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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 49

Helps to Cooperative Religious Life [Discourses, 1st Series, No. 5]

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Helps to Coöperative Religious Life.

Discourses

1st Series. No. 5.

J. A. & R.A. Reid, Printers. Providence:

1883.
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Helps to Cooperative Religious Life.

There is an old motto which runs, "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well." It seems to me to be universally true and to need universal application. If you are sweeping a room, do it well. If you are making a garment, do it well. If you are teaching a school, do it well. For one, therefore, I recognize no logic in the position of those who set about some undertaking, little or great, and then expect to lie back in their easy chairs and witness its fulfillment. The world suffers as much to-day from half-done work as from any other cause. When you have made up your mind to begin a task you assume an obligation to "put it through," as the street phrase goes, in the best possible manner. In no other way can you command the respect of your fellows or keep your own. This means a careful consideration of every venture before embarking on it, and it means energy, pluck, perseverance, in pushing it after it is begun. It means, in a word, that anything worth beginning or maintaining is worth our unqualified, self-sacrificing service and loyalty.

If this thought, so vital everywhere, has greater force in one realm than in another, it is in that which we include in the term Religion. Religion is a binding, not back but fast, to something which is never quite attainable, but which always lures us on,—the ideal integrity, the ideal justice, the ideal love. It is a sense of obligation to grow toward these, to embody them in our own persons, to mould them into social and industrial institutions and laws. Certainly, if there is anything we are bound by the very nature of our beings to undertake, and having undertaken, to faithfully pursue, it is, first, this perfecting page 4 of ourselves, and second, the perfecting of the societal organism in which we live. It has been natural, therefore, strange as it may seem at first thought, it has been creditable to the human race, that religious wars have been the most savage of all wars. That fact only shows that men have been willing to fight hardest for what they have considered most vital. In other words, it shows, in all ages, how devoted men can be to the religious faith they espouse.

Now in the year 1867, in Boston, a large and clearly defined organization was effected in the name of Free Religion, and our society, perhaps more truly than any other in the country, is a direct outgrowth of the movement which then and there took visible form. I do not particularly like the name Free Religion. I should not select it now. But I can wear it easily, because among people who choose to inform themselves upon the subject it has come to stand for certain things. It signifies universal, natural, practical religion. It means that those things are fundamental which all men may possess, to which all may aspire, and in the spirit of which all may live. That many were at first drawn to these new organizations out of curiosity is not to be denied; that many attended, and perhaps still attend, their meetings for the intellectual treat they furnish, or are supposed at their best to furnish, is doubtless true. I speak not to such to-day. I speak to those who believe this movement of constructive radicalism in religion is the custodian of such principles as are destined, in its hands or some others, to benefit and ennoble mankind. Just how much do I mean by that? Nothing less than this. We say morality should be taught in our schools. What morality? A great majority of our people answer Christian morality. We answer no, natural morality, or morality divorced from theology. Well the fact is, and I neither shrink from recognizing nor maintaining it, the fact is that moral teaching uncontaminated by theological bias can never be introduced into any system of public education until the philosophy we represent, or ought to represent, prevails in its management.

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We hold that the aim of penal and correctional institutions should be not punishment, but reformation; that the only efficient way to save the falling and the fallen, is to extend to them a brotherly sympathy; and to excite in them a sense of the dignity of human nature. Where is the philosophy equal to in-venting and maintaining methods suited to this purpose? In its fullness, nowhere so truly as in our own movement.

We believe, in general, that what society needs is not charity, but justice, and to this end we would institute a scientific study of human conditions. Whence shall come the impulse to such work as this? Largely from the ranks of reform, but each reform speaks only for a class. Ours is the inheritance, ours the task, which points to the elevation of all humanity, through the spread of knowledge and equity.

In a word, we believe this world can be made a paradise by concentrating human study and enterprise upon its history, conditions, and possibilities; and the only movement, so far as we know, which makes this its first and unqualified aim, is that represented by the organizations bearing the name of Free Religion.

