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"The mono-ideist, when he has accomplished his purpose, either lets his dominant idea go, or else he voluntarily continues it or changes it for another; the monomaniac cannot let his idea go; he is a slave to it and it taints the whole of his life. The mono-ideist, apart from the motive which guides his conduct and makes him unscrupulous and cruel, may be, in aspects other than his temporary obsession, capable of quite ordinary feelings; he may be an affectionate father and even just in his ordinary dealings, be it understood, on condition that these do not interfere with his main idea-on that point he is inexorable.

"Examples are ready to hand of the influence of mono-ideism in every-day life. The politician of the extreme type rides roughshod over anything that stands in his way; if his object is to gain votes he will sacrifice his principles, his patriotism, his language, and will incur the chances even of civil war to exploit what he calls his just design. The militant Suffragists, to attain their purpose, which they had brought themselves to believe was the correct one, set fire to houses and other public and private property; they burned churches and ran the risk of killing individuals; they destroyed valuable pictures and attacked the property of innocent people, regardless of all social conventionalism. In fact, their 'atrocities' were on a scale parallel in kind with the modern doctrines of Clausewitz and Treitschke."

The German nation has for years devoted itself to the elaboration of the

mono-ideism of war, of ruthless might,

as the means of securing wealth and power. To that end all the accessories which go to make war successful have been invoked—the infusion of terror by murder and rapine, the desecration and demolition of all that was sacred and

reverenced in religion and art and tradition. Nothing must be tolerated which stands in the way of success. Gentle persuasion is a peaceful product.

Therefore it must go. Non-combatants

are possible enemies. They must be got rid of. Their shelters must be destroyed and their occupations rendered no longer possible. So absolute must be the completion of the Kriegslust or desire for war that the conquered nation must be blotted out and so crushed as to be incapable of rising again:

"When the mono-ideism of war is at its full strength and development only those ideas which are cognate in kind have any chance of being tolerated; all else must be taboo, and becomes, indeed, unintelligible. What recks a few old halls, a cathedral here and there, art treasures accumulated by the wealth of people, whose money has been in the wrong pockets? Let all go if it stands in the way of the realization of the war-goal! And thus we of the Kriegspartei say to you of the Friedensgeist: If you like to destroy our Cathedral of Cologne, or to take the treasures of the Grünes Gewölbe, by all means do it-if you can. We shall quite understand your methods when they come to be founded on ours, and we shall say nothing if you employ them, because we are the creators

of the higher culture, and in copying us
you acknowledge the force of our ideas.'

"It does not take long to become so
absorbed with a certain class of ideas
as might be thought! Forty-five years
ago Germany was comparatively a mild-
minded country; if not pacific, she was
decently humane in carrying out her wars
of repression. But within half a century,
under the influence of the constant prod-
dings of the war party and of certain
one-sided psychologists and Socialists of a
particular school, she has become an up-
holder of a system of intellectualism in
which the emotional side of sympathy,
pity, honor, and the observance of treaties
are all thrown aside, and only that part
of mind is entertained which fosters the
dictum that might is right, and which
makes 'Kultur' stand for the development
of selfish, material progression by any
means, however cruel or inconsiderate to
others."

mono

The British, on their side, have suc-
cumbed to a species of mono-ideism.
They have sedulously cultivated the
no-ideism of peace. They have so sub-
ordinated all other ideals to the preser-
vation of peace as to have lost all sense
of proportion. This makes it difficult
for the British generally to comprehend
the German war spirit. Peaceful pur-
poses may degenerate into a
ideism impelling a
man to make all
sorts of sacrifices for the sake of peace,
even sacrificing his neighbors. Now a
man who will sacrifice himself for the
sake of peace may be a moral hero
probably is. But there is nothing heroic
in sacrificing one's neighbors to one's
ideism. A man should be willing to suf-
own ideals. Indeed, that is stark mono-
fer for his own ideals, but he is not
sublime when he makes others suffer
for them. It is the point at which
pacifism becomes mono-ideism. Under
stress of circumstances, nevertheless,
this pacifism will transform itself,
through sheer provocation, into the
very malady raging throughout Ger-
many:

