462. The Democracy of Religion

The Democracy of Religion

Act_17:26 : ’93And hath made of one blood all the nations of men.’94

Some have supposed that God originally made an Asiatic Adam, and a European Adam, and an African Adam, and an American Adam; but that theory is entirely overthrown by my text, which says that all nations are blood relatives, having sprung from one and the same stock. A difference in climate makes much of the difference in national temper. An American goes to Europe and stays there a long while, and finds his pulse moderating and his temper becoming more calm. The air on this side the ocean is more tonic than on the other side. An American breathes more oxygen than a European. An European coming to America finds a great change taking place in himself. He walks with more rapid strides, and finds his voice becoming keener and shriller. The Englishman who walks London Strand at the rate of three miles the hour, coming to America and residing for a long while here, walks Broadway at the rate of four miles the hour. Much of the difference between an American and a European, between an Asiatic and an African, is atmospheric. The lack of the warm sunlight pales the Greenlander. The full dash of the sunlight darkens the negro. Then ignorance or intelligence makes its impression on the physical organism. In the one case ignorance flattening the skull, as with the Egyptian; in the other case intelligence building up the great dome of the forehead, as with the German. Then the style of God that the nation worships decides how much it shall be elevated or debased; so that those nations that worship reptiles are themselves only a superior form of reptile, while those nations that worship the natural sun in the heavens are the noblest style of barbaric people. But whatever be the difference of physiognomy, and whatever the difference of temperament, the physiologist tells us that after careful analysis he finds out that the plasma and the disk in the human blood have the same characteristic; so that if you should put twenty men from twenty nationalities abreast in line of battle, and a bullet should fly through the hearts of the twenty men, the blood flowing forth would through analysis prove itself to be the same blood in every instance. In other words, the science of the day confirming the truth of my text that ’93God hath made of one Wood all nations of men.’94

I have thought, my friends, it might be profitable if I gave you some of the moral and religious impressions which I received when through your indulgence I had Transatlantic absence.

And my first impression was’97indeed, the impression carried with me all the summer’97the thought already suggested. The brotherhood of man. The fact that the differences are so small between nations that they may be said to be all alike. I had a good deal of trepidation about standing before an English, or a Scotch, or an Irish audience. I said: ’93I don’92t know these people; they are different from any class of men I ever addressed, and what might be appropriate in my country may not be appropriate here.’94 But oh! how soon I found out that people are all alike. If a man knows how to play the piano it does not make any difference whether he finds it in New Orleans, or San Francisco, or Boston, or St. Petersburg, or Moscow, or Madras; it has so many keys, and he puts his fingers right on them. And the human heart is a divine instrument with just so many keys in all cases, and you strike some of them and there is joy, and you strike some of them and there is sorrow. Plied by the same motives, lifted up by the same success, depressed by the same griefs. The cabmen of London have the same characteristics as the cabmen of New York, and are just as modest and retiring! The gold and silver drive Piccadilly and the Boulevards just as they drive Wall street. If there be a great political excitement in Europe the Bourse in Paris howls just as loudly as ever did the American gold-room.

Three-fourths of the inhabitants of the earth are engaged in a mighty struggle for bread. Nine-tenths of the population hunger-bitten if they stop to rest. The same grief that we saw at our depots in 1862, when the troops left for the war, you could see in England, Ireland, and Scotland, as the troops went forth to the Zulu contest. The same widowhood and orphanage that sat down in despair after the battles of Shiloh and South Mountain poured their grief in the Shannon and the Clyde, and the Dee and the Thames. Oh! ye men and women who know how to pray, never get up from your knees until you have implored God in behalf of the twelve hundred millions of the race just like yourselves, finding life a tremendous struggle; for who knows but that as the sun today draws up drops of water from the Caspian and the Black seas, and from the Amazon and the Mississippi, after a while to distill the rain, these very drops, on the fields’97who knows but that the Sun of Righteousness may draw up the tears of your sympathy, and then rain them down in distillation of comfort o’92er all the world.