I take it for granted, therefore, that we mean business in coming here, and that the mainspring of our action is this faith in the efficacy of our philosophy of things. You do not contribute of your presence and means merely for the sake of contributing. I do not come here merely to earn a living. If that were all I would lay down my commission this hour, and you would adjourn and abandon your work. That we have not done so, that we do not propose to do so, is because we believe we have something to say which needs to be said, and an influence to exert which needs to be exerted. We have a mission. We believe in it. We love it. To some of us it is an inspiration. It is too good to die for. It is sublime enough to live for and labor for.

Well, if this be the case, it is the common sense course, as it seems to me, for those of us connected with this great re page 6 ligious growth, whether locally, or nationally, or both, to ask ourselves wherein, if in anything, is it weak and what can be done to strengthen it. I think we have some of the weaknesses which always attend protesting movements. Not too strong intellectually, our work is perhaps too exclusively intellectual. Not too strong individually, it is perhaps too exclusively individual. The tendency among all Radicals to worship the naked truth has been at once their strength and their weakness. It has sometimes amounted to asceticism. As in the name of Religion the old Brahmins mutilated themselves; as the life of the monk has been a species of martyrdom; so we—and by we I mean our movement everywhere—have seemed to glory in the sacrifice of the esthetic sense. I do not think, as some do, that we are beyond reform in this respect, if I did I would not take your time to talk about it now, but I feel, and feel strongly, as the era of protesting gradually goes out and the era of constructive work begins, that we may naturally invite, ought logically to invite, the cooperation of the beautiful and poetic in all their forms. Just how this is to be done is of course the question, and I bring it to you at this time, not so much to state my own individual needs, or to ask you to listen with a view to your needs, as for the purpose of considering with you the larger requirements of our movement and what we may do to promote its efficiency.

To state the point differently, the church in the past has represented the deepest, highest, holiest longings of the human soul. In the course of time it fell behind in thought and the come-outer became a necessary factor of progress. The real questions which I am trying now to discuss are : first, has human nature so far changed that it no longer possesses those elements to which the church-service appealed, and those wants which the church organization supplied, or is something else to take the place of the church in ministering to them; and, second, if something else is to take its place, is it to be evolved from the church itself or from societies like ours, entirely outside ecclesiastical lines.

Now in my judgment, the forms of the church were originally page 7 an expression of the faith of its devotees; and the reason why we reject them to-day—those of us who do intelligently reject them—is because they do not hold the same relation to us which they held to our fathers—they are not a natural expression of our faith. But we are still human. We have the sense of beauty, we have reverence, we have the same virtues which our ancestors had, and we have the same necessity for expressing ourselves—what to us is deepest and truest—in forms of beauty and aspiration. Worship is not to be abolished; forms of worship are not to be unknown in the future. Our problem is to find forms which shall be helpful to us. There must be the relation of cause and effect between faith and worship, else the worship is a pretence and a sham. I know there are some of us who would like to eliminate from our service here everything but the discourse. To such this question will not seem so vital as it does to me. To my mind, in its broadest significance it is one phase of the question whether we can be satisfied in our deepest, innermost experiences with attending, from Sunday to Sunday, an intellectual entertainment as spectators and listeners, or are ourselves a vital part of what we deem a vital thing.

