SECOND, we need a religion having power to free us from the feeling of condemnation.
There is a universal sense of guilt; a feeling that somehow we have offended a Power greater than we; a dread of the wrath of some higher Being. No matter whence it comes, this is one of the practical sources of unhappiness. The rites and ceremonies, sacrifices, prayers, and pilgrimages of the various religions of the earth abundantly testify to this fact. It makes no difference in man's moral accountability how this sense of obligation comes about, whether intuitively or by teaching and environment, since the fact is universal, and no one can escape it, and no amount of education has been able to obviate it, that is, to give peace of conscience. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” It is this unrest of soul which causes the unhappiness of millions. The need, then, is apparent for a religion of reconciliation.
The third practical need of our spiritual nature is a religion which can free us from bondage to sin and habit.
Mankind is in slavery, and knows it. Discontented with such a lot, man longs for freedom, but is impotent to acquire it. With yearning, yea, groanings, he turns his eyes toward the purity and holiness to which he has no power to attain. “The same divine mind that is working upon the things of nature is speaking to the hearts of men, and creating an inexpressible craving for something they have not.” This thraldom to evil within is another condition which has prompted the invention of religions and philosophies. Everywhere the human heart makes the same admission as the heathen poet Ovid:— “Video meliora proboque; deteriora sequor.” “I see and approve what is good; I follow the evil.” The apostle Paul voices the experience of mankind: “What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Instinctively the soul cries out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?”
The fourth need which we shall mention has to do with “the most stupendous problem of human life.” That problem is the problem of human misery; and the need is of a religion which deals with it in such a way as at least to help us to endure it, if not to get free from it. This has been the problem of the race since the sorrowing pair turned their faces from Eden. The mystery of human suffering is the subject-matter of the oldest book of the world, the book of Job. All down thru the ages has come the trail of woe, marring every joy of life like the trail of the serpent thru the scenes of Eden; causing suffering of the body, till, like Job, we curse the day of our birth, and the thought of death is pleasant; bringing suffering of mind, ruined hopes, bitter disappointments, blasted lives, till despair suggests relief in suicide. True to life, the poet makes mental anguish alone drive his hero, a heathen prince, to that desperate soliloquy:—
“To die,—to sleep,—to be
No more:—and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death—
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveler returns—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.”
Wonderful indeed, and yet most practical, will be that theory of life, that philosophy or religion, which can make human misery anything but an unmixed evil. But most wonderful, yea, divine, will be the teaching that not only affords comfort and consolation, but discovers such an interpretation to it all that it glows with a halo of meaning and purpose, till the sufferer exclaims, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses.” But this can be truly said only by one who realizes that these are but means to a great end, or gather a significance and grandeur because borne for some great cause or person. Ah, practical indeed would such a religion be!
These are all very practical spiritual needs. There are, indeed, many others, among which might be discussed the instinct of prayer, but those given will serve to illustrate the subject under review. These needs are practical, because on the true solution of how they may be satisfied depends abiding happiness, the summum bonum, or highest good, of life. Even tho there were no after-life, it would still be worth our while to adopt for this life any religion which met these practical needs.
The man who would invent an electric belt, a porous plaster, or discover a medical mixture that would fulfil these requirements, would soon be the richest man the world ever saw, and his posterity would continue to amass wealth till the end of time. Every one would have it if he could by any means obtain the purchase price.
The religion of Jesus Christ is exactly adapted to these ends. Not the least of the proofs of its divine origin is this co-ordination. Not the wealthy only may have it, but all; for the great Prophet himself said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor.” It comes as a free gift from Him who, humanly speaking, devised it.
When we add to these personal benefits the further fact that this religion is capable of making the best of citizens, of renovating the world; that it is the universal respect for even a few of its moral teachings which makes the world fit to live in; that the longing for continued existence, salvation from utter extinction, eternal life, receives a satisfactory pledge of fulfilment from Christianity; since it is certain that if there is a future life, as practically all men of all ages have believed, this is the only means of attaining to it; that to accept Christianity can not possibly do us harm, and is certain to do us good even in this life—does not its acceptance become most practical and most reasonable? The inspired Word of God alone, of all the reverenced volumes of4the world, supplies the knowledge of the meaning of life, of the condition in death; reveals the means of peace of mind; teaches the source of emancipation from the bondage of sin and habit; affords comfort in the deepest misery, and consolation in the darkest hour of sorrow.
What say you, sinner, is it worth the while? DERBY.