The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-08-21
therefore they could not have been

these special revelations from God.
That profound moral insight that
made Confucius the Moses of China
shows signs of the special touch of
the divine conscience. and Buddha's
profound sympathy, which extended
to all the creatures of God, seems like
special inflow of the infinite love.
Now all these enrichments of his
tory are supernatural. They are not
evolved; they are revealed. They are
not unfoldings of what is; they are
the creating of something that is not.
They are new creative acts of God in
the history of mankind. They are
not the development of something
already given but new gift.
A new light and power are made
over to ELECT souls" that they may
become teachers of men. These souls
are inspired of God to teach the les
son the world is ready to receive and
so the world receives new impulse
in the way of progress. Thus is the
third factor in human history demon
strated. The supernatural enrich
ment of history is reality. God is
not only the general guide and direc-
tor of mankind, but he is their speci-
al instructor. These instructions are
to be found all along the course OF
human progress and whoever ignores
them and seeks to write the history
of mankind without recognizing
them, his work will prove misleading
and fruitful of error. A true history
of mankind must take into the &C.
count all the factors and not seek to
ignore one or more in the interest of
some preconceived theory.
The Analogy.
Whoever has followed this discus
sion will see that there is striking
analogy between the history of our
planet and the history of mankind.
Allow us briefly to note the points of
that analogy.
l. Both are in sense evolution
airy. They begin in the little and
proceed to the great. The earth be-
gins in the nebula, without form
and void" and proceeds until the
highest forms of life are reached.
Man begins in the lowest conditions
and goes forward toward the high
est,-not yet reached.
2. Both are progressively crea-
tive. The "whole creation" is not
finished at once but along by de-
grees. The mineral force is first, then
the vital and after that the spiritual
So man is put to school in the world.
and the new creative lights of history
come along as they are needed.
First the lawgivers, then the proph-
cts, after that the Son of Man and
after him the perfection of the ma
tions in his image.
3. In both there are supernatural
elements. Given the mineral force,
as the first creation, the vital force is
supernatural to it and the spiritual to
all below. Given man in the school
of the race, the new light given by
the Great Teacher is supernatural to
all knowledge given or acquired be-
fore. The light of Jesus Christ is
supernatural to that of the law and
the prophets. He came to fulfill but
he was no evolution from the law and
the prophets, either Jew or Gentle.
4. In neither is there any antago-
nism between the natural and super
natural. The vital force does not an
tagonize the mineral but joins on to
it and uses it to realize its own crea-
tions, so with the spiritual. The same
is true in human history. The new
elem ents do not antagonize the old.
The divinely inspired truth at any
point has no controversy with truth
already given or acquired. The new
truth joins onto the old and the king
dom of heaven is advanced among
men. Jesus came not to reverse the
course of human history but to carry
it forward to perfection, not to destroy
but to fulfill "the law and the proph-
ets."
5. In both the supernatural be-
comes natural when it has realized
itself in the world. The vital force
originates in creative act of God,
but when created it has its own laws
and does its work in regular, order
ly way. Christianity has no war
with the nature of man but works in
harmony with that nature and the
laws Of its procedure are regular,
natural, orderly, and capable of being
known and understood.
Clearly then human history is
largely but the continuation of earth's
history. The same elements and the
same order of procedure appears in
both. Both are the products of one
4 II