World Parliament of Religions Scrapbook 003

              #003 World Parliament of Religions Scrapbook, p. 037

ly gates idea of the Christian. Mohammed taught
us a spiritual truth; he taught us a truth which
every man who knows anything of the spiritual
side of religion ought to know. And he taught it
in a manner which would most readily reach the
minds and hearts of his hearers. The poor Arabs 
who lived in the dry sandy desert looked upon
broad fields of green grass and flowing rivers and
beautiful trees as a paradise. We who are ac-
customed perhaps to that sort of thing:, some of
us, run away with the idea perhaps that a golden
street and pearly gates are better than that.
His idea was to show them they were to secure
perfect bliss, and to an Arab if he could reach an
open field where the grass grew green under his
feet and the birds sang and the trees bore pearls
and rubies and all that sort of thing it would be
bliss. Mind you Mohammed never taught that,
but he is credited with teaching it, and I believe
he taught something to illustrate this great
spiritual truth that he was trying to force upon
their minds, and it has been corrupted into the
idea of a garden full of houris.
The next feature of the spirit of Islam is its
fraternity. One of the first things that Moham-
med did after being driven out of Mecca and lo-
cated in Medinah was to encourage the forma-
tion of a Moslem brotherhood, with a perfect 
community of property, a socialistic idea im-
practicable in this civilization but thoroughly
practical at that time. His followers assembled
around him and contributed all they had. The
idea was, do anything to help your brother,
what belongs to your brother belongs to
you, and what belongs to you belongs to
your brother. [Applause.] If he need help, help
him. Caste lines are broken down entirely. We
find on one occasion Omar, one of the most ener-
getic and vigorous of his Caliphs, exchanged with
his slave in riding on the camel. The daughters
of Mohammed in the household would divide the
time grinding corn with the slaves. The idea
was taught, your slave is your brother. Social
conditions make him your slave, but he is none
the less your brother. This idea, of close frater-
nity, this extreme devotion to fraternity was the
cause of the Moslem triumph at arms. In the
later years after the death of Mohammed that
idea was paramount in every instance, and it was
only when that bond of fraternity was broken
that we find the decadence of the Islamistic
power in Spain.
   There Is a Brotherhood Among Musselmans
Readers of history can readily trace where the
first serpent made its entry into the Islamistic
social system, that serpent of disunion in divis-
ion. We find the Christians coming up upon the
other side closely knit in the same bond of
brotherhood. Does that bond of brotherhood ex- 
ist today? It exists among the Musselmans of 
India. It exists among the better class of Mus- 
selmans of Egypt and Turkey in a degree that 
would surprise you. I knew an old man in Bom- 
bay who had lost everything, and was being 
helped along by his Mohammedan brethren. A
wealthy man reputed to be worth something
like half a million owned a beautiful
yacht, and this man went to him
and said, "I want to borrow your yacht to go 
fishing." "Certainly ; take it whenever you want 
it, it is yours." During my stay in the East, every
time I visited Bombay, almost, that old fellow
would go out in the yacht fishing. I dined in the
house of a wealthy Musselman and that same old
man came in. As he entered the door he said,
"Peace be with you." A chair was set for him at
the table. We were eating at the table at that
time, in deference to me, possibly. Usually
they eat upon the floor in the most primitive
fashion and with their fingers, but the better
class of Mohammedans, or, rather, those who
have acquired European ideas, eat with the fork
and knife, with glass furniture on the table, etc.
On that occasion we were at the table and this
old man was invited to sit down and take dinner
with us. That fraternal idea impressed me more
deeply, possibly, than anything else. I felt that
I was among my brethren and that Musselmans
were brothers the world over, and I know that is
one of the basic principles of the system and
that belongs strictly to the spirit of Islam.
In closing I want to say this, there is no sys-
tem that has been so willfully and persistently
misrepresented as Islam, both by writers of so-
called history and by the newspaper press. There
is no character in the whole range of history so
little, so imperfectly understood as Mohammed,
and I feel that Americans as a rule are disposed
to go to the bottom facts and to ascertain really
what Mohammed was and what he did, and when
they have done so I feel that we will have a uni-
versal system which will elevate our social sys- 
tem at least to the position where it belongs. I 
thank you. [Applause.]
    Evangelist Mills Speaks.
Dr. Barrows introduced the next speaker as 
one whose name had become familiar and 
dear to the American people East and West, 
North and South, the Rev. B. Fay Mills.
Mr. Mills was received with great applause, 
which he acknowledged, saying: "I thank 
you very heartily for your welcome not only 
to the man but to the theme." Then he went
on to say:
We are all agreed that in its present condition
this is not an ideal world. We all believe that it
is not what it is meant to be; we all hope that it
is not what it is to become.
The doctrine of Christianity centers not in a
theory of morals nor a creed, but in a person.
Christ is the revelation of what God is and of
what man must become. He revealed the char-
acter of God as love suffering for the sins of man.
