The Religious Motive in Philanthropy: Studies in Biography [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512819229

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. SAMUEL BARNETT
II. VINCENT DE PAUL
III. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
IV. JESUS OF NAZARETH

Citation preview

THE GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN LECTURESHIP IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS FOUNDED

1899

THE FOUNDATION On June 6, 1899, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania accepted from the Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., LL.D., and his wife a Deed of Gift, providing for a foundation to be known as "The Boardman Lectureship in Christian Ethics," the income of the fund to be expended solely for the purpose of the Trust. Dr. Boardman served the University for twenty-three years as Trustee, for a time as Chaplain, and often as Ethical Lecturer. After provision for refunding out of the said income any depreciation which might occur in the capital sum, the remainder is to be expended in procuring the delivery in each year at the University of Pennsylvania, of one or more lectures on Christian Ethics from the standpoint of the life, example and teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the publication in book form of the said lecture or lectures within four months of the completion of their delivery. The volume in which they are printed shall always have in its forefront a printed statement of the history, the outline and terms of the Foundation. On July 6, 1899, a Standing Committee on "The Boardman Lectureship in Christian Ethics" was constituted, to which shall be committed the nominations of the lecturers and the publication of the lectures in accordance with the Trust. On February 6, 1900, on recommendation of this committee, the Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., LL.D., was appointed Lecturer on Christian Ethics on the Boardman Foundation for the current year.

THE OUTLINE I. THE PURPOSE First, the purpose is not to trace the history of the various ethical theories; this is already admirably done in our own University. Nor is it the purpose to teach theology, whether natural, Biblical, or ecclesiastical. But the purpose of this Lectureship is to teach Christian Ethics; that is to say, the practical application of the precepts and behavior of Jesus Christ to everyday life. And this is the greatest of the sciences. It is a great thing to know astronomy; for it is the science of mighty orbs, stupendous distances, majestic adjustments in time and space. It is a great thing to know biology; for it is the science of living organisms—of starting, growth, health, movements, life itself. It is a great thing to know law; for it is the science of legislation, government, equity, civilization. It is a great thing to know philosophy; for it is the science of men and things. It is a great thing to know theology; for it is the science of God. But what avails it to know everything in space from atom to star, everything in time from protoplasm to Deity, if we do not know how to manage ourselves amid the complex, delicate, evervarying duties of daily life? What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world—the world geographical, commercial, political, intellectual, and after all lose his own soul? What can a University give in exchange for a Christlike character? Thus it is that ethics is the science of sciences. Very significant is the motto of our University—"Litera Sine Moribus Vante." And Jesus of Nazareth is the supreme ethical authority. When we come to receive from him our final awards, he will not ask, "What was your theory of atoms? What did you think about evolution? What was your doctrine of atonement? What was your mode of baptism?" But he will ask, "What did you do with Me? Did you accept Me as your personal standard of character? Were you a practical everyday Christian?" Christian Ethics will be the judgment test. In sum, the purpose of this Lectureship in Christian Ethics is to build up human character after the model of Jesus Christ's.

ν

The

II.

Outline

RANGE O F LECTURESHIP

This range should be as wide as human society itself. The following is offered in way of general outline and suggestive hints, each hint being of course but a specific or technical illustration growing out of some vaster underlying Principle. 1. M A N ' S H E A R T - N A T U R E . — F o r (not merely ethical) precepts concerning religion; worship; communion; divineness; of religious observances; the Beatitudes; in Christ.

example: Christian mans capacity for immortality; duty brief, Manliness in

2. M A N ' S M I N D - N A T U R E . — F o r example: Christian precepts concerning reason; imagination; invention; asthetics; language, whether spoken, written, sung, builded, painted, chiseled, acted, etc. 3. M A N ' S S O C I E T Y - N A T U R E . — F o r example: (a) Christian precepts concerning the personal life; for instance: conscientiousness, honesty, truthfulness, charity, chastity, courage, independence, chivalry, patience, altruism, etc. (b) Christian precepts concerning the family life; for instance: marriage; divorce; duties of husbands, wives, parents, children, kindred, servants; place of women, etc. (c) Christian precepts concerning the business life; for instance: rights of labor; rights of capital; right of pecuniary independence; living within means; life insurance; keeping morally accurate accounts; endorsing; borrowing; prompt liquidation; sacredness of trust funds, personal and corporate; individual moral responsibility of directors and officers; trustcombinations; strikes; boycotting; limits of speculation; profiting by ambiguities; single tax; nationalization of property, etc. (d) Christian precepts concerning the civic life; for instance: responsibilities of citizenship; elective franchise; obligations of office; class legislation; legal oaths; custom-house conscience; sumptuary laws; public institutions, whether educational, ameliorative, or reformatory; function of money; standard of money; public credit; civic reforms; caucuses, etc. vi

The Outline (e) Christian precepts concerning the international life; for instance: treaties; diplomacy; war; arbitration; disarmament; tariff; reciprocity; mankind, etc. ( f ) Christian precepts concerning the ecclesiastical life; for instance: sectarianism; comity in mission fields; cooperation; unification of Christendom, etc. (g) Christian precepts concerning the academic life; for instance: literary and scientific ideals; professional standards of morality; function of the press; copyrights; obligations of scholarship, etc. In sum, Christian precepts concerning the tremendous problems of sociology, present and future. Not that all the lecturers must agree at every point; often there are genuine cases of conscience, or reasonable doubt, in which a good deal can be justly said on both sides. The supreme point is this: Whatever the topic may be, the lecturer must discuss it conscientiously, in the light of Christ's own teachings and character; and so awaken the consciences of his listeners, making their moral sense more acute. 4. MAN'S BODY-NATURE.—For example: Christian precepts concerning environment; heredity; health; cleanliness; temperance; self-control; athletics; public hygiene; tenementhouses; prophylactics; the five senses; treatment of animals, etc. In sum, the range of topics for this Lectureship in Christian Ethics should include whatever tends to society-building, or perfectation of personal character in Christ. Surely here is material enough, and this without any need of duplication, for centuries to come.

III.

SPIRIT OF T H E LECTURESHIP

Every lecture must be presented from the standpoint of Jesus Christ. It must be distinctly understood, and the founder of the Lectureship cannot emphasize the point too strongly, that every lecture in these successive courses must be unambiguously Christian; that is, from the viewpoint of the divine Son of Mary. This Lectureship must be something more than a lectureship in vii

The Outline moral philosophy, or in church theology; it must be a lectureship in Christian morality, or practical ethics from the standpoint of Christ's own personal character, example, and teachings.

IV.

QUALIFICATION OF T H E LECTURER

The founder hopes that the lecturer may often be, perhaps generally, a layman; for instance: a merchant, a banker, a lawyer, a statesman, a physician, a scientist, a professor, an artist, a craftsman; for Christian ethics is a matter of daily practical life rather than of metaphysical theology. The founder cares not what the ecclesiastical connection of the lecturer may be; whether a Baptist or an Episcopalian, a Quaker or α Latinist; for Christian ethics as Christ's behavior is not a matter of ecclesiastical ordination or of sect. The only pivotal condition of the Lectureship in this particular is this: The lecturer himself must be unconditionally loyal to our only King, our Lord Jesus Christ; for Jesus Christ himself is the world's true, everlasting Ethics.

viii

THE GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN

ix

LECTURES 1931

Volumes published in THE GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN LECTURESHIP IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS I. T H E GOLDEN RULE

George Dana Boardman

II. M O D E R N S T U D Y O F C O N S C I E N C E III. T H E E T H I C A L T E A C H I N G S O F

Oliver

Huckel

JESUS

Lyman Abbott IV. E T H I C S O F T H E L A R G E R

NEIGHBORHOOD

Hamilton Wright Mabie V. W O R L D P E A C E A N D T H E C O L L E G E

MAN

David Starr Jordan VI. J E S U S O N L O V E T O G O D . J E S U S O N L O V E T O

MAN

James Mofiatt

VII. T H E S O C I A L T E A C H I N G O F J E S U S C H R I S T T H E SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS THE

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE TEACHING OF

JESUS

Francis Greenwood Peabody

VIII. T H E F U N D A M E N T A L S O F

CHRISTIANITY

Charles Foster Kent IX-XIII. CHRISTIAN

ETHICS:

CHRISTIAN ETHICS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Frederick R. Griffin ETHICS IN EDUCATION

Edwin C. Broome

THE CHRISTIAN HOME

William P.

T H E ORIGINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS

McNally

George C. Foley Boyd Edwards

THE TWO ROADS xi

T H E RELIGIOUS MOTIVE IN PHILANTHROPY STUDIES

IN

BIOGRAPHY by

HENRY BRADFORD WASHBURN Dean of the Episcopal Theological School Cambridge, Massachusetts

PHILADELPHIA UNIVERSITY

OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A

PRESS

London: Humphrey Milford: Oxford University Press 1931

COPYRIGHT 1931

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Printed

in the United States of

xiv

America

To My

Daughter

MABEL HALL COLGATE

XV

CONTENTS Page

INTRODUCTION

1

I. SAMUEL BARNETT

29

II. V I N C E N T DE PAUL

63

III. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

99

IV. JESUS O F NAZARETH

xvii

133

Henry Bradford Washburn was born in fVorcester, Mass., on December 2, 1869. He prepared for college in the public schools of IVorcester, was graduated from Harvard in 1891 and from the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge in 1894, after which he studied abroad for two years, spending one semester at the University of Berlin and one year at Oxford. Upon his return to America he became assistant minister of St. John's in Providence, R. I., where he served from 1896 to 1898, when he became rector of St. Mark's at Worcester, Mass., where he spent ten years. From 1901 to 1902 he was lecturer on Church History at the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, and from 1908 to 1920 was professor of Church History in the same school, becoming dean in 1920. Dean IVashburn has received honorary degrees from the Cambridge Theological School, Hobart College and Harvard University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and other scientific, literary and historical associations.— G. Ε. N.

xix

INTRODUCTION F o r the last few years my m i n d has been m o r e o r less o c c u p i e d with the religious motive in p h i l a n t h r o p y . I t has been d r a w n to this s u b j e c t by n o t i c i n g that w h i l e m u c h o f o u r p h i l a n t h r o p y is d i r e c t e d by a religious m o t i v e m u c h of it is not. C o n s e q u e n t l y I have been asking m y s e l f w h e t h e r the religious m o t i v e is necessary in m u c h of the w o r k that is b e i n g done f o r others at the present t i m e . I n o r d e r f u l l y to a c c o m p l i s h the p h i l a n t h r o p i c task that confronts us in so m a n y different ways must w e love G o d as well as m e n ? I n o r d e r to understand those w h o m we w o u l d h e l p must we h a v e a religious idea of h u m a n n a t u r e ? I f one w i l l m a k e a rapid survey of the kind of p h i l a n t h r o p i c w o r k that is g o i n g on today, one will see that, on the w h o l e , it is e x c e l l e n t — b e t t e r by f a r than at any time in the past. O n e w i l l also notice the attitude toward religion of those w h o are a c h i e v i n g these good results. A s I have imp l i e d , m a n y o f the unselfish and the c h a r i t a b l e are r e l i g i o u s ; they are kind to others because they t h i n k that, in some way, those w h o m they help are t h e i r own kin s p i r i t u a l l y , c h i l d r e n of G o d . B u t m a n y others of the unselfish and the c h a r i t a b l e confess to no such m o t i v e . T h e y lend a hand

2

Introduction

simply because they pity the unfortunate, because they enjoy putting the poor on their financial feet and restoring the sick to health, because nothing in the world gives one so comfortable a feeling as to have seen another a little better off because of one's effort, because social conscience demands social service, because they love men. A good number of people like these—nurses, physicians, surgeons, charity-workers, and others in whose hands the needy are—confess to no vital religious impulse to do what they can and to no religious understanding of those whom they would help. M a n y of them are, of course, the product of religious traditions; they go onward with a vague notion that religion in some way has to do with their activities. B u t religion plays no real part as a vital motive as they go about doing good. Others go on their useful way utterly indifferent to religion. Religion may be of value to some; it means nothing to them. Still others are hostile to religion. T h e y have scant respect for so-called religious people, or, as they are more likely to think of them, superstitious people. T h e y do not want to work with them. T h e y do not want them about. I f necessity compels them to work with religious people the less said about religion the better; and the less religion enters as a motive the

Introduction

3

better, they think, the q u a l i t y o f the results is l i k e l y to be. S u c h are certain o f the attitudes toward religion among those w h o are doing m u c h to meet the present social need. I f one w e r e looking f o r a d r a m a t i c e x a m p l e of at least an attempt at p h i l a n t h r o p y w i t h o u t religion one need only g l a n c e at the d a i l y p a p e r s and the c u r r e n t magazines. T h e y are full of the Russian e x p e r i m e n t . T h e leaders of the Russian C o m m u n i s t s are not indifferent to religion. T h e y hate it. T h e y ident i f y it with superstition and w i t h m a n - m a d e , m o n e y - m a k i n g institutions. T h e y look upon it as an influence that " h a s kept the peasant in his p l a c e " t h r o u g h fear. Its total destruction for the good of the Russian p r o l e t a r i a t is t h e i r open a i m . T o deal s y m p a t h e t i c a l l y with these men, to say that they are possibly ignorant o f w h a t real religion m a y be, that they are possibly c o n f u s i n g all religion with the type with w h i c h they w e r e f a m i l i a r in p r e - w a r Russia, is not to do them the justice they would w e l c o m e . S t a l i n m a y not h a v e c o m e into any direct contact with any f o r m of religion e x c e p t that w h i c h p r e v a i l e d in G e o r g i a before the w a r . B u t L e n i n and T r o t s k y were, in p r e - w a r days, well-traveled and w e l l - r e a d men, and both have totally e l i m i n a t e d religion f r o m

4

Introduction

their social program. Any concessions which they may have made to religion are due to policy rather than to sympathy. Lenin "regarded God with positive, furious animosity. God was the contemptible creation of the abject bourgeois, the last pitiful device of the sordid capitalist for keeping the unhappy proletarian in slavish subjection." 1 T h e Russian communist is plainly expecting a better philanthropy because of the suppression of religion. I t may take a generation or two to decide whether these men are right and whether a godless society means a healthy and a prosperous people. Unless underneath the Russian attempt there be a type of religion to which they would not give that name, and with which we are utterly unfamiliar, the experiment will be interesting to watch for a generation or two. T h e r e are certain other things also which have drawn my attention to the relationship between religion and philanthropy. T h e y are of a much less dramatic kind, but they are none the less impressive. In fact by their unimpressiveness, their comparative inconspicuousness and their being generally taken for granted, they may indicate certain tendencies of thought and conduct. I t is not at all clear, at the present time, that 'Gamaliel Bradford, The Quick and the Dead, Boston, 1931, pp. 182-3.

Introduction

5

p h i l a n t h r o p i e s w h i c h are openly d i r e c t e d by the religious motive are necessarily m o r e successful than those w h i c h are not. W h e r e a s in p a r t i c u l a r cases men and w o m e n m a y find themselves m o r e contented in a religiously directed hospital or in a religiously d i r e c t e d educational institution it does not follow that t h e i r bodies and minds are any the better because of that fact. R e c e n t l y a p h y s i c i a n of wide p r a c t i c e has told m e that nurses in religiously directed hospitals are by no means the superiors of those in secular hospitals. M y own e x p e r i e n c e of some years would lead me to m u c h the same conclusion. F u r t h e r m o r e , in m a n y o f o u r hospitals, f o r e x a m p l e , there m a y be a b o a r d o f trustees b e l o n g i n g to some c h u r c h , there m a y be a head o r superintendent of the same denomination, but there is no r e q u i r e m e n t that e i t h e r physicians o r nurses should m a k e any religious profession. S k i l l and m o r a l integrity are alone required. A p p a r e n t l y religion is, in m a n y instances, thought to p r o d u c e an a t m o s p h e r e h e l p f u l to body and m i n d . B u t religion is not g e n e r a l l y thought indispensable to doctor or nurse. T h a t religion should give d o c t o r and nurse an idea of h u m a n nature necessary to their profession is a point of v i e w e i t h e r not entertained or looked upon as r a t h e r fanciful. W i t h o u t question religious philan-

6

Introduction

thropic institutions would employ religious assistants if they could be found, for theoretically, at least, they believe that religion helps. But at present such people are rare, and even the rare ones may lack the technical ability of the more numerous irreligious, non-religious, or indifferently religious. A f u r t h e r aspect of the present condition in philanthropy makes one wonder just in how f a r religion directs in any way the attitude of those who help. Certain aspects of philanthropy are becoming profitable. Whereas the Bolshevic physician, utterly without God, gives himself to his people with no thought of reward beyond the pleasure of easing their pains and having enough food and drink to keep body and mind in good working trim, the western physician, possibly a deeply religious man, may invest his surplus earnings in a fancy stock farm. And whereas the Russian statesman does his duty and takes the little salary the state can afford, the western clergyman may, in some instances, be clothed in p u r p l e and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day. Such contrasts, in good numbers, might easily be made, to show that while many of the godless are helping without thought of remuneration, certain of the professedly religious are allowing their

Introduction

7

m o t i v e s to be tinctured w i t h t h o u g h t of riches. T h e c o m m e r c i a l i z a t i o n of certain types of philant h r o p y , the c o m m e r c i a l i z a t i o n of certain aspects of the m i n i s t r y , are conspicuous today. T h e v e r y a p p a r e n t f a c t makes one jvonder w h e t h e r , a f t e r all, such philanthropists and such c l e r g y have a r e l i g i o u s conception of their w o r k , or even w h e t h e r t h e i r conception of it is as e n l i g h t e n e d as that of some men w h o are w i t h o u t G o d in the w o r l d . T h o u g h t s like these have been running t h r o u g h m y mind recently. I f , h o w e v e r , the Russian e x p e r i m e n t w e r e to p r o v e successful the event w o u l d be unique, for, in the west at any rate, there are, h i s t o r i c a l l y s p e a k i n g , f e w e x a m p l e s of unselfish enterprise on a l a r g e scale uninspired by some kind of religious m o t i v e . T h e i m p r o b a b i l i t y that B o l s h e v i s m o r any o t h e r m o v e m e n t w i l l be t r i u m p h a n t in philant h r o p y unless it a l l o w religion to p l a y some p a r t is so strong that the irreligious point of v i e w becomes almost n e g l i g i b l e . It m a y be that times are c h a n g i n g fast in this respect; it m a y be that w e are o u t g r o w i n g religion. B u t if such be the case the present is indeed a v e r y novel m o m e n t in history. O n e goes on to w o n d e r , t h e r e f o r e , w h e t h e r w i t h o u t religion the social conscience m a y not b e c o m e a little less k e e n ; w h e t h e r w i t h o u t

8

Introduction

religion the present philanthropic movements may not slowly lose their m o m e n t u m ; whether without religion men, the objects of philanthropy, can be thoroughly understood and consequently thoroughly helped; whether, in short, the absence of religion does not in some subtle way deprive philanthropy of its finer incentive and its finer intelligence. W a t c h i n g certain tendencies and observing conditions as they are have brought these problems home to me in a very real way. T o help myself to some conclusion I have turned to history and to that form of history which to me is most v i t a l — biography. I have used this method for two reasons: First, because looking back gives one a longrange view of any problem, and, second, because dealing with a matter historically frees one from slavery to the present. F u r t h e r m o r e , I turned to the biographical method of studying tendencies in history, for the lives of men reveal the motives of conduct more sensitively than such motives may be found in dates and events and achievements. T o know that Lenin hated the idea of God with a royal hatred, and that he was superbly confident that life is snuffed out at death, throws more vivid light on the Communist program, and brings it home to one more vitally, than would be possible

Introduction

9

if one w e r e m e r e l y to read that C o m m u n i s m holds these views. S i m i l a r l y , to k n o w that J e s u s lived with G o d in the tender r e l a t i o n s h i p o f a f a i t h f u l son, and to listen to H i s words t e l l i n g of his c o m panionship with G o d b e f o r e the w o r l d was, t h r o u g h o u t H i s days on earth and on into the une n d i n g future, brings the ideas o f G o d - s o n s h i p and e t e r n a l l i f e h o m e to one m o r e r e a l l y than by o n l y h e a r i n g that these ideas are p a r t of the b e l i e f o f the C h r i s t i a n C h u r c h . I t m a y be that the s u b j e c t g r a d u a l l y f o r c e d itself in on my m i n d as I b e c a m e m o r e f a m i l i a r with the lives o f men b a c k of whose p h i l a n t h r o p y there was a vivid religious motive. I r e m e m b e r that w h e n I was asked to give the B o a r d m a n L e c t u r e s the s u b j e c t of the course had only to be taken off the s u r f a c e of m y m i n d and sent in to the p r o p e r authorities. H a r d l y with my k n o w l e d g e the subj e c t was ready. A n d this was at least two years b e f o r e the lectures w e r e w r i t t e n . K n o w i n g that I should deal w i t h the s u b j e c t b i o g r a p h i c a l l y the next task was to single out m y men. T h e decision was not an a l t o g e t h e r easy one to m a k e . S h o u l d I select c e r t a i n types of conspicuously successful p h i l a n t h r o p y , ascertain w h o was responsible f o r t h e i r b e g i n n i n g and development, and a n a l y z e the m o t i v e that u n d e r l a y the