"It is as impossible for the German na-
tion to make a complete volte face and
to become regardful of anything, be it
a treaty or considerations of humanity,
which stands in its way, as it is for us to
kill the wounded or deliberately to destroy
old cathedral and works of art at
present. But a continuance of the aroused
spirit of war in us is very likely to burst
into a flame of a very different character.
Indeed, there are already signs of our
approaching the German tone. We are
beginning to talk of blotting out milita-
rism, of utterly destroying German trade
and commerce, or razing to the ground
their capital; we regret the taking of
prisoners, and devoutly express the wish
that they should all be killed-and all this
change of opinion after only four months
of fighting!

"Can we, then, wonder at the German tone of mind which has been sedulously cultivated for years? Our ideas have been essentially composed of the pacific and emotional elements of mind: the

Germans have strenuously cultivated the 'intellectual side,' and anything on the emotional side that they have retained is that which ministers to their desires of revenge and conquest, revenge against France for what Germany suffered from the first Napoleon, spite against England for standing in the path of her material progress. Both countries have been mistaken: for, to split up mind into subdivisions and to make a working fetish of a mutilated integrity, to make a section of thought an object of exclusive devotion, is a mistake; it is bad psychology, and leads only to misunderstanding.

"We call the Germans a set of cruel barbarians; they call us foolish sentimentalists. The results of war are showing each side its mistakes, and they are bringing out in a way which could not otherwise have been inculcated the fact that mono-ideism in any form, and emotional mono-ideism especially, is a blunder which can only lead to misconception and may be a source of peril. Each side now finding that, in assuming a one-sided mental trend, it has been mistaken, and it is now experiencing what a costly blunder has been made."

A striking anticipation of this reasoning occurs in a character sketch of at least Emperor William written twenty years ago by the distinguished Portuguese author, Eca de Queiroz, and reproduced in translation the other day by the London Times. The Portuguese foreshadowed the mono-ideism of Emperor William in its bearings upon the conception his Imperial Majesty has formed of God in the following terms:

"The world in perplexity murmurs: Who is this man that changes and multiplies himself incessantly? What thing will germinate in that well-groomed head And M. Renan of a regulation officer? groans because he must die before witnessing the complete development of this become a contemporary problem - there

shifting personality. Thus William II. has

are theories regarding him as there are regarding magnetism, the influenza, or the planet Mars. Some say he is merely a youth ardently thirsting for newspaper fame, and who, with an eye to publicity, prepares his impromptus with the spectacular method, art, and patience with which Sarah Bernhardt prepares her costumes. Others aver that there is in him nothing but an overbalanced fancy, carried madly along by the impulses of a morbid imagination and, for the very reason that he is an almost omnipotent Emperor, he is allowed to exhibit without restraint the disorders of his fancy. Others, again, see in him simply a Hohenzollern in whom are summed up and in whom flourish with immense parade all the qualities of Caesarism, mysticism, sergeantism, red-tapeism, dogmatism, which alternately characterized the successive Kings of that most lucky race of petty lords of Brandenburg.

"It may be that each one of these theories contains, as is fortunately the case with all theories, a particle of truth. It is my opinion, however, that he is nothing but a dilettante."

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T

WAR AND THE CHRISTIANITY WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED

HE defensive argument most frequently used by clergy and the religious press regarding the relation of Christianity to the great war runs: Christianity has not failed-it has never been tried. Since so much of the progress of civilization all over the world has heretofore been attributed to Christianity, critics insist that responsibility for the present appalling situation cannot be so easily dodged. Incidentally, recognition of the challenge to Christianity by the war is apparent in such contrasting professions as that of the Reverend Dr. Charles E. Jefferson (pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York), who declares that "militarism is the absolute negation of Christianity," and Henry Watterson (editor of the Louisville CourierJournal), who editorially exclaims: "The conflict between Christianity and Militarism, between Freedom and Autocracy, is an irrepressible conflict. Which of us-especially who of us in the aggregate-yields to the spell and lives in the image of Him of Galilee? Behold the flames of Hell sweeping over three-fourths of Christian Europe. If this be Christianity, what is Paganism?"

