VOL. XVI., NO. XXX
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9 OBSERVATIONS. 8
, Through Nature to God.
"Y To one perplexed by the intermina
ble discussions of materialistic scien
tists and sincere but unscientific
theologians, the small book of Mr.
John Fiske's, "Through Nature to
God," is a treasure, a rock after much
floundering through a marsh. "The
fool hath said in his heart there is
no God." Mr. Fiske demonstrates
from proofs outside of the Bible that
this is just as true as it ever was.
While he believes that "the founda
tion of morality is to give up pretend
ing to believe that for which there
is no evidence," he demonstrates sat
isfactorily the everlasting reality of
religion.
Mr. Fiske's own discovery of the
influence of the prolonged helpless
period of human babies in the devel
opment of civilization is a link in the
continuous evolution of human be
ings. The willingness of some phil-
r j-TSophers to call Goi and to think of
" l.l, m i J!
mm as a lurce or au energy is i cumul
ated by this Cambridge philosopher
who had a clear spiritual insight, and
a recognized sonship in the power to
see and interpret truths of nature,
truths of the spirit and of history.
In the days of Isaiah he would
have been a prophet and have done a
prophet's work. In these days he was
a Cambridge professor and lectured
to Harvard undergraduates. Isaiah
was a student of his race and of the
peoples surrounding the Jews. He
could read what was going to happen,
as we read a book. He saw life not
in small fragments but large. He
followed the dim trail of Jewish his
tory. preserved in oral traditions,
back to its source, and he foretold
the future from the past. Not by
necromancy and not by special reve
lation did he prophesy to the people.
By the light of an illuminated, vast
intellect he read nature, history and
philosophy and delivered the inter
pretations faithfully to the people.
And for the last fifty years John
Fiske has marked the course of his
tory, has been an apostle of evolution
and has faithfully delivered to bis
people what was revealed to him.
With a supernatural memory which,
in itself, was a reference library and
needed not the printed page to verify
quotations, John Fiske's habit was to
concentrate all that he had learned
and the tremendous thinking capac
ity of his mind upon a single subject.
The illumination which was the re
sult was sometimes startling. Those
who have not read his history of Vir
ginia, know about the colonization
of that part of the country only
dimly.
But since the great prophets no one
has written about the relations of
God to man and about man's right to
ascribe his own spiritual possessions
to God as the father, so convincingly
as John Fiske. A master of English,
which if he had nothing to say would
still shine by its own light, he estab
lishes the fact not exactly of an an
thropomorphous god, but of a respon
sive god, of justice, truth, pity and
love. He proves that whatever we
possess of justice, love, pity or truth,
we have in virtue of his gift to us,
as a father gives of his attributes to
his children. Therefore primordial
man who made a god, to us grotesque
and cruel, had started up the steep,
long path which we are yet not half
way up. And this first aspiration
of the man who was but yesterday a
brute, is one of the strongest proofs of
the "reality of a quasi-human god,
of an unseen world, in which human
beings continue to exist after death,
and of the ethical aspects of human
life, as related in a special and inti
mate sense to this unseen world.
The fiual chapter of "Through Na
ture to God," is a splendid summary
and conclusion of the knowledge, in
terpretation and premises of all the
other chapters. "Life is the con
tinuous adjustment of inner relations
to outer relations." Then, according
to evolution, the world to man has
gone on enlarging from the time
when what was to be man was but a
green scum on a stagnant pool, to
now, when "he comprehends the stel
lar universe during countless aeons of
existence." Then each little plant
that made up the green scum adjust
ed itself to very simple conditions.
To the scum-plant the world was but
sunshine that withered one up and
dampness that kept one alive, with
an occasional cloud that shut off the
sun, and the cloud had the shape of a
pterodactyl or of a plesiosaurus. Now
man adjusts himself to a world so
complex that it includes the stars.
At the first dawn of human life the
crude soul stretched itself upward.