10

Introduction

excellent results? Should I look to the latest development in prison reform, the best equipped hospitals for the sick o r the mentally deranged, the most comfortable and the cheeriest homes for the aged, and then ask myself who brought them all to pass and why? O r should I rather look back to certain periods of creative philanthropic insight, periods within which men seemed to get a new grip on types of kindness, periods within which great movements of kindness seemed to have their origin, and then discover wherein lay the secret of power? W h e t h e r rightly or wrongly, I chose this second method. I selected four men, each of whom introduced into the philanthropy of his day not so much a method as a motive, and in consequence of whose inspiration philanthropy took on new life. In the development of this second method my interest lay, of course, in the results that each of my men achieved, for the achievement of each was great. But, more than this, my interest lay in the motive that made the man do what he did. I n my selection I have taken men from various periods of Christian history. T o select all four from any one period, say the philanthropic first century or the philanthropic nineteenth century, might lead one to think that at these periods

Introduction

11

religion was a motive to charity, but it might do no m o r e ; religion might then seem only an intermittent motive. But to take the men more or less haphazard from widely separated periods of Christian history might persuade one that religion and philanthropy were permanently interwoven. T h i s I have done. M y characters are Samuel B a r nett from the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, Vincent de Paul from the seventeenth century, Francis of Assisi from the early thirteenth century, and our L o r d from the first century. N a t u r a l l y I include our Lord, for while H i s motive in helping others is found in God, the motives of the other three are found not only in God, but in our Lord. F u r t h e r m o r e the inclusion of Jesus of Nazareth gives any group of lovers of human nature a peculiar unity. T h e utter normality of a man like Samuel B a r nett was one of my reasons for singling him out. H i s plain middle-class bringing up, his inconspicuous home-life as a boy and domestic life as a man, the somewhat under-social aspect of his college days, the gradual appearance of a genius for leadership, the very slow winning of a following, and the constant wonder as to wherein lay his appeal to men, the vigorous and sane undergraduate and graduate assistants whom he gathered

12

Introduction

about himself, the unimpressive way in which he did things and got things done, his routine curacy and routine priesthood touched more with thoroughness than with romance, the undemonstrative affection for people, the commonplace advance from St. J u d e ' s to T o y n b e e H a l l , from T o y n b e e H a l l to a Bristol canonry, from T o y n b e e and Bristol to W e s t m i n s t e r — a l l in consequence of hard work and sheer desert, and, more symptomatic than any other one fact, a slender competence, in addition to his slender salary, coming from his father's probable invention and his father's actual manufacture of the first spring beds (by the side of which M r s . Barnett used to say she frequently sat when she visited the s i c k ) — a l l of these and other characteristics and qualities made their appeal to me. I f I could but see in this man who built the first university settlement, and from whom others in similar brotherly enterprises drew their spirit and their method, a controlling religious motive, f a r deeper and far richer than a sense of duty, I should come very near finding that such a motive were essential and, possibly, open to all—at least as an ideal. And I found it. I t underlies all his work. I t comes first in all his thinking. T h e idea of the divine-human family, with God as a F a t h e r , with men as brothers, with love the

13

Introduction

bond o f union and of l o y a l t y — t h i s m a d e h i m do w h a t he did. I t all appears in an u t t e r l y usual and n o r m a l life. M y reason f o r turning to V i n c e n t de P a u l was s o m e w h a t different. F o r years in t e a c h i n g C h u r c h H i s t o r y I had passed h i m by with only a nod of recognition. a friend.

H e was an a c q u a i n t a n c e rather than

I told my classes that he was the patron

saint of R o m a n C a t h o l i c c h a r i t i e s ;

I told them

n o t h i n g m o r e . A n d I a m not a l t o g e t h e r sure that the casual r e m a r k was not intended to tell them that that was about all they need know, f o r of what i m p o r t a n c e to them were m o d e r n R o m a n C a t h o l i c c h a r i t i e s or t h e i r o r i g i n s ? P r o t e s t a n t c h a r i t i e s and non-sectarian charities w e r e so m u c h m o r e within our traditions!

B u t as time went on I found h i m

p u l l i n g m e gently and steadily and firmly closer to himself.

Although

for m a n y years I said little

m o r e of h i m to my classes, I b e c a m e a w a r e that the time m i g h t c o m e w h e n I w o u l d k n o w

him

better, and that then I w o u l d tell others of h i m . A n d as this t i m e a p p r o a c h e d I felt that I wanted to m a s t e r the secret of his l i f e just because he was of a tradition o t h e r than m y own, and just because he p o u r e d life, and, in m a n y cases, system into p h i l a n t h r o p i e s of a C h u r c h o t h e r than m y own.

Evi-

14

Introduction

dently there was power in this man and I wanted to discover its secret. I t did not take long to find it. T h e wonder is that I had not perceived it long before in the scanty notices of him that I had read. M e r e l y to know the names of those whom he knew and among whom he worked—St. Frangois de Sales, de Berulle, and J e a n Jacques Olier, to mention only three of a remarkable generation of spiritual leaders—should have been to me a sign of his spiritual greatness. M e r e l y to rehearse the kinds of people whom he helped—the foundlings, the Daughters of the Visitation, K i n g Louis X I I I , to speak of these only of his countless beneficiaries—should have been evidence of his influence on men. T h e briefest life of Vincent might have given me the secret of his power and made me know why he was making such a gentle conquest of me. T h e slightest yielding to my growing curiosity would have enabled me to understand the cause of so much seventeenth-century good and the remote cause of so much modern good. I turned to Vincent because of his continuous, hourly devotion to God, because God was at all times sought first in his way of helping men, because loyalty to G o d was expected first among those who assisted him, and first among those whom he and they assisted. I t was

Introduction

IS

this invariable centering of his motives and his methods in God that drew me to Vincent. F o r a long time I tried to discover for my third object of study some one other than St. Francis of Assisi—one who had founded and permanently inspired some charitable or educational institution like a monastic hospital or a monastic school, whose religious motives would be very apparent, and the results of whose work would seem clearly to flow from his companionship with God. But I found myself again and again returning to Francis as more worthy of study than any of them because in his life there was little else than God. H e r e was a man abler to do good than any one of whom we have record except our Lord, a man of singular creative power over men's bodies as well as over their souls, and yet a man who had little or nothing to give. H e may have supplied a rude shelter for his lepers. H e may have shared his rags with the naked and his crusts with the hungry. But in these his philanthropies did not consist. H a v i n g only himself to give he gave himself. But he was himself only when he was united with Christ and God. W h e n he gave himself, therefore, he gave Christ and God. And therewith people were content. W i t h the possession of what Francis had to give they were oblivious to clothing, food and

16

Introduction

shelter. I t seems rather paradoxical to speak of a man as a philanthropist and in the same breath to say that he had nothing to give. But just therein lay the man's charm, for, like few men before or since his day, he has shown that to possess God is the all in all of life, however convenient other possessions may be, and that the knowledge of God is sufficient for happiness, however comfortable and satisfying a sound body and a prosperous experience may be. T h e r e was never any doubt in my mind that my fourth character should be our L o r d — a n d our L o r d looked upon as far as possible as a human being. In the narrower meaning of the expression "human being" this is, of course, impossible, for we define the term as meaning the average man, or even the comprehensible exceptional man. I n the wider meaning it is quite possible, for the record is clear that One who lived as men do, within a family, among friends and enemies, confronted with the usual problems of life, confining H i m s e l f to an extraordinarily limited geographical area, and submitting H i m s e l f to the fate of a reformer, if not of a c r i m i n a l — t h a t such a man never lifted H i s hand to help unless it were lifted by God, and never thought an unselfish thought unless it were first thought by God, in short, O n e

Introduction

17

w h o believed Himself sent into the w o r l d to carry out some of God's charitable ideas and plans, and that H e and God were indistinguishable in carrying t h e m out. M y f u r t h e r reason for m a k i n g our L o r d m y f o u r t h choice was, as I have said above, the conspicuous fact that my other three men without any question found in H i m their pattern for conduct, and their source of knowledge as to w h a t men really are, and t h e r e f o r e their guide as to how and w h y men should be helped. Naturally, Samuel Barnett, Vincent de P a u l and Francis not only looked upon o u r L o r d as divine as well as h u m a n , but t h o u g h t that within this very union lay the secret of Christ's leadership in ways of helping h u m a n nature. Nevertheless, I still think it possible to study our L o r d ' s kindness to men very m u c h as one would study that of the other three, if for no other reason than that our L o r d , like the other three, was always looking beyond Himself f o r a directing Spirit. Personally I am confident that the difficulty one finds in a t t e m p t i n g to separate the divine f r o m the h u m a n so conspicuously united in o u r L o r d is a final a r g u m e n t for the religious motive in p h i l a n t h r o p y . But as, in a measure, one meets the same difficulty in analyzing the motives of the other three, our L o r d may be legitimately included in the same g r o u p and

18

Introduction

treated in the same way. I like to feel that no one can reach down into his own being and ask himself what he can do for mankind without becoming bewildered as to whether the answer is human or divine, or without doing the sensible thing and confessing that it is inseparably both. In this meaning I include our Lord with the other philanthropists. Grouping all together—these men ranging all the way from the somewhat unromantic Barnett, to the well-nigh mystical Vincent de Paul and the Christlike Francis, to their Master, within whose thinking and conduct one may with difficulty distinguish between what one knows to be human and what one imagines to be divine—one finds certain points of view and certain ideas held in common. It is a commonplace of religion to say that man is made in the image of God. As a matter of fact the thought dates f a i r l y far back toward the dawn of Hebrew religious thinking, and of that of other peoples. From those days until now the expression has been widely current. It has been accepted as a Christian definition of the inner meaning of human nature. And yet when the expression is taken as if it were the consequence of profound, if very ancient, religious insight, and when it appears as a program for conduct, it frequently strikes one as

Introduction

19

novel. M y four men meant every word of it when they said men were made in the image of God. T h e y meant it spiritually; they almost meant it physically. I f they conceived of such a thing as a spiritual body they did mean it physically, if a Hibernianism may be allowed. W h a t Samuel Barnett meant by it was this: I f you go down into the vilest part of East London and enter the vilest house and find the vilest man, there you are confronted with someone who has somewhere within and about him the image of God. T h e image may look desperately undivine; it may be overlaid with other likenesses. But it is there. All you have to do with the man is to clear away the superficial likenesses, possibly layer after layer of them, and finally you will come to the divine likeness. Barnett did this. As his wife said of him, he was a man convinced that God had made man in his own image and who thought it the duty of humanity to raise itself to the realization of its birthright. And may one add that he thought it his own high privilege to hew away the accretions until the image true to man appeared? Frequently Barnett put the same thing in another way, the Christian way of putting the old Hebrew thought, a way common to each of the other three. T h e y all thought that when they

20

Introduction

came in contact with human nature, particularly with human nature in need, they came in contact with Christ. This was v e r y real to Barnett. T o Vincent de Paul it was the heart of his kindness. Francis lived daily in the vivid light of its reality. A n d Jesus told his disciples that they could not even visit a prisoner with kindly intention without visiting Him. Vincent de Paul carried the thought to a singular, logical extreme. He said that Christ was confined, as it were, within men, even within the most abandoned of them, and that there Christ would stay until he were released by some kindly person. H e went even f a r t h e r than this and said that if one had an opportunity to help and did not seize it, Christ would be bound hand and foot, meaning that there was a Christ within the helped and a Christ within the helper and that the former could not be freed without the latter. Underneath these principles there is an interesting view of human nature. It is that w e are not simply we. W e are w e plus someone else, and that someone else is Christ. It may be that the abject sinner is nine-tenths himself and one-tenth Christ. It may be that the saint w h o helps him is nine-tenths Christ and one-tenth himself. But each is himself plus. In some mystical w a y the divine and human are interwoven, and the task of the

Introduction

21

philanthropist is to bring out a larger portion of the divine. All four of my men seemed to go out to their work convinced of the composite nature of their needy people. T h r e e of them had grasped St. Paul's view of human nature as found in Christ. One of the extraordinary results of this working principle was that my men always put God and Christ first and physical comfort second. N a t u r ally they went out to help men—to feed them, to clothe them, to shelter them, to improve the condition of their hospitals and their prisons. And in Barnett's case one is superficially impressed with this as his p r i m a r y motive. But even in his case the impression gained is only superficial. H i s purpose was to train men for eternity. W i t h Vincent de Paul the religious motive is more constantly explicit. H e dealt first with the souls of men, and although he never lost sight of the physical need and the physical remedy, he made it clearly secondary. H e left many a h a p p y man in a loathsome prison, and he made many a galley slave contented with his unchanged conditions. A m I wrong in thinking that such was also the conviction and the conduct of St. Francis? F o r himself, the mastery of Christ-companionship brought indifference to food and drink and shelter. M o r e than this, difficulty in many cases spelled coöpera-

22

Introduction

tion with God—I mean the difficulty of the unfortunate person as well as the difficulty of Francis as he went about on his errands of mercy. And the more Francis drew men to divine companionship the more they too forgot comfort and enjoyed hardness. Whatever he may have done to alleviate suffering was a consequence rather than a cause of the religion he brought to the sufferer. And yet changed and improved conditions were invariably following on the heels of this primary religious consciousness and religious attempt. Such philanthropy also flowed from a life of prayer. Here again Barnett is almost uninteresting in his devotional life—the greater reason for singling him out for study. As he in his prosy way would put it, he said his prayers morning and night and he was a good churchgoer. Beyond this he attended the Holy Communion frequently and made special preparation for it. Only in rare instances, however, was he able to infect others with the contagion of his example. Although certain of his helpers were demonstratively religious, not all were by any means. I t was a disappointment to him that many of them would not center their work in the services of preparation and in the Holy Communion itself.

Introduction

23

W i t h Vincent de Paul the case was quite different. T h e devotional life was to be the atmosphere, so to speak, within which the charities were carried on and from which they drew their life and their invigoration. Private prayer began the day. T h e Mass followed. T h e day passed on with recurrent return to God. T h e day ended in divine companionship. N o t only this. N o woman was to join the group that would assist those who actually carried on the work unless prayer-life meant something to her. N e i t h e r was a Daughter of C h a r i t y allowed to go among the sick and the poor unless prayer controlled and directed her kindness. T h e fact that Vincent met these groups periodically, lifted them into the realm of prayer and showed them the religious meaning of their service, makes abundantly clear what prayer meant to him. W i t h F r a n c i s the wonder is that he had any time for service. H e seemed always to be either in contemplation or in prayer. T h e quiet hours in the shaded seclusion of the Carceri, the emulation of our L o r d in the forty-day fast on an island in the middle of L a k e Thrasemene, the long period of isolation and conscious attempt to come nearer Christ and G o d on M t . Alvernus, culminating in the stigmata—all these together with almost con-

24

Introduction

tinuous praise to God and communion with Christ, seemed to fill the days. Service seemed a kind of interruption in the life of heavenly companionship. And yet how perfectly he helped men in body and soul! T h e method of Francis seemed almost an imitation of that of his Master. One finds in Christ the frequent resort to prayer and the periodic return to prolonged intervals of association with his heavenly Father. H e cannot begin H i s ministry without the search for the divine will known to us as T h e Temptation. H e cannot set H i s face toward Jerusalem without communion with God and with great men of the past in an experience which we call T h e Transfiguration. H e cannot approach the cross without going into the Garden of Gethsemane and asking God to direct H i m through what we call T h e Passion. I t was a life of prayer from beginning to end. I t was a life of sublime service issuing from a constant devotion to prayer. P r a y e r came first; service came second. G o d came first; man came second. H e n c e from H i s day to ours men have suspected that they could not love their neighbors as themselves unless they first loved God with heart, mind, soul and strength. Underneath these approaches to a theory of a

Introduction

25

right p h i l a n t h r o p y , studied t h r o u g h the lives of men, there m a y have been the thought, in w h i c h I am beginning to believe p r o f o u n d l y , that men can n e v e r be accurately understood and t h e r e f o r e e f f e c t i v e l y helped unless they be dealt w i t h as sons of G o d . A s I am g r a d u a l l y being p u l l e d up to this conclusion I find myself being d r a w n m o r e and m o r e t h r o u g h the lives of such men as Barnett, V i n c e n t de Paul, and F r a n c i s into a f u l l e r understanding of Jesus as H e t h r o w s light on the essential n a t u r e of o u r lives. I f r a n k l y confess that in this quest I am getting beyond m y theological and anthropological depth. I am confident that m a n y a theologian and m a n y an anthropologist w i l l think m e foolish, if not altogether unintelligent. A n d yet something is p u l l i n g me o n w a r d and u p w a r d t o w a r d some discovery w h i c h I k n o w rests w i t h i n the nature of o u r L o r d . I look f o r it in v a i n in books. N o teacher I h a v e e v e r had has shown it to me. T h e r e is no one w i t h w h o m I can talk about it and find in the conversation the sympathetic response w h i c h may j u s t i f y m y f e e l i n g . I find it o n l y in w h a t I seem to feel behind and beneath the lives of unselfish servants of men. I find it in the story of Jesus as it stands in the Gospels, but possib l y even m o r e in the u n d e r t a n d i n g of Jesus that one discovers in St. J o h n and in St. P a u l . I am

26

Introduction

just beginning (within the last few months) to ask myself whether the early Christian attempts to explain the nature of Christ may not have their significance for human nature. I am wondering whether students of mankind must not examine with sympathy the doctrines of the T w o Natures of Christ, the T w o Wills, the Incarnation, the Trinity. I am questioning what human nature really is in order that I may answer how it may best be helped. Is " T h e measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" a mere figure of speech? Has Christology anything to offer to anthropology? At least I have accepted certain things that John, or the writings that usually are called by his name, seem to think true of Jesus as true of men, and certain things that Paul said of his own relation to Christ, as having vast significance for us. Without mature spiritual experience myself I accept the consequences of appealing religious experience in others. I think I am prepared to assume an eternal spiritual origin of each individual man. I think I find more truth in the thought that we are a composite of the divine and the human than in any other definition of human nature. T h e r e is meaning for men in John's report of our Lord's assertion that H e was living

Introduction

27

with the F a t h e r before the world was. T h e r e is a meaning for men in Paul's assertion that he was dead and that his life was hid with Christ in God. F e e l i n g these truths with daily increasing strength I am more frequently asking myself whether there can be a right philanthropy without religion. As I associate with men of my own profession and as I go about my ministry I am wondering whether our conception of human nature is equal to the task that we ought to be doing. M a n y of us, I know, are converted to God, but are we converted to men? D o we understand God sufficiently to understand m e n ? As I go about our perfectly appointed hospitals for children, the sick, the deranged, the aged, with their fresh air, their sunshine, their wholesome food, their cleanliness, their inventions for comfort and convenience, is there anything that I miss? As I observe the skill of the physician and surgeon, and see, in many cases, the miraculous results of their genius, is there anything lacking in their devotion to m e n ? As I watch the practical unselfishness of individuals and the public toward the needy, the uneducated, the unemployed, is there any element wanting in their generosity? W i t h our constantly improving methods of service is there an equally improving comprehension of

28

Introduction

those whom we are serving? N o w and then I wonder whether the old days, better ordered, may not return, whether we may not be on the eve of a Christian social revival, or revolution, whether there may not be young men ready to take Christ's idea of God and Christ's idea of men, and in their light to find their happiness in the companionship of God and in the service of men. And I am asking myself whether the results to be achieved by such young men as these may not possibly be better than our best. I am rather bewildered by the thought. I see its difficulty. I see its promise. As I await developments I rely on the insight of men like Samuel Barnett, Vincent de Paul, and Francis of Assisi, and upon their Master's evident companionship with God and knowledge of men.