If Christianity has never yet been tried, what has been tried these nineteen hundred years? asks Percival Chubb, the Ethical Culture Society leader. Was there ever such a revelation of the ethical bankruptcy, or the ethical insufficiency and futility, of the Christianity of Christendom? Let us accept the issue, writes Mr. Chubb in The Standard, the organ of the Ethical Societies. It is clear enough that the pomp and complexity and air of militarist organization of the historic Church are not the expressions of the simple life and personality and teachings of the Nazarene. What is the Christianity of Christ, "which has never been tried"?

"Briefly, the teachings of the Master of Galilee, if they mean anything, mean that war is a sin. The true disciple will love even his enemies, and do good to them who despitefully use him. He will forgive his offending brother unto seventy times seven, and he will resist not evil. He will be meek and lowly, and a peacemaker wherever there is strife. These are not secondary teachings of Jesus, but the rock-foundation of his gospel, and the

keynotes of his personality and conduct. What has become of these keystones to the arch of Christian teaching which, if they had been lived up to, would have made war impossible? Only the persecuted Quakers and a few inconspicuous sects and fanatics like Tolstoy have taken them seriously."

Either these doctrines are false and impossible, human nature being what it is, proceeds Mr. Chubb, or those who do not heed them are disloyal to their In either case, Mr. Chubb Master. raises the question whether the ethics of such leading principles is adequate to the needs of the present world crisis. He thinks they do not suffice, because the ethics of Christianity is essentially individualistic and personalistic, whereas war is a matter of the relations of organized national states.

"The great triumph of the ethical teaching and temper of Jesus was its recognition of the independent worth of the individual, apart from all ranking in a group, be it social, racial or national. The poor man and the publican, the harlot and the sinner, the hated Samaritan, even one's the general conception of 'the neighbor' who was to be loved as oneself. That was a decisive step forward in men's ways of thinking and feeling.

worst enemies, were all included under

"But this was under the promptings of the heart rather than the leadings of the mind. Jesus was a typical Hebrew: his method was that of intuition, direct moral insight. He was not an 'intellectual.' His morality was intensely personal. God was

ever,

his 'Father.' All men were his 'brothers.' Love was the key to his character-a compassionating heart which bore down all the barriers of prejudice that divided men. His watchword, 'Love,' has been the watchword, the obsession, of all the great Christian leaders-Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Thomas à Kempis. It is an essentially personal virtue and implies a certain intimacy of relationship. It may, howbe unworthy and sentimental, blind to values. It may be unjust, and the old saw, 'Be just before you're generous,' expresses roughly a stricture on this failing. Justice, the intellectual virtue of the Greek, the impersonal virtue of right reason, transcending passion, preference, prejudice, must be added to it. Indeed, love should be the fulfillment of justice. But justice and the involved virtues of knowledge and right reason are not strong notes in the teaching of Jesus. His is a religion of the heart.

"Besides, life is not a matter of merely personal relationships. It includes relations to the state, the nation, other nations,

humanity. When the great Greek, Plato, tries to discover what justice is, as in his 'Republic,' he finds its meaning in the relation of the individual to society, to the social organism-not in the relation of one single individual to another. We have no clear recognition of this aspect of morality in the outlook of Jesus."

Thus Christian ethics, according to Mr. Chubb, has not concerned itself with the ethics of politics, or laid down and enforced the individual's duties as a functionary member of a social organization. Its affinities have been with a type of philosophical anarchism; "when Tolstoy cries out 'Back to Jesus,' he beckons us back to a life of rural simplicity, with no state, no compulsion, no legal system."