At the Episcopal Congress in this city two years ago, the audience joined with those on the platform in music and responsive readings. The words were not an expression of our faith, but they were in the main the expression of the faith of those who used them, and added, as it seemed to me, very greatly to the value of the sessions. I confess I should enjoy our National Conventions more if we could recognize in them something besides brains. With rare exceptions, I believe Free Religious people, if they could only for a moment lose sight of their early prejudices and could find hymns and readings to delight their souls, would consider them a great addition to the effectiveness of their religious gatherings. The truth is, we are in a transitional stage in this matter. The poetry of our movement is exceedingly limited, for the most part it has not yet been written. But it will be written and it will be sung. I appre- page 8 ciate as fully as any one can, that not less than half the hymns we sing contain words, if not phrases, mentally objectionable. We have to accept them for their general spirit rather than for what they say. But I have also noticed that occasionally when the discourse has won your hearts, and the closing hymn takes up the strain, the very opportunity to express ourselves in unison seems to help us to a more perfect unity. I expect I am a a good deal of a Methodist in spirit, for somehow it does seem to me that about the easiest way to bliss is to sing myself there. Of course we may spoil it all by being too critical. There must be some yielding to the mood of the hour. My ideal singing for religious purposes would be a trained congregation, using hymns written to express radical faith, and set to music fitted to the sentiment of the poetry. I think we feel the need of both music and poetry. I am quite sure the church of the future will have both.

So in regard to a responsive service—we do not like such things now because we associate them with the sentiments of Christian Theology, which, in the church, such services have always expressed. But what is a responsive service? Simply one in which the minister or leader reads a sentence or paragraph and then the congregation reads or the choir sings another. It seems to me that it depends entirely upon how the service is made up whether it is harmful or advantageous. Of course for our use all theology would necessarily be excluded from our selections, and we should be limited by neither sect nor system in choosing them. Now what is more desirable than that we should become familiar with the fine sentiments of the different religions of the world? And what better way of becoming thus familiar than by reading choice bits from them each Sunday. Such services, although not already in existence, could be prepared easily from books like Mrs. Child's Aspirations of the World, Conway's Sacred Anthology, Stebbins' Bible of the Ages, and Mill's Gems of the Orient. Once in use, they would serve to keep our principles constantly in our own minds and in the minds of strangers. They would be a constant ex page 9 emplification of the spirit of Universal Religion. Nor need we stop with the recognized bibles. We should find much to draw upon in the great dramatic genius, who wrote :

"To thine ownself be true,
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

We should want to keep frequent company with the poet who lost his eyes in liberty's defence and sang:

"They also serve who only stand and wait."

Gleaning our harvest of precious thoughts through all ages and countries, we should not omit our own age and land.

"The saving of the world
Is in its nameless saints.
Each separate star Seems nothing; but a myriad scattered stars
Break up the night and make it beautiful."

That is worthy of any sacred book, if it did spring from the land of William Penn in this 19th century. And never in Christian or any other scripture was found more fitting benediction, than this from the lips of a Massachusetts bard :

"Pure love doth ever elevate
Into a holy bond of brotherhood
All earthly things, making them pure and good."

I am sure we should be surprised to find what a flood of inspiration is coming in upon us in all directions, if we would only open our minds and hearts to its influence. The world has always been full of prophets. It is full of prophets still. They speak to us in the prose, the poetry, the music of all peoples. We have only to use these sympathetically, and they will be our more than willing allies, often going where the discourse will not go.

Wm. C. Gannett, to whom you used to listen often, and always gladly', says "To hear a sermon is the small part of church-going. To make the service beautiful, first by friendship and second by page 10 the earnest grace of all that the people say and do together, that is what makes the Sunday meeting dear and helpful. The people at worship, that is what moves." You may say in reply to this that Mr. Gannett is too exclusively a poet. Grant it without argument, if you please, still does it not remain true that there is much wisdom in what he says? You and 1 have so accustomed ourselves to think of the appeal from the desk as the only thing, that I fear we are in danger of underestimating the other and just as legitimate influences of religious association. I am quite sure that these other things—especially this element of doing things together—would win to our side some, young and old, whom we do not now see. It is hard to say anything satisfactory about these fine influences of lofty sentiments, of poetry and of music, because they are of a nature which can only be appreciated when felt. But unless I am greatly mistaken, those who have had this experience will regard them as an essential part of the worship of the future. Futhermore, I believe we are quite as likely to grow into this kind of worship as the most liberal of the churches are to grow out of their theological bias. Be that as it may, whichever overcomes its defects soonest, whichever marries first the universal, the natural, and the practical to the reverent, the aspiring, the refining, will thereby constitute the coming church, and will deserve radical sympathy and cooperation. Ruskin says : "Ideas of beauty are among the noblest which can be presented to the human mind, invariably exalting and purifying it according to their degree." It is just this exaltation and purification of the human mind that religion seeks. Certainly she is wise in selecting the beauty of art in all its forms as her handmaid in this most sublime of tasks.