SAMUEL

BARNETT

I have a friend who is called a landscape architect. H i s main interest lies in city planning. Frequently he sends me what he writes on the subject. H e and others who share his ideals are dreaming of the day when cities will be beautiful and healthful. T h e y look forward to the time when streets will be broad and light and airy, when buildings will be so constructed that on the outside they will narrow as they ascend, so that sun and air may surround them, and on the inside they will be bright and fresh, and when within every few blocks and within every section of the city there shall be extensive spaces offering room for gardens, and a view of an open sky and a wide horizon. T h e y dream of the day when all parts of the city shall be beautiful to look upon and wholesome and delightful to live in. Under the M a c D o n a l d ministry England is now entering upon a vast enterprise of this kind. O u r hope for the future city lies in these good men of imagination and accomplishment. But there is another group of men who are dreaming dreams. T h e y , too, are watching with interest the changes in our city planning. B u t their m a j o r concern rests in the people who are

30

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

going to live in these cities. T h e y know that a changing city and a changing human nature must keep equal pace and that the outward loveliness and wholesomeness should be but the expression of the inward character. T h e y dream of the day when sordid dwellings and sordid streets shall be a condition of the past along with underfed, overworked, ill-educated and discouraged men and women, and when children shall have full opportunity not only for fresh air, nourishing food and sufficient exercise, but as well for a practical and absorbing education and for the instilling of the fundamental principles of morals and religion. Recently, in a child welfare conference, President Hoover has drawn attention to just these things. O u r hope for human nature in times to come lies with dreamers such as these. W i t h i n the past generation and within our own country there have been men and women who have caught this double vision and who have done some notable things to make the dream come true. W i t h i n my own neighborhood, and for some years a colleague on the F a c u l t y of the E p i s c o p a l T h e o logical School at C a m b r i d g e , R o b e r t A r c h y Woods had begun and carried on a notable social experiment at South E n d H o u s e in Boston. Inspired by the double motive of loyalty to G o d

Samuel

Barnett

31

and loyalty to his neighbor he tried to improve the physical and mental and moral condition of the part of Boston in which he lived. If I am not mistaken he caught at least a part of his inspiration from George Hodges, f o r many years Dean of the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, and, before coming to Cambridge, rector of C a l v a r y Church, Pittsburgh. Hodges and his friends, taking fire from Charles Kingsley and others in England, founded Kingsley House in Pittsburgh and there carried on a work in education, in morals and religion which Woods, a native of Pittsburgh, watched, and which, with inspiration and direction given him by Samuel Barnett in London, became the motive for the Boston South End Settlement. Miss J a n e Addams of Chicago, another of those who have worked with Samuel Barnett, was also among the pioneers in catching the vision of beautiful cities and of lovely characters. A n d although she is the only survivor of the pioneers she is still directing at H u l l House her work of promise. T h e second volume of her autobiography, published only two or three months ago, bears witness to a unique work being carried on by a believer in the capabilities of human nature. These various enterprises have their origin in

32

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

another land and among people of a very homogeneous type. Samuel Barnett and his university contemporaries were the first really to dream the dream and in the city of London to bring it at least to a partial realization. A f t e r about ten years of work as V i c a r of St. Jude's in W h i t e chapel, Barnett and his wife, with the financial and personal assistance of their friends and sympathizers, enlarged their possibility of accomplishment by building Toynbee H a l l on Commercial Street in W h i t e c h a p e l , only a few steps from St. Jude's C h u r c h and Rectory. And there for nearly thirty years, or until age and infirmity compelled a partial retirement, this simple, thorough, and deeply religious man, together with those who believed in him, did what he could for the wretched neighborhood. W h y did Samuel Barnett select W h i t e c h a p e l for the field of his novel social experiment? W h y did he want university men to come down and help him at that particular point? Possibly, of course, because he had already worked for two years there; he knew its needs at first hand. Possibly also because the conditions there were the worst he knew of, and the people the most degraded, and therefore the need the greatest. T h e worst spot on earth would naturally appeal to the

Samuel

Barnett

33

best m e n ! H e must have reasoned in some such way as that. W h e n the young Barnett first went down into W h i t e c h a p e l his bishop said that he had gone into the worst section of the diocese, a region filled with professional criminals. L a t e r Barnett found the statement to be well within the truth, although in W h i t e c h a p e l , as elsewhere, one never comes in contact with the worst without finding among them the best. W i t h i n a desert of vice one is sure to find, and this among the residents, an oasis of virtue. T h e section has a world-wide reputation for crime, for it was in Barnett's chosen section of W h i t e c h a p e l that the J a c k - t h e - R i p p e r murders took place in the winter of 1891-92. Shortly after graduating from college I happened to be in London with two friends. W i t h comprehensible and pardonable morbidity of purpose we took a hansom cab and drove down into the murder district, visiting the localities of the five murders. A t the opening of one of the blind alleys, in which a woman had been killed and sliced up, our driver stopped. I asked him to drive on. H e went in for a few paces and stopped again. Somewhat impatiently I told him to go to the end of the alley before turning. W i t h an expression which I later

34

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

knew was one of fear he obeyed. T h e r e was a small group of men and women on the sidewalk. One of them I remember rather clearly—a woman, clad in dirty clothes, not a ray of gentleness or decency in her expression, a complexion as white as chalk. As I looked at her and others I began to feel that I would rather be elsewhere. As our cabby drove us out into the broad Whitechapel thoroughfare he opened the little ventilator in the roof of the cab and said to us—"Them's maneaters for yer." And so they seemed to be. Down into this district went Samuel Barnett and his lovely young wife, apparently to spend their lives there. Again let me say that there were saints among these sinners, but the Barnetts were to find that the sinners were in the majority. T h e y were at grips with the stiffest kind of problem and none knew it better than they. T h e bishop had sent Barnett into Whitechapel, because the young man, as M r , (later Dean) Freemantle's curate, in an adjoining section of London, had already proved himself somewhat of an expert in dealing with social questions. H e had met and worked with some of the abler, more imaginative, and wiser social experts of London, including Miss Octavia Hill, a woman of somewhat prim figure and stubborn disposition, but filled with the spirit

Samuel

Barnett

35

of God and exceptionally endowed with common sense. One of Miss Hill's favorite fellow-workers was Miss Henrietta Rowland w h o m Barnett married after a time had elapsed sufficient to allow this richly endowed and thoroughly normal girl to comprehend the singular individual who had proposed to her. So the bishop "knew his man," and, may I say he "knew his woman," when he sent Barnett and his wife to St. Jude's in Whitechapel. Although man and wife were young, and Mrs. Barnett seven years younger than her husband, they were schooled in social work and their sincerity had been put to the test before they set up housekeeping in St. Jude's rectory. Up to the time of his appointment to St. Jude's Samuel Barnett's career had been inconspicuous. H e had been brought up in a home of generous parents. H e had one brother to whom he kept close until the brother's death in 1908. H i s father was not rich, but he earned a good income at his foundry, making among other useful articles, the first of the iron bedsteads. A f t e r a rather unsatisfactory preparation Samuel went up to Oxford and entered W a d h a m College. T h e r e he worked hard and played little. In after years he used to regret that he had not spent more time cultivating companionships. H e packed into three years a

36

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

course of study that usually took four. In 1865 he got his degree with second-class honors in law and history. Throughout his Oxford days he was religious, but not demonstratively so. H e was also sympathetic. But in this period there were no signs of leadership. After a year of leisurely postgraduate study and tutoring, and another year as a master at Winchester, he traveled in the United States, from which experience he seems to have come home a liberal in politics. On his return he was ordered deacon, going to work at once with the Rev. W . H. Freemantle. In 1868 he was ordained priest. Little had happened thus far to show that he had any particular genius in the inspiration and direction of men. H e was intelligent and thoughtful. His curacy was proving that temperamentally he leaned toward social service, and his acceptance of St. Jude's showed that he thought the right kind of philanthropy should have a religious motive. When Samuel Barnett married and went to St. Jude's he was in no sense of the word a man of winning appearance. H e was about the average height. His figure was rather spare and not at all athletic. His brow was high and broad, his eyes fairly wide apart, stern rather than kindly, his head was quite bald in front. His moustache and

Samuel

Barnett

37

beard were heavy, long and black. T h e sole m a r k of a clergyman was his white bow-tie tucked u n d e r the points of a turnover collar. A p p a r e n t l y then and later he wore black clothes when on duty. W h e n I saw him in 1894 he was m u c h the same as I have described him above except that he was balder and the thick moustache and beard had become thin and stringy. As he looked quite fortyfive when he was in his m i d d l e twenties he looked quite sixty when he was in the late forties. A p p a r ently he was not very strong physically, for he took f r e q u e n t and long vacations. A t the same time he occasionally exercised prodigiously, f o r his w i f e gives long and detailed accounts of their w a l k i n g trips in Switzerland—on one occasion going f r o m C h a m o n i x in France u p the M e r de Glace and over the Col du Geant into C o u r m a y e u r in Italy. Both husband and w i f e were indefatigable travelers. A l t h o u g h Barnett was completely color-blind he was a lover of scenery, m o r e for its g r a n d e u r and historic interest than f o r its beauty. Before his death he had seen m a n y of the most interesting portions of Europe, he had visited the temples of the U p p e r Nile, and had journeyed around the world. If we may take his wife's w o r d f o r it he had a rather peculiar way of life. If in many respects he

38

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

had not been a saint it is difficult to see how one could for twenty-four hours a day easily get along with him. B e f o r e their engagement Miss R o w land "had accepted his interest as that of a kindly elderly gentleman, with small sensitive hands, a bald head and shaggy beard . . . far removed from a girlish idea of a lover." I n later years a friend of theirs wrote, in recalling him as the vicar of St. J u d e ' s — " W e l l , the young m a n — f o r he was young then, though he never looked i t — struck me as plain and insignificant with no easily read expression. In fact, what in my old hunting days I should have classed as 'a poor thing.' " H i s wife allowed that he dressed badly, wearing an ill-fitting silk hat ordered by post. H i s cotton gloves were always "two or three sizes too l a r g e . " H i s manners were frequently incomprehensible. On one occasion he laid a drunken man on the floor of the railway carriage in which his wife and another woman were riding. I n his early married life he was impatient with slight illness thinking it due to laziness or self-indulgence. H e was parsimonious with stamps and cash. On the day after Miss Rowland returned from many weeks on the continent she accepted M r . Barnett. T h e next day they spent on the river. On the day after that M r . Barnett started on a holiday to the con-

Samuel

Bar nett

39

tinent, unwilling to allow even an event of this major kind to interfere with an appointment. " W h e t h e r he was right or wrong I do not know," his wife says, " f o r during all these glad years together this reverence for punctuality was a frequent small trial to me, and the complete mastery of his thoughts a cause of envious bewilderment. H e would break off the most sacred of confidences or the most important of committees if the clock commanded him to stop, and so wholly was his mind under his control that on one occasion when I was so ill that death seemed imminent, in spite of his deep love and agony of anxiety, he surprised the nurse and wounded my sister by steadily reading Ivanhoe." These men who are in love with routine and with their work are dangerously efficient! Mrs. Barnett had taken the measure of the man. She was sensible enough not to attempt to make him much better than he was. A very wise woman! And yet with all these peculiarities, lived with on terms of intimacy for forty years, Mrs. Barnett could look back upon the span of her married life as "glad years." Brilliant, vivacious, imaginative, she became a partner of this conventionallyminded man in one of the most unique social experiments of the time, sharing with him the plan-

40

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

ning, and cooperating with him in accomplishment. H e was modest, self-effacing, ready to credit others with results that many times were his. H e was good to live with. T h e secret of it all lay in religion. He believed strongly in God and he believed equally strongly in the possibilities of human nature. More than this! God was within himself and others, and, in some mystical way, Christ was to be found in the inner life of all men. These ideas were no figures of speech. They were realities upon which one might base one's daily conduct. They were the principles which sent him to Whitechapel and kept him there until he was too feeble any longer to turn these principles into conduct. In his wife's introduction to his Life she could say, " I offer my book fully conscious that it is but an inadequate picture of one of God's servants, whose whole being was permeated by the sense of His presence, and, who, convinced that 'God had made man in His own image,' realized that the main duty of humanity was to raise itself to its birthright." For many of us all this is a pretty theory, well enough when the outward evidence seems to lend it weight. T o Samuel Barnett it was theory plus tested fact. His own encouragements and consolations gave him all he needed to prove

Samuel

Barnett

41

that God was his heavenly Father. F o r t y years among the apparently Christless convinced him that men were themselves plus something divine. H o w otherwise could he, toward the end of his life, act and write as he did about fallen women? " W h a t then, it may be asked, is the action of the Christian toward h e r ? I f , I suppose, you try to put into a sentence the change brought by Christ into human relations, you might say that f r o m H i m dates a new value in human beings. T h e y who really see Jesus cannot help but respect H i m , and they who see H i s likeness in the despised, cannot help but respect them. Christ inspired not just kindness or interest, or toleration, but respect for every human soul as something of incomparable, inestimable value. H e H i m s e l f was courteous to the outcast and the child. T h e attitude, therefore, of the Christian towards the woman who is a sinner should be one of respect. S h e must be treated not as an inferior with lower needs, not by methods of exclusion as if she were unworthy of our courtesy, nor by excuses as if she were incapable of knowing better; she must be helped not by the cold machinery of an organization dealing with a fallen class, nor by the sentiment which makes light of her sin. She must be regarded as a human being in whom is Christ,

42

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

with a divine capacity for being good, generous, loving, and therefore also with the noble human capacity for repentance. She must receive a respect which will remind her of her inheritance, and a warmth of human feeling which she will recognize as coming not from pity but from hope. Repression and sentiment alike have failed. R e spect such as that shown by our L o r d in Simon's house to the 'woman who was a sinner' has yet to be tried." Beyond this encouragement to himself and his workers to assume that in some mystical way Christ was in themselves, and even in the worst of those whom they tried to help, there was a supreme conviction that sin lay at the bottom of all wrong-doing and all lack of appreciation of what right-doing might be. H e seems to have taken our L o r d very literally when he said, from time to time, " T h y sins be forgiven thee." I t was this that made him put religion first and social amelioration second, that made him put God first and men second. And it was this that made him speak so constantly of repentance. A t times he is almost incomprehensibly conventional in his use of the word. But what he means is clear. I f we are to do right we must be aware of our shortcomings; we must have some clear idea of the differ-

Samuel

Barnett

43

ence between what we are and what we want to be and ought to be. In order to go forward the state must be aware of its backwardness, the family must be conscious of its undeveloped unity, the individual must confess that he has caught a glimpse of his moral imperfection. T o make others and himself conscious of religion as the heart of their social attempts he encouraged his colleagues and those among whom they worked to come to his meetings in preparation for the H o l y Communion. H e wanted to persuade them, as he was persuaded himself, of the presence of God. I f he could but accomplish that, results would surely follow. T a k e n together, these points of view and these methods did not represent the short-cut to social reform. T h e y spelt the long and probably the discouraging way. But he had no doubt that they spelt the thorough and the finally completely successful way. H i s object was to release the Christ in men. T h e purpose seemed and seems in a measure fantastic even to high-minded and unselfish social workers. H i s own brother-in-law, a man of fine nature, thought him a visionary and was gently impatient with his vague idealism. But Samuel Barnett knew that he himself was right. Christ's method had captured him. H e would

44

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

g i v e it a sound trial. S w a y e d by this conviction his patience was superb. V e r y evidently he was not looking f o r quick results; occasionally it seemed as if he could not look f o r any results at all. H e was, however, intent on beginnings. L i k e all men of unique spiritual p o w e r and religious insight he was intent only on an opportunity to begin a promising task or to encourage it onward. T h a t was all. H e and G o d w e r e the partners. T h e leisure of eternity was theirs f o r thoroughness. T h e span of human l i f e was only part of the opportunity. Directed by such points of v i e w and such methods as these he and his young w i f e , seven years his junior, and he only twenty-seven, went to live in Whitechapel. A n d although these beliefs of his come to their maturity in the years of the direction of T o y n b e e H a l l they are all there practically f r o m the day on which he and M r s . B a r nett started housekeeping in St. J u d e ' s rectory. T o bring out the best of human nature and in this w a y to bring out G o d was the reason f o r each and every one of his attempts at social reform. One m a y easily and quickly gather up the summ a r y of the accomplishment at St. J u d e ' s and at T o y n b e e and one may easily see in every item the purpose of the man.

Samuel

Barnett

45

In his parish church he simplified the service, fully aware that even so beautiful a liturgy might frustrate rather than achieve its purpose. H e and his wife asked the best of musicians to come down to St. J u d e ' s and Toynbee and to give the best they had to the most wretched of audiences, convinced that the musicians would gladly welcome the opportunity and that the people's inner refinement would be stirred. H e lent his influence against demoralizing doles and any stimulus to London's frightful curse of beggary. H e fought for an amendment of the Poor Laws. Assuming that people would do the right thing, at least some of them, if they had the opportunity, he slowly offered classes in subjects useful to the uneducated and interesting to hand laborers. As time went on he had a veritable university in stimulating operation. H e cared for the women as well as for the men, calling them together at St. J u d e ' s or at T o y n b e e H a l l , giving them instruction in care of themselves and their children, physically and mentally. And he looked out for the children, supplying for them proper conditions in which to work and play. H e cared for all by supporting, and in a measure carrying, every promising movement toward destroying the rotten, vermininfested, airless and lightless tenements in narrow

46

Religious

Motive in

Philanthropy

courts, and toward replacing them with homes of w h i c h the inmates might be proud. H e encouraged every promising movement toward w i d e streets, public parks and playgrounds. K n o w i n g that all these privileges might be abused, he ran the risk, knowing also that some w o u l d immediately profit by them, and that eventually everyone w o u l d be the better f o r them. A l t h o u g h I have not chapter and verse f o r my statement I venture the assertion that S a m u e l Barnett would have had the sinner keep on sinning in better surroundings, physical and "mental, than to continue a l i f e of evil in a disorderly and filthy neighborhood. H e w o u l d say to the one w h o questioned the wisdom of putting bad people in good quarters— it is only one of the risks w e run f o r the sake of the kingdom of G o d . H i s l i b r a r y and his art g a l l e r y might be called his pet projects and also the experiments which are characteristic of his method. T h e l i b r a r y had v e r y small beginnings, starting with the casual lending of a v o l u m e to the man or woman w h o wanted one. I t r a p i d l y increased owing to a keen neighborhood demand until St. J u d e ' s l i b r a r y and finally that of T o y n b e e H a l l w e r e c a r r y i n g on a thriving trade. M r . Barnett took wise advantage of his position to direct the

Samuel

Barnett

47

choice of books, so that reading should b r i n g out the best in the reader, strengthening and ennobling even when entertaining him. W h i t e c h a p e l bade fair, if this wise leadership continued, to become better i n f o r m e d than the West E n d . A t all events not m a n y years passed by before the City of London took the cue and built a sufficient library for the people of W h i t e c h a p e l . T h e A r t G a l l e r y had equally modest beginnings. H e r e again we must not forget that M r s . Barnett not only cooperated with h e r husband, but frequently took the lead. And one must remember, too, t h a t here was a color-blind man going into the art m u s e u m business. A n old soldier w h o used to d r i l l the boot-blacks got the idea going, and with characteristic imagination M r . Barnett saw its possibilities. T h e first exhibition consisted of h a r d l y anything else than the objects of interest and beauty w h i c h the Barnetts had picked up here and there on their travels. But the success of the first venture led to others of increasing size and interest, until art exhibitions were a regular institution in W h i t e c h a p e l and until friends subscribed for an art gallery w h i c h would house both permanent and t e m p o r a r y exhibitions. T h e old soldier and M r . and M r s . Barnett were the first patrons of the enterprise. As time went on such artists as

48

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

William Morris, Burne-Jones and Alma Tadema and the ablest collectors and connoisseurs, both private and public, enthusiastically lent their aid. Mrs. Barnett tells a story of how one exhibit was secured for Toynbee Hall. Mr. Alexander Young had offered to lend some canvases. Mrs. Barnett went to his house to inspect them. In Mr. Young's absence Mrs. Young showed Mrs. Barnett about among the pictures, finally coming to a few which she had decided to send down to Whitechapel. Mrs. Barnett thanked Mrs. Young for her kindness and said she could not accept them. Surprised and probably somewhat disturbed by such frank ingratitude, Mrs. Young asked the reason. Mrs. Barnett answered, "Because they are not your best." Mrs. Young saw the point, allowing Mrs. Barnett to make her own choice, of which opportunity she took sumptuous advantage. "The best must be lent for the service of the poor." The Toynbee committee insured the collection for £50,000, and the Barnetts saw the crowds surge in to enjoy Millets, Corots and Daubignys. During this exhibition and others Mr. Barnett would wander about the exhibition followed by a group of singularly motley make-up to whom he would, in simple and thorough language, explain the beauty and the meaning of the pictures. People

Samuel

49

Barnett

of intelligence were glad to hear what he said. M a n y years ago I attended one of these exhibitions. I was impressed by the poverty of the average person there. And I remember seeing a ragged woman with a baby in her arms standing in rapt admiration before one of Burne-Jones's pictures. Samuel Barnett was right, and so was his wife. " T h e best must be lent for the service of the poor. A l l can understand and admire the deepest things, as all can hear the voice of G o d . " W h e r e W h i t e c h a p e l ' s darkness the weary eyes of the dreary worker dims, I t may be found that Watts's pictures do better than W a t t ' s hymns. 1 T h e s e were remarkable results of virtually a forty-year service of the poor. T h e y were accomplished, however, not without an able, consecrated and distinguished cooperation. M r . Barnett knew that he needed the best and he amply proved that he could command it. As M r s . Barnett said of M r s . Young's p i c t u r e s — " T h e best must be lent for the service of the p o o r " — t h e best in men as well as the best in pictures. N a t u r a l l y M r . Barnett turned to his own university and so naturally the socially minded men Canon

1

Barnett,

hit Life,

Work,

and Friends,

Ν. Y., 1921, II, 173.