He showed the triumphant possibility of life
among the hardest human conditions when lived
in fellowship with God. He taught one great ob-
ject lesson of trial and triumph, that there could
be no excuse for sin and that there would be no
escape from righteousness. His one great mis-
sion and message was that God had "sent his
Son into the world not to Condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be
saved."
He was himself the revelation of all history
and mystery and prophecy concerning God and
man, the origin and destiny of the race. His
whole conception of himself was summed up in
these words: "Christ the Savior of the world,"
and we get the full thought of his revelation by
emphasizing the latter part of this supreme title,
and realizing that he came not to save selected
individuals nor any chosen race, but to save the
world. That his mission was to save humanity
in all its relationships, to save individuals in-
deed, but also to save society and the nations.
If Christianity is not fitted and destined to be
the universal life of man it is fit for "nothing
but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot
of man." Christ stands or falls in connection
with his claim to be the Savior of the entire
world.
Wherever in the teaching of Christianity there
has been a limitation of the extent of the atone-
ment of Christ for the saving of this world from
out its present conditions of bondage and sin
into the glorious liberty of redemption there has
come a deadly paralysis of his spirit and the
progress of his kingdom.
There is a real sense in which it was not neces-
sary for Christ to come into the world in order
that individuals might become acquainted with
God.
"The true light, that lightheth every man that
cometh into the world," was shining in darkness
for all the ages before the shepherds heard the
angel song, and "as many as received him to
them gave he the power to become the sons of
God." And then the "word became flesh and
dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth."
But the mission of Jesus was to save the world,
itself. As a recent writer has well said, it is a
deadly mistake to suppose that "Christ simply
came to rescue us many as possible out of the
wrecked and sinking world." He came to give
the church a "commission that includes the sav-
ing of the wreck itself, the question of its con-
fusion and struggle, the relief of its wretchedness,
a deliverance from its destruction." This cer- 
tainly was his own conception of his mission 
upon earth. 
This was also the conception of the disciples of
Jesus of the earlier centuries. Their thought
was that Christ had come, not to fit men for some
other world, but to fit this world to be the abode
of the sons of God, and to beget and develop the
sons of God to occupy it.
The mission of Jesus Christ, as the Savior of
the world, may be expressed, as has already been
suggested, in four conceptions.
First—He has a new and complete revelation of
God's eternal suffering for the redemption of
humanity. He showed that God was pure, and
unselfish, and meek, and forgiving, and that he
had always been suffering for the sins of men.
"God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself." He revealed the meaning of
forgiveness and of deliverance from sin. A pop-
ular writer has suggested to us the vast distinc-
tion between indifference to sin and its forgive-
ness, which may well be illustrated by the expe-
rience of an individual in forgiving injury
against himself. Resentment against sin is a far
higher experience than that of indifference to it,
but there is something far better than either, and
that is to realize the enormity of the transgression
at its very worst and then to let it be destroyed,
and a self-sacrificing love fill the place that had
been occupied by the resentment. 
It has been costing God to forgive sin all that
it had cost man to bear it and more. This had to
be in God's thought before he made the world.
In the words of a modern prophet, "the cross of
Christ indicates the cost, and is the pledge of
God's eternal friendship for man." Jesus Christ
came to show us what God was. He was in no
sense a shield for us from the wrath of God, but
"was the effulgence of God's glory and the very
image of his substance." He said to one
of his disciples, "He that hath
seen me had seen the Father."
The heart of his teaching was
"that God so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten son." He taught not that he had
come to reconcile God unto the world, but that
"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
himself." He said of his father "I delight to do
thy will, O God, thy law is written on my
heart." He said in his prayer to his
father, "I have declared thy name unto
them; yea and I will declare it. I
have glorified thee on earth, I
have finished the work which thou gavest
me to do." He came to show us that
the world had never belonged to the powers of
evil, but that in his original thought God had de-
cided that a moral world should be created; and
that in this decision, which gave to humanity the
choice of good and evil, he had to take upon
himself infinite suffering until the world should
be brought back to him. The redemption of the
world by Christ is a part of the creation of the
world for Christ.
Our second thought concerning the mission of
Jesus is that his life was the expression of the
origin and destiny of man. We are told that
Adam was created in the image of God, and if he
had been an obedient child, it may have been he
would have grown up to be a full grown son of
the Eternal: but he sold his birthright for a
mess of pottage. The second Adam was the son
of man, revealing to us that the perfect man dif-
fers in no respect from the perfect
God. He was God. He [became man —
not a man, but man. He was God
and man, not two persons in one existence, but
revealing the identity of man and God, when
man should have attained unto the place that he
had always occupied in the eternal thought.
The marvelous counterpart of this revelation is
that when God shall have perfected his thought
concerning us, that man shall have to become in
all things like unto Jesus Christ. Maniel says
that all depends on whether we consider the first
or second Adam the head of the human race.