But this lack of recognition of the sense of beauty is not the only danger to Radicalism. I incline to think that its dislike of organization is carried to an extreme which amounts to weakness. Not a few are opposed to even what little of organic life we have here. It does not seem to me that what we have is very excessive. We may well ask ourselves if we are organized enough to show any permanently large development of the page 11 coöperative spirit. In direct connection with Mr. Gannett's church in St. Paul, there are upwards of twenty committees, each of which has something to do. In addition to the Board of Trustees and usual Finance Committee, there is the Committee of the church Temperance Society', the Social, Hospitality, Discussion, Dramatic and Music Committees of the church Unity Club, and so on,—I will not stop to mention them all. Of course anything so extensive as this would be inconsistent with our eastern ideas and conditions. I have never advocated it and do not advocate it now. But on the other hand, is not this true—that with us, naturally enough and without any fault on our part, the tendency in a marked degree is to hold aloof from so much of direction as may be necessary, and to leave everything to be done by a few. I speak not particularly of our own society, but of our entire movement. If what I say be true it is a very serious defect. I confess it is among my hopes for the future that we shall be able here in our own little company to introduce more of the methods of cooperation. I feel that it is one of my own delinquencies that we have not today in some way connected with our work more that engages general participation. For example, among the committees which we might organize to very great advantage, I should mention one on Hospitality. Members of such a committee would need great wisdom, perhaps you will say. Quite likely. The thing may be overdone,—so much so as to interfere with personal freedom. But what we ought to do at our Sunday meetings, what we ought to do at our Socials, is to become acquainted with each other. Friends can greet friends, but that is not enough. The stranger, without being rendered uncomfortable, should be made to feel that he is taken into our sympathies, and welcomed to our fellowship. Personally, I feel such a welcome for everybody, and have, so far as I could reach people, tried to express it, but it is physically impossible for any one person to do the work as it needs to be done, and I doubt not that such a committee, constituted in the right spirit, would prove an exceedingly beneficial thing. A committee on Sunday School work, more committees, and page 12 such as we have larger in numbers, for our Socials, might under some circumstances be advisable. Of course I understand as you do that these cannot come artificially and be of and value; that to be effective they must be a natural growth. It is that natural growth which I think we should try to cultivate,—the lack of which in our movement, locally and nationally, is certainly a radical defect.

Another work of unquestionable wisdom, as it seems to me, in a religious society, is the fostering of an interest in those who fall from the ranks through poverty or sickness, or other and worse misfortune. Should we not know the facts about such, that we may always be able to act advisedly as each case may require? I saw the other day an intelligent gentleman, one of the early, I think original, members of our Society. He is now an inmate of a charitable institution, one side entirely paralyzed, so that he cannot move about; but his head is still clear, and his interest in all that pertains to Free Religion is still strong. It is a hard thing for such a person to be dependent upon friends for the satisfaction alike of his physical and spiritual hunger. And the point to which I now wish to call your attention is that he has spiritual hunger. He yearns for contact with radical minds, and wants to see all that he can obtain of radical literature. I have been thinking what a sweet and natural charity it would be for us to constitute a Committee of Fellowship to look after such cases, to call upon them, keep us posted as to their condition and needs, and to be the means of communicating to them our sympathy and practical help.