50

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

of the university turned to him. Among those on whom he could count generously to support him with counsel and with encouragement were such men as Professor Gardiner, the English seventeenth-century historical authority, who was lavish in his service, and Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol, whose lodge was always open to the Barnetts whenever they went up to Oxford either to rest or to work. Professor W i l l i a m Bright, then of University College, and Professor M a x Müller were others among the large number anxious to hear what the Barnetts were doing and ready to spread the good news. But possibly of more vital importance was the type of young man who was ready to go down to Whitechapel and to stay there anywhere from a few months to many years. I t was in Cosmo Gordon Lang's rooms at Oxford that a few graduates gathered to discuss the founding of a university settlement in East London. And he was one of the first to go. Since then he has taught at Oxford, and after many years as Archbishop of York, has recently become the Archbishop of Canterbury. H e has said that his first strong desire to help people came from Samuel Barnett. Bolton King was also in the early group. W e l l known as a man interested in many aspects of public life,

Samuel

Barnett

51

his international reputation rests on his readable histories of Northern Italy. Still another was L o r d Alfred M i l n e r , "tall, dignified, and grave beyond his years." Throughout his life his interest in Toynbee H a l l remained fresh and practical. Passionately devoted to public service, he spent many years in Egypt as Governor-General, and during the Boer W a r his services for England in South A f r i c a were distinguished. R i c h a r d Lewis Nettleship, a fellow of Balliol, a philosopher and an editor of the works of Τ . H . Green was another. W h e n he was forty-six years old he died from exposure on M t . Blanc. His body now lies in the churchyard at Chamonix under the shadow of the Alps he loved so well. " T h a t dauntless, brave soul with his shy manners . . . asking questions which seemed almost foolish until replies were attempted." M e n like these in steady succession passed out from Oxford to live at Toynbee H a l l , to teach there and, best of all, to mingle naturally and freely with the men and women of the neighborhood. T o recite the catalogue of names would be to repeat the names of scores of men who have served Great Britain with distinction in Church and State and University. Shortly after M r . and Mrs. Barnett had decided to buy property on which a settlement house might

52

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

be built they went up to O x f o r d to talk the matter over with those who might lend a hand. One Sunday afternoon M r s . Barnett was sitting in Balliol Chapel listening to her husband as he urged his hearers, university men, to " c a r e much for those who had fallen by the way or were vacant of our glorious gains." Evidently M r s . Barnett was taking in the whole scene—Master of Balliol, the preacher, the "strong-brained, clean-living m e n , " when the thought flashed across her m i n d — " L e t us call the settlement T o y n b e e H a l l . " She says that M r . Bolton K i n g had had the same idea, and so the "new settlement received its name before a brick was laid or the plans concluded." Arnold Toynbee had been an occasional but enthusiastic visitor at St. Jude's rectory. In fact his stays there were usually longer than those of other Oxford men. H i s heart seemed to be in the work. H e was drawn toward the kind of life the Barnetts were leading. And yet he was never to take an active part either in the old program at St. Jude's or in the new enterprise a few doors away. H i s body was not equal to the demands his active and vital spirit made upon it. H e died when only thirty-one years old. T h e namers of T o y n b e e H a l l thought of h i m because there were few more interested in social

Samuel

Barnett

53

betterment than he, and few whose intelligence and enthusiasm kindled the ambition of others more than his did. I t was he who stirred many O x f o r d men to give what they had to others, especially to those less fortunate than themselves. Arnold Toynbee's brief career was a singular one. H e was born in London in 1852. W h i l e still an infant he was taken to Wimbledon in Surrey where his childhood was passed. H i s father was a man of ability and of social vision far beyond his day. W h i l e Arnold was very young his father knew that the boy had a keen mind and an unselfish disposition. M r . Toynbee's social instincts found an outlet in assisting others to build model houses for the poor and in lecturing to workingmen on scientific and other subjects. W h i l e Arnold was hardly in his 'teens his father took him along on the lecture tours, letting him perform the simple experiments that illustrated the lectures. T h e father also shared with his boy his love of art and poetry. T h e y used to take long walks together, chatting about the things they loved, occasionally stopping to sit down and read some verse. Arnold's health had never been robust. H i s education waited on his fluctuating strength. H e managed to get through what we should call a

54

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

preparatory school when he was about sixteen. Shortly thereafter he went into London for lectures at King's College. As a child he had been fascinated by military tactics and history. T h e s e continued to be his m a j o r interest. M e a n w h i l e at school and later his keenness and agility at sports wore on his delicate, high-strung, nervous constitution, giving him many a sleepless night. W h e n he was eighteen he took his books down to the Dorset coast and there, close by the sea he loved, he read and thought and dreamed to his heart's and mind's content. W h e n he was twenty-one, two years older than the average age of matriculating, he went up to Pembroke College, O x f o r d . H i s mind was filled with a vast store of miscellaneous information, most of it undigested, and his curiosity about the truth was alert and inexhaustible. A f t e r two years at Pembroke, and after long interruptions due to ill health, he transferred to Balliol. As a rule he was able to study hardly more than two or three hours a day. B u t he seems to have been quite equal to endless conversations and discussions in which his knowledge, his intellectual acumen, his wide reading and his interest in the affairs of men were abundantly shown. Although he was given only a pass degree, his superiors

Samuel

Barnett

55

knew that the kind of degree was a symbol only of routine accomplishment. His appointment shortly thereafter as a tutor at Balliol was evidence of Balliol's appraisal of his mind. Toynbee loved human nature past and present. H i s studies more and more ranged away from military history and more and more over the vast fields of philosophy, history, and economics. H e now knew how he wanted to spend his life—in examining the main tendencies of history and in ascertaining their meaning for his contemporaries, particularly for the poor. H e would go in search of truth, but only because of its useful, practical consequences. L e a r n i n g and life, knowledge and service, must in some way be harnessed together. M e n preparing for the Indian Civil Service were put into his immediate care. H e trained their minds and he tried to instill into their hearts a desire to go out to India to serve the I n d i a n s — for no other purpose. D a i l y he was becoming more religious. But it was not religion of the selfish sort. H e had passed from a general and theoretical acceptance of the truths of the Christian F a i t h and of the usefulness of religious institutions to a vivid apprehension of God and of the Church. T h e s e signs of spiritual maturity gave purpose to his learning and to his willingness to

56

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

help. H e used to say that he saw no point in studying philosophy unless it got one somewhere along the line of practical usefulness to men. A n d after some years of thinking and some months of service he could say—and this underlay his philosophy of s e r v i c e — " h e who has no belief in another world has been only half alive in this." I n service, even of the most abject, one comes in contact with an immortal soul! His convictions were contagious. T h e crystal clearness of his mind, his affection for all men, his deference to everyone because of his belief that all men were in some way lovable and of value, drew about him a coterie who wanted to do as he did. I t was natural that both M r s . Barnett and Bolton K i n g should at once think that the settlement should bear his name. I t was natural also that settlement interest should center in him, for he felt at home at St. Jude's, and few were happier than he when he was lodging in scantily furnished rooms in East London and discussing all sorts of problems with the down-and-out "in an atmosphere," as he expressed it, " o f bad whiskey and bad tobacco." H i s death at the age of thirty-one, when he was just about to be appointed a fellow of Balliol, and after an active participation in the public discussion of the theories of H e n r y George,

Samuel

Barnett

57

made certain that in his name the new settlement should be started. F r o m that d a y to this at T o y n bee H a l l there has been a religious motive in philanthropy. I f it had not been f o r A r n o l d T o y n b e e the influence of S a m u e l Barnett's religious leadership would alone have given the dominant motive to the purposes and results of T o y n b e e H a l l . But with A r n o l d T o y n b e e f o r a namesake there was a double assurance that religion and service should proceed inseparably. T h r o u g h o u t the forty years at St. J u d e ' s and at W h i t e c h a p e l S a m u e l Barnett maintained not only a public religious routine, but also the private practice of devotional reading, p r a y e r , and contemplation. H e was w h a t some w o u l d call a f a i r l y strict Sabbatarian, never a l l o w i n g any tennis to be played at T o y n b e e on S u n d a y afternoon. On the other hand he was among the first to advocate the Sunday opening of art museums. H i s moral sense was what w e m i g h t call rather over-strict, f o r dancing was one of the prohibited forms of amusement at T o y n b e e H a l l . I t is difficult to say whether, considering the neighborhood in which he worked and in w h i c h his w i l l was law, he was a little behind the times in w h i c h he lived or a little ahead of the times in w h i c h w e live. I t is

58

Religious Motive in Philanthropy

a somewhat noteworthy fact that whether one shared his religious feelings and practices or not, or agreed with his moral code or not, one respected him and was content to follow his lead. T h e r e could be no doubt of his unselfish and consecrated motive. However wrong he might be in detail, the great sweep of his service was supremely right. N e v e r robust, as age came on his burdens were gently laid aside. T h e y were too heavy to bear without some refreshing variety. A kindly and appreciative state made him a Canon of Bristol. His periodic residence there was a welcome return to his birthplace. H e took advantage of his new office to spread as widely as he might the wisdom he had gathered from books and from men throughout a singularly rich experience. The A. B. C. of the social gospel, as he had mastered it in W h i t e c h a p e l , spelt a strange and a revolutionary language to the conventional listeners in the Bristol Cathedral. H e electrified his hearers by reminding them that Christ's message might have something to do with wages, short hours, and overwork. A n d although these lectures were preached primarily to workingmen, his audience became national. A f t e r these residences at Bristol he would return to London ready to give his renewed

Samuel

Barnett

59

vigor to the old occupations and eager to enlarge their range. But a f t e r a r a t h e r critical attack of influenza in 1906 he knew that he had had his warning. D u r ing his convalescence the p r i m e minister, Sir H e n r y C a m p b e l l - B a n n e r m a n , offered him a Deanery. K n o w i n g that an acceptance of the post would take h i m too f a r f r o m W h i t e c h a p e l he reluctantly declined it. " I f you won't have this, w h a t will you have?" asked Sir H e n r y . T o quote f r o m M r s . B a r n e t t : " A n d then m y husband was encouraged to tell him that his heart's desire was a place in Westminster Abbey, f r o m which he could speak of his religious faith and turn men's thoughts to the condition of East L o n d o n . " A f t e r a brief holiday he and his w i f e settled down in 3, Little Cloisters, a lovely, quiet home, within the precincts of the Abbey, with windows and doors opening into a p e a c e f u l English garden. T h e r e Canon Barnett passed the last nine years of his life in bearing witness to his faith and in calling men's attention to East London. W h a t a perfect reward for a state to be able to give a f a i t h f u l servant of needy m e n ! On one occasion M . Clemenceau visited England and talked with Samuel Barnett about the condition of the poor. L a t e r he said that he had

60

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

met but three really great men in England, "and one was a little pale clergyman in Whitechapel." Our own Robert Archy Woods, just before he had begun his work at South End House in Boston, and shortly after his return from England, seems to have agreed with the French statesman, for he said "all that Toynbee Hall has achieved and suggested was the clear result of the ever-persuasive influence of a character placid, almost artless; far-sighted, clearly convinced, soundly discriminating; forgetful of self to the extent of forgetting that he had forgotten, but seeing the dignity of all his work in the largest bearing on the nation, and almost from moment to moment, in its meaning to men as sons of God." On the north wall of the south aisle of the choir of Westminster Abbey friends who loved and revered him placed a tablet in thankful remembrance of the witness that he bore to God in the world as with faith and courage he followed Christ. It reads as follows: " I n gratitude to God and in memory of Samuel Augustus Barnett, February 8, 1844—June 17, 1913, Canon of Westminster 1906-1913 and sub-Dean designate. Founder and Warden of the first university settlement Toynbee H a l l Whitechapel 1884-1906. Canon of Bristol Cathedral 1892-1906. Vicar of St. Jude's Whitechapel 1872-1893. Believing that

Samuel

Barnett

61

w e are all members one of another he laboured unceasingly to unite men in the service of G o d and by his counsel and e x a m p l e inspired m a n y to seek f o r themselves and f o r the nation the things that are eternal." On the tablet at the l e f t there stands a statue of S a m u e l Barnett in high relief as a husbandman with lavish hand scattering the seed, and near his head the motto by w h i c h he l i v e d — " F e a r not to sow because of the b i r d s . "

VINCENT

DE

PAUL

St. Vincent de Paul was born at Pouy in Southern France in the year 1576.1 H e died in Paris in 1660. W h e n he was hardly more than six years old he was sent into the hills to tend his father's sheep. A t the time of his death he was probably one of the most respected, revered and beloved of the religious and charitable leaders of France. If there was any cause to account for his gradual and continuous development f r o m the shepherd boy to the organizer of charities and the spiritual director of princes, it was his steadily increasing and peculiarly vivid consciousness of the presence of God, and his readiness to follow what seemed to him to be the divine will. A f t e r he had once discovered the meaning of divine companionship he invariably put God first. In order that he might know how to help people, and give them the kind of help they needed, he invariably put them second. H e would seem to say, if his own daily practice speaks his mind, you will never permanently and thoroughly help men unless you put God first. St. Vincent never was either a handsome man nor a man of commanding presence. As he walked Ά

recent authority p r e f e r i 1581.

64

Religious Motive in Philanthropy

about the streets he was one of the many unnoticeable men of the city. I f we may assume that his most usual portrait is true to the man, he was of average size and fairly well-built. H e had a fine, broad forehead. H i s eyes were wide apart and bright. H i s glance apparently was penetrating. H i s nose was neither well-formed nor indicative of sensitive c h a r a c t e r ; it was too long and too flat at the nostrils. A l t h o u g h he had been injured in his young-manhood, and consequently limped a little, his body was strong. A t any rate it stood the strain of seventy years and more of constant overwork. H e was simply an average man in face and figure. One had to know him and to come in contact with his kindness to feel his loveliness of nature and to find it impossible to get along without him. H i s character made his face and figure well-known and welcome wherever he happened to be. Unlike many men of powerful personality he did not come into a position of national leadership until he was well on toward fifty years of age. H i s development was extraordinarily gradual. H e seemed to be feeling his way along, hardly knowing whither he was going. O r , to put the fact more accurately and literally, he was allowing himself to be led by God, and not until middle life

Vincent de Paul

65

did God's plan for him begin with clearness to emerge. O n e might almost say that his life was divided into almost equal periods, one of preparation and one of fulfillment. T h e two halves were a unit, however. T h e years of asking what might be the will of God had to be followed by years of successive and rich answers to the earnest question. V i n c e n t de Paul was much the same throughout. Vincent was one of a large peasant family. H i s parents were of the industrious, self-respecting, agricultural type, apparently fairly common in those days in Southern F r a n c e . T h e i r farm paid. T h e i r neighbors looked upon them with respect. As their children grew they sought for them substantial means of self-support, usually in some agricultural occupation. T h e y took as genuine pride in the quality of their children's work as they coveted praise for the product of the soil. Vincent's boyhood could hardly have been more wholesome. H i s surroundings were those of integrity and common sense. Vincent's father and mother early saw that he was probably not destined for a life on the farm. T h e y knew that he was a faithful young shepherd, but they were gradually discovering that he loved to dream and to think and that his mind was f a r

66

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

beyond the needs of his occupation, and that other pursuits only would give it perfect freedom. When he was eleven years old they sent him to school where for many years he was under the direction of excellent teachers. T h e parents' decision meant a practically permanent separation from their boy. But they had counted the cost. Pride in his accomplishment was apparently a sufficient reward for their self-sacrifice. And affection for the boy rather than for themselves directed their conduct. At once Vincent revealed two qualities to those with whom he lived—his studies were easily and thoroughly mastered; everything with which he concerned himself had a religious significance. Although there was from time to time some doubt as to the business or profession to which he should give himself, it was not long before his parents' insight into his nature and his own deeper longings were realized in his determination to enter the priesthood. T h e decision once made was final. Although, as his life went along, he had frequent doubts as to the value of what he was doing, he never lost faith in the wisdom of his choice of a profession. Together with his studies he whetted the edge of his mind and he laid deeper the foundations of

Vincent de Paul

67

his scholarship by tutoring the sons of a neighboring nobleman. I t cannot be honestly said that he was an unusual tutor either then or later. A m o n g o t h e r of his limitations he found it impossible to m a k e the lazy boy work. N e v e r t h e l e s s those w h o e m p l o y e d h i m knew that his m o r a l effect on their boys was virile and h i g h - m i n d e d . E v e n the boys w h o loafed at their lessons could not escape the influence of his goodness. As time went on Vincent's love f o r his profession deepened and his wish to s u p p o r t his pastoral instincts strengthened. W i t h excellent rank he passed t h r o u g h the theological seminary, and, f u r t h e r to equip himself as a theologian, he crossed the Pyrenees afoot and m a t r i c u l a t e d at the University of Saragossa. A very short stay at Saragossa proved that there was little to be learned there but idleness and immorality. Disgusted, he returned to his native land and finished his p r e p a ration f o r the priesthood at Toulouse. H i s degree qualified h i m as a teacher of theology. But he q u i c k l y abandoned any t h o u g h t of g i v i n g his life to teaching. F o r some years it seemed as if V i n c e n t w e r e m o r e bewildered as to the course he o u g h t to p u r sue than is the average young m a n as he leaves the professional school and goes out into life. A t first

68

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

he looked for work in the ministry as one would look for a secular job. H e then spent much time in trying to collect some bad debts. On one of these financial expeditions he and a friend of his were captured by Turkish pirates, taken to Tunis and, like any ordinary captives, sold into slavery. During the years of captivity some of his striking qualities begin to appear. Through the period between 1600, the date of his ordination, and 1607, his return to Marseilles, he endured experiences of the roughest kind and he became increasingly religious. H e underwent all the miseries of a slave's lot and he was chained to a galley oarbench. Physical marks of these days remained with him throughout his life. And the spiritual effects as well remained, for he was later to show more sympathy with the galley-prisoner than did any of his contemporaries. More than this, however, for during these seven years he showed the signs of vivid religious experience and he began to have a vigorous religious and moral influence on those among whom he lived and worked. His chanting of the canticles of the Church, his earnest conversation and his lofty standard of personal purity turned to Christianity the Mohammedan wife of his task-master, and these coupled with his persuasive manner turned back to the faith a

Vincent

de

Paul

69

renegade Christian employer. W i t h the latter he escaped to his native land. F o r the next few years he led the life of an ecclesiastical wanderer. W a s it because he did not know quite what he wanted to do, or was it because an attractive kind of work did not offer itself? W e know that for a while he looked in vain for congenial occupation and we know that some purpose called him to R o m e and that he was rated high as a scholar. W e know that he conferred with K i n g H e n r y of N a v a r r e on a matter of importance. But what it was we do not know. W h a t ever the content of these years, apparently they were profitably spent and apparently they brought him, probably much against his will, into contact with people in high position and with the court. F r o m now until he died he could count on the assistance of nobles and princes. I t became almost impossible for h i m to secure the solitude which he craved for his religious satisfaction and to confine himself to the poor to whom he thought he was primarily sent. H e first appears in a fairly conspicuous position as tutor to the children of the Count and Countess de Gondi. T h e Count owned vast estates; his retainers numbered about five thousand. M a d a m e de Gondi was a masterful woman of

70

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

deep and vivid religious feeling. T h e Count was the General of the Galleys, in other words, A d m i r a l of the Fleet, and therefore the direct master of thousands of galley-slaves. Husband and wife were deeply devoted to one another. T h e y held their interests in common. T h e y shared a high purpose for their children and particularly for the peasants on their estates. T h e de Gondis were connected by blood and by friendship with men of high position not only in the state, but in the Church as well. One of the Count's sons was later Cardinal de Retz, A r c h bishop of Paris. T h e spiritual counsellor of the family was Pierre de Berulle, founder of the O r d e r of the Oratorians, one of the highestminded men of his day and one to whom Vincent looked for direction at many an important moment of his life. On the advice of de Berulle Vincent became the tutor of the de Gondi boys and was taken almost at once, as he deserved, into the innermost circle of the family. W i t h i n this domestic group Vincent was destined to clarify his mind as to the way he should spend his life. Although he was a faithful tutor he had more influence on the characters of the de Gondi boys, one of whom, as I have said, was to be the somewhat notorious Cardinal de Retz,

Vincent de Paul

71

than on their intellects. H e soon discovered that teaching w a s not his calling. But his presence in the f a m i l y so f u l l y revealed his spiritual qualities to the Count and Countess de Gondi that the latter m a d e h i m her spiritual adviser. T h e Count was soon to hold him in such esteem that at the persuasion of Vincent he abandoned the plan to fight a duel, and this at a time when he w a s one of the most dangerous of French swordsmen. Count and Countess gave him the entire c h a r g e of the religious w o r k on their extensive property. Inasmuch as this task entailed the spiritual supervision of about five thousand souls it was one of appalling dimensions. L i f e w i t h the de Gondis was divided into two periods—the shorter and the longer. T h e first period was brought rather q u i c k l y to an end by the sudden and unannounced disappearance of Vincent from the de Gondi home. Knowing that it w o u l d be futile to ask permission to go, he slipped q u i e t l y a w a y and went to work in a plain parish w h e r e he could live more simply and w h e r e his contact w i t h the poor would be more constant and more direct. T h e somewhat informal manner of his d e p a r t u r e from the de Gondi household, " F r e n c h leave," w e m i g h t call it, did not seem to rest uneasily on his conscience, for had he not

72

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

passed from a kind of work not altogether to his taste to one that satisfied him wholly? H e was living among the poor whom he loved and in whom he saw Christ. Furthermore, he had de Berulle's consent. T h e second period, which was to last until his nation-wide duties called him to Paris, was ushered in rather domineeringly by M a d a m e de Gondi. W i t h o u t Vincent she felt that her household and her husband and their peasants could not go on. T h e y had lost their directing genius and the man who had seemed to bring peace and contentment to all. A n d without Vincent M a d a m e de Gondi herself felt that she could not retain her hold on religion nor face the moral and spiritual problems incident to her life. She insisted that he return. V i n c e n t did not even answer her letters. T h e Countess, undaunted, certain that he ought to return, wrote to de Berulle, laid the case before him, and asked him to use his influence with V i n cent. I t was the only method that had any promise of success, for Vincent respected and almost invariably followed de Berulle's judgment. Vincent returned and settled down to the task from which he thought he had successfully escaped. And then began a kind of introduction to the ministry that he was to carry on throughout his