"The juristic system, which as a matter of fact determines the relations of the individual to society in modern nations,

stands in no vital relation with this very personal religion of Christendom. Little wonder, then, that the Church should not be equal to meeting an international crisis with the only possible instrumentality which is appropriate that is, a juristic morality which shall control nations as it

tion. The Christian conscience of Europe has never insisted that moral principle should determine the relations of nations. That is the startling fact. Why did not the clergy, the spiritual power of Europe, rise in overawing protest against this war? Why was it left to the unchurched socialists to voice the cry, 'Guerre à la guerre' ('War against war') ?” /

has controlled individuals within the na

The immediate application of the concept of justice is the supreme task of the nations, Mr. Chubb insists, and this involves establishing, in place of a negation of moral principle, a juristic

relation between nations to be effected by some such instrumentalities as those which achieve justice within each nation-tribunal, police, parliament, on an international scale.

In these perplexing war times we note that Everybody's Magazine flashes in red ink on its cover the question: "When Christians Fight, Are They Christians?" Below the question appear quotations from the Sermon on the Mount, beginning, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." This magazine cover-flash con

cludes with the words of Jesus: "And the second [commandment] is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Thus in modern journalistic fashion is the attention of the reader directed to the story told by a contributor of his experience in trying to find out if there is such a thing as a Christian anywhere now.

Instead of peace, which one might expect to find among Christian nations from the literal application of Christ's words taken as rules of conduct, the writer for Everybody's, Garet Garrett, sees that the Christian is more warlike than the pagan; in Europe, altho above 95 per cent. of the people profess Christianity, two Christian countries are at war with three others for advantage, and both sides are calling upon non-Christians to help kill Christians. Mr. Garrett does not confine himself to his title question, “When Christians Fight, Are They Christians?" for he raises equally difficult questions regarding the relation of Christianity to other kinds of modern man's business. But it is clear enough that some of the answers he has re

ceived from teachers of Christianity bearing upon the relationship of Christianity to war fail to satisfy him. He went to a Jesuit scholar:

"The great advantage of Roman Catholic thought is that at every point it is consistent with itself. The teachings of Christ, the able Jesuit said, taken literally from the Gospels, were inconsistent and

mind toward our problems. Is Christianity compatible with war? In the simple sense, it is not. And yet the Christian individual as a member of society may find himself in the dilemma of having to decide between anarchy and obedience to the command of the state to fight. In that case, to fight is preferable, for war is vastly less undesirable than anarchy."

From the same source Mr. Garrett says he learned, at random, among other things, that a nation and an individual are two very different things; that rigid national boundaries are conducive to war; that when a man finds himself in a dilemma requiring the wisdom of a Solomon and hesitates or reaches a compromize, his neighbors

taunt him with his failure in Christianity; that the problem in the world is to convert nominal Christians to Christianity; and that Christianity is not a body of precepts, but salvation. He continues:

"I found myself discussing the Jerome text, metaphysics, biology, epistemology; but as to whether man's business was consistent with God's business according to Christ, I knew no more than when I started. That was when I came back, to start over again. If it had not been for St. Francis, a great tower of pure Christianity, nowhere to be denied, I doubt if I should have had the courage to start again. I resolved to stick to St. Francis and to Christ's teachings literally, and I went straight to a Protestant Episcopal bishop and asked with all my might: "What would happen to a Christian

66

having violated the percept of non-resistance as Christ gave it?

"It is not so,' he said. 'Even if you take Christ's sayings separately and construe each one of them literally—as, of course, you can not consistently do-even then you have no precept from Christ that would oblige a nation to practise nonresistance. Christ's precepts were confined to individual conduct. He did not mention nations.'