John Fiske says:
"Now if the relation thus estab
lished in the morning twilight of
man's existence, between the human
soul and a world invisible and im
material, is a relation of which only
its subjective term is real and the
objective term is non-existent, then
I say it is something utterly without
precedent, in the whole history of
creation. All the analogies of evolu
tion, so far as we have yet been able
to decipher them, are overwhelming
against any such supposition. To
suppose that during countless ages,
from the sea weed up to man, the
progress of life was achieved through
adjustments to external relatives, but
that then the method was all at once
changed and throughout a vast pro
vince of evolution the end was se
cured through adjustments to exter
nal non-realities, is to do sheer
violence to logic and to common
sense. Or, to vary the form of state
ment, since every adjustment where
by any creature sustains life, may be
called a true step, and every malad
justment whereby life is wrecked may
be called a false step; if we are asked
to believe that Nature, after having
throughout the whole round of her
inferior products, achieveri results
through the accumulation of all true
steps and pitiless rejection of all false
steps, suddenly changed her method,
and in the case of her highest pro
duct began achieving results through
the accumulation of false steps; I say
we are entitled to resent such a sug
gestion as an insult to our under
standings. All the analogies of na
ture fairly shout against the assump
tion of such a breach of continuity
between the evolution of man and all
previous evolution. The lesson of
evolution is that through all these
weary ages the human soul has not
been cherishing in religion a delusive
phantom, but in spite of seemingly
endless groping and stumbling it has
been rising to the recognition of its
essential kinship with the ever-living
God. Of all the implications of the
doctrine of evolution with regard to
man, I believe the very deepest and
strongest to be that which asserts the
Everlasting Reality of Religion.
0 &
The Uses of a Prophet.
Every once in a while, in Bible
times, at nearly regular intervals, a
new prophet arose. Philosophy and
history have established the continu
ity of history. Once in a cycle, ever
since the last Bible prophet was dust,
anew prophet begins to teach the
people. The good ones, the true ones
do not claim to be prophets. They
walk in the ranks with the rest of the
human procession. They claim no
toll from mankind for their gift and
practice of prophecy. They are not
borne on litters. They wear no robes,
neither mitre, chasuble nor maniple.
And these later prophets do not claim
special revelations. The modern pro
phet writes or speaks quite simply,
and from his place in the ranks. It
is certain that the man who claims
anointment or inspiration is a charla
tan like Dowie. John Fiske was al
ways simple and childlike and modest.
At tifty-nine when he died he was a
library, a library that was producing;
more books while using the whole
stock all the time in the new product.
If prophets were useful in the no
madic period of society, why not now,
when the groups are so much more
complex, and religion is crowded by
so many subjects? God has never
shut himself in a Book. He is there,
too; but in nature, history and the
hearts of living men he is more evi
dent. Otherwise religion were a dead
language interesting as a relic or
man but not potent as a means or
communication between men. From
living lips the message of God to man
must ever be interpreted. The living
prophet must use the new knowledge
of today to prove the old revelation.
From Moses to John Fiske the suc
cession is perfect. Moses was sent of
God; so was John Fiske. His reading
of the nature of God and his relations
to man are as vital to the safe journey
of this stage of the procession of man
as Moses' message to the Israelites in
their long wanderings through the
wilderness. Moses spoke a simpler
and more direct message and he had
an earthly office of great honor, and
he commanded an awe-struck people.
John Fiske held no office. Some or
the men who walked near him in the
ranks heard what he said and a few
scholars learned in languages and
science marked him, but the common
people have not yet heard his most
spiritual lesson from a man whose
business was not preaching but the
search for truth. But through reg
ular preachers his logic and interpre
tation will finally reach, not his own
generation, but the one following.lt is
thus that Darwin's discovery is now
ir. use over all the world. Although
John Fiske may not reap the glorv
himself, if God be glorified, like all
true prophets, he will be content.
J
Patent Ihsides
Many of the farmers subscribe only
for the county paper printed in the
nearest town. The country papers of
Nebraska are remarkably well edited.
The editorial matter is generally,
however, very limited. The contents
of the papers consist of local news, a
column or a column and a half of
editoria1 matter, the condensed tele
graphic news of the week, not very
fresh, and patent insides, or stories
and essays furnished by a syndicate.
Now the farmers themselves may not
read the syndicate matter, but it is
the only new reading matter that
comes into the house, and the farm
ers' wives and children read the in
side pages with touching eagerness
andcredulity. It is a pity that the men
and women who prepare this material
for the syndicate have no photograph
of the maidens, youths and exhausted
farm-drudges, who, when Sunday o
the infrequent moment of read in.
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