Vincent

de

Paul

73

life. H e touched the people on the de Gondi estates, and among the de Gondi interests, in ways that suggested practically all of his qualities. H e soon abandoned the task of tutoring the de Gondi boys; they were getting somewhat beyond him. H e threw himself heart and soul into the spiritual care of the household and into the spiritual and physical care of the peasants. Seeing with clear vision that the spiritual was more vital than the physical, he trained and sent out a band of clergy to see that every man, woman and child was taught the simple facts of the life of Christ and was brought into contact with the sacraments of the Church. I t was to be a personal and tender relationship between priest and people. T h e priest was to go out persuaded that God had sent him. H e was to see in each of those whom he might help not merely a human being, but the physical and spiritual presence of the living Christ. T h e needy also were to be helped. Vincent took pains that his helpers were not to hinder when they tried to help. T h e y were not to hand out daily doles to beggars, nor were they to make the loafer contented with his lot. Again, he saw to it that assistance should be of the kind that would build character and that each should be helped to realize his nature as a child of God. Although

74

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

Vincent trained his men to care for the body he primarily sent them out to stimulate and cultivate the soul. And Vincent's assistants, even at this early date, showed certain of the characteristics which were to mark most of those who were to assist him. T h e y were to work among and for the poor only. T h r o u g h o u t Vincent's life, although he was to go in and out among all classes, his heart was primarily given to the poor. H e constantly reminded his priests and later the Daughters of Charity that Christ came to encourage the poor. As I have said, Count de Gondi was the General of the Galleys. Knowing Vincent's power with men he made him the chaplain of the galleys. T h e appointment meant that Vincent was to organize and inspire religious work among the thousands of wretches that were manning the oars in the French fleet. H e threw himself into the enterprise with enthusiasm and the galley-slave remained a chief charge until the day of his death. I n these ways Vincent came in touch with many of those aspects of religious and charitable work with which he was to occupy himself throughout his life. And in all of them one begins to see the religious motives that directed his conduct. One finds Vincent at work in one way or another from

Vincent

de

Paul

75

about f o u r o'clock in the m o r n i n g until nine or ten at night, sometimes until the early hours of the f o l l o w i n g day. W e l l or ill his rising-hour seldom varied and his p r o g r a m m e was carried t h r o u g h regardless of personal discomfort. W o r k was a p p a r e n t l y his cure f o r many of the common ills. O n e notices that he invariably began his day with p r a y e r and that w h e n e v e r there was a m o m e n t between tasks he was at p r a y e r a g a i n ; it was a frequent r e t u r n to the source of his p o w e r and of his desire to help. A n d one finds h i m giving spiritual counsel to those w h o worked f o r him. A t r e g u l a r intervals he called t h e m t o g e t h e r ; he filled t h e m with G o d and he told them that w i t h o u t G o d they w o u l d not k n o w w h a t to do nor how to do it. A n d one perceives the inner secret of his p o w e r : he loved men i n d i v i d u a l l y and he found in the most needy and the most loathsome the present C h r i s t — as Vincent repeatedly said w h e n he was talking to his priests and to the women helpers, they w o u l d find C h r i s t present both physically and spiritually. H o w e v e r , the de G o n d i episode in Vincent's life c a m e r a t h e r suddenly to an end. W h i l e still young, and a f t e r a short illness, M a d a m e de G o n d i died, v i r t u a l l y c o m m a n d i n g Vincent, in h e r will, to continue the w o r k they h a d begun together. V i n c e n t took to the Count the news of his w i f e ' s

76

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

death, knowing that it would be a blow hard to bear. Within two years the Count had arranged his estate and had entered the Order of the Oratorians where he passed the rest of his days. After consultation with de Berulle Vincent felt justified in yielding to his desire to leave the already admirably organized de Gondi work and to give himself even more freely to the poor and the suffering. This decision was to take him to Paris. It may be interesting for a moment to leave Vincent and to notice the times in which he lived and some of the people with whom he came in contact. In other words, what was going on between the years 1575 and 1660 and who were the leading spirits directing the goings-on? T h e most summary review will show that hardly at any other time in French history may one find such a strange contrast between the worldly and the saintly. One will discover that the period within which St. Vincent lived was marked by sordid political intrigue and unusual spiritual revival. When Vincent was still in his "teens" Henry of Navarre "thought Paris was worth a Mass," became a Romanist and ascended the throne as Henry IV. Although his private life was notoriously evil, even as judged by the standards of the

Vincent

de

Paul

77

day, he succeeded far more effectively than his predecessors had done in bringing at least a temporary truce between the royal party, the relentless Roman League and the ardent Huguenots. St. Frangois de Sales was his contemporary. I t is said that H e n r y wanted Frangois to reside in Paris and to succeed the Archbishop. I t is also reported that H e n r y encouraged him to publish the Vie Devotre, a book written for the spiritual direction of M a d a m e de Chantal and a popular devotional volume even in our own day. St. Frangois had captured the court and the nobility. W h e n e v e r he could be induced to leave his Alpine diocese he was put hard at work in Paris, preaching, teaching and hearing the confessions of courtiers incessantly. Vincent looked upon Frangois as one of his spiritual leaders. H e was with him whenever opportunity offered. Vincent was about sixty years old when R i c h e lieu died. M a z a r i n outlived Vincent by one year. Although Richelieu was, administratively, an orderly bishop, religion was by no means the directing force of his life. H e was determined that for the good of F r a n c e the Huguenots should not be a power within the state, and he was equally determined that F r a n c e should be supreme even though he used the Protestant armies of E u r o p e to

78

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

gain his end. H e loved p o w e r ; a great F r a n c e was an outward sign of his well-nigh absolute authority. T r a d i t i o n has it that R i c h e l i e u got suggestions for bishoprics from the lists of attendants at V i n cent's conferences and it is quite clear that Vincent, although from a radically different motive, sympathized with Richelieu's desire to make powerless the influence of some of the religious leaders at Port Royal. A p p a r e n t l y Vincent's work was too remote from that of R i c h e l i e u ever to arouse the Minister's devastating jealousy. M a z a r i n was a loyal disciple of Richelieu. F o r eighteen years he suppressed the court and the nobility and sought the influence of foreign Protestants if only he might crush Austria and Spain and do away with the internal Huguenot danger. H e r e was another man of overwhelming personality who loved might and who thought a strong F r a n c e would secure for himself even greater power, but whose character was the negation of Christian virtues. H e and V i n c e n t sat together on the Queen Regent's Council of Conscience. T h e i r task was to single out the men for ecclesiastical preferment. M a z a r i n approached his day's work from the point of view of winning friends who would buttress his power and his position in the State. Vincent sat down to the work with a single

Vincent de Paul

79

eye to the moral and religious w e l f a r e of the kingdom. T h e y were pulling with similar eagerness in opposite directions. I t goes without saying that Vincent was at least the temporary loser. As a background against which the influence of these men stands out in clear relief there is a period of French history almost unequalled by any nation for the horrors of civil war. Beginning with the practically quarter-century strife between Romanists and Huguenots, or to make it more personal, between the singularly p o w e r f u l Guise family and the singularly f r a n k and romantic H e n r y of N a v a r r e , and ending, practically at the conclusion of Vincent's life with the brief and acutely selfish strife between nobles and court called T h e Fronde, one beholds a period within which fraternal strife, infra-national intrigue and deceit and the slaughter of one's friends and neighbors, were of continuous occurrence. A t times the country roads and fields were strewn with unburied French dead. T o be sure, the French were not alone in giving themselves to internecine conflict, for as Vincent was nearing his death in 1660 England was just emerging f r o m the days during which King Charles I and Archbishop Laud had been sent to the block and the Commonwealth and the Cromwellian Protectorate had been in power.

80

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

Also Germany, Sweden and Austria, as well as France, had, from 1618 to 1648—the very heart of Vincent's life—been torn by the T h i r t y Years W a r . Universally in Western E u r o p e those were days of religious and political bewilderment and of religious and political readjustment. But in France the struggle seemed more acute, more bitter, more nationally enervating. T h e awful evils of war seemed of longer duration and more universally present. And consequently such marks as there were of religious feeling and of social conscience are the more impressive. F o r Vincent to spread abroad his religious contagion and his deeds of charity in days like those, when need was well-nigh universal, makes his genius stand out as it would against few other periods of human history. T h e contrast between the unrealized Christianity of Vincent's day and his own abandonment to the Christian ideal marks him as a man of singular spiritual genius. It would be a mistake, however, to think of Vincent de Paul and his master St. Frangois de Sales as the only men of that day intent on religion and righteousness. T h e r e is seldom an age in which there are only one or two good men. It would be an error also to think of these men as unsupported in their endeavor to help, first, the souls of men,

Vincent

de

Paul

81

and, second, their bodies. T h r o u g h o u t the e a r l i e r p a r t of Vincent's ministry de B e r u l l e not only w a r m l y s u p p o r t e d Vincent in his w o r k at C l i c h y and w i t h the de Gondis, but he was c a r r y i n g on in P a r i s a w o r k similar to that of St. P h i l i p N e r i in F l o r e n c e — t h e care of p i l g r i m s and of patients recently discharged f r o m hospitals. 1 J e a n J a c q u e s O l i e r h a d begun and was c a r r y i n g on vigorously the kind of w o r k in the parish of St. S u l p i c e that f a i r l y closely resembles the activities of the m o d e r n parish house. O l i e r spent ten years at St. Sulpice. D u r i n g that time he gave himself f u l l y to his people, asking his assistants to do the same and w i t h o u t the customary fees. H e b r o u g h t into the g r e a t c h u r c h a spirit of C h r i s t i a n equality in a day w h e n class distinctions w e r e relentless. A n d he p e r s u a d e d the people that he was a s p i r i t u a l f a t h e r concerned in the evil and the good of their daily lives. T h e spirit of Jesus of N a z a r e t h lay at the h e a r t of Olier's religious d e m o c r a c y . A n d a l t h o u g h the Jansenists and the g r o u p g a t h e r e d at P o r t Royal w e r e theologically distasteful to Vincent they w e r e themselves living a life of C h r i s t i a n simplicity and by the contagion of t h e i r f a i t h and t h e i r charity they w e r e w i n n i n g m a n y to the C h r i s t i a n way. 1 Brcmond direction.

attributes

Vinccnt's

spiritual

ideas

to

de

Berulle's

82

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

From the home of his friends, the de Gondis, Vincent passed out into the world of such contradictory nature. With a mind wide open to the character of his surroundings he undertook his new tasks with enthusiasm, for he was to live among the poor while he cared for their needs. T h e heart of his work was, as he thought, to be his mission priests, whom he had organized on a fairly small scale for the religious welfare of the poor on the de Gondi estates and who now were scattered and were yet to be scattered more widely throughout Paris, the cities of France and the world. In other words his most vital interest lay in the religious life of men whatever their physical condition might be. F o r this reason he accepted the Priory of St. Lazare, which at one time was what we should call a poorhouse. Henceforth from this centre his men went out into all parts of the world. But religion and definite religious instruction were to be only the heart of his enterprise; they were by no means to be the body as well. Just as he had gradually been compelled on the de Gondi estates to add to the care of the soul the care of the body, so when he reached Paris he quickly found himself immersed in manifold aspects of charity. Within a short period he was visiting the

Vincent

de

Paul

83

prisons and hospitals, organizing work in the galleys and personally overseeing the rescue and the care of foundlings. At first all these aspects of charity were largely a personal matter confined almost exclusively to Vincent himself. Later, however, they became the object of the many groups of clergy and laity whom he organized, each with a definite sphere of responsibility. As time went on, and as Vincent's experience deepened, a system, a fairly definite plan, or method of work, appears in all that he and his helpers did. I t is within the spirit of this plan and in the details of its execution that one finds in him the patron saint of many of the charities with which we are familiar today. W i t h o u t clinging too closely to chronological development let me tell what the spirit was and how it appeared in practice. Religion, personal and corporate, should lie at the heart of all that was planned, and religion should be the result of all that was accomplished. T o this end, as I have said, in speaking of his conduct of life on the de Gondi estates, Vincent ordered his own day, opening it with prayer and with meditation and with public religious service, interrupting it, whenever interruption would not interrupt, with a return to conscious companion-

84

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

ship with God, and ending the day in the presence of his heavenly Father. I t would be interesting to know how many hours of the twenty-four he spent in prayer and contemplation for his own spiritual strengthening and to clarify his mind as to what God would have him do. I t is difficult to get at these facts. W i t h religion as his primary concern he chose and he constantly encouraged his associates. Doubtless he stayed as long as he did on the de Gondi estates because of M a d a m e de Gondi's vivid and enthusiastic religious co-operation. W i t h religion in view he selected and organized his company of priests, meeting with them frequently and regularly, enriching and deepening and rendering practical their spiritual natures. T o this end he singled out only women of proved religious experience and of tested powers of self-sacrifice to superintend the work among the sick, the immoral and the poor. St. Frangois de Sales had placed M a d a m e de Chantal at the head of the O r d e r of the Visitation. H e had persuaded Vincent to accept the office of the Order's spiritual director. M a d a m e de Chantal was a woman of conspicuous humility and power of leadership. Vincent himself selected M a d a m e de Gras, 1 a woman of high 1

Usually spoken of as Mile, de Gras.

Vincent de Paul

85

social position, of c o m m a n d i n g c h a r a c t e r and of complete self-effacement, to watch over his d a u g h t e r s of charity. I t was h e r personal piety that a p p e a l e d to him. A n d so it was with all w h o co-operated with h i m — t h e D a u g h t e r s of C h a r i t y w e r e to be w o m e n of p r a y e r . Illiterate t h o u g h most of t h e m w e r e they w e r e to be p o w e r f u l t h r o u g h f r e q u e n t return to c o m m u n i o n with God. N o t i c e now the range of enthusiastic labor to w h i c h he and his associates gave themselves. T h e y w e r e to w o r k in the hospitals a m e l i o r a t i n g the conditions w h e r e they might, e v e r y w h e r e b r i n g i n g the patients into contact with religion. T o understand the conditions with w h i c h Vincent was c o n f r o n t e d one need only recall w h a t hospitals w e r e h a r d l y m o r e than one h u n d r e d and fifty years ago. T h e r e was little discrimination a m o n g diseases, the contagious and the uncontagious being kept together. N o r was there any delicacy of symp a t h y with the sick. Into the same bed the m i l d l y ill and the wretched-sick w e r e p u t and there they lay, the one p r o b a b l y contracting disease f r o m the other. F r e q u e n t l y a patient awoke to realize that he was lying at the side of a dead companion. T h e squalor was of the kind that beggars description. F o u l air, unchanged bed-covering, blankets stiff w i t h blood and filth, v e r m i n in t o r t u r i n g

86

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

swarms! In short a hospital was a last resort for those who otherwise would lie down to die in field or lane or gutter. Evidently there were some kindly people in charge of these wretches. But their ignorance of disease and its care was appalling. All they could do was to feed and house the sick. T o a task of such proportions Vincent and his helpers turned. They could do little, but they did it. Wherever they could they let in fresh air; they introduced elementary cleanliness; they put the mildly ill by themselves, the critically ill by themselves; they were especially careful of the dying. But to indicate how little they really could do one needs remember only that nearly two hundred years after Vincent's day the general conditions in French hospitals had hardly changed. All one can say of Vincent, so far as the physical state of hospitals is concerned, is that he saw a need and began to meet it. H e had the vision of better things. Whatever good he might do to the bodies of men was altogether secondary to what he might do for their souls. Important though he knew it to be to relieve men's bodily ills he thought it of first importance to give them the peace of God. And so it was that he and his priests and his ladies

Vincent

de

Paul

87

and his Daughters of Charity went from bed to bed doing what they might to bring relief from pain and discomfort, but actually making the quarrelsome friendly, the ill-tempered goodnatured, the despairing hopeful, the unbelievers full of tranquil confidence. These things they did with power. Hard as it may be to believe, they made men believe in God so vividly that they rose above their physical ills. And so it was with the prisons. Here again one may get a fairly accurate knowledge of prisons and prisoners by recalling the motley group gathered together in the London prison described so vividly by Henry Fielding in " A m e l i a , " by J o h n Bunyan in his story of life in Bedford J a i l and by Dumas in the romance of the Count of Monte Cristo's escape from the dungeons of Chateau d ' I f . In the usual prison the cut-throat, the thief and the debtor were huddled together, with the filth and vermin that to a less extent were common to homes and hostelries everywhere. In the dungeon the enemy of the law or the political prisoner was walled in and frequently chained, and, but for the daily visit from the turnkey with food and drink, was abandoned, many times for life. Vincent knew the prisons well. Although he visited them almost daily his life slipt by without

88

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

his being able to do much for either prison or prisoner. Descriptions of prisons as they were in the F r e n c h Revolution amply prove that prisoners were housed and treated as if they were little better than beasts. B u t Vincent at least set people thinking. H i s contemporaries began to realize that prisoners were men. T h e i r sympathies began to go out toward them. Onlookers saw that Vincent and his friends at least thought that the criminal confined in the dungeon was quite as much the child of God as the citizen who freely walked the streets of Paris. Vincent said little about prisoners, apart from his conferences with those who helped him. H e went and did something. H e made a friend of the j a i l e r ; he saw the prisoner in jail or dungeon; he stayed with him long enough to persuade the poor wretch that he liked him and even loved h i m ; he kissed his chains; the man knew that Vincent would willingly have changed places with him. In these ways, if not in radical reform, Vincent brought light into dark places. H e stimulated interest in the heart of the problem about which we are so bewildered today—he convinced at least some men that the worst kind of man needed the best kind of care. A special kind of prisoner, however, made, for

Vincent

de

Paul

89

some reason, a special appeal to h i m — t h e galleyslave. H e had been a galley-slave himself. H e had been a spiritual director in the household of the Count de Gondi, the General of the Galleys, the A d m i r a l of the Fleet. T h r o u g h de Gondi he had visited the galleys, fallen in love with the idea of a mission to this type of prisoner, and dreamed of the day when he could do something for him. Galley-slavery was servitude in its cruelest form. I t was more than pulling at an oar. I t may have begun in pressing need for oarsmen for the fleet. An imminent war meant that agents might be abroad looking for likely material. A suspicion of wrong-doing, a very slight offense, innocence that might be imposed upon—any or all of these might lodge a man in a Paris prison ready for his long march across the country to the ships at Marseilles. And a desperate need of men might make a slave's master deliberately forget that his term of sentence had run out and that he should be set free. Years might pass before peace might come and, because there was no immediate need of him, set him at liberty. Prisoners in the north, destined for the galleys, were concentrated at Paris in the foulest of detention camps and there they were started on their way south. T h e well tramped through all

90

Religious Motive in Philanthropy

weathers and over all conditions of road; fatigue was no excuse for rest. T h e ill were thrown into carts and jounced along. T h e dying were allowed to rot by the roadside. T h e driver with his lash was always nearby. At Marseilles there was another detention prison, a kind of awful base of supplies for the galleys. Once on board the slave was put at an oar and chained to his bench. There he stayed day and night, fair weather and foul, cold and warm, in sickness and in health; nothing but uselessness or death removed him thence. Death saw him overboard. And while he worked a master walked up and down the planks between the oarsmen laying the lash on the bare backs of the tired, the weak, the lazy and the sullen. Those who have seen the moving picture called "The Sea Hawk," or have read the book, may have a vivid idea of the vicious and inhuman system to which the popular eye was blind, as the popular eye is equally blind today to certain of the horrors of our social life. But Vincent was not blind. H e saw it all, and, better still, he comprehended it all, and with enthusiasm he did something about it. H e saw that the recently convicted men should be kept by themselves, away from other types of criminals, in special prisons, that kind people should go with

Vincent de Paul

91

them and attend to the needs on the long march to the sea, that at their destination they should find moderate comforts. Being a friend of the Commander of the Galleys he could do these things in spite of the more brutally-minded men in immediate charge of the convicts. But beyond this, and more important, he made friends of the men, sympathizing vividly with their suffering of mind and body, giving them hope and, miraculous though it seem, making them content with their lot and giving them the peace of God which had within it a place for their suffering. Unlike the slave driver, Vincent walked along the boards between the galley-benches looking into the faces of the men. T h e y knew he was their friend. Vincent was fully aware that complete reformation of the galley-slave system was not his life work. H e said God had not called him to it. Almost stubbornly he refused to carry it very far. But he infused into it the principle of personal interest in the men and then left it to others, but not until others had caught from him the vision of reform and not until he had shown many a slave that there was something more vital to men than either freedom or comfort. T h e r e remain but two aspects of his far-reaching activities which one can touch; they are per-

92

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

haps the most characteristic—the care of the insane and the care of foundlings. Vincent's co-workers were somewhat surprised when their master would not consent to the dismissal from St. L a z a r e of an insane man whom they found there on taking possession of the building. H e listened to their expressions of disapproval and disgust. H e answered that, on the contrary, they were fortunate to find such a man providentially in their midst, that it was God's doings, and that a demoniac was one to whose aid Christ readily went. I t is unnecessary to add that Vincent's care of the insane differed from that of his predecessors only in the measure of tenderness that he showed them. H e was not afraid of t h e m ; he loved them, and, like St. Francis of Assisi, he had the power to convince the insane of his affection. L i k e Francis, Vincent could realize with power his all-embracing love. T h e demented comprehended him. T h e stories of his going about the streets of Paris in the late hours of the night and gathering into the folds of his great cape foundlings who had been laid in his path, may not be altogether true. Y e t behind the tale there lies the fact that the foundling business was flourishing in Vincent's day and that he did what he could to destroy it.