"So that in the practise of Christianity there shall be one set of precepts for the

Christian nation and another set for the Christian individual?'

he said. 'Christianity first of all must be "I don't know what you mean by that,' a rational thing. It is rational or nothing. It does not deprive you of the moral right to defend yourself from attack. There is no such doctrine of non-resistance as you premise, not even for the individual. You have to take Christ's teachings altogether and find the rational purpose central to the whole of them. "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Your idea of non-resistance rests upon that one saying, and it is not to be taken literally by itself.'

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ing, apart from anything else? takes something from my hall, and I beg him to wait until I can get something that rational?' more for him out of my bedroom. Is

“Of course not; and yet one capable of

misleading. They had been confused by Church that preached pure Christianity doing that has been glorified even in vul

many translations and had rested on tradition and recollection in the first place. Christianity was what the Church taught; and the teachings of the Church were consistent.

"They did not contain, for instance, the precept of non-resistance. Therefore, war in a righteous cause was not inconsistent with Christianity, and as far as the war now raging among Christian countries in Europe was concerned, that might not have to be considered as the greatest evil; it might be a war not of death but of regeneration. And he particularly sought to impress upon me that I had been confusing precept and counsel. Non-resistance was not a precept even as Christ was quoted, but a counsel of perfection.

"True, I had not distinguished clearly between precept and counsel. There is nothing in the Gospel text that enables one to do so. I had been taking it all literally, and I had collided with a Jesuit mind on irrational premises."

Another priest answered that people were practising practical Christianity everywhere, but that if the questioner expected perfection he expected more than Christ did. A teacher of good orthodox doctrine in one of the large Protestant seminaries said:

"Man is continually demanding cutand-dried solutions of all his problems. Christianity was not to solve everything. It was to put us in the proper attitude of

and insisted on it?'

"He was a big, splendid man, in mind and body, with few delusions about things around and hardly any about Christianity.

He looked at me hard and said:

"If you press me there, I don't know what to say. It is a very hard question. I don't know what would happen. Revolution? Christian Socialism? What? I don't know. And yet I like to think that we will return to the Church of Apostolic times. That is what you mean.'

"Is it hard to imagine?'

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'Yes, because the Christian has built his conduct upon only a part of Christ's teachings. He loves his neighbor until the neighbor offends him. He believes the Sermon on the Mount only so far as it doesn't interfere with his business. His greed comes in and his Christianity goes out. War and Christianity are irreconcilable.

it.

We need not fool ourselves about If I have not the right to kill you who have offended me, then nations have not the right to multiply Cain's crime by the thousand fold. We have got to face the failure of our theories. This war is a terrible blow to Christianity. And yet I have survived the pessimism into which it plunged me at the beginning, and believe now that it will teach us to attend more to

God's business in the future.'"

Thereafter Mr. Garrett sprung this poser upon a well-known Presbyterian pastor: Why has the Church failed to lift up its voice against Belgium for

gar literature.'

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"What?"

sticks to the robber Jean Valjean. It was "The bishop who gave his silver candleirrational, no doubt, but it had a wonderful effect upon the robber's psychology.'

"Man may be ideal in fiction,' he said." Mr. Garrett persisted in citing the example of Christ as having no property to defend, an example considered irrational in his lifetime on earth as well as in our day. The Presbyterian pastor said:

employ it. He must be rational. For an "God gave man his reason. He must individual in our modern society to live as Christ lived would be, if not quite impossible, at least extremely irrational. The proposition itself, even for purposes of argument, is irrational."

Subsequently the journalistic questioner received a letter from this pas'Christianity is a flying goal." From tor "in which he said a beautiful thing: which Everybody's evidently took the cue to offer five hundred-dollar prizes for the most concrete, timely and helpful answers to the question, "What is a Christian? Not what is the ideal Christian-that would be too simple; but what is the actual Christian? How nearly must a man's life approach the ideal Christian before he may be a Christian at all?"

