey, the intellectual and literary in Elsmere. He has a noble spirit, but can no longer accept Christianity as taught by the churches. He cannot preach the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. He feels that he must believe in God and his fellow-men, and he accepts the ideal of the Galilean peasant as a simple human ideal; and still Elsmere is not satisfied with mere philosophy. The squire, hard, cynical and studious, has a different cast of mind. His knowledge has overridden his religious belief, and he takes refuge in philosophy. Langham revels in the melancholy of unfaith. Some men doubt, but with a crushing sorrow and humiliation. With them the struggle has been real and prolonged—a heart-rending tragedy. God only knows the misery and anguish they have endured—an anguish that has whitened the hair and drained the life. Flippant believers scoff, and say that such doubt is the outcome of a corrupt heart. But religion is more endangered by such audacious assurance than by such thoughtful doubts. Others doubt, and gloat over it; and with the decay of their faith there comes a serious loss of moral tone. You cannot reason such doubters back to the faith of the saints, and to a regard for the interests of their own spiritual nature. You cannot pray, sing or preach them back. The ordinary ministration of the Church has lost its grip upon them. More heroic remedies must be applied. They have to be shocked into a contact with reality. The deadly opiate of sin finds its antidote in these seasons of revival, which arrest the attention of the indifferent, and bring the sinful into contact with reality.
There is another class—those who are polluted and dishonoured by the foul stains of sin. They are apparently useless to any purpose of God and man, and live only to spend their lives like vermin. They have faces wise with wickedness, and eyes out of which all traces of maidenhood have vanished. They are flung upon the world to be trampled in the mire of lust; often neglected and ostracized by respectable orthodoxy, and left to perish where they have fallen. Many of them are men and women who have drifted out of our Sunday Schools into a life of misery and shame.
“Once I was pure as snow; but I fell,
Fell like the snowflake from heaven to hell,
Fell to be trampled as filth on the street,
Fell to be scoffed at and spit on and beat.
Pleading, cursing and dreading to die,
And selling my soul to whoever would buy.
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread,
Hating the living, and fearing the dead.
Merciful God! Have I fallen so low?
And yet, I was once like the beautiful snow.”
But the cynic says, “These are difficult cases.” Of course they are, and the mission of Christ was not to get rid of “difficult cases,” but to meet and to solve them. He knew nothing of that “incurable ward” in the great hospital of ailing souls which the modern Church has established. Wesley went to Newgate and preached free salvation to condemned felons. “Though thou hast raked in the very kennels of hell,” said Spurgeon, “Christ will absolve thee from all sin.” Paul did not say that he had no Gospel for the “bad ones.” The writers of the New Testament did not preach the “doctrine of despair.” The essence of the Gospel is that all men must be approached, for the reason that all men can be saved, and that Jesus died for them. Let those who say that they have no faith in the recoverability of man at his worst read the history of the Welsh Revival of 1904—5. Men who had been regarded as either too old or too wicked to be touched and saved, surrendered fully and absolutely, and have since become useful citizens and consistent church members.
There is a deep, dark, underworld of woe, that looks with a sorrowful and almost hopeless gaze to the Church of God, for the thrill of that mystic saving power which the Spirit breathed into it at its birth. Souls weighed down with the burden of sin and shame, moved by a high impulse, wander into our churches only to find them cold and critical. They hear eloquent words about God’s lasting grace, the faithfulness of His love, and His willingness to forgive; but they find little of this love in the attitude of the Church, and practically none in the everyday life of the average preacher. Full of failings himself, he is unsympathetic with the failings of others. He has plenty of churchly school mastership, but little sympathy; he is more plentiful in religiosity than in brotherly love, or even in personal character. Into the sanctuary weary hearts wend their way, looking for shelter from sorrow, from remorse, and from glaring human vices; but of shelter or of comfort there is little. Undoubtedly there is welcome in all the churches for the fairly-dressed classes, for the respectable section that hold their places in the social organism, because they are considered helpful additions to the life of the Church; but should they become financially disabled, or lapse, even temporarily, and through no fault of their own, they are at once classed among the “undesirables” and “undeserving.” The interest in them dies out, and they are allowed to drift into that section of the community that is the despair of the philanthropist and of the statesman. It is this differentiating process that filled the heart of General Booth with compassion, and gave him his great ideal. For supplying this deficiency in the organized life of the churches, he will go down to posterity as the greatest revivalist since the birth of Christ.