Vincent de Paul

93

T o gather up the babies laid by their mothers in corners w h e r e they were at once protected f r o m the weather and easily seen by the passer-by was becoming a prosperous business. T h e r e was profit in selling the babies to parents who had none of their own and wanted some, and to the less w o r t h y class w h o would bring them up to a l i f e of crime, or w h o w o u l d p a l m them off as their own and in this w a y retain within the f a m i l y a rich inheritance. T h e baby farmers drove a thriving trade. Vincent knew it. H e confronted the traffic with an enterprise of his own. L o o k i n g upon the wretched infants as inheritors of an immortal destiny he collected them himself and he sent out others to gather them up and he put them in charge of kind women where there was a tight roof and a sufficiency to eat and drink. T h o s e w h o saw w h a t he was doing remembered the words of Vincent's M a s t e r — " I n a s m u c h as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me. I f there be any sentence that can reveal V i n cent's secret of w o r k and of accomplishment it is this that I have just quoted. H e saw G o d and Christ in everything, in every opportunity, in every man, w o m a n and child. W h e r e he could not perceive the directing divine hand he would not

94

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

w o r k ; because he thought God had not called him to the complete reformation of the galley-slave system he steadily refused permanently to identify himself with it, hard though his friends pressed him to do so; because through years of patient waiting he had become convinced that God had singled him out to train priests, women of wealth and sisters of charity, he clung to the training of priests, the inspiring of women of position and influence, the direction of the Daughters of Charity, in their ministry to the bodies and souls of men. Because of that he vitalized the thought of God in these helpers of his. And not only was God singling out and directing him and others, but unless his and their consciousness of the presence of God were vivid he despaired of success. T h i s profound and central conviction made prayer and contemplation the heart of his l i f e ; it was the motive of his daily encouragement and his weekly conference; when he found a worker who either could not or would not cultivate the presence of God he saw that a more promising assistant was secured. Without God one can not permanently help m e n ! M o r e than this. God was the cause of help and God was the result. T h a t he was serving God, that he was releasing God, that he was forming or

Vincent de

Paul

95

moulding the image of God, were dominant motives of his conduct. H e r e again one sees the reason for training priests, nurses and social workers; being convinced that men were of the stuff out of which the image of God might be moulded these workers were to carry on the enterprise of forming the divine in mankind. I t would take a St. Vincent or his equal to comprehend the motives of a St. Vincent. Incomprehensible though they may seem they gave him his power and they brought him his success. T h e poor or the suffering are God's favorites, he was always saying, for was not our Lord constantly and preferably with them? T h e r e f o r e if you want to live near God you must in some way come in contact with the wretched, those who need the simple gratifications of life. An astounding statement, but I have heard the same sentiment expressed almost in the same words within a few weeks by a theologian of modern training. W i t h i n the basest of men and women, the raggedest, the filthiest, the most foul-mouthed, Christ lives. T h e r e is none so lost within whom you cannot find Christ. A n appalling theory, but it comes very close to matching the experience of St. Francis and St. Vincent's Master. I f you feel that you ought to help a man in need and do not, what

96

Religious Motive in

Philanthropy

happens? N a t u r a l l y the man is not h e l p e d ; you have lost your chance—a chance which may fall to someone else or may be altogether lost. But more than that. You have crippled G o d ; you have bound H i m hand and foot. You have made it impossible for H i m to reach and to succor the needy man. T h a t is putting philanthropy on a somewhat unusual and peculiar plane. N o t only at one's own peril is the good deed left undone, but at God's peril too! Such were some of the motives that encouraged and spurred Vincent on to his never-ceasing labour. But as the days wore on, and as they became packed with kindness and with opportunities for more kindness, he was ever tranquil, "always in haste, never in a hurry." At the outset of his mission he was willing to undertake work which he knew he could never finish, and toward the end of his life he would begin an enterprise the direction of which must shortly be given to another. H e would never be driven as he went about his daily routine. H e would never yield to impatient assistants. W h y should he? T o d a y was his, and eternity was his, and the work was God's. All work at all stages was divine. God was present at the beginning and the middle as well as at the end.

Vincent de Paul

97

One had all the leisure of eternity and all the cooperation of God. A n d so this good man passed his days first w i t h God and next w i t h men. A t p r a y e r at the opening and the closing of the day and at frequent intervals between. E n c o u r a g i n g and d e m a n d i n g a life of p r a y e r in each of those who helped him. Releasing them when their p r a y e r life became d i m or flickered out. T e l l i n g them that without God they could neither assist anyone nor understand the one w h o m they w o u l d assist. Persuading and convincing them that they were helping men not m e r e l y for time, but for eternity and that their peace of mind was more g r a t i f y i n g than their comfort of body, and m a k i n g the sick man and the g a l l e y slave rejoice in this discovery. Is it any wonder that when Vincent's monarch came to die he called for Vincent, receiving f r o m him the peace of God and passing a w a y in his arms?

FRANCIS

OF ASSISI

N e x t to our L o r d , F r a n c i s of Assisi seems to have had more of the divine point of v i e w than any man in Christian history. In f a c t he becomes somewhat of a challenge to the historian, the student of b i o g r a p h y and the student of religious experience. T o all of these, as w e l l as to the average religiously earnest man, F r a n c i s seems to drive one to the questions as to w h e t h e r St. Paul's expression, "the measure of the stature of the fulness of C h r i s t " , may not be a p r o p e r and realizable goal of human nature, and by no means a mere figure of speech, and whether C h r i s t is super-normal and w e normal or C h r i s t is normal and the rest of us sub-normal. St. F r a n c i s drives us right up to questions f u n d a m e n t a l to the quality of human nature. I f without undue credulity w e find in F r a n c i s a love of men w h i c h had a distinct effect on their bodies as w e l l as on their spirits—and the great w e i g h t of the F r a n c i s tradition points to this f a c t — w e at once ask ourselves w h e t h e r a developing love f o r men within ourselves m a y not forecast the day when the h i g h l y unselfish may not manifest extraordinary g i f t s of h e a l i n g ? A n d if without an unwarranted flight of the imagination w e find in F r a n c i s an e x t r a o r d i n a r y unity with some-

100

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

thing or someone other than himself, whom at times he called Christ and at other times God, may we not at least allow our minds to play with the idea that we may not be altogether ourselves unless we are ourselves plus someone else, and that someone else Christ or God, or the spiritual Being to whom Christians give those names? In an impressive way F r a n c i s lived for men, for the men who needed him most. Apparently his ability to assist was unique. T h e power seems to have come from his Christian conception of the nature of men and from his own vivid realization of divine companionship. I t is an arresting fact that this genius in philanthropy, this man at whose touch the bodies as well as the spirits of men were made whole, should accomplish it all with abilities which he thought common to men willing to believe in his method. T h e extraordinary effect he made on his own contemporaries, so that chroniclers and artists and architects and saint-makers immediately went to work to immortalize his memory, is ample evidence that something of a very unusual, and yet of an essentially Christian, nature had occurred. T h e events which gave rise to such an immediate contemporary reputation took place in a lovely land.

Francis

of Assisi

101

T h e little city of Assisi rests p i c t u r e s q u e l y on the north side o f M o n t e S u b a s i o . F r o m a distance o f ten miles o r so the buildings f o r m h a r d l y m o r e than patches o f yellowish b r o w n against the soft greens and blues o f the h i l l . A town here and there, the towers o f the old c a t h e d r a l in w h i c h F r a n c i s was b a p t i z e d , and the towers of the g r e a t c h u r c h w i t h i n w h i c h his body lies and w i t h i n w h i c h are the frescoes of G i o t t o t e l l i n g the story of this saintly l i f e , alone c o m m a n d the attention of the distant p i l g r i m , and let h i m k n o w that a city is there. A r o u n d about are the villages, fields, woods and mountains, f o r m i n g , with an occasional exception, the h o r i z o n within w h i c h he went about doing good and w i t h i n w h i c h he m a d e such a unique impression upon all w h o c a m e in contact with h i m . T o the northwest of Assisi, about ten miles away, the city of P e r u g i a is set on an hill. Its c h u r c h e s and its walls stand against the sky in c l e a r relief. M a n y a t i m e in days o f p e a c e F r a n c i s must have w a l k e d about its streets and joined in the revels o f its young people. I n time of w a r h e was taken c a p t i v e and lodged f o r a y e a r in one of its prisons. T o the west the distant v i e w is shut in by lowlying hills. J u s t beyond t h e i r summits lies L a k e

102

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

Thrasymene on the shores of which Hannibal defeated the Roman Consular Legions and on an island in the middle of which Francis matched in length the forty-day fast of his Lord. In the very distant western horizon one may see a lofty range of blue mountains, one of which is M t . Alvernus, or L a Verna, near the summit of which Francis is said to have received in hands and feet and side the marks of the Lord. In the immediate foreground is the gently rolling Umbrian Plain, with an isolated farm here and there, or a group of buildings, all comfortably nestling among pastures, gardens and vineyards. W h i l e hard toward the southwest, about two miles away, near the present railway station, stands the Church of Santa M a r i a della Angeli. J u s t outside of it is the rose garden, which, the quaint old tradition says, was once the thicket of thorns which tore the naked body of Francis as he punished himself for having evil thoughts. W i t h i n it stands the tiny chapel of the Portiuncula, preserved as nearly as possible in its original form, the first chapel used by Francis and his friends, around which they pitched their simple and frail shelters. A little more to the south and only a few hundred yards away, the low tower of the Church of St. Damian may be seen just above the tree-tops.

Francis

of

Assisi

103

I t was one of the saint's favorite haunts. T o the priest of St. Damian's Francis gave the money got from selling one of his father's horses, the cautious man refusing to accept it. And it was the original of the church and the L i l l i p u t i a n convent connected with it which he gave to St. C l a r a and to the Second O r d e r of the Franciscans. After Francis had died the citizens o f Assisi bore his body around by St. Damian's so that the promised visit of St. Francis to the Sisters might be carried out and so that the Sisters might take their last farewell. I t was there that he is said to have heard a voice telling him to rebuild the church. N o t far away, at a spot the exact situation of which is not known, stood an old leper shelter, Rivo T o r t o . On his return to Assisi from R o m e Francis and his first companions had found it unoccupied. I t became their home. F r o m there they went out on their first errands of preaching and mercy. T h e few lepers remaining were among those whom they helped. H i g h e r up on Monte Subasio, toward the east, in a deep and dark ravine, stands now the little monastery of the Carceri. T r a d i t i o n has it that this was one of the saint's favorite retreats; thither he used to go to be alone with the birds and animals and God, and there he got from nature and

104

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

God the refreshment which sent him back gladly to his work. Even now, to wander about the paths, near the Carceri, is to understand Francis better, to feel our kinship with birds and beasts and to share with him the peace of God. F r o m one point of view this country is simply the neighborhood in which Francis lived, a neighborhood worthy of a visit because a unique personality was born, lived and died there. F r o m another point of view it is rather more than that. F o r Francis was not an ordinary wanderer about this Italian country nor an ordinary friend of its people. T h e r e was something unusual in his intimate sympathy with nature as he passed along its lanes and roads and as he climbed its hills. T h e r e was an element of vividness and vitality about it, something beyond what we call a love of nature, more profound than what Francis himself called a knowledge of the "qualities of the birds, the fishes and all animals." Instead of standing outside nature and looking upon it as an object of wonder, of awe and of beauty, he seemed to live close to the heart of nature, and, as he thought, of nature's God. T h e r e was a sympathy, a friendliness, or, to use his own expression, a brotherliness, in his relationship that hardly has a parallel. T h e climate of the Italian hill-towns may at

Francis

of

Assist

105

times be very balmy. On other occasions it can chill one to the very marrow. T h e sun's rays may now and then fill one with genial warmth. Again they may drive one to the nearest shade. T h e rivers and brooks may fill their banks and run happily along toward the sea, and, not long afterward, long periods of drouth will leave their beds parched and dry. At times the roads may offer perfect footing, but only a short period before they may have been ankledeep in mud, and only a short period after they will blow with choking dust. Today the ground beneath one's feet may seem firm. T o m o r r o w an earthquake may rock the land. T h e r e are no active volcanoes near Assisi, but f r o m the neighboring hills one may see the smoke of Vesuvius. N o one has described more exquisitely than St. Francis a beautiful and propitious nature. Neither could anyone tell of its inconveniences more eloquently than he. And yet, to him, these good and bad aspects of nature were only impressive superficialities. H e revelled in them or he put up with them, as the case might be, and all the while he seemed to respect them and to comprehend them. T h e Canticle of the Sun is filled with the spirit of understanding friendliness. T h e r e is something more than human in its insight and mastery. "Praised be

106

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

the Lord for our brother the sun and for our sister, the moon. Praised be the Lord for our brother, the wind. Praised be the Lord for our brother, fire, and for our sister, water. Praised be the Lord for our mother, the earth. Praised be the Lord for our sister, death." I say there seemed something more than human in this understanding of nature. And yet I ask myself whether, when one has purified oneself of limited ideas and of superficialities, and has lost oneself richly in Christ and in God, one may not awake to discover that one has attained to the divine point of view. At least I am concerned with this problem. Here was one who went about helping men. He seemed to have shared God's idea of the universe in which men were to be helped. The events in the life of St. Francis may be quickly sketched in. He was born in Assisi in 1182, the son of Peter Bernadone, a merchant and a great lover of France. He renamed his son Francis. Throughout his youth Francis was a leader. All the young people turned to him, and wherever he was there was something worth doing. Throughout these early days he seems to have shown many of the qualities which, when intensified by the Christian spirit, were to make him a saint. He was light-hearted; he sang his way

Francis

of

Assisi

107

along. H e kept the spirits of his companions on a c h e e r f u l plane, even when there was enough going on to make them downhearted. H e was spontaneous, doing the kindly deed before weighing the consequences. H e was prodigally generous, lavishly giving away his own p r o p e r t y and, occasionally, his father's too. H e was sensitively sympathetic; he even felt for the leper. H e saw everything and he enjoyed everything vividly; the experience of the immediate present would eclipse the universe. H e enjoyed exchanging experiences with others. H e liked to see some man less welloff than he riding off on his horse and clad in his armor. H e seemed naturally endowed with all these qualities. One would like to know more about his mother, for some of these traits may not be traced back to his father. A p p a r e n t l y also he was t h o u g h t f u l ; he had the power to sink deep down into his nature and there get near to the eternal facts. H e seems to have done this while he was in prison and while he was getting over two severe illnesses. H e seems to have been able to forget w h a t was going on, and, even in the midst of a crowd, to be lost in his own absorbing thought. I n o r d e r to become a saint and to exercise an extrao r d i n a r y effect upon men it was necessary only that all of these qualities should be touched by the

108

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

influence of C h r i s t and by the spirit of G o d . A n d so they were in about the year 1208. A f t e r a small g r o u p h a d joined F r a n c i s and a f t e r the P o p e had recognized their v e r y simple rule, almost no rule at all except to follow the e x a m p l e of C h r i s t in every t h o u g h t and deed, the m a n i f o l d aspects of the activity of F r a n c i s begin to a p p e a r . H e m a d e the p e o p l e in the i m m e d i a t e neighborhood of Assisi his first charge. W i t h the conspicuous exception of his f a t h e r they, in great numbers, began to yield to his unselfish and vivid affection. O n l y a few years went by b e f o r e he was sought by many t h r o u g h o u t the central and northern parts of Italy. N e i t h e r was his influence confined to t r a i n i n g his f r i e n d s and m a k i n g t h e m in a m e a s u r e share his powers of service. A young girl of the neighborhood, C l a r a , of the noble f a m i l y of Sciffi, at sixteen years of age, fell u n d e r the spell of Francis. She escaped f r o m her f a t h e r ' s house. F r a n c i s and his b r o t h e r monks m e t her, gave h e r the vows and the monastic habit and established h e r at St. D a m i a n ' s . H e r sister of fourteen shortly afterw a r d joined her and became a devoted f o l l o w e r of Francis. T h e y braved their father's anger. A n d the second O r d e r of St. Francis, still alive and still strong, was begun. T h a t this sixteen year old girl

Francis

of

Assist

109

k n e w b e t t e r w h a t was best f o r h e r than h e r f a t h e r did m a y be seen in the fact t h a t until h e r d e a t h fifty years later she w a v e r e d not a h a i r ' s b r e a d t h f r o m h e r resolve, and, that, in spite of the opposition of successive P o p e s , she m a i n t a i n e d h e r r i g h t to live by the s i m p l e s t f o r m of the F r a n c i s c a n R u l e . T h e r e is a q u a i n t and lovely old legend to the effect t h a t F r a n c i s and C l a r a s u p p e d t o g e t h e r one evening, w h i l e o v e r h e a d , as long as the saints conversed a b o u t t h e things of G o d , the heavens w e r e a b l a z e w i t h d i v i n e fire. F r a n c i s h a d h a d certain interviews w i t h P o p e I n n o c e n t I I I . T h e P o p e h a d p e r m i t t e d the n e w O r d e r . H e h a d slowly come to h a v e r e v e r e n t respect f o r F r a n c i s . I t was, t h e r e f o r e , not to be w o n d e r e d at t h a t I n n o c e n t should w a n t F r a n c i s in R o m e d u r i n g t h e year of the C o u n c i l of 1215. F r a n c i s r e t u r n e d to the city w h e r e he h a d e n j o y e d the h a p p i n e s s of e x c h a n g i n g clothes and e x p e r i ences w i t h a b e g g a r , and w h e r e , later, he h a d received official recognition, and t h e r e he saw r e p r e sentatives of t h e C h u r c h g a t h e r e d f r o m the nations of E u r o p e , a n d he was present w h e n they d e c l a r e d t h a t t h e P o p e w a s P r i n c e of P r i n c e s and t h a t a f t e r the priest's w o r d s of consecration the b r e a d and w i n e of the s a c r a m e n t b e c a m e t h e Body and Blood of C h r i s t . W a s it w i t h a p u r p o s e t h a t I n n o c e n t

110

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

wanted Francis to witness these events? Did Innocent want an alliance of the mystical religion of Francis with the pronouncements of the Church on matters of doctrine? Did he want to give the enthusiastic religious genius a glimpse of the catholic world to gratify his missionary imagination? Did he want to temper his zeal by contact with recognized authority? F r o m whatever angle we watch Francis at the council, face to face with one of the ablest of the Popes, we know that he was apprehending all that he saw and heard. But the missionary imagination of Francis was ranging out beyond Italy, and even Europe, and resting on the stiffest task the Christian might try to accomplish. Like saints before and after him he wanted to tell the story of Christ to the Moslem, and, like Ignatius Loyola, he thought he could win him single-handed. H e took ship and joined the Papal armies at Damietta in Egypt, where they were, for the present, at least, vainly striving to take the city. Francis was shocked by the contrast between the purpose of the crusaders and their morals as they tried to attain it. T h e incongruity of an army with rotten conduct attempting to win the Saviour's sepulchre got hold of the marrow of his being. In vain, however, he tried to make men mend their ways. In vain he seemed to forget the

Francis

of

Assisi

111

M o s l e m and to c a r r y on a mission a m o n g men of his own faith. O n l y a few listened to his challenge to repentance. But before he turned back toward the west he sought and won an interview with the Sultan. L i k e m a n y another M o h a m m e d a n ruler, the Sultan was courteous. H e treated F r a n c i s chivalrously, listening to h i m m o r e than once and gently dissuading Francis f r o m p r o v i n g his point by s u b m i t t i n g to a fiery ordeal. Evidently, however, the Sultan was impressed by the earnestness and sincerity of Francis. If we may take the account at its surface value he did not tire of the western saint and he t h o u g h t it w o r t h while to ask f o r his prayers. Discouraged, in a measure disillusioned, not only about the possibility of a successful personal M o h a m m e d a n mission, but also about the spiritual value of a crusade, he took ship and returned to Italy. N o sooner was he in his native land again than he resumed his usual w a y of life. H e came back to Italy in 1221. H e had, therefore, only five more years to live. H i s O r d e r had already spread all over I t a l y ; it had established itself in the near East, w h e r e some of the F r a n ciscans had died a martyr's death. T h e r e w e r e branches in practically every E u r o p e a n country and in A f r i c a . T h e O r d e r was strong in E n g l a n d .