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HUGI, the spirit of loyalty in the life of Japan, is the most conspicuous characteristic of the Japanese nation. This loyalty has been a kind

of personal devotion, not to an abstract idea or an ideal, but, to an individual, an emperor, a superior. The chief allied virtues which find their best expression in the exercise of that spirit are gratitude, honor, justice and selfsacrifice. Thus the loyalty that inspires the nationalism of Japan has spiritual and ethical qualities of peculiar interest in a time when nations clash in Orient and Occident. Japan's entrance into the great war as an ally of Great Britain, her capture of Germany's leased territory at Kiao-Chau in China, and the further policies that she may develop lend international significance

to the fundamental bases of her nationalism.

Recall the strange note to Western ears which sounded in the rescript of the Emperor of Japan declaring war upon Germany:

"We, by the grace of Heaven, Emperor of Japan, seated on the throne occupied by the same dynasty from time immemorial, do hereby make the following proclamation to all our loyal and brave subjects:

"We hereby declare war against Germany, and we command our army and navy to carry on hostilities against that empire with their strength, and we also command our competent authorities to make every effort, in pursuance of their respective duties, to attain the national aim by all means within the limits of the iav of nations. . .

"It is with profound regret that we, in spite of our ardent devotion to the cause of peace, are thus compelled to declare war, especially at this early period of our reign and while we are still in mourning for our lamented mother.

"It is our earnest wish that by the loyalty and valor of our faithful subjects

peace may soon be restored and the glory of the empire be enhanced."

Reference to God, in Western fashion, is missing, we notice, from this Far Eastern call to war. The form of command, authorized by the representative of a dynasty unbroken for at least 2,000 years "by the grace of Heaven," subtly assumes a worshipful belief in the sovereign as a matter of course. The suggestion of ancestral mourning, coupled with an appeal to loyalty and valor, is curious indeed. What manner of nation among modern nations is this Japan? What faith lies back of the national aim?

A recent volume on "The Faith of Japan" (Macmillan) by Tasuku Harada, president of Doshisha University, Kyoto, gives a timely and illuminating.

OF LOYALTY

interpretation of elemental Japanese beliefs, obscured for most of us by the complexity of religious systems on the other side of the Pacific. Like the Japanese nation, the faith of Japan is a composite creation, President Harada points out. It cannot be classified under any one religious system, but represents a union and adaptation of elements in Shinto (the only indigenous religion), Confucianism (philosophical and ethical ideas), Buddhism (religious customs and beliefs), and Christianity, to some extent. In other words, we infer that the Japanese is an eclectic in religion and so has developed his own unique working religion of loyalty.

"The Japanese people," said Tongo Takebe, of the Imperial University of Tokyo, to the Universal Races Congress in London, "have worshipped their sovereign as a divine being, and regarded their country as the empire of a god. This faith has had the effect of deepening the loyal and patriotic feelings in the minds of the people; believing in the eternity of the empire and throne, Japanese society was solidly built up, with the imperial family as its center." President Harada would evidently amend this generalization by saying:

"Loyalty to their ruling family has ever been a marked characteristic of the nation; and an unreasoned, half-unconscious belief in the special divine care accorded the country, together with love for the natural beauty of the land, added to the prevailing sentiment of patriotism. It must, however, be admitted that loyalty to the Emperor, such as we find at present in Japan, was not in existence among all classes of the people before the Meiji era. Much less is it true that the Emperor had been worshipped as a god, as clared. That the Tenshi (Tenshi is liternot a few foreign observers have deally 'son of Heaven') were held in reverence so high that we may almost say

they have been worshipped is true; but

no living Emperor has ever been deified. That would have been quite contrary to the true spirit of the Japanese."

sole virtue, according to this writer, The principle of loyalty as almost the grew up with feudalism; loyal service became the bond of social life, stronger and closer than blood relationship. When feudalism was overthrown by nationalism in 1868 the Tenshi became

the sole object of popular devotion, and he represents to-day the unity, interests and glory of the whole nation. For this evolution from petty, divided, and often conflicting claims of loyalty into the present enlightened and unified loyalty, Japan is greatly indebted to the revival of Shinto.