To provide a place of worship for the public, and to supply an adequate number of competent men to preach and to minister in them, is not enough, and does not cover the whole duty of a church. The Master came daily into personal contact with the unfortunate and undeserving. Those who had fallen into misfortune turned their faces to Him as flowers do to the sun. The outcast felt that a new era had dawned upon his class; and the churches that perpetuate His spirit, His attitude, and sympathetic outlook upon this great sorrowing world, whatever badge they may wear, or whatever may be their creed, they alone have the right to bear His name and to look for His benediction. The political reformer has to face the fact that the boundaries of his efforts are limited. He can do something to provide adequate opportunity to give every advantage to ability and character, to remove temptation and to rescue those who, through no fault of their own, have drifted among the unfortunate; but the Christian churches, and those who minister in them, cannot plead any such limitation; they cannot find any excuse for it in the teaching and example of Jesus. It is their mission to help those on whom misfortune has fallen, whether deserved or undeserved, to seek to change their habits, character and lot, and to make them deserve in the future what they have not deserved in the past.
A great outcry has been raised in some quarters against the “New Theology.” There is one signal service which the “New Theology “ has rendered. It has concentrated attention upon the solemn and momentous truths of religion, and caused indolent men, lay and cleric, to think. It has made the orthodox world leap to its feet—chiefly in self-defence. The sound of the Rev. B. J. Campbell’s bell may seem harsh and discordant to some; but it has resulted in a call to arms, and has awakened many churches from their deadly sleep. Synods and presbyteries are passing resolutions in defence of orthodoxy. According to Jesus, there is only one orthodoxy, and that is love. The amount of love a church-member has to give away to his neighbours, to his unfortunate brother, to the indifferent and the sinful, is the only test of the reality of his faith. He may believe in Three Gods, and yet be farther away from the Kingdom than he who believes only in One. It is the depth of our love, and not the number of our Gods, that gives us the right to the title of Christians. ,There are many in the churches that are not in the Church; and many, thank God, are in the Church that are not in the churches. What is the use of all this discussion about the immanence of God—natural and spiritual immanence, or the transcendence of God, and the relation of the one to the other? What is the use of all this catechizing, praying, preaching and singing, if there is no love to come out of it—no pity for the fallen, no help for the unfortunate, and no encouraging word for the weak and the feeble? There is plenty and to spare of abstract sympathy, but little concrete tenderness.
Not only do our churches need a revival of the passion of enthusiasm, but a baptism with the wider element of sympathy. The Prince of Wales, after his recent visit to India, spoke to the City of London, and said that what the people needed was a wider element of sympathy. To such sympathy, he said, there would be an over-abundant and generous response. He spoke of the splendour of India, its fascination, its immense size, its varied climate, its numerous races, its ancient traditions; but what the people yearn for is sympathy, and it was sympathy alone that could touch them. The same truth applies to the relation of the Church to the work. This sad, bloodthirsty, sinning race needs to be taken into the loving arms of Christians. This is what is recorded of the Master: “He took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.” Our churches lack warmth, hospitality, elasticity, and the aggressive genius. An Irish Wesleyan minister, the Rev. John Holmes (the spiritual father of the Rev. William Arthur, who in his days was noted for his work among the fallen and indifferent), was asked to appear before the Conference because he had adopted fresh methods. His reply was, “I am not here to apologize for God Almighty. If souls are saved, I am happy, even though it be not in the usual way.”
The Pharisees said that Christ “’received’ sinners.” This He denied in striking allegories. Jesus said in effect, “ I do not ‘receive’ the backslider, but I ‘seek’ him. I light a candle, I sweep the house, I use every device known to Divine Love. If one method fails, I try another, until I find and restore.” This man is on the look-out for sinners. That is the idea.
Buddhism teaches the practice of sympathy and charity wherever want and suffering are met; but the ideal of Christianity is higher. We are to search for cases of sorrow, and to seek the lost.