112

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

T h e wide diffusion of men who had either directly or indirectly come in touch with him meant that his influence had, during his lifetime, stirred to a more vital personal religion hundreds of thousands of men and women. T h a t his personality had extraordinary power is witnessed not only by the rapid spread of the Order, but by the well-nigh immediate acceptance of F r a n c i s as a saint by his fellow-countrymen and the people of his own neighborhood. T h e prophet had honor in his own city. History has hardly another instance of the same impressive kind. F r a n c i s himself was aware of his success. But in him there was no touch of pride. God had done it a l l ! Apart from time that Francis had to give to restrain his men from over-organization he seemed more and more to give himself to companionship with God. As the end drew near he showed no impatience to help an increasing number of people. R a t h e r he seemed to crave retirement and time for fasting, prayer and contemplation. T h e old chronicles tell us that two years before he died he had an extraordinary vision after which he bore in his body the marks of the crucifixion. Less than two years after his death P o p e G r e g o r y I X and a host of church officials gathered at Assisi and made F r a n c i s a saint of the Church. Again we

Francis

of

Assisi

113

have an almost unparalleled instance of speedy and unanimous witness to the uniqueness of a man's life. T h e contemporaries of Francis knew that in some strange way Francis could wield extraordinary power, that he and God were partners in helping men. T h r o u g h o u t the years of his ministry Francis had invariably put God first and men second. As one reads the story of his life one readily understands that Francis thought he could do nothing of value for men unless he put God first. Historically speaking it may be true that he first came to a vivid consciousness of the companionship of God through kindness to people. But little time had gone by before the reverse process was evident. Because he was at one with God he could not resist the inclination to help people. Because he was aware of a very personal companionship with God he was able to help in singularly powerful ways. Survey the wide range of his activities and one will see that his desire to help men came from his vivid consciousness of God and Christ and that his power to help men came f r o m the same source. D u r i n g w h a t might be called the months of preparation for his ministry his search for closer communion with God was noticeably constant.

114

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

T h r o u g h o u t his life one notices many and possibly increasingly frequent returns to this source of power. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that he no more tried to stir the hearts of men or to cure their ills without first coming in touch with divine stimulation than he thought of putting himself to some physical strain without first taking food and drink. It is a mistake to think that Francis had become so much of a mystic, or rather so much a quietist, that he could dispense with the services and sacraments of the C h u r c h . Quite the contrary. H e made it a rule never to pass a church without going in. H e had seemed to receive a direct divine command, almost audible, to repair St. Damian's and the Portiuncula, and these and other church buildings he and his friends restored with their own hands. W h e r e a s before his conversion he may, like many imaginative young men, have enjoyed the quiet beauty of the occasional services and have accepted the commonly received idea of the Mass, appreciating to a certain extent its solemn dramatic effect, after his conversion his feeling toward them was very different. T h e r e after services and sacraments were a kind of language used personally and directly by God and directed personally toward men in general and

Francis

of

Assisi

115

himself in p a r t i c u l a r . H i s m i n d became very sensitive to suggestion f r o m G o d c o m i n g to h i m t h r o u g h p r a y e r and sacrament. H e h a d only to obey. V i v i d l y he heard, vividly he a p p r e c i a t e d w h a t he h e a r d and vividly he obeyed. T o go to c h u r c h was to go w h e r e G o d was and w h e r e he could see and h e a r him. So m u c h f o r w h a t we call services and sacraments. W i t h r e g a r d to the g r e a t C h u r c h itself he felt m u c h the same. H e always looked upon himself as its w i l l i n g and loyal son. H e hoped that its head, the P o p e , would accept h i m and his o r d e r as its a u t h o r i z e d representatives. A p p a r e n t l y he was w i l l i n g to abandon his mission if the authorities t h o u g h t it unwise. H e gave back his leadership into the hands of the C h u r c h w h e n the official idea of w h a t the Franciscans should be differed f r o m his own. W h e n he saved anyone f r o m illhealth or sin he saved him, of course, f o r C h r i s t and God, but, equally, for the C h u r c h . T o think that the saints w e r e easily dispensing with the C h u r c h is an e r r o r . Between G o d and C h r i s t on the one h a n d and the C h u r c h on the other there was, in the m i n d of Francis, no contradiction. T h e y w e r e the same looked at f r o m d i f f e r e n t angles. Or, to speak m o r e correctly, the C h u r c h was p a r t of the voice of G o d .

116

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

These, however, are not the most impressive ways by which St. Francis learned the will of God and shared in the strength of God. And it is possibly because of the impressiveness of his other method that we think he was putting the Church in a secondary place. Contemplation played a constant part in his life. I t was a source of his power to help. T h e r e are intimations before his conversion of a tendency toward thought that ran very deep. In his imprisonment and in his illnesses he had evidently thought so deep that he was about to change his manner of life. And when his companions heard from his lips the assertion that he was to become betrothed to his Lady Poverty they saw that, although he was standing in the middle of the street, his thought was running very deep. Even then Francis knew that he was being captured by thoughts which were hardly his own. A f t e r his conversion such accidental moments of thought give way to definitely planned periods of contemplation governed by a definite purpose. H e deliberately seeks opportunity to be with God. H e purposely plans to secure the pleasure of contemplation for its own sake, and also the power to help that comes of it. H e acts toward God quite as one would act toward a friend. H e seeks him

Francis

of

Assisi

117

now for the sheer joy of c o m p a n i o n s h i p , and again to ask his counsel and assistance. Doubtless he sought these m o m e n t s f r o m time to time w h e r e v e r he m i g h t be. A l l o w the w o r k to cease for a short p e r i o d and h e was quickly w i t h God. B e f o r e the b e g i n n i n g and a f t e r the e n d i n g of the day he was again w i t h G o d . But he also knew that, if he w e r e to do his w o r k r i g h t he must leave it f r o m time to time and r e t u r n to the source of k n o w l e d g e and p o w e r . O n e of his f a v o r i t e retreats was the C a r c e r i . I have spoken of its nearness to Assisi and yet of its complete isolation. T h i t h e r he w o u l d go w h e r e all was quiet, and there he w o u l d become passive and let G o d have his w a y w i t h h i m . H e k n e w very well t h a t G o d dwelt in his g a r d e n . A n o t h e r spiritual r e f u g e of his was an island in the m i d d l e of L a k e T h r a s e m e n e . N o t very f a r f r o m Assisi, and still n e a r e r villages and towns, it was yet most secluded; he m i g h t be u t t e r l y alone there. O n at least one occasion he chose that spot f o r a fast of forty days and f o r t y nights. H e h a d tried the fasting m e t h o d and he k n e w that it gave h i m sympathy with C h r i s t and k n o w l e d g e of G o d . Still another one of his haunts was L a V e r n a . I t was not by accident t h a t a n o b l e m a n h a d given it to Francis. H e k n e w w h a t the religious habits of

118

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

Francis were. Francis.accepted it with satisfaction. And he withdrew to it for what was perhaps the moment of his closest union with Christ and God. Such were the many ways by which Francis discovered what was the will of God, and by which he gained the wisdom and power to carry the will into effect. I f he was to help men he was periodically, and apparently at times giving the impression that he was turning his back on men, to live with the Friend who knew best how to help them. T h e services and the sacraments of the Church, almost constant prayer, intercession and contemplation, whenever work would allow it, and frequent, periodic retreats into regions whither men could not come—without these he knew that he would neither have the will to help, nor the power to help, nor the wisdom to help. God must always come first if man is to get from Francis the service he needs. And Francis would almost say, as Christ and all the saints have said, that at times, just for man's deeper and more permanent good, it must seem as if man were neglected. A glance at the first rule of St. Francis will show that he wanted to help as Christ would have helped. H e would imitate the method of Jesus,

Francis

of

Assisi

119

and this would b r i n g h i m as n e a r as he could c o m e to G o d ' s m e t h o d . I f one m a y disentangle the old rule f r o m its later emendations and e n l a r g e m e n t s one w i l l see that the religious m o t i v e f o r service was a religious w a y of living. " I f thou w i l l be p e r f e c t , go sell all that thou hast and give to the p o o r . . . and c o m e and f o l l o w m e . " " I f any m a n w i l l c o m e a f t e r M e , let h i m deny h i m s e l f and take up his cross and f o l l o w M e . " " I f any man c o m e to M e and hate not his f a t h e r and m o t h e r and w i f e and c h i l d r e n and b r e t h r e n and sisters, yea and his own l i f e also, he cannot be my d i s c i p l e . " " T h e y that are in costly a p p a r e l and live d e l i c a t e l y . . . are in king's houses." " T h e princes of the gentiles lord it o v e r t h e m and they that are the g r e a t e r , e x e r c i s e p o w e r upon t h e m ; it shall not be so amongst the b r e t h r e n ; but w h o s o e v e r w i l l be the greatest a m o n g t h e m let h i m b e c o m e as the lesser." " H a v i n g food and w h e r e w i t h to be covered, w i t h these w e are c o n t e n t . " " A n d they o u g h t to r e j o i c e when they consort with rude and despised persons, with the p o o r and w e a k and sick and lepers and those w h o b e g by the w a y s i d e . " " A n d into w h a t soever house they shall e n t e r they shall first s a y : P e a c e be to this h o u s e ; and in the same house rem a i n i n g , they shall eat and d r i n k w h a t things are

120

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

set before them. And let them not resist evil; but if anyone should strike them on the cheek let them offer to h i m the o t h e r ; and if anyone take away their garment, let them not forbid him the tunic also. T h e y shall give to everyone that asketh them On reading these and other portions of the rule one will see that it is largely made of sentences from the N e w Testament, primarily from the Sermon on the Mount, and that these sentences are largely Christ's commands to his apostles, to the Seventy Disciples and to various individuals. T h e y are a statement of Christ's way of life. R e membering how vivid F r a n c i s was in all his experiences one will also understand that when Francis heard these words read in church, or read them himself in his N e w Testament, he thought they were spoken directly to him. T o let them pass by unheard would be to disobey Christ. T o listen and obey would be to receive a commission directly from Christ, and to follow it. T h e rule, therefore, pose of F r a n c i s — t o do do it. T h i s directing into every department

is a reflection of the pureverything as Christ would principle he would carry of life and conduct. I t is

'Quotations from Cuthbert, Life of St. Francis

of Assisi, pp. 88, 89.

Francis

of

Assisi

121

easily seen to u n d e r l i e w h a t he tried to be, w h a t h e d i d and t h e p o w e r t h a t e n a b l e d h i m to d o it. W e h a v e a l r e a d y noticed t h a t this i m i t a t i o n of C h r i s t d i r e c t e d t h e d e t a i l of his d a i l y life. H i s L o r d w a s p o o r ; h e w o u l d be p o o r . H i s L o r d h a d n o w h e r e to lay his h e a d ; he w o u l d h a v e none. H i s L o r d singled o u t a f e w s y m p a t h e t i c f r i e n d s to assist h i m in his w o r k ; F r a n c i s w o u l d d o the same. H i s L o r d t u r n e d to c o m m u n i o n w i t h his h e a v e n l y F a t h e r f r e q u e n t l y d u r i n g the d a y and b e f o r e e v e r y a t t e m p t to h e l p m e n ; F r a n c i s w o u l d p r a y w i t h o u t ccasing. H i s L o r d s o u g h t m o m e n t s and p e r i o d s of c o m p l e t e loss of H i m s e l f in t h e e n j o y m e n t of divine companionship; Francis would abandon h i m s e l f to c o m m u n i o n . So intensely i m i t a t i v e w a s F r a n c i s ! A n d so m u c h so t h a t c e r t a i n h i s t o r i a n s h a v e t h o u g h t t h a t t h e stories of i m i t a t i o n are d u e to the w i s h on t h e p a r t of o v e r e n t h u s i a s t i c disciples, and to t h e c o n s e q u e n c e of a g r a d u a l l y g r o w i n g t r a d i t i o n , b o t h of w h i c h m i g h t result in a r e c o r d of c o m p l e t e i m i t a t i o n . I n effect b o t h w o u l d seem to i m p l y , t h e m o r e closely F r a n c i s resembles C h r i s t in d e t a i l t h e m o r e C h r i s t l i k e w i l l h e be. T h e c o n t r a r y p o i n t of view, h o w e v e r , is e q u a l l y c r e d i b l e . F r a n c i s d e l i b e r a t e l y t r i e d in e v e r y t h i n g to i m i t a t e his M a s t e r . H e n c e t h e s i m i l a r m e t h o d s

122

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

of conduct. H e was sure that if he did the will he w o u l d k n o w the doctrine. In no w a y was the imitative q u a l i t y of the conduct of F r a n c i s m o r e noticeable than in his choice of the kinds of p e o p l e w i t h w h o m he w o u l d live and w h o m h e w o u l d help. W h e t h e r he was r i g h t or w r o n g is not necessarily to the p o i n t ; it is very m u c h to the point that he t h o u g h t his L o r d t u r n e d most w i l l i n g l y t o w a r d certain g r o u p s and that t h e r e f o r e he w o u l d do so, too. A n d they w e r e the people c o m m o n to every land and every town. Francis h a d h e a r d C h r i s t say, as if it w e r e f r o m Christ's own lips, that w h a t e v e r he m i g h t do unto the least of men in some real, a l t h o u g h mysterious way, it was b e i n g done to C h r i s t himself. H e h a d h e a r d a divine voice saying that to clothe the naked, to feed the h u n g r y , to visit the prisoner, w e r e to come into very vital contact with C h r i s t . H e w o u l d p r e f e r a b l y go to all of these. H e w o u l d help t h e m as C h r i s t w o u l d and he w o u l d get Christ's satisfactions in d o i n g so. H e h a d noticed that his L o r d was m u c h w i t h lepers. F r a n c i s would be a m o n g t h e m ; now and then he w o u l d eat w i t h t h e m out of the same dish. F r a n c i s was f a m i l i a r w i t h the stories telling of Christ's interest in men w i t h diseased minds, in others w i t h diseased bodies and in s i n f u l w o m e n . T o these he

Francis

of

Assisi

123

w o u l d go, a m o n g t h e m he w o u l d live, and he would try to h e l p t h e m in C h r i s t ' s way. Y e s , it was a c c e p t i n g a p r o g r a m m e f r o m G o d , and it was assuming it was right to try to c a r r y it out in C h r i s t ' s way. P u r e and conscious i m i t a t i o n ! I t was also an assumption that C h r i s t ' s prog r a m m e should be c a r r i e d out in C h r i s t ' s way. A n d the impressive aspect of it is that f o r once at least C h r i s t ' s w a y seemed to w o r k . I n the mass o f stories and legends that have g a t h e r e d about the l i f e of F r a n c i s it is difficult to say w h i c h are true and w h i c h are false, w h i c h h a l f true, w h i c h h a l f false, w h i c h the result of c a l m and c o m p e t e n t witnesses and w h i c h the consequences o f i m a g i n a t i v e loyalty. B u t one t h i n g w o u l d seem to be beyond question. T h e c u m u l a t i v e effect of the F r a n c i s tradition bears witness to a man of s i n g u l a r powers using t h e m as C h r i s t would use t h e m and g e t t i n g f r o m t h e m C h r i s t ' s results. N o t only, t h e r e f o r e , was his method of life like that of C h r i s t , but his way of h e l p i n g p e o p l e was like Christ's. B e c a u s e he had known that his M a s t e r had by sheer f o r c e of his personality healed the sick, and because his L o r d had told h i m to do so, he w o u l d go and do it. S o m e v e r y singular stories are related of his success in m a k i n g the bodies of men w h o l e . I f there is a c o r e of truth in

124

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

them, and I believe there is, he succeeded for two reasons—he loved men and therefore he had abandoned himself and in some mystical way had become the one w h o m he would help, and he let himself be Christ's agent to w o r k the cure, allowing nothing to obstruct the divine energy of which he knew he was master. In this mood he went to all m a n n e r of sick people, and, because of him they got well. A n d in this mood he went to lepers, w h e n no one else could do anything for them, and a p p a r e n t l y some of them at least became whole. W h e n one examines his method one finds no medicine any more than one finds it in our Lord's methods of cure. T o think of attempts at cure along normal lines, when one watches Francis as he goes about among the sick, strikes one as absurd. Usual means of cure are to be practiced by men of usual mental and spiritual equipment. O u r L o r d had got beneath the means of cure to the p o w e r to cure. Francis in loving men and in becoming utterly sympathetic with God and Christ had done so, too. On one momentous occasion, according to the impressive story, fresh w a t e r and affection were all he used in driving the disease f r o m a leper's body. W i t h a great act of faith he opened the richness of a nature purified and strengthened by divine companionship and lav-

Francis

of

Assisi

125

ished it on the leper. If the leper's skin h a d not b e c o m e like that of the little c h i l d it w o u l d h a v e been t h e g r e a t e r w o n d e r . Is there any l i m i t to t h e p o w e r s of one w h o o v e r w h e l m i n g l y takes C h r i s t at his w o r d and w h o h e l p s as C h r i s t w o u l d h e l p ? F r a n c i s h e a r d his L o r d tell h i m to love his enemies. H e w o u l d love t h e m and see w h a t h a p p e n e d . W h e n he r e t u r n e d f r o m his first visit to R o m e , a b a n d o n e d his h o m e and w e n t to live a m o n g the p o o r and to try to do s o m e t h i n g f o r t h e m , his f e l l o w - t o w n s m e n j e e r e d at h i m a n d stoned h i m , and as he w a l k e d t h r o u g h the c o u n t r y side robbers w a y l a i d h i m and t r e a t e d h i m r o u g h l y . F r a n c i s sang w i t h joy to be able to suffer f o r C h r i s t ' s sake. H e p r a y e d f o r his e n e m i e s ; he loved t h e m ; h e blessed those w h o p e r s e c u t e d h i m . A n d w h e n h e c a m e to die these very f e l l o w - t o w n s m e n w h o h a d stoned h i m b o r e his b o d y w i t h r e v e r e n c e to a p l a c e of p e r p e t u a l h o n o r in Assisi. A n d some of those w h o w o u l d h a v e stolen food and d r i n k f r o m the F r a n c i s c a n s , a f t e r r e c e i v i n g all they n e e d e d f r o m F r a n c i s ' own h a n d , b e c a m e b e t t e r m e n . I n these two cases o u r L o r d ' s p r i n c i p l e w o r k e d . I t m u s t h a v e been a c o m f o r t to F r a n c i s to b e h o l d w i t h his own eyes the effect of love. But, h a v i n g h e a r d the c o m m a n d of C h r i s t he stood in no need of seeing results. H e k n e w t h a t his w a s

126

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

the duty to love and God's the duty of m a k i n g it work. But there was something in the conduct of Francis and of Christ even deeper than this. O n e might almost say that, paradoxical though it may seem, it was superior to results. T o love is to share in God's way of d i r e c t i n g the universe. Christ's love was God at f r e e d o m . Francis' love was Christ moving about among men and guiding them into harmony with an i m m o r t a l experience. Entirely for its own sake and f o r God's sake he loved and served the people of Assisi w h o stoned h i m and the robbers w h o would steal f r o m his brothers. H e would love and forgive even though his enemies knew not w h a t they did. It is clear f r o m such willing imitation as this that Francis would accept another of his Master's principles of life, w i t h o u t which one could not help men as God would help them. H e would accept suffering as a necessary fact of experience and would accurately measure his nearness to God and his value to men by the amount and the quality of his suffering. I t m i g h t be that among the perfect conditions of a p e r f e c t K i n g d o m of God there would be no room f o r suffering either physical or spiritual. But Francis, like his Master, knew that the K i n g d o m had by no means come. I n fact, like Christ, he saw h a r d l y any signs of its outward

Francis

of

Assisi

127

approach, although he found them within the lives of many individuals. F o r the present, at any rate, suffering was essential to preparation for the Kingdom. Christ suffered, and if he might know God through Christ, God suffered. I t was, therefore, clear to him that if he were to share in the divine method he must suffer. In the milder aspects of suffering, which we call dissatisfaction with things as they are and desire to make them better, he would have a gentle thrill of co-operative companionship with God. But he would not enjoy the rapture of complete union with the power by which all creation moves until he could bear in hands and feet and side the marks of the Lord. W h e n the well-meaning but ignorant physicians of his own day drew the white-hot iron across his forehead in vain attempt to stay his disease he rebuked his brothers for leaving the room so as not to see the awful sight, and he welcomed the i r o n — " O h , cowardly folk, why did you go away? I felt no pain. Brother doctor, if it is necessary you may do it again." " B r o t h e r fire," he said, "you are beautiful above all creatures; be favorable to me in this hour; you know how much I have always loved you; be then courteous today." T h a t he sought for the meaning of suffering in his Lord's life may be known from the well-worn

128

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

pages of those parts of the N e w Testament that told the story of the passion. T h a t he had discovered the secret may be seen in the quiet pleasure he found in wretched shelter and uncertain meals, in the more rugged joy he discovered in muddy roads, in boisterous weather and in being spurned from the homes of his friends, and in the rapture with which he was filled when he shared the same dish with lepers and saw death approaching. Christ suffered. W h y should not h e ? God suffered. W h y should not h e ? T h e r e was something in suffering, all the way from discomfort to agony, that made him feel at one with Christ and God. R e a l l y to help men he would travel along this divine way. N o t only would he love and suffer, if love demanded suffering, but he would imitate his L o r d in his poverty. Some of his later disciples thought that Francis was wrong in saying that Christ owned nothing. Some of the Popes agreed with them and allowed the Franciscans to possess community property. W h e t h e r F r a n c i s was right or wrong in fact matters little, for his only concern was to follow his Master's conduct as he understood it and his Master's command as he heard it. " T h e Son of M a n hath not where to lay his head." " G o sell all that thou hast and give to the poor