THE
THE SPIRIT

109

the worship of nature. It had no founder, but arose in primitive times and, with the development of Japanese nationality, gradually took the form of a religious cult, adding to nature-worship an emphasis perial House. At certain periods it formed

upon ceremonies connected with the Im

an alliance with Buddhism, and at others it borrowed from Confucianism. The result is that to-day it peacefully shares with these other faiths the devotion of the Japanese people. Shinto as a national cult stands outside the pale of religion proper and is under the direction of gov

ernment officials. Its chief. function is to foster patriotism and solidarity by maintaining the national customs, and by preserving the shrines of Imperial ancestors and of all who have rendered notable service to the state.

"To the historian it would be interesting to trace the rise of patriotism in Japan. It began in the form of the personal pride of the Samurai, who prized his own national patriotism in any real sense may

and his lord's honor above life itself. But

be said to have arisen for the most part after the opening of foreign intercourse. It speedily grew into a passion that counts it joy to sacrifice life for Emperor or country. The result is that no religion which fails to respect the national spirit can hope to prosper."

That loyalty shades into a species of so-called ancestor worship, President Harada does not impute to the Japanese as unrighteousness. It is of the utmost importance, he says, that Christians should study deeply the national spirit of Japan and strive to do nothing wantonly to offend it, and especially to cast no unsympathetic reflection upon the relation of the people to the Imperial House. It does not seem to him that the veneration of the Japanese for the ancestors of the Imperial House and for their own ancestors is a custom to be strongly condemned. The larger part of so-called ancestor-worship in Japan, he says, is reverence for the memory of the dead and tendance upon their spirits, which is not necessarily worship. The term "communion of saints" comes nearer than worship to expressing the idea. He continues:

"How can we respect a man who feels no gratitude toward his own ancestors to have a true appreciation of the great mercy and goodness of God? Is it not rather for us to cultivate and guide this

sentiment so that it shall be raised from mere reverence for human ancestors to

worship of the Great Father of all

fathers? The man who thinks little of his ancestors will end by thinking little of God Himself. Consequently, it seems to me that instead of attacking the so-called

worship of ancestors, the better way is to emphasize its resemblance to the true worship of the Father of Lights, leading men on until they are willing to have the "Original Shinto consisted largely of lower custom swallowed up in the higher,

even as the light of the stars is swallowed up in the greater glory of the sun."

One reason why the Japanese have opposed Christianity, President Harada says, is that they have mistakenly thought that it makes light of the favors and mercies which we receive from rulers and parents. To teach the Japanese that, if they do not believe in God they will receive punishment, while if they believe they will be rewarded, has no influence to move them whatever. If they are taught that the chief purpose of prayer is to express gratitude to God, and that to walk in the way of righteousness is to requite the favors of heaven, there is not one who will fail to understand and appreciate, whatever may be their personal response. "To requite a ten-thousandth part of the manifold favors of the Emperor or country" is always a strong Japanese motive.

Chu and Ko, loyalty and filial piety, are usually associated and regarded by the Japanese as the two cardinal virtues; but in fact, continues President Harada, loyalty has always been placed first. To the modern Japanese it means devotion to the cause of the nation in addition to personal attachment to the Emperor. In the face of such devotion all other duties must give way.

From Harada's volume of sympa

thetic interpretation we understand that the inherited and prevalent religious attitude of the Japanese is a practical search for a Way of Life. They assume that Nature has her fixed ways; likewise that human progress is by evolution rather than revolution; and that enlightenment or full consciousness of the real condition of things is the goal of understanding. To follow the hallowed way is to link the essence of human life with a life superhuman.

