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Page 29
The revelation of the ideal humanity was hardly less revolutionary than
that of the enlarged universe. Formerly men were regarded as things,
commodities to be bought and sold, creatures without souls, objects to
be used. But Jesus taught that all men are children of God; therefore
that they have the very life of God; therefore that they are created for
His eternity, and will forever approach His perfection. This vision of
the perfected race has been at work changing national boundaries,
destroying hoary institutions, undermining thrones, and making a new
world. A glance shows the revolutionary quality of His teaching. Slavery
was the curse of every land. With force on the one side and weakness on
the other oppression was inevitable. Jesus taught that even weakness may
be divine, and lo! from every civilized land slavery has already gone,
and from the world it is fast disappearing.
According to the orthodox economic doctrine, supply and demand was the
law that should govern the relation between employer and employee. The
largest profit and the smallest wages was the watchword. As the teaching
of Jesus has penetrated further into the dealings of man with man
employers are beginning to realize that labor has to do with human
beings; that manhood is enduring and that conditions are ephemeral; and
that whosoever oppresses his brother, even in the name of economic law,
at last will have to reckon with the Almighty. Thus a new and more
beneficent social order is slowly but surely emerging.
The doctrine of the survival of the fittest is, even now, applied to men
where the teaching of Jesus that Providence has made a way for the
survival of the unfit is unknown or ignored. In all lands the revelation
in Jesus of the ideal manhood, and of the destiny toward which all men
are moving is changing and glorifying human society. He is the one whom
"the low-browed beggar," and the criminal with a vicious heredity, are
some time to approach. Is it difficult to select the one phrase of all
human utterances which has exerted the largest influence in ameliorating
the human condition? Would it not be,--"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one
of the least of these, ye did it unto Me." The identification of
humanity with Deity, the revelation of the divine in the human, the
solemn truth that no one can injure or neglect his brother without, at
the same time, violating all that is sacred and holy in the universe is
the culminating point in the revelation of man to himself. In the light
which Jesus sheds on humanity all men appear in their enduring rather
than their transitory relations.
The life and teaching of Jesus make the awful and insoluble mystery of
suffering endurable. He satisfies no curiosity on this subject. Why
suffering is permitted He does not tell us. He never allowed himself to
be diverted from His one purpose, which was not to solve problems but to
improve conditions. If any one approaches the New Testament expecting to
find an answer to his speculative questions he will be disappointed; but
if he asks, How may I so use the conditions in which I am placed that
they will minister to my spiritual purification and power? he will
receive a definite and satisfying reply. Why need sorrow, suffering,
sin, and death invade the fair realm into which man has been born? Other
teachers seek to answer this question but Jesus is silent. How may
sorrow, suffering, and even moral evil be made ministers of an upward
movement? On this subject Jesus speaks with a tone of authority. Among
the world's teachers He was the first to declare that while austere
experiences are not good in themselves they may, uniformly, become means
of moral and spiritual progress. The sweet may always be found in the
bitter. Sorrow may always be made a blessing. Tears never need be
wasted. Struggle always adds to strength; and sympathy is multiplied
when one bears the grief and carries the burden of another.
Do not brood over what you are called to endure, but seek for the
secret of spiritual help which is hidden within, and you will find that
on every grief and every pain you may rise, as on stepping-stones, to
higher things.
Jesus was the supreme optimist. Those who study life and history in the
light which shines from Him see that no human being walks with aimless
feet. They do not think of men as unrelated units, but as bound by love
to one another, and as living under the eye and in the strength of God.
In that light sorrow and pain may be justified, even though in
themselves they are hateful. The poison which destroys life, if rightly
used, will save life.
Apart from God and His purpose of love, nothing is more to be dreaded
than pain; but in His hands pain becomes the servant and not the master
of men.
I can think of nothing more dreary than the study of human life and
history apart from the interpretations put upon them by Jesus. Then one
generation seems to follow another, and the long procession, even though
the character of those composing it steadily improves, always ends at
the same goal,--the grave. Millions live and die like the beasts that
perish. They aspire, struggle, and are determined to rise, but just when
they are fitted to endure, and to enter upon ampler spheres of service,
the curtain falls on the tragedy, the stage scenery is changed, a new
company of players takes their places, and the farce, for it is a farce
as well as a tragedy, goes on from century to century, and there is no
meaning in anything. If that were the true interpretation of life, on
earth's loftiest mountain there might well be raised a temple in honor
of death; and around it all the races of men be invited to join in the
chorus, "Happy is the next one who dies!"
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