Francis

of

Assisi

129

and come and follow m e . " H e was serenely confident that J e s u s had told h i m all this. T h e winning appeal of it all must have o c c u p i e d his mind f o r many months b e f o r e it appeared in his conduct, for much reflection must have brought h i m to a point w h e r e he could stop in the middle of the street, gorgeously clad in the costume of the master of the revels and say to those who chaffed him with the p l a y f u l taunt that he was in l o v e — " Y e s , I am thinking of taking a w i f e more beautiful, more rich, more pure than you could ever i m a g i n e . " And a life of p r a c t i c e and reflection on the power of poverty went b e f o r e his final request to his f r i e n d s — t h a t he be stripped of his clothing and laid upon the ground that he m i g h t die in the arms of his L a d y Poverty. H e had frequently discovered profound peace in owning nothing. A s he stood b e f o r e St. Peter's at R o m e , after he had exchanged clothes with a b e g g a r and put himself at the m e r c y of the people's charity, a serene peace had stolen into his soul. T o own nothing came, in some way i n c o m p r e h e n s i b l e to the average man, to persuade h i m that he was very close to G o d and very close to men. A n d when his bewildered f a t h e r hailed h i m b e f o r e the Bishop of Assisi and when F r a n c i s b r o u g h t the q u a r r e l to a close by stripping himself and laying his cloth-

130

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

ing at his f a t h e r ' s feet, t e l l i n g h i m that h e n c e f o r t h h e would look only to his F a t h e r in heaven, and when he w a n d e r e d away into the woods, an ineffable t r a n q u i l l i t y w r a p p e d h i m in its e m b r a c e . W h a t a strange d e s i r e ! W h a t a singular passion! T o have n o t h i n g ! T o own n o t h i n g ! B y means o f nothing to c o m e closer to G o d and because of nothing better to be able to help m e n ! I t was strange religion and it was a stranger motive for his p h i lanthropy. B u t there it stands c l e a r l y written on the page of history. T o put it very simply, F r a n c i s thought that he m i g h t best help men by what h e was r a t h e r than by w h a t he had. I m i t a t i o n o f C h r i s t ' s c h a r a c t e r m i g h t create some of C h r i s t ' s helpfulness. S u c h , in b r i e f , was the inner l i f e of F r a n c i s , and such the h e a r t of his p o w e r to help. As one dwells on the succession of outward events, and as one watches the steadily increasing desire to be like his M a s t e r and the constantly increasing p o w e r to achieve that unity of nature and of purpose, and as one asks oneself w h e r e i n lay the secret of it all, one is driven f r o m answer to answer until one must say that F r a n c i s was strong to help because he h a d t h r o u g h unity with C h r i s t mastered the c r e a t i v e energies of G o d . H i s natural endowment plus his C h r i s t - l i k e point of v i e w had revealed to h i m the

Francis

of

Assisi

131

essential beauty and goodness of nature. R o u g h and incomprehensible though at times it m i g h t seem, to h i m it was all very good. H e saw it w i t h the eyes of God. F o r God and for him, w i t h t h e i r understanding, nature had become a w i l l i n g servant. A n d h u m a n nature, too! Superficialities meant nothing to him. G o with F r a n c i s about the villages and cities of Italy, and even as f a r away as the a r m y of the Sultan, and one will always find that he passes beyond w h a t the man has and w h a t he is d o i n g to the man himself. H e does it with Christ's s y m p a t h y and with God's i n s i g h t ; he persuades men that only one other m a n ever spake like this man. W i t h God's p o w e r their bodies and their souls were m a d e whole. Francis was a c r e a t o r ! A n d h a v i n g become one with C h r i s t and one with God and one with man, see w h a t s i n g u l a r and yet w h a t essential kindness he could show. Occasionally he m i g h t add a few rags to a beggar's e q u i p m e n t ; occasionally he m i g h t share his leaky shelter w i t h a w a n d e r e r ; occasionally he m i g h t give a thief a little bread and w i n e ; occasionally he m i g h t lend a hand in c a r r y i n g a b u r d e n . A l l that he had, and all that muscle could do, was at the service of those w h o needed him. But h o w insufficient all these things were and h o w small a

132

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

place they filled in his daily l i f e ! O t h e r gifts w e r e his to give and o t h e r gifts w e r e m o r e in demand. M e n d r e w heavily on his knowledge of C h r i s t and G o d ; they drained his creative energy until he perceived that virtue had gone out of him. T h e gifts of F r a n c i s w e r e e t e r n a l ! K n o w i n g that there was an eternal p r i n c i p l e in human nature, F r a n c i s saw beyond the present and transitory need to the essential and the eternal need. " T h e measure of the stature of the fulness of C h r i s t " was the attainable goal for men. T h e i r o p p o r t u n i t y to attain to it was eternal. T o help them onward he would put G o d first. T h e consequences of such a purpose would b r i n g to them all the good that he ought to do to them. C u r e s were of service w h e r e they lay c l e a r l y in the p a t h w a y of spiritual service. B u t the myriads of uncured sick were a cause of as little regret to h i m as to his M a s t e r . I t was the soul that counted. Sickness, h u n g e r and even l i f e itself were very t e m p o r a r y affairs. P e a c e and joy w e r e different matters. F r a n c i s gave them. S e r e n i t y to the sick, purity to the sinner, honesty to the thief. T h e s e things F r a n c i s gave together with a faith in the source of all kindness. L i t e r a l l y he believed his M a s t e r when H e s a i d — " S e e k ye first the K i n g d o m of G o d and H i s righteousness and all these things shall be added unto y o u . "

JESUS OF

NAZARETH

S a m u e l B a r n e t t , V i n c e n t de P a u l and F r a n c i s of Assisi each had a religious motive for the good he tried to do. E a c h differed f r o m the others in tl\e intensity of his religious feeling, but each found in the Person of J e s u s of N a z a r e t h the ins p i r i n g cause for his kindness. S a m u e l B a r n e t t gave his l i f e to the p e o p l e of W h i t e c h a p e l , for, as M r s . B a r n e t t said, he went about always conscious of the presence of G o d , convinced that men were made in the i m a g e of G o d and that they should realize their h e r i t a g e — even the worst of them. B y daily p r a y e r and communion he replenished his convictions and his p o w e r to m e e t men's needs. L a v i s h l y he gave, trusting that he worked in partnership with divine energy. V i n c e n t de P a u l in many ways has b e c o m e the patron saint o f various types of modern c h a r i t y . H i s religion appears to have been deeper, r i c h e r and m o r e vivid than S a m u e l Barnett's, sufficient for its purpose though the latter seems to have been. I n V i n c e n t ' s life, p r a y e r impresses one as the constant a c c o m p a n i m e n t of every occupation of every day. W h e r e v e r he went a m o n g men he seems, s p i r i t u a l l y , of course, but yet literally, to

134

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

have met Christ. N o t to seize the o p p o r t u n i t y to feed the h u n g r y or to visit the prisoner was not to minister to his L o r d and M a s t e r . T o care f o r the f o u n d l i n g and the insane was to meet his M a s t e r face to face and to serve H i m . G o d , as V i n c e n t knew G o d in Christ, was the source of his desire to h e l p and the o b j e c t of his service. A l t h o u g h G o d always c a m e first, men were, as it w e r e , gathered up into the nature of G o d , and the better understood and helped because of t h e i r heavenly nature. St. F r a n c i s had but one o b j e c t in l i f e — t o know C h r i s t and G o d , to b e c o m e like them, to share their loving nature and spontaneously to b e c o m e their m i g h t a m o n g men. I f there w e r e not d a n g e r of b e i n g misunderstood one would say that in o r d e r to help men F r a n c i s forgot t h e m and r e m e m bered only Christ. F i l l e d with the love of C h r i s t , conscious of eternal c o m p a n i o n s h i p with H i m , f o r e v e r stimulating that love and that f e e l i n g of fellowship, creative p o w e r seemed n a t u r a l l y to flow out f r o m h i m to m e n ; at his word and at his touch h e a l t h y bodies and h e a l t h y souls seemed to spring into being. H o w e v e r vivid the religion of these men m a y have been and however d r a m a t i c t h e i r each

and

all

of

them

looked

upon

powers, Jesus

of

Jesus of

Nazareth

135

N a z a r e t h as the answer to the problems of life. H e it was w h o could tell them all they need know about G o d and about m e n ; if they m i g h t but comp r e h e n d H i m they would be at peace and they w o u l d have p o w e r to help. H e stood, as it were, vividly b e f o r e them, m a k i n g very real the practical c h a r a c t e r of a religious life. T h e nearer they could get to H i m the h a p p i e r they w e r e to be put down a m o n g the baffling details of everyday life. T h e heavenly and the earthly were in H i m become one. If w e w e r e to w a n t to c o m p r e h e n d the majesty of that life we would need only to cast our eyes over C h r i s t i a n history, to single out h e r e and there men of conspicuous spiritual accomplishm e n t and of impressive p o w e r to serve and to realize that they themselves felt their nothingness in comparison with Christ and the futility of their lives w i t h o u t H i m . A l l we need do is to confess that St. F r a n c i s is i m m e a s u r a b l y beyond us in unity with G o d and in sympathy with men and f u r t h e r to realize that his L o r d was i m m e a s u r a b l y beyond h i m . T o quote words used of another C h r i s t i a n m a n — " I f it was so great a thing to know (St. F r a n c i s ) w h a t must it be to k n o w (St. Francis') Master?" A f e w years ago I tried to m a k e the l i f e of Jesus of N a z a r e t h m o r e real to myself by going to the

136

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

land where H e lived. I had been told that I should be disillusioned by the visit, for I should find myself among a people who were not H i s and among traditions that were a travesty of His conduct and teaching. T h o s e who gave me this warning might have been right had I not kept away from people and from relics, had I not avoided the Zionist settlements and the churches that stand in conflicting witness over the supposed sites of dramatic episodes of His career. I only glanced at all these things. I lost myself in the land itself, which, although slight changes may have taken place, is much the same as when H e lived within it. George Adam Smith's Historical Geography of the H o l y Land had first stimulated my desire to catch the romance of his feeling for Palestine. M a n y years ago I read and reread his chapter describing the view from the top of M t . E b a l — t h e twin summit immediately opposite M t . G e r i z i m , in the neighborhood of which lies the ancient city of Samaria and not far from the bases of which J a c o b ' s well still stands. B e i n g alone when I reached M t . E b a l I did not c l i m b it. A friend told me that doubtless no one would do me any harm, but, he added, you had better not put any temptation in the way of the natives. I t was a disappointment not to see the view that G e o r g e A d a m Smith

Jesus

of

Nazareth

137

had seen. A drive across the highlands of Samaria gave me here and there glimpses of what he saw in wider range. T h e whole region of our Lord's activity lies spread out before the eyes of one who stands on the summit of E b a l . Almost at one's feet, toward the west, the Mediterranean stretches away toward the setting sun. T h e eye may sweep the coast from G a z a to J o p p a and Caesarea, and from Caesarea to T y r e and Sidon. One may look toward the south and see the towers of J e r u s a l e m , the hills of Bethlehem and the distant highlands of Hebron. T o w a r d the east the land falls quickly away into the valley of the J o r d a n and the Dead Sea until it reaches a depth of thirteen hundred feet below the Mediterranean. Beyond the J o r d a n rise the highlands of the Peraea and the mountain from which Moses surveyed the land of promise into which he was not permitted to enter. T o w a r d the north, in the immediate foreground, are the highlands of Samaria, encircling the V a l e of Dothan, still farther the Plain of Esdraelon, and, as if hanging on the side of a palisade on the further wall of the plain, the little town of N a z a r e t h . Away to the northeast rises the snow-capped summit of M t . Hermon. I t is an overpowering prospect just from the

138

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

natural point of view. I n so small a compass where will one find nature in so many varied forms? But from another point of view it is even more over-powering. Outside that horizon our L o r d never stepped. W i t h i n it were done all his mighty works. T h e hills of Bethlehem and the village of N a z a r e t h remind one of His childhood and youth. T h e paths among the hills of Samaria and the highway through the J o r d a n Valley recall H i s parables, H i s deeds of kindness and His journeys up to J e r u s a l e m . On the slopes of Hermon H e is said to have been transfigured. And just outside the walls of J e r u s a l e m H e was crucified. T h e r e is strong tradition, too, that there, as well as in Galilee, H e convinced H i s disciples that H e had overcome death in victory. Is there another view like that from M t . E b a l ? T h e Holy Land is a little land—only about one hundred and eighty miles long and about fifty miles wide, closely resembling in area the State of Massachusetts. But within it Jesus of N a z a r e t h lived! F r o m the foot of E b a l I drove on through the Samarian country, glancing now down into the J o r d a n V a l l e y and now at the surf on the Caesarean beach, and now, as if at a goal toward which we were traveling, at the white summit of M t . H e r m o n . W h e n we reached a high point in the

Jesus

of

Nazareth

139

road o u r c h a u f f e u r pointed ahead and w e saw, at about twenty miles distance, the town of N a z a r e t h . W e h a d soon descended into the V a l e of J e z r e e l , h a d crossed its fertile plains, seeing in the distance as we went, the homes of J e z e b e l and the w i d o w of N a i n , and had climbed u p t h r o u g h the w i n d i n g roads until we c a m e to a stop on the b r o w of the hill just above the village. I took m y position in one spot, and w i t h o u t moving f r o m it this is w h a t I saw, and this is w h a t I knew J e s u s could see f r o m the hill behind his native town. N o r t h w a r d was the c o u n t r y stretching away to C a n a , the Sea of G a l i l e e and Alt. H e r m o n . O v e r m y r i g h t s h o u l d e r I could catch a g l i m p s e of the sea not f a r f r o m T y r e and Sidon. I n f r o n t and to the r i g h t a view down the b r o a d flat valley of E s d r a e l o n , w i t h a clear v i e w of the M e d i t e r r a n e a n and the h i g h h e a d l a n d of M t . C a r m e l j u t t i n g out into the sea. I m m e d i a t e l y in f r o n t of me, and stretching away southward, the S a m a r i a n h i g h w a y and h i g h l a n d s . T o w a r d the southeast M t . T a b o r , the gently rising Vale of J e z r e e l and at its eastern end the sudden d r o p into the J o r d a n V a l l e y w i t h the h i g h l a n d s of the P e r a e a beyond. A g a i n , w h a t an all inclusive v i e w ! Infinitely rich because of the eyes of the O n e w h o saw it, and because of the life that was at h o m e

140

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

within it! Up and down the highway at the foot of the hill eastern and western soldiers and merchants went to and fro. On the slopes of Carmel E l i j a h slaughtered the prophets of Baal. Jesus visited the coasts of T y r e and Sidon. Not far from T a b o r H e may have taught some of the truths which have come down to us in the form of the Beatitudes. Many a time H e walked across the valley and took the highland road to Jerusalem or, turning eastward, descended into the depths of the J o r d a n Valley and went up to Jerusalem by the way of Jericho. And just at my feet was His home for thirty years. T h e r e H e played with the village boys; there H e worked at the carpenter's bench. T h e r e H e learned the religion of His people. T h e r e H e grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. T h e r e H e went into the village meeting-house and read from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah saying " T o d a y is this fulfilled in your eyes." And from one of those cliffs His fellow-townsmen tried to cast Him. T h i s was the village in which H e was without honor. T h e prospect upon which Jesus looked was filled with God. Hardly anyone has felt more vividly than H e the meaning of a nation's experience and the significance of the lives of a nation's great men. His patriotism was incomprehensibly

Jesus of

Nazareth

141

deep. H i s confidence in His nation's mission may be measured only by His disappointment in its failure to perceive it. Every plain, every valley, every mountain-top, every village and city meant some event or some man. T h e whole rugged, austere and yet beautiful, country was the ground upon which God dwelt with men. God had brought the wanderers along the highlands east of the Dead Sea, down to the fords of the J o r d a n and up the steep hillsides through the wilderness of J u d e a to M t . Sion. God had chosen David to be king and had given Solomon a wisdom to rule the shepherd nation. God had protected the nation against the Philistine. And God had used the Assyrian to punish the people for their national folly. I n a way deeper than language can express Jesus saw God's directing and controlling mind in the history of the people of the H o l y Land. Jesus also saw God in the hearts of those who had given H i s native land its character. I t was God who gently and firmly led Abraham out into an unknown future. I t was H e who was the guarantee that Abraham's faith should be rewarded. I t was God who spoke to E l i j a h in the still small voice. I t was God who put it into the heart of the prophet M i c a h to say that what God loved best was that men should do justly, love mercy and

142

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

walk humbly with their God. I t was God who sent J o h n the Baptist. I n Isaiah Jesus found not only a man who thought the thoughts of God and spoke the words of God, but one who had dreamed that One would come who would suffer for men, One who would be H i m s e l f . Ancient and modern liturgies have gathered up our Lord's reverence for the past in words that represent the ancient H e b r e w religious and moral ideal and yet use them as if they were His o w n — " H e a r what our L o r d Jesus Christ saith: T h o u shalt love the L o r d thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. T h i s is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto i t : T h o u shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Such was our Lord's sympathetic understanding of H i s nation's past that H e made it H i s heart's desire to bring men up to the fulfillment of the nation's purpose. I t was for H i m to make these commandments live in H i m s e l f that they might live in H i s fellowcountrymen. N o t only, however, in H i s nation's history and in its men of genius did Jesus find God, not only could H e find these associations among the events of which H e thought as H e walked about on H i s

Jesus of

Nazareth

143

errands of inspiration, but quite as vividly H e found God in the nature that surrounded H i m . God was so very vital to H i m that one may take H i s words at their surface meaning, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they g r o w ; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." " B e h o l d the fowls of the a i r : for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly F a t h e r feedeth them." " A r e not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And yet I say unto you that not one of them falleth to the ground without your F a t h e r . " " T h e hairs of your head are all numbered." N o t only a God, but an heavenly F a t h e r , was within N a t u r e ; H e was watching over it; H e was directing it with tender solicitude. Everything upon which the eyes of Jesus rested as H e went about reminded H i m of God. M o r e than this! H e saw everything with the eyes of G o d — " a n d God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good." Only those of spiritual insight equal to that of Jesus may dare doubt that what H e saw was the truth. T h e vividness of H i s thought and the vividness of His words carry an authority of their own. " N e v e r man spake like this m a n . " I m a g i n e what you would like to have God say and the way you would

144

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

like to have H i m say it, and you will find yourself thinking the thoughts and saying the words of Jesus. W h e n Jesus was not far from thirty years old H e left Nazareth and began His short ministry. Apparently H e had spent many years in quiet work and in quiet thought. T h e moment came when H e felt that H e must do something. How vague or how clear that impulse was we shall never know; our records are too scanty. All we know is that H e was subject unto His parents, and that H e was growing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Jesus had heard that a man named J o h n had gathered about himself a group of men and that he and they were stirring men to prepare for the coming kingdom by standing for the right. Filled with a wish to join in such an enterprise, if not to lead in it, Jesus left Nazareth, walked up the gentle slope of the Valley of Esdraelon, went down the abrupt descent into the Jordan Valley, continued southward until, when within sight of the mountain on which Moses saw the Land of Promise, H e found John at the fords of the Jordan. W i t h respect for John's character and purpose H e asked to be made a member of the little band of high-minded men. W i t h sincere

Jesus

of

Nazareth

145

reverence H e asked J o h n to a d m i t H i m by the same rite w h i c h had admitted others.

A n d with

supreme

numbered

Himself

spiritual

contentment

a m o n g the B a p t i s t ' s

He

followers.

If

the

records give us a c o r r e c t a c c o u n t of w h a t h a p p e n e d at the time J o h n

seems to have recognized

the

religious genius of J e s u s and to have offered to surrender the l e a d e r s h i p promptly refused;

into H i s hands.

Jesus

H e saw n o t h i n g but gain in

t h r o w i n g in H i s lot with so n o b l e a man as J o h n . A master is no less a m a s t e r because he is a s e r v a n t ! N o sooner had J e s u s been b a p t i z e d ; no sooner had he c o m e out o p e n l y for drastic religious ref o r m based on p u r e and unselfish c o n d u c t and on love of G o d than H e seems to have b e c o m e conscious of p o w e r of w h i c h t h e r e t o f o r e H e m a y not h a v e been w h o l l y a w a r e ; the decision, the c o m panionship o f J o h n and others o f s i m i l a r purpose, seem to have m a d e H i m k e e n l y a w a r e that H e was destined f o r c r i t i c a l l e a d e r s h i p and that H e h a r d l y k n e w in w h a t d i r e c t i o n H i s a b i l i t y to influence men m i g h t lead H i m . away

into

strange

seclusion

consciousness

might mean.

He

He

left J o h n

ask

Himself

to of

and went what

overmastering

felt that H e

could

this

power

command

men's bodies to do H i s w i l l and men's minds to

146

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

do as H e said. H o w should H e exercise His controlling energies? Anyone who has glanced across the lonely wilderness of J u d e a knows how isolated one can be and how perfectