The Tupelo journal., 1910-02-11
Can Human Nature
Be Changed!

AA41AA
change human nature. One who reads
the literature of the ages careiuiiy
will see that often the great stumbling
block in the way of human progress
and emancipation has been this obses-
sion of good people. So deep-rooteu
has it been that 1t has passed into
proverbs: "Whatever has been u
always be-" whatever is, Is right,
"As is a boy so is the man, ana,
quoting an older cynic. Can a p
change his spots,'' Temperament is a
fixed quantity" Human nature is the
same in every age" These proverbs
are generally coined by good people
1t has been in the church that this
philosophy has been prevalent, as wen
as among the scoffers.
And yet the fact of transformation
of human nature is the very center
and core of Christ's Gospel, and how
his disciples could ever doubt 1t, n
remain his disciples, is n OF the
mysteries and paradoxes OF history.
1t is simply another OF those strange
misunderstanding of the Gospels that
one witnessed among those Christians
who could not see that slavery n
Christianity mad no part together. But
this is not the strangest thlng. far
is the fact that fully half
of the Christians of to-day are stllI
under the spell of this delusion. NOT
long ago a great writer called the at
tention of the world to the fact that II
reformers would only take human ma
ture as it is, they would stop reform
ing. To his mind reforms originate In
an idealizing of human nature it can
not stand. Many Christians share that
view. On our way home from church
one Sunday a good Christian mother,
worried by some tendencies OF her
young boy, remarked that she-sup-
posed there was no hope of changing
him because he was born so. You
cannot change human nature, half OF
our Christians believe. Now, the
Christians of the early ages, and even
of the middle ages, had only the prom
Use of the Gospel to convict them OF
error-and, to be sure, that ought to
4ldNC DCOh CllouSA Oot IL I'M
of to-day have that and this fact, too,
that history and most literature is
nothing but the record of a gradual
transformation of human nature. And
not only in individuals, but in whole
nations and communities. For civill-
zaticn is nothing but the collective ex-
preston of the human nature OF the
time. The passing of civilization from
barbarism to the semi-Christian civili-
cation of the middle ages is the his
tory of the transformation of human
nature. The passage from the cruelty
and feudalism and vice of the middle
ages to our more Christian civilization
of to-day is further story of the al
lchemistic change in the human heart
by the deeper and larger application
and understanding of the Gospel. The
promise of Christianity is the trans
formation of human nature into di-
vine nature, the subduing of the ami
NAL in man by the rising, conquering,
spiritual. This needs no proof. 1t
is the whole observation of the Cos
pei. If it fail. then Christianity is a
failure. But perhaps it might be help
full to us, and deepen our faith in the
power of Christianity to accomplish
what it purposes to do, If we find that
history, as we said, is the record of
the fulfilment of this promise. We
think we can show it is by looking at
two or three great spheres of human
conduct where the change has been
most manifested.
There is a passage in Sienkiewicz's
Quo Vadis," where a wretch named
Chic, who has been plotting against
the Christians-it is the time of the
first Christians in Rome-falls into
the hands of the Christians, and one
of them, the giant slave Ursus, is
ready to crush him to death, when the
Apostle Peter hises from the table
and speaks these words: THE Saviour
said this to us: If thy brother has
sinned against thee, chastise him;
but If he is repentant, forgive him."
Then Glaucus, against whose life Chi
10 had been especially plotting, turns
to Chic and says: May God forgive
thy offenses, as l forgive them in the
name of Christ" The point is that
eyes,. When at last he finds himself
free and tells the Romans they will
not believe it. In every century, even
within the church, men keep on say
ing that forgiveness of the enemy is
impossible; revenge is the natural law
of life, of man as well as of the ami
NAL; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth, is all humanity is capable of.
Even to-day one meets Christians who
cannot believe n this possibility Of
forgiveness as a law of life. And vet
we find that every age in history has
been full of exquisite instances of IT.
We find many a soul, like st. Francis,
practicing it. To-day there are mil
lions of Christians practicing it, and
thousands, from Tolstoy to the hum
blest apostle, preaching it. The church
e~njoins it upon every new member.
We have seen thousands of unforgiy-
ing natures since Christ's day SO
transformed by the divine alchemy of
Christ's Gospel that they have begun
to practice it with ease. 1t has be-
come the universal law of thousands,
yet good men have said, and still say,
you cannot change human nature.
AS you go up INT down Europe o
find everywhere dungeons where
slaves were kept. When Christ was
born slavery was as common an insti-
tuition and as much accepted as in the
order of society as marriage. AS the
divine leaynn IF Chrictiani+v hooan ~