sides and tops of hills, where for ages before there was any civilization the wild men traveled. On the highest ground, these highways were free from the floods and plunder of the low lands. They also afforded advantages of outlook and signaling; and the winds swept them clean of leaves and snow. The winding "ridge road," following in many cases the Indian trail, is well known to the early settlers all over the West.' 25. A thing so closely related to human life, so continuously identified with every phase of human activity, and withal such a real thing, was selected by God to give name to his religion for the world. 26. The name Road in itself suggests plain, straightforward business in giving and receiving the message of religion; and the message of this book is to men who have not time or patience to go into controversies or to play with the small things of unimportant beliefs. 27. The New Testament is made up of twentyseven parts which treat of the greatest subjects in existence; and yet what a little book it is just the thing for the busy men of business. The message of Jesus and the Apostles was to earnest men.2 1 Hulberts' "Red Men's Roads," p. 8; Clodd's "Childhood of the World," pp. 8, 33, 48. 28. 2 John the Baptist was a type of modern evangelists. He did much good by the many good things he said, but how few did Jesus gather after a few months from the thousands who received the water baptism? Jesus' method was to seek the earnest people and require the rabble to stop and consider in order that they might become earnest and sincere. Compare Luke 13:24; 14:25-33; Matt. 15:25-28; 19:23-29; Jno. 6:26; Jer. 29:13. 29. Earnest men like certainty. In business measures they steer clear of doubt. Jesus tells of a man who bought a field, but he knew first that a pearl was there.' The stern realization of existence goads a man to seek certainty where his welfare is involved." 31. The reasons which lead earnest men to seek improvement and self-protection, and to have regard for the future, force them to be interested in religion. They cannot ignore the problems of existence and destiny, for which there is no solution outside of religion. 32. The sense of existence is attended by a sense of earnest personal responsibility, which leads straight to these two facts:-God made me, and God meant me. The outcome of honest dealing with these facts is relation to God, which is religion. Man and God are bound to come together; except the man is wrong or dead to the meaning of existence.* 3 1 Matt. 13:46. 30. 2"It is a most earnest thing to be alive in this world; to die is not sport for a man. Man's life never was a sport to him, it was a stern reality, altogether serious matter to be alive."-Carlyle's "Hero Worship," Lect. 1. 33. The claptrap of the religion-monger may attract the rabble but it repels earnest men. Prof. Harnack says: "Apologists imagine that they are doing a great work by crying up religion as though it were a job lot at a sale, or a universal remedy for all social ills. They are perpetually snatching, too, at all sorts of baubles, so as to deck out religion in fine clothes. In their endeavor to present it as a glorious necessity, they deprive it of its earnest character."--Harnack's "What is Christianity," p. 8. The apostles showed religion to be a sure thing of great gain for the life that now is, and the life to come. 1 Tim. 4:8; 6:6. It is real and worth more than pearls. 34. Few men of greater brain power have lived than Daniel Webster. When asked for the greatest thought that ever entered his mind, he replied that it was God and his responsibility to Him. 1 35. The religious intuition of Jesus was so active and spontaneous that when he spoke, the people saw it was the utterance of real religion. Jesus never made a concession or an apology; and if man and God did not come together in his religion, then the wrong man, by repentance, was the only one who had to change. The religion without change was to stand and it cannot be modified or changed to suit the notions of any man.' 38. Jesus' disciples were a mixed body of people; which showed the adaptation of the religion to men of all classes. About the only things common between them were their need, sincerity and earnestness.3 40. The apostles were earnest men, otherwise they would not have heeded Jesus' call "straightway" and "immediately" and "forsaken all." They were not men of letters and philosophy, but business-like men with decision.* Indifference is 36. Jesus spoke out of his own fulness and from himself; and men saw then and they still see that in him is the truth. The rabble, high and low, who now make of the churches amusement halls, cared nothing for the truth then and they care nothing for it now. the beastly state into which many have come. 37. 2"My words shall not pass away." preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema." Gal. 1:9. Jno. 6:26. "If any man 39. The rejection of men by Jesus is hardly less noticeable in the Gospels than his calls and choices. The insincere, whose interest it was to build up themselves; and the self-righteous, fortressed with their own conceit, and who would not repent, he turned away.