CHAPTER XXXII.
ERITIS SICUT DEUS.
"I infer, then," I said, "that the disappearance of religious divisionsand the priestly caste has not operated to lessen the general interest inreligion."
"Should you have supposed that it would so operate?"
"I don't know. I never gave much thought to such matters. Theecclesiastical class represented that they were very essential to theconservation of religion, and the rest of us took it for granted that itwas so."
"Every social institution which has existed for a considerable time,"replied Mr. Barton, "has doubtless performed some function which was atthe time more or less useful and necessary. Kings, ecclesiastics, andcapitalists--all of them, for that matter, merely different sorts ofcapitalists--have, no doubt, in their proper periods, performed functionswhich, however badly discharged, were necessary and could not then havebeen discharged in any better manner. But just as the abolition ofroyalty was the beginning of decent government, just as the abolition ofprivate capitalism was the beginning of effective wealth production, sothe disappearance of church organization and machinery, or ecclesiasticalcapitalism, was the beginning of a world-awakening of impassionedinterest in the vast concerns covered by the word religion.
"Necessary as may have been the subjection of the race to priestlyauthority in the course of human evolution, it was the form of tutelagewhich, of all others, was most calculated to benumb and deaden thefaculties affected by it, and the collapse of ecclesiasticism presentlyprepared the way for an enthusiasm of interest in the great problems ofhuman nature and destiny which would have been scarcely conceivable bythe worthy ecclesiastics of your day who with such painful efforts andsmall results sought to awake their flocks to spiritual concerns. Thelack of general interest in these questions in your time was the naturalresult of their monopoly as the special province of the priestly classwhose members stood as interpreters between man and the mystery abouthim, undertaking to guarantee the spiritual welfare of all who wouldtrust them. The decay of priestly authority left every soul face to facewith that mystery, with the responsibility of its interpretation uponhimself. The collapse of the traditional theologies relieved the wholesubject of man's relation with the infinite from the oppressive effect ofthe false finalities of dogma which had till then made the most boundlessof sciences the most cramped and narrow. Instead of the mind-paralyzingworship of the past and the bondage of the present to that which iswritten, the conviction took hold on men that there was no limit to whatthey might know concerning their nature and destiny and no limit to thatdestiny. The priestly idea that the past was diviner than the present,that God was behind the race, gave place to the belief that we shouldlook forward and not backward for inspiration, and that the present andthe future promised a fuller and more certain knowledge concerning thesoul and God than any the past had attained."
"Has this belief," I asked, "been thus far practically confirmed by anyprogress actually made in the assurance of what is true as to thesethings? Do you consider that you really know more about them than we did,or that you know more positively the things which we merely tried tobelieve?"
Mr. Barton paused a moment before replying.
"You remarked a little while ago," he said, "that your talks with Dr.Leete had as yet turned little on religious matters. In introducing youto the modern world it was entirely right and logical that he shoulddwell at first mainly upon the change in economic systems, for that has,of course, furnished the necessary material basis for all the otherchanges that have taken place. But I am sure that you will never meet anyone who, being asked in what direction the progress of the race duringthe past century has tended most to increase human happiness, would notreply that it had been in the science of the soul and its relation to theEternal and Infinite.
"This progress has been the result not merely of a more rationalconception of the subject and complete intellectual freedom in its study,but largely also of social conditions which have set us almost whollyfree from material engrossments. We have now for nearly a century enjoyedan economic welfare which has left nothing to be wished for in the way ofphysical satisfactions, especially as in proportion to the increase ofthis abundance there has been through culture a development of simplicityin taste which rejects excess and surfeit and ever makes less and less ofthe material side of life and more of the mental and moral. Thanks tothis co-operation of the material with the moral evolution, the more wehave the less we need. Long ago it came to be recognized that on thematerial side the race had reached the goal of its evolution. We havepractically lost ambition for further progress in that direction. Thenatural result has been that for a long period the main energies of theintellect have been concentrated upon the possibilities of the spiritualevolution of mankind for which the completion of its material evolutionhas but prepared the beginning. What we have so far learned we areconvinced is but the first faint inkling of the knowledge we shall attainto; and yet if the limitations of this earthly state were such that wemight never hope here to know more than now we should not repine, for theknowledge we have has sufficed to turn the shadow of death into a bow ofpromise and distill the saltness out of human tears. You will observe, asyou shall come to know more of our literature, that one respect in whichit differs from yours is the total lack of the tragic note. This has verynaturally followed, from a conception of our real life, as having aninaccessible security, 'hid in God,' as Paul said, whereby the accidentsand vicissitudes of the personality are reduced to relative triviality.
"Your seers and poets in exalted moments had seen that death was but astep in life, but this seemed to most of you to have been a hard saying.Nowadays, as life advances toward its close, instead of being shadowed bygloom, it is marked by an access of impassioned expectancy which wouldcause the young to envy the old, but for the knowledge that in a littlewhile the same door will be opened to them. In your day the undertone oflife seems to have been one of unutterable sadness, which, like themoaning of the sea to those who live near the ocean, made itself audiblewhenever for a moment the noise and bustle of petty engrossments ceased.Now this undertone is so exultant that we are still to hear it."
"If men go on," I said, "growing at this rate in the knowledge of divinethings and the sharing of the divine life, what will they yet come to?"
Mr. Barton smiled.
"Said not the serpent in the old story, 'If you eat of the fruit of thetree of knowledge you shall be as gods'? The promise was true in words,but apparently there was some mistake about the tree. Perhaps it was thetree of selfish knowledge, or else the fruit was not ripe. The story isobscure. Christ later said the same thing when he told men that theymight be the sons of God. But he made no mistake as to the tree he showedthem, and the fruit was ripe. It was the fruit of love, for universallove is at once the seed and fruit, cause and effect, of the highest andcompletest knowledge. Through boundless love man becomes a god, forthereby is he made conscious of his oneness with God, and all things areput under his feet. It has been only since the great Revolution broughtin the era of human brotherhood that mankind has been able to eatabundantly of this fruit of the true tree of knowledge, and thereby growmore and more into the consciousness of the divine soul as the essentialself and the true hiding of our lives. Yes, indeed, we shall be gods. Themotto of the modern civilization is '_Eritis sicut Deus_.'"
"You speak of Christ. Do I understand that this modern religion isconsidered by you to be the same doctrine Christ taught?"
"Most certainly. It has been taught from the beginning of history anddoubtless earlier, but Christ's teaching is that which has most fully andclearly come down to us. It was the doctrine that he taught, but theworld could not then receive it save a few, nor indeed has it ever beenpossible for the world in general to receive it or even to understand ituntil this present century."
"Why could not the world receive earlier the revelation it seems to findso easy of comprehension now?"
"Because," replied Mr. Barton, "the prophet and revealer of the
soul andof God, which are the same, is love, and until these latter days theworld refused to hear love, but crucified him. The religion of Christ,depending as it did upon the experience and intuitions of the unselfishenthusiasms, could not possibly be accepted or understood generally by aworld which tolerated a social system based upon fratricidal struggle asthe condition of existence. Prophets, messiahs, seers, and saints mightindeed for themselves see God face to face, but it was impossible thatthere should be any general apprehension of God as Christ saw him untilsocial justice had brought in brotherly love. Man must be revealed to manas brother before God could be revealed to him as father. Nominally, theclergy professed to accept and repeat Christ's teaching that God is aloving father, but of course it was simply impossible that any such ideashould actually germinate and take root in hearts as cold and hard asstone toward their fellow-beings and sodden with hate and suspicion ofthem. 'If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he loveGod whom he hath not seen?' The priests deafened their flocks withappeals to love God, to give their hearts to him. They should have rathertaught them, as Christ did, to love their fellow-men and give theirhearts to them. Hearts so given the love of God would presently enkindle,even as, according to the ancients, fire from heaven might be depended onto ignite a sacrifice fitly prepared and laid.
"From the pulpit yonder, Mr. West, doubtless you have many times heardthese words and many like them repeated: 'If we love one another Goddwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.' 'He that loveth hisbrother dwelleth in the light.' 'If any man say I love God, and hatethhis brother, he is a liar.' 'He that loveth not his brother, abideth indeath.' 'God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.''Every one that loveth knoweth God.' 'He that loveth not knoweth notGod.'
"Here is the very distillation of Christ's teaching as to the conditionsof entering on the divine life. In this we find the sufficientexplanation why the revelation which came to Christ so long ago and toother illumined souls could not possibly be received by mankind ingeneral so long as an inhuman social order made a wall between man andGod, and why, the moment that wall was cast down, the revelation floodedthe earth like a sunburst.
"'If we love one another God dwelleth in us,' and mark how the words weremade good in the way by which at last the race found God! It was not,remember, by directly, purposely, or consciously seeking God. The greatenthusiasm of humanity which overthrew the old order and brought in thefraternal society was not primarily or consciously a godward aspirationat all. It was essentially a humane movement. It was a melting andflowing forth of men's hearts toward one another, a rush of contrite,repentant tenderness, an impassioned impulse of mutual love andself-devotion to the common weal. But 'if we love one another Goddwelleth in us,' and so men found it. It appears that there came amoment, the most transcendent moment in the history of the race of man,when with the fraternal glow of this world of new-found embracingbrothers there seems to have mingled the ineffable thrill of a divineparticipation, as if the hand of God were clasped over the joined handsof men. And so it has continued to this day and shall for evermore."