I heard a few nights since, concerning one who has recently passed from this life, and who did not always while here preserve a manly self-control, that when asked within a year why he did not attend our meetings he replied, because he was afraid he should disgrace us. I would have liked so much an opportunity to have said to that man, that however much he might stumble, so long as he was struggling for a better, I should have esteemed his company an honor, and that our society, so far from being ashamed of him, ought to sympathize with him and strengthen page 13 him in his efforts, and I believed on a clear understanding of the case would do so. But I never heard of his former connection with us until he was in his grave; probably many of you do not know of whom I am speaking now. When such cases come to my attention I confess I feel self-condemned, I think we may well feel self-condemned, all of us, that we have not shown more of the spirit of brotherly sympathy and love. A word, a handshake, a sign of interest from us, might in some instances be worth more to one of our own way of thinking than any professional charity or reform could be. Ought we not to think of this defect on our part, if such it be, and see that it does not exist in the future? I think so. I feel quite sure when your attention is once called to the matter you will think so too.

Then there is always the question of practical work for the world at large. I have no sympathy whatever with Professor Adler's idea that religion is nothing but practical work, or that practical work is the major part of religion. I should think it the defeat of the Free Religious Movement if it were turned into an association for the purpose of doing even so good a thing as building free kindergartens and working-men's schools; but nevertheless I do hold that a practical interest in all movements tending to improve human life, here and now, is a vital part of religion; that the disposition to watch such movements, and help them on when practicable, is a vital part of religion. If the time should ever come when we could conduct in some way, an industrial education class or classes, or when we could exert an influence, a direct influence, upon and in behalf of homeless children and fallen women, I shall esteem it a good thing for them, and a far better thing for ourselves. A Committee on Practical Reform, whose business it should be to visit once a year all our private and public charitable and correctional institutions, to post themselves as to the conditions of life in the degraded localities of our city, to note their observations in these and other similar respects and report the same to us, would at least be an inexpensive and a practical manifestation of religious life.

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You will have concluded by this time, friends, that I think the ideal religious society quite an institution. In this you will not be mistaken. I do not say that it will always and everywhere do just what I have mentioned. I have not suggested these points now with a view to urging you to adopt them. They are worse than nothing, let me say again, if they be not the natural outgrowth of the spirit. Neither would I be understood as reflecting in the least upon your past or present scope as an organization. We are quite like the whole movement, of which we form a part. It is because I believe so much in that, and in our own efforts here as a worthy phase of it, that I would fain see both laying a broader foundation for future success and taking a more exalted view of their own high mission.

Personally, then, I reach these conclusions:

First—To associate for the highest and holiest purposes they know, has ever been natural to mankind.

Second—In its day the church of the past was the representative of, and leader in, this tendency.

Third—The instinct of association in human nature has not changed, but the fundamental objects for which men associate have changed.

Fourth—Therefore, while the old institutions will not serve the new objects, the necessity for some organization that will serve them still remains.

Fifth—Such organization must embody the Universal, Natural, Practical principles we represent in the abstract, with the worshipful spirit and the disposition to cooperative effort which, at its best, the church represents.

Sixth—Our movement is quite as likely to grow into worship and cooperation, as the church is to grow out of its emphasis of the special, the artificial, and the speculative.

Seventh—Whichever overcomes its fundamental defects first, will constitute the church of the future. And

Eighth—In the interest of true religion our first duty is to strive to overcome the defects which lie at our own doors, the page 15 lack of appeal to the beautiful in Art, Literature, and Music, and of practical realization of cooperative religious life.

Perhaps, friends, no periods of our lives are so productive of good as those in which they are subjected to rigid self-examination. I rejoice that we can so subject our united life here. I rejoice that in searching for the truth, as best we may, we expect to be at least as frank in speaking of our own faults as we are in speaking of the faults of others. If there is any truth in what has been said to-day, may it sink deep into our hearts. May it incite us to new energy in devoting our best efforts to the building of the Church Universal, Natural, and Practical; within whose walls the worship of thought, love, and aspiration shall combine; from whose companionship shall flow a stream of sweet charity and practical justice to bless and to redeem the world.