Who is that poor man carried on a stretcher to the African ambulance? He is your brother. Who is that woman swooning at Plymouth, England, as she reads the list of the slain in the Zulu conflict? She is your sister. If in the Pantheon at Paris you smite your hand against the wall among the tomb’92s of the dead, you will hear a very strange echo coming from all parts of the Pantheon just as soon as you smite the wall. And I suppose it is so arranged that every stroke of sorrow among the tombs of bereavement ought to have loud, long, and oft-repeated echo of sympathy all around the world. Oh! what a beautiful theory it is’97and it is a Christian theory’97that Englishman, Scotchman, Irishman, Norwegian, Frenchman, Italian, Russian, are all akin. Of one blood all nations. I was never more impressed with this truth than on the day the body of the Prince Imperial of France was brought to London. I was that day speaking in Exeter Hall, while the minute-guns were sounding. The Earl of Kintore, the distinguished Scottish lord, was presiding, and in his opening speech he said: ’93We have come here to listen to an American while he talks about ’91happy hours;’92 but alas for that home at Chiselhurst!’94 And all heads were bowed, and the tears rolled down the cheeks of the people. Then I thought, ’93This is one grief, one agony.’94 It was not because that boy was the son of an Empress, it was not because that boy died fighting for the English Government; it was because he was ’93the only son of his mother, and she a widow.’94 Of one blood all nations’97high, low, titled, unlearned, rich, poor. Oh! the democracy of religion. That is a very beautiful inscription over the door in Edinburgh, the door of the house where John Knox used to live. It is getting somewhat dim now, but there is the inscription fit for the door of any household: ’93Love God above all, and your neighbor as yourself.’94

I was also impressed, in journeying on the other side the sea, with the difference that the Bible makes in countries. The two nations of Europe that are the most moral today, and that have the least crime, are Scotland and Wales. They have, by statistics, as you might find, fewer thefts, fewer arsons, fewer murders. What is the reason? A bad book can hardly live in Wales. The Bible crowds it out. I was told by one of the first literary men in Wales, ’93There is not a bad book in the Welsh language.’94 He said, ’93Bad books come down from London, but they cannot live here.’94 It is the Bible that is dominant in Wales. And then in Scotland, just open your Bible to give out your text, and there is a rustling all over the house, almost startling to an American. What is it? The people opening their Bibles finding the text, looking at the context, picking out the reference passages, seeing whether you make right quotation. Scotland and Wales Bible-reading people. That accounts for it. A man, a city, a nation that reads God’92s Word must be virtuous. That book is the foe of all wrongdoing. What makes Edinburgh better than Constantinople? The Bible. I am afraid in America we are allowing the good book to be covered up with other good books. We have our ever-welcome morning and evening newspapers, and we have our good books on all subjects’97geological subjects, botanical subjects, physiological subjects, theological subjects’97good books, beautiful books, books from the Harpers and from the Appletons, the Lippincotts, the Scribners and from the Petersons, and so many good books that we have not time to read the Bible. My friends, it is not a matter of very great importance that you have a family Bible on the center-table in your parlor. Better have one pocket New Testament, the passages marked, the leaves turned down, the binding worn smooth with much usage, than fifty pictorial family Bibles too handsome to read! Let us take a whisk-broom and brush the dust off our Bibles.

Do you want poetry? Go and hear Job describe the war-horse, or David tell how the mountains skipped like lambs. Do you want logic? Go and hear Paul reason until your brain aches under the spell of his mighty intellect. Do you want history? Go and see Moses put into a few pages important information which Herodotus, Thucydides and Prescott never reached after. And above all, if you want to find how a nation, struck down by sin, can rise to happiness and to heaven, read of that blood which can wash away the pollution of a world. There is one passage in this Bible each word of which weighs a ton: ’93God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’94 May God fill this country with Bibles and help the people to read them.

I was also impressed in my transatlantic journeys, with the wonderful power that Christ holds among the nations. The great name in Europe today is Christ. I do not care whether you go among those nations which you consider positively Christian, or those that you consider as unchristian, the mightiest name in all Europe today is Christ.

You find the crucifix on the gate-post, you find it in the hay-field, you find it at the entrance of the manor, you find it by the side of the road. The diligence dashing out from Geneva to Chamouni, the horses going at full run, the driver nevertheless is able to take off his hat in obeisance to the cross at the roadside. The churches are built in the form of a cross. The very finest pictures in Europe, sketches of scenes in the life of Christ’97Christ at the manger, Christ with the doctors of the law, Christ at the tomb of Lazarus, Christ on the beach of Gennesaret, Christ on the cross, Christ in the ascension. The mightiest picture on this planet is Rubens’92 ’93Scourging of Christ.’94 Painter’92s pencil to sketch the face of Christ. Sculptor’92s chisel loves to present the form of Christ. Organs love to roll forth the sorrows of Christ.

