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SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE IV

The need of a supernatural remedy for the evils of non-Christian society is asserted and advocated, and the adaptation of Christianity to wage a beneficent and effective crusade against the moral lapses and social cruelties of heathenism is argued, under the following heads :

I. Christianity alone offers the perfect and final solution of the problem of sin. Its method of expiation and its assurance of justification and forgiveness contrast favorably with every expedient known in the religious history of man.

II. It provides a new and powerful motive in the moral experience of mankind. III. It suggests new views of society. Its estimate of the individual man brings it into sharp and significant contrast with the pagan conception, which is substantially the prevailing one in the non-Christian world of to-day.

IV. The code of social ethics advocated by Christianity is an immense improvement upon that which prevails under any ethnic system of religion. The ethical systems of Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism are examined and compared with the social ethics of Christianity. The superior ideals and the beneficent fruitage of the Christian code are demonstrated.

V. Christianity introduces new moral forces into heathen society, especially the noble impulse to missionary service.

VI. Philanthropic ideas are generated and quickened into activity by the entrance of Christian teaching and example among non-Christian peoples.

VII. Historic Christianity is declared to be equal to the task above outlined. Its power is shown to be in its supernaturalism and its transcendent appeal to the heart and will of man. Its sufficiency in itself, without any compromise with the ethnic faiths or any surrender of its unique and exclusive character, is insisted upon. Its claim to be a supreme, absolute, universal, and final religion, having its origin in the infinite wisdom and condescending love of God, is accepted unreservedly and in opposition to the theory that it is a product of natural evolution, or the outcome and consummation of the religious searchings of the race, or the outgrowth of other religious systems. Christianity is from Christ, and Christ is from God. In His own incarnate personality He is the highest source of wisdom. In His teaching and example we have the inspiration and pledge of individual righteousness and social morality.

LECTURE IV

CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS

"There is one great difference between Christianity and the best of other religions. They come to men as they are, and tell them that they must make themselves good. But Christianity comes to them and changes them from what they were, brings them a new birth, touches them with a divine life and power in their hearts, and so enables them to begin to be better. The religion of Jesus is a new commandment, with power to obey it."

REV. HENRY VAN DYKE, D.D.

'Certainly whatever else Christianity may be, it is a religion whose object is to make men moral. And any one who affirms that Christianity did not introduce into the world new moral forces merely convicts himself of ignorance of history. Granted that the Christian Church has made many mistakes and committed many crimes; granted that she has on particular occasions retarded science and obstructed healthy political movements; yet it is not to be denied that the Christian religion tends to make men moral, and does so with a persuasive and effective force which belongs to no other influence which has ever been brought to bear upon men. The individual is necessary to society; and the morality of the individual is essential to the wellbeing of society. In the interests of civilisation, therefore, Christianity is indispensable as the only hitherto discovered efficient and universally applicable conservator of the morality of the individual."

REV. MARCUS DoDs, D.D.

"The great characteristic of Christianity and the proof of its divinity is that it has been the main source of the moral development of Europe, and that it has discharged this office, not so much by the inculcation of a system of ethics, however pure, as by the assimilating and attractive influence of a perfect ideal. The moral progress of mankind can never cease to be distinctively and intensely Christian as long as it consists of a gradual approximation to the character of the Christian Founder. There is, indeed, nothing more wonderful in the history of the human race than the way in which that ideal has traversed the lapse of ages, acquiring new strength and beauty with each advance of civilisation, and infusing its beneficent influence into every sphere of thought and action."

WILLIAM E. H. LECKY, LL.D.

"That Christianity should become the religion of the Roman Empire is the miracle of history; but that it did so become is the leading fact of all history from that day onwards."

EDWARD A. FREEMAN, LL.D.

LECTURE IV

CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE
NATIONS

OUR survey of non-Christian society has brought to the front many desolating and cruel evils which all must acknowledge need correction. Our scrutiny of remedial agencies apart from the Christian system has not encouraged hope and expectation as to their efficiency. The object of the present lecture is to show the adaptation of the religion. of Christ, by virtue of its lofty ethical teaching and its subtle spiritual sway over the higher nature of man, to mitigate or abolish those evils which have so arrested our attention and aroused our sympathies. This is a large and majestic claim for Christianity, and, if it can be sustained, puts it in the front rank of the beneficent and helpful forces of social progress.

The consensus of spiritual experience justifies the conclusion that the effective remedy must be extra-natural; that is, it must be from some external source. It will not spring up as a

needed.

spontaneous outgrowth of man's natural gifts, hav- A supernatural remedy ing its roots in the powers and capacities of the individual soul or in the moral tendencies of

human society. It is not inherent in man's mental and spiritual nature, weakened and depraved as it is by sin. He is not, by any ordinary gift of his being, competent to organize and accomplish either individual or social regeneration as a self-originating process. This may seem a bold statement to some who know humanity only in the environment of Christendom, but it should be noted that man as a factor in the Christian civilization of our day is himself the product of Christian forces which for generations have wrought towards his moral elevation, and have produced in him a degree of discernment and a

measure of capacity to respond to higher ideals which otherwise he would never have possessed. This remedy must, moreover, be religious in its essence and power, not simply political, patriotic, economic, social, or even ethical, in its tone and scope. It must take possession of the deep springs of the spiritual life of man, moving him from within, quickening and renewing the vital energies of the inner life, and supplying motives and impulses which find their realm of influence and activity in the higher faculties of the soul. We go a step further and assert, in loyalty to the whole spiritual history of mankind, that the remedy must be fronì a divine rather than from a human source.

Religion the saving force in history.

A weighty confirmation of the truth of these statements may be derived from the fact that the natural tendency of society everywhere, apart from some supernatural interposition bringing inspiration, guidance, and power, is to go wrong and stay wrong. There are certain grooves of evil into which human nature untouched by the remedial agencies of divine influence is sure to run, and its course therein is ever towards lower depths. Evolution may be downward as well as upward, and under merely natural auspices it is found to be invariably in the direction of moral degeneracy. There is no effective moral revolution on record except that which has been prompted and guided by supernatural forces as the adjuncts of a God-given religion. This is the strong position of Mr. Kidd in his recent volume on "Social Evolution." Religion has ever been the saving force in human history. How otherwise can we explain the moral helplessness and social decay of humanity, as a universal rule, up to the present hour, wherever the spiritual inspiration and the ethical force of religion have been absent? Left to itself, society seems to be self-destructive and to have no remedy within its own resources.1 This sociological point

1 "Taking society as it is, with power to originate its destruction, and ever multiplying its infirmities without alleviation or remedy, it is more than a mystery. It evokes the most considerate inquiry as to its nature, its constitutional diathesis, its inherited bias, its proclivities to evil and good; and especially does it suggest an inquiry into its origin, whether it is resting on a right basis, and whether it possesses the power of recuperation or the power of adequate recovery to an ideal. History speaks with no uncertain voice of the infirmities of the social structure, of collapses of governments, religions, and nations from inherent corruption, and of the inability of society to correct its evils. As a natural organism or the product of the instincts of human beings, it has been on trial long enough. For relief from its infirmities it has resorted to naturalistic remedies, but always without avail. In other words, it has sought to restore itself by the very means that destroyed it.

"The world has tried pagan sociology long enough. Neither by Plato and Socrates, nor by Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, has the race advanced beyond the

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