The Imperial Rescript on Education (1890), declared to be the basis of all necessary moral instruction in the schools of the Empire, which is read in all schools, public and private, upon occasions of state, sets forth the Japanese ideal of the Way, as follows: "Know ye, Our subjects:

"Our Imperial ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting, and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our subjects, ever united in loyalty and filial piety, have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and herein also lies the source of Our education. Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious; as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend your benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intel

lectual faculties and perfect moral powers; furthermore, advance public good and promote_common interests; always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise, offer yourselves and maintain the prosperity of Our Imcourageously to the State; and thus guard perial Throne, coeval with heaven and earth. So shall ye not only be Our good and faithful subjects, but render illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers.

"The Way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeathed by Our Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by Their Descendants and the subjects, infallible for all ages and true in all places. It is Our wish to lay it to heart in all reverence, in common with you, Our subjects, that we may all thus attain to the same virtue."

Lacking a clear conception of a personal God or the personality of man himself, the Japanese, President Harada declares, have no adequate conception of the worth of the individual. The danger of degrading religion to a mere method of training for the pursuit of worldly success is ever impending. On the other hand Japanese critics assert that since neither loyalty nor filial piety, the central pillars of Japanese morality, find clear expression in Christianity, such a religion is not only unsuited, but is a positive menace, to the nation.

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THE CHRISTIANITY THAT DEVELOPS ACCORDING

TO THE SOCIAL MIND

HRISTIANITY is not an abstraction. It is a phase of the life process, an historical movement, concrete in people's lives, subject to the laws of individual experience and of social evolution. So defined we may see in creeds and confessions what Christianity endeavors to express; the creeds and confessions are the product of the union of Christianity and cul

ture.

To discover the vital principles of Christianity-the "generic" principles that distinguish it among families of religions-Shailer Mathews says that one must study the various historical conditions and social orders in which the formulas have developed, and discover the fundamental attitudes and

beliefs which they express. Dr. Mathews is dean of the divinity school of the University of Chicago and president of the Federal Council of Churches, and contributes this kind of a study to The Constructive Quarterly. He offers a striking list of essential elements of generic Christianity, found back of varied organized doctrinal forms given them by successive social minds, as fol

lows:

1. Men are sinful and, if they are to

avoid the outcome of sin, need salvation by God. (Sin, guilt, and the need of redemption.)

2. The God of law is knowable as the

God of love, who in threefold personal self-expression seeks reconciliation with men. (Trinity.)

3. God has revealed Himself as Savior in the historical person, Jesus. (Deity of Christ.)

4. God comes into any human life that seeks Him, both directly and indirectly through social organizations like the church, transforming it and making it in (The Holy moral quality like Himself. Spirit as experienced in repentance and regeneration.)

5. The death of Christ is the revelation of the moral unity of the love and law of God. (Atonement.)

6. Those who accept Jesus as the divine Lord and Savior constitute a community in special relationship with God. (The Church.)

7. Such persons may look forward to triumph over death and entrance into the kingdom of God. (Resurrection and eternal life.)

These fundamentals of generic Christianity Dr. Mathews holds to be not dependent upon the particular type of philosophy in which they have been accepted by the church. They are as old as the New Testament. Various social

minds, he says, in proportion as they have felt the need of the help one or all of them can give, have used their own vocabularies to express them; but, even when the vocabularies themselves have in some cases grown unintelligible, the truth has continued to function. The essential force of Christianity through successive centuries is the power to propagate itself in the social orders which have determined the course of history.

"Christianity as we know it to-day springs from no single source but has gathered up within itself material from existed. Its elements are concrete-dethe various environments in which it has cisions of councils, theological treatises, rituals, orders, sacrifices, morals, customs, political adjustments, and, above all, the experience of actual men and women who built states, married, grew old, fought, loved, thought and acted. . . .

"Occidental civilization has resulted from the genetic succession of several creative social minds. These social minds

have been the outcome of social experience of various sorts. Christianity, as a developing religion by which men of different grades of culture have sought

to gain help from God in accord with the teaching and person of Jesus Christ, has appropriated and built into itself these

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