The first time you go to London go into the Dor’e9 picture-gallery. As I went, and sat down before Christ descending the steps of the Pr’e6torium, at the first I was disappointed. I said, ’93There isn’92t enough majesty in that countenance, not enough tenderness in that eye;’94 but as I sat and looked at the picture it grew upon me until I was overwhelmed with its power, and I staggered with emotion as I went out into the fresh air, and said: ’93Oh! for that Christ I must live, and for that Christ I must be willing to die.’94 Now make that Christ your personal friend, my sister, my brother. You may never go to Milan to see Da Vinci’92s ’93Last Supper;’94 but, better than that, you can have Christ come and sup with you. You may never get to Antwerp to see Rubens’92 ’93Descent of Christ from the Cross,’94 but you can have Christ come down from the mountain of His suffering into your heart and abide there forever.

We all are so diseased with sin that we want that which hurts us, and we will not have that which cures us. The best thing for you and for me to do today is to get down on our knees before God and say: ’93O almighty Son of God, I am blind; I want to see; my arms are palsied; I want to take hold of thy cross; have mercy on me, O Lord Jesus.’94 Why will you live on husks when you may sit down to this white bread of heaven? Oh! with such a God, and with such a Christ, and with such a Holy Spirit, and with such an immortal nature, wake up!

Once more: I was impressed greatly on the other side the sea with the wonderful triumphs of the Christian religion. The tide is rising, the tide of moral and spiritual prosperity in the world. I think that any man who keeps his eyes open traveling in foreign lands will come to that conclusion. More Bibles than ever before, more churches, more consecrated men and women, more people ready to be martyrs now than ever before, if need be; so that, instead of there being, as people sometimes say, less spirit of martyrdom now than ever before, I believe where there was once one martyr there would be a thousand martyrs if the fires were kindled’97men ready to go through flood and fire for Christ’92s sake. You who live at the beach know how the tide rises. You see the tide rise; the wave comes to a certain point and then recoils. A man from the inland who had never watched the sea rising, might say, ’93Why, the sea is going down.’94 It is not. The tide is rising. The next wave comes to a higher point and it recoils, and the next to a higher point and it recoils. ’93It is going down,’94 says the man from the inland. ’93No,’94 you say, ’93it is rising.’94 The next wave comes to a higher point and the next to a higher, and so on until it is flood-tide. So it is in the progress of truth in the world. The wave comes to a certain point and it recoils. You say, ’93The world is getting worse, the tide of Christian influence is going out.’94 No, the next wave comes to a higher point and recoils for a few years. Then it comes to a higher point and recoils for twenty years. Then it comes to a higher point, and a higher point, until it shall be flood-tide. ’93And the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God, as the waters fill the sea.’94

These ships that you see going up and down New York harbor are to be brought into the service of God. What is that passage? ’93Ships of Tarshish shall bring presents.’94 Oh! what a goodly fleet when the vessels of the sea come into the service of God, no guns frowning through the port-holes, no pikes hung in the gangway, nothing from cutwater to taffrail to suggest atrocity. Those ships will come from all parts of the seas. Great flocks of ships that never met on the high sea but in wrath will cry, ’93Ship ahoy!’94 and drop down beside each other in calmness, the flags of Emmanuel streaming from the top-gallants. The old slaver, with decks scrubbed and washed and glistening and burnished’97the old slaver will wheel into line; and the Chinese junk, and the Venetian gondola, and the miner’92s and the pirate’92s corvette, will fall into line, equipped, readorned, beautified, only the small craft of this grand flotilla which shall float out for truth’97a flotilla mightier than the armada of Xerxes moving in the pomp and pride of Persian insolence’97mightier than the Carthaginian navy rushing with forty thousand oarsmen upon the Roman galleys, the life of nations dashed out against the gunwales.

Rise, O sea, and shine, O heavens, to greet this squadron of light and victory! On the glistening decks are the feet of them that bring good tidings, and songs of heaven float among the rigging. Crowd on all the canvas. Line-of-battle ship and merchantmen, wheel into the way. It is noon. Strike eight bells. From all the squadron the sailors’92 songs arise. ’93Surely the isles shall wait for thee, and the ships of Tarshish to bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and the Holy One of Israel.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage