The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-08-25

mOre IcdS0nADle or practical, or more
nobly humanitarian, than the Chris
tian spirit, the reverence for human
ity," as Charming described it in his
last public utterance, ''the feeling of
brotherhood and of all mems relation
to common Father" 1t respected
the rights of the Hebrew, the Deist,
the Catholic and the Calvinist; and it
honored every man of every creed &C
cording to the rectitude and humanity
of his life. But it made its own dis
tinctive aim, as church, to be the
promotion Of that highest humanitari-
anism which it understood by the
Christian name. And as this interiors
with no ones rights, and makes char
acter the only standard by which men
shall be judged, and cherishes broad
fellowship with all earnest workers for
human welfare, this Unitarian aim is
thoroughly consistent with the utmost
liberty.
But something m ore is involved in
this Christian purpose. Every practi-
cal aim must be based upon some be-
liefs. The simplest ethical feeling in
wolves belief in certain relations to
our fellow-men and in laws which grow
out of those relations. Patriotism rests
upon belief in the Importance of the
national life and it's claims upon us for
loyalty and sacrifice. Philanthropy is
meaningless unless it is justified by a
belief in the value of human life; for,
when the slave and the savage are re-
garded as having no more worth than
beasts, we feel scarcely any motive to
relieve their sufferings, except the
selfish wish to remove something which
is painful to our sensitive nerves. The
highest ethics and philanthropy, there
fore, must rest upon the highest esti-
mate of the worth of human nature.
The more we honor our own nature,
the more solemn will be our obliga-
tions Of personal integrity and the
more awful their sanctions. And the
more we value our fellow-men, the
more reverently will we feel our duty
to them and testify our love by toll
and sacrifice. But this distinctively
Christian idea of the sacredness of all
human life, this belief in the immeasur-
able value of every human soul, must
be justified and sustained by other be-
liefs; and such beliefs we find in Chris
tianity, namely, the belief in person
al God and his fatherly love for every
soul, the belief in the divineness of
human nature as essentially one with
the nature of God and always sharing
something of his moral life, and the
belief in the personal, progressive i'm
mortality of man. These beliefs give a
granduer to human nature which
amply jus titles the most devoted love
and sacrifice in its behalf; and only
these beliefs can fustain from genera
ton to generation the enthusiasm of
reverent philanthropy, which has grown
more intense in modern times as Chris
tianity has been gradually freed of the
heathenish superstitions that had
gathered around it through ages of
semi pagan darkness, an enthusiasm
which has been Uslknown where these
Christian beliefs have not been taught.
The Christian purpose, said, needs
not only to be justified, but even more,
to be adequately sustained. For the
chief value of any religion is found not
so much in the duties that it teaches, as
in the motives that it supplies. The
general principles of ethics have been
taught in all the great historic religions;
and, if Christianity were only another
body of moral precepts, somewhat more
spiritual than had been elsewhere
taught its special service to mankind,
would have been slight. For the great
difficulty in all times has been the lack,
not so much of knowledge with regard
to duty, as Of adequate motives. Rev
erence for rectitude id the abstract
may powerfully influence few superb
or natures; but without an enthusiastic
love for others, it cannot create the
highest saintliness; and in most men it
has little power. Here Christianity
meets the wants of human life by
teaching beliefs which awaken even in
degraded natures distinctive enthusi-
asm of faith and love; and, using this
enthusiasm as motive in the discip-
line of character, it has accomplished
marvels of moral regeneration unpar-
alleled in the history of religion, and
las developed type of saintliness
which reveals the highest possibilities
Of our human nature.
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