"I would have you know," says the great Apostle
of the Gentiles "that the head of every man is
Christ."
Under the pride and vanity of the Nation, un- 
der the scheming and frivolity and dishonesty 
and self-will of those who sit in high places in
the earth, under the disregard of the law of love
by the social, commercial, and industrial organ-
izations of the city, under every disobedience of
the domestic and individual life is the eternal
righteousness of Jesus Christ striving for mani-
festation, and "straitened until its baptism is
accomplished."
        Man May Become Sinless.
The third great thought in connection with the
salvation of Jesus Christ is that through the 
completeness of his redemption there is no ne- 
cessity nor reason for any form of sin in the indi- 
vidual. 
A great preacher has told us that Christ is able 
to save "unto the uttermost ends of the earth, to
the uttermost limits of time, to the uttermost 
period of life, to the uttermost length of deprav- 
ity, to the uttermost depth of misery, and to the 
uttermost measure of perfection." It is when the
soul is willing to say "he was wounded for my
transgressions" that he is in a position to realize
that if he will surrender himself unto the cross
of Jesus and to the teachings of Jesus the power
of death and hell over him shall forever be
broken and he may live a life of freedom in the
righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is here that the
teaching and the life of Jesus are in glorious
unity. The cross is not one thing
and the sermon on the mount another.
The Kingdom which the Prince of Peace
came to establish on earth had for its constitu-
tion those vital words which may be expressed
by the one word love; and he himself was the
exhibition of what he meant to do as he had
said, and even to suffer joyfully death for right-
eousness' sake. The cross was not only the ser-
mon on the mount exemplified, but the constitu-
tion of the Kingdom of God in execution.
Faith in Christ is not so much the condition as
it is the evidence of a man's salvation. "Jesus
Christ is the touchstone of character." And
faith in Christ is that quality of righteousness
by which a man sees in Jesus that which he him-
self wishes to be, realizes that he may be, and de-
termines that he will be. God has no way of sav-
ing men save by conforming them to the image
of his son. For a man who sees this, believes in
the love of God, in the forgivenness of sins, and
the redemption of the world, and surrenders
himself to the mastership of Jesus this is not
only a possibility but a certainty.
     Loving Righteousness Must Triumph.
The last thought concerning the salvation of
the world through Jesus Christ is that the loving
righteousness of God must be finally triumphant.
We cannot conceive of a heaven in which man
should not be a moral being and free to choose
good or evil, as he is upon this earth: and the
joy of heaven will consist largely in that glad
fixity of will that shall eternally lose itself in
God.
But what a terrible conception comes to us of
the lost world when we conceive ourselves in
spite of all the loving kindness and sacrifice of
the eternal God, as still choosing to go on in sin,
determining to resist his love, conscious of it and
yet without the power to escape it, saying, "If I
make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there," and
yet choosing through the ages and ages to turn
away from the righteousness of God and to pur- 
sue a life of indifference and sin. And as for our
conception of heaven, when the world shall obey
Jesus Christ, and when all those who
have surrendered unto his heart of
love and have been working with him
throughout the eons, in the establishment of
righteousness, shall be with him in the new
earth, no other heaven can be imagined.
The redeemed earth shall be at least a part of
heaven; and the city which John saw, the new
Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
shall be established, and "the tabernacle of God
shall be with men and he will dwell with them,
and they shall be his people, and God himself
shall be with them and be their God. And he
shall wipe away every tear from their eyes and
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away." This
must be the end of the atonement of the life and
the death of Jesus Christ and the keeping of his
commandments, which are all summed up in the
great name of God, which is love.
With shame I confess that all the disciples
naming the name of Jesus Christ have not fully
done his will in his spirit of self sacrifice and
indeed have sometimes scarcely seemed to ap-
prehend it. If we had it is my honest conviction
that we could not be gathered here today as a
"Parliament of Religions," but that we would
all be praising God together for his wonderful
salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.
    That Rebuke from India and Japan.
We have already in this parliament been re-
buked by India and Japan with the charge that
Christians do not practice the teachings of Jesus.
If China has not been heard from in words of
even keener censure it has not been because she 
has not had good cause, as she thinks of the opium 
curse forced upon her by the laws of Christian 
England and of the action of the corrupt Legis- 
latures and Congresses and Presidents who have 
enacted, or stood by and consented to the 
enacting, of the unjust, selfish, unreasonable, in- 
human, unchristian, and barbaric anti-Chinese
laws of these Christian United States. 
I might reply by pointing to our hospital walls
and college towers and myriad ministries of
mercy; but I forbear. We have done something,
but with shame and tears I say it that as king-
doms and empires and republics, as States and
municipalities, and in our commercial and indus-
trial organizations, and even in a large measure
as an organized church, we have not been prac-
ticing the teachings of Jesus as he said them and
meant them, as the earliest disciples understood
and practiced them, and as we must again sub-
mit to them if we are to be the winners of the
world for Jesus Christ.