-Parker's "Ecce Deus," pp. 84-117. Jno. 3:5; Mark 10:17; Luke 10:25. 41. St. Paul is not an exception. He was foremost of all an earnest business man. Like every earnest business man, his whole soul went into whatever he did. He was not a professor of classic learning but a practical scholar and a tent maker by trade. In large part his theology grew out of his own experience; and he was "as remote as possible in his whole way of thinking from the scholastic theologian." The impression made upon Paul 42. The success of Christianity is now depending upon two things: (a) the making of it over to fit Jesus' religion, and (b) the attitude toward it of earnest men. The conviction is expressed that earnest men in all the walks of life, especially earnest working men, are becoming indifferent to Christianity and tired of churchianity.' At the same time they wish to be understood as not opposed to Jesus. 44. This indifference of men in all the industries, to the public worship of God; and the transfer of interest from the church to secret societies and to fraternal unions, many of the men never going inside a church, presents a gloomy outlook." 46. The evil will not be remedied by evangelistic measures, to interest the rabble and to pro by the person of Jesus, is the most striking thing in his presentation of the Gospel. And, when all else is said, the effect which Jesus had on the lives of his disciples tells us best what his religion is. Paul understood Jesus, and continued his work, and laid the foundations, as no other man did, of all that is best in civilization. Compare Harnack's "What is Christianity?" pp. 189, 192. Bruce's "St. Paul's Conception of Christianity," pp. 26-33, and Farrar's "Life of St. Paul," pp. 35-39, Vol. 1. Matt. 4:19-22; Phil. 3:13. 43. This opinion that the number of indifferent people is increasing is shared by many careful observers. Josiah Strong in "The Great Awakening" quotes and endorses the saying of Prof. Bruce: "To be enthusiastic about the church in its present condition is impossible." And still, whatever may be the true condition as to indifference, it cannot be denied that the churches have in their membership the best people as a rule in every community; and if their work is handicapped, still it is the best work that is being done, and is not a failure. 45. 2 With respect to the different classes of men, the condition is too much like that of Rome in the period of its decay; when religion in large part was turned over to the idle and shiftless, and to the few good people interested in worship and in helping the rabble; while men with ability to do the work of the world gave themselves to making money. "Life of St. Paul," by Conybeare and Howson, Vol. 1, p. 13; Smith's "History of the World," Vol. II, pp. 547-567; Farrar's "Early Christianity," pp. 8-9; et alii. duce emotional results; or by an order of things on the physical plane, "social settlements," "institutional churches," etc., good as these things may be in certain localities. Jesus did not proceed in these ways, and no institution planted here or there, will do to take the place of a community of Brotherhood. Only that as religion, can command the respect of earnest men. The church that Jesus planted was a Community of Brothers, and was a richer and broader fellowship than that of any fraternal society; and joined together, by its higher meaning, all races and classes of earnest people. What the laboring and business people have lost interest in is, the ecclesiastical institutions and the cults of the schools.' 48. The burning questions of to-day are: (a) shall religion take its appointed place of spirituality and power, and minister to the sum of human life as it did from the Day of Pentecost onward; or, shall it continue as a cultus, operated by ecclesiastics and theological schools? 47. 1 The Standard Dictionary defines "cultus" as "a system of religious belief and worship," or "state of religious, ethical, or esthetic development." "Cult" is defined as "a cultis," or "a system of religious rites and observances." Hall's "Modern English" is quoted as follows: "Cult is a term which, as we value exactness, we can ill afford to do without, seeing how completely religion has lost its original signification." The Brotherhood, gathered together from the community by a common trust in and devotion to their Saviour, and which came to be known as the church, was not a system of beliefs but a relation to a Person; any beliefs being only the steps to the relation with the Person. The religion of Jesus therefore is an experience, a new creation, a living way, a drawing of men into his own life. No one who joined himself to the Lord had the suspicion that he was entering an institution like a sectarian church, or was adopting a creed system like that of a modern cult. The New Testament contains nothing of the kind. What Jesus set forth as the kingdom of God, was a union of love with the Father by fellowship with himself in holy living. See paragraph 126. |