To the “husks” the prodigal was welcome, but not to his master’s pity, advice, loving-kindness, or help. Thus it is that respectable orthodoxy, intoxicated with a sense of its own superiority, gloats over the fact that it is “not as other men,” oblivious of another fact, namely, that angels turn away from it in disgust, and that the Master, whose name it bears, will in the greatest day of all unmask its hypocrisy, and reveal it in all its shame and failure. Most of the fortunes that have been built up of late years have been built by utilizing materials that other men and generations have thrown away as useless. There were times when Christianity fled from all contact with the world; but its truest spirit is represented in the words of Mazzini, “Save the souls of others, and leave your own to the care of God.” We are all familiar with the hackneyed comparison between Mohammedanism and Christianity; and no two religions could lie farther apart. But in ten years ending in 1901 Mohammedanism added 5,000,000 to its membership in India. But our evangelical churches have to report arrested progress. The truth is, evangelical Christianity in England and Wales is losing both grip and ground. It is actually on the defensive. Beyond and above this, evangelicalism is fast losing its own intellectual integrity. It is losing it in virtue of the fact that it fails to differentiate between an inherited doctrine and an inherited faith; it is like the image of a man bound in irons speaking to a man that is free. Let evangelicalism make its stand on its faith, and its permanence as a factor in the religious life of the world is assured; but let it continue to seek to bind individual men and women to its Christological doctrines, its extinction as a moral force to be reckoned with is certain. The trend of the collective instinct of mankind is, not to bind men, but to free them—free them intellectually as well as socially. There is but one object to which men are willing to be bound, and that is Christ. But I may be asked, “What is evangelical Christianity?“ By evangelical Christianity I mean the teaching that emphasizes individual conversion by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Incarnation reconciling an alien soul to God the Father. This teaching is still given, but has lost much of its force and power because it has been diverted from its truest and its highest aims, and become disloyal to itself by being unequally yoked to political aspirations, and thus has grown unspiritual and material. Evangelical preachers have ceased to pray for and plead with the unconverted. The spiritual has become subordinate to the political. It may be contended that Christianity is broader than churchism, and that the weakness of its evangelical force in the churches should be attributed to its spread in society at large. True, there is a diffused Christianity—a Christianity which permeates social life and inspires great philanthropic movements, but which refuses allegiance to any particular creed, church, or organization. This diffused Christianity has emanated both consciously and unconsciously from organized Christianity in the past, in the days when evangelical religion devoted its energies to the one great ideal upon which it was based. But it is not so to-day. Through its flirtations with political and socialistic dreams, it has lost much of its ancient vigour, as well as its hold upon the minds of the people. Men and women look to the churches for the corporate expression of the old faith and of the living Christ, and are disappointed. Thus they are thrown back upon this diffused Christianity which is abroad in the world, and which assumes no corporate form. This decline of evangelical Christianity is most manifest in our industrial districts, and in the great cities, and in purely working-class centres. It is a matter of general knowledge that the condition of our Welsh churches respecting this question is in many ways unsatisfactory. The Sunday School, more than the pulpit, is the test of this point. All over the Principality there is not only a serious and general falling off in the number of adherents, but there is hardly any interest taken in fundamental theology. Look in what direction you please, there is progress both in thought and method. If the initiative and inventive genius of the future will be commensurate with that of the past, this world will be either a terrible or a glorious world to live in. There is a spirit of general activity among the sciences; one science does not wait for another. It would be more convenient, in some respects, if they did. For instance, historical criticism has two sides—lower and higher. The first has to do with the text of ancient documents as a basis of study.. The second, or higher criticism, relates to the inner characteristics of the document after the text is settled. It is a misfortune that the textual criticism could not have been finished first, and so prepare the way for higher criticism. Biology has changed not only our theories, but the very spirit of our thinking. Philosophy is still hard at work in its endeavour to unify all our knowledge. The science of philosophy has made rapid and serious advances. In physical discoveries, in mechanical inventions, the progress has been portentous. When the battle of Waterloo was fought it took them three days to convey the tidings to England; but when Gladstone bombarded Alexandria, the news reached London in a few minutes after the first shell was fired. The Mediterranean from West to East may now be visited with more ease and with less risk and cost than were involved in a trip to London in the days of our forefathers. The sense of social solidarity and mutual accountability has grown stronger, and has supplied our statesmen with a new impelling motive. It has also given an immense impetus to the creation of democratic governments and the realization of the Christian ideal, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” There is a new attitude towards almost every problem that bears upon labour, disease, learning, crime, and education. The whole conception of the function of the teacher has undergone a remarkable change. He no longer drives his pupils to their tasks, but leads and inspires them. He no longer compels them to copy or commit to memory; he incites them to observe and think.
Instead of imposing upon them his opinions, will and tastes, he induces them to form their own opinions. He studies their tastes, and tries to strengthen their wills and teach them self-control. From the Cabinets of Europe and of America the command has gone forth to their consuls abroad to study the requirements of the various markets of the world. As in the sphere of commerce, so in the sphere of thought. We have come, as Mr. Balfour puts it, into the “psychological climate.”
Analyze the attitude of the Christian churches in the light of these developments. Have they kept pace with the enormous advance in these departments of human activity? In population, in huge cities, in area of dominion, in education, in general intelligence, in demand for reality, and in all forms of mechanical appliances, there are improvements, modifications and enlargements that to our forefathers would seem like fairy tales. What about the churches? The last Revival found many unprepared. It found ministers without any knowledge as to the mode of coping with it. Many of them had not been trained to bear the burden of lost souls on their hearts, because their education had been in another and even an opposite direction. It was not a part of their college curriculum to be taught “that he that winneth souls is wise.” This most urgent of all teaching is usually left to the chances of after-life. Such work is relegated to the Salvation Army and city missionary. There is as much danger from the preoccupation of Welsh culture as there is from the preoccupation of worldly interests. Excessive cultivation of the former is as likely to kill the sense of the spiritual as an undue development of the latter.
Churches in general are lamenting that their lot is cast in a material age. They speak of gambling in its diverse forms and the glaring example of other vices; they bewail the lower tone in private and public honour as compared with the earlier and middle years of the Victorian period. We are constantly reminded that we have lost that higher spirit that inspired our citizens and our public men forty years ago. There is plenty of enthusiasm, but it is degraded, we are told, to material and natural ambition. This passion to dominate and to grasp, to pile up wealth, and to win fame, we are informed, has added enormously to the difficulties of the churches. This is the apology. The decline in membership, the want of ardour, the decay of the Sunday School, the indifference to prayer, both private and public, are attributed to the fact that our immediate generation has been sinking to meaner ideals, to coarser ways of life, to more vulgar types of literature and art, and to more open craving after riches, and a more insolent assertion of pride and force. The deduction is partly right and partly wrong. But instead of lamenting, the churches should rejoice that their lines have fallen in an age that affords such opportunities for Christian enthusiasm and spiritual devotion. When Napoleon drew up his troops before Mameluke’s, under the shadow of the pyramids, pointing to the latter, he said to his soldiers, “Remember that from yonder heights forty centuries look down upon you.” So from the pyramid of opportunity on which God has set the churches of this age, we also look down upon forty centuries. Not that I underrate the place and influence of the churches in the making of what is best and highest in our modern life. Affection has some advantage over hostility, and I confess my partiality for the Church. The pen that is wielded by love is safer than the pen that is wielded by hate. The insight of sympathy is more reliable than the insight of prejudice. In estimating spiritual values, whether in a person or an institution, it is never wise to accept the word of a biased critic. There is certainly an advantage in studying the Church from within. Volumes could be written to illustrate the varied and important ministries of the Church to civilization. By civilization I mean education, liberty, the production and distribution of wealth, the spread of equality and brotherhood, the abolition of slavery, the founding of charitable institutions, and the promotion of art and general culture. In all ages the clergy have been the custodians of culture, and from their ranks the modern profession of teaching has been evolved. The hood and gown are memorials of the monastic origin of academic dress, and they remind the world of the debt which culture owes to the Church. Such culture was not limited to ecclesiastical institutions its operations extended beyond the confines of the monastery, the priesthood, and the pulpit. It was a culture that overflowed the banks, making a wide stream that enriched the field of secular education. The imprint of its spirit and ideals is manifest in the literature of our public libraries, charged with the most exquisite expressions of Christian thought and national aspirations. In prose, in poem, and in declamation, it brings back to our mind the faith that was once given to the saints. It has demanded beauty for temples and homes; it has created markets for architects, poets, painters and musicians; it has stirred British intellect and British heart. Reforms associated with the name and influence of Peel, Cobden, Bright, Gladstone, Shaftesbury, Brougham, and other statesmen, cannot be traced to their sources, or their true characters analyzed, without taking into account the influence of religion as expressed in the life of the churches. By whom were the vast continents of Asia and Africa opened up to commerce and civilization? By missionaries of humble origin, born in the Church and nurtured in the Sunday School. Some of them waded waist-deep through pestilential marshes for days together, seeing months and years passing away without any intelligence as to whether their own kith and kin were dead or alive. What lands are they where darkness still reigns, whose people are ignorant and debased, where civilization is at its lowest level, and where liberty has no foothold? They are the lands where the missionary is unknown, the Bible unread and unhonoured. The Church has not left itself without witnesses. It touched art, and art lived; it touched architecture, and architecture lived. Look at the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages! They were reared by men who aspired to express in wood and stone their conception of the infinitude of God and the majesty of holiness. Work to them was worship. Music reached its true sublimity when it caught its inspiration from those hopes and desires that find their home in religion. So with painting. The creations of Michael Angelo strike awe into the gazer because he stands beneath the shadow of the throne of God. As in art, so in literature. Neander, Goethe and Guizot alike admit that all modern European literature, not exclusively scientific, finds its germ in religion. From this source Dante drew that mystic, unfathomable song that will live when Italy is nameless among the nations.
If we turn to consider the influence of the religious elements upon society, and the lot of the working-man, we find it has acted as a force of a mighty order for the extension of happiness. Before trades unions were so powerful as they are now, and before the wage-workers could make their voice heard through universal suffrage, Shaftesbury and Macaulay appealed to the fundamental doctrine of Christianity. They claimed for the British working-man his rightful place at the industrial banquet. They asked for shorter periods of wasting and exhausting toil. They asked for a fairer opportunity and a larger share in the fruit of labour, and they did not ask in vain. Only the Lord, sitting over the sacred counting-house of the churches’ record, can estimate the untold value of the devotion to truth and to the good of mankind as expressed in organized Christianity. Yes, there are many sunny outlooks in the history of our churches, and they can be seen better from the inside than from the outside.
But there is another side. The passion for knowledge, and for a technically-educated ministry, is fast overshadowing the passion for soul-seeking and soul-saving. We seem to be still incapable of realizing the necessity for one certain quality or excellence without neglecting another quality or excellence, equally important. We are continually specializing. Theoretically, the saving of souls, or the saving of character as it might be put, is an axiom in the creed of the Free Churches; but practically at this hour it is a matter of secondary consideration. Our colleges assume that the desire and the qualification for soul-saving are already there; but no means are taken to test and to cultivate them. Thus God has set His seal to agencies without and outside of the organized Church to seek and to find the lost.
The political character which Nonconformity has assumed of late years is a matter of grave concern to many; it has become so political in its ambition, its method, its policy and preaching, that there is no comfort and no official position within its ranks for an honest and courageous independent thinker who refuses to subscribe to the Radical Shibboleth. This is one of the causes that accounts for the fact that so many men of intelligence and of superior social standing, the descendants of Nonconformist ancestors, have gone over with their families to the Mother-Church. The old associations still cling to them in a measure, and many of them are not as happy in their new religious life as they should like to be; but they claim freedom of judgment. There was a time when the Church of England in Wales and its clergy were under the domination of the old Tory Party; but those days are fast passing away: there is a new class of men and a new spirit. The movement for Church reform is gaining ground. But of Nonconformity it must be said that it has contracted an alliance with the Liberal Party, and has practically become its slave. There is a plea of justification, and it is based upon the contention that the political activity of Nonconformity to-day is more spiritual than it was thirty or forty years ago. It is also maintained that this political activity is the direct outcome of the Nonconformists’ sense of justice and right, and that it is the duty of the Church of Christ to aid the people materially as well as spiritually and morally.
Again, though we boast of our educational system, there is an enormous amount of ignorance among our people. Crowds of mediocrities are being sent out of our public schools and colleges without any practical accomplishments. To pump knowledge into units by teaching, and to extract it by examination, is a waste both of money and patience, unless it produces men and women with an intelligent and sympathetic sense of life, and who are capable through the power of initiative and assimilation to take their part in shaping the fortunes of the future. We cannot measure a nation’s culture by the number of men, whether lay or ministerial, who hold a Welsh University degree. The degree may leave the student as insular and as uncultivated as ever; it often does. It is also worthy of notice that there is but little acquaintance with the strides made in Biblical interpretation. A progressive theological thinker in Wales speaks at his peril. He may think as he likes, but he must speak as he is expected; otherwise, a certain stigma is attached to his name, and to his church, and the friends of Milton, of Howell Harris, and the Puritan Fathers, will take means to circumscribe his usefulness. This in a measure accounts for the painful uniformity which is spread throughout much of our public worship. it is often dull, insipid and mechanical, and devoid of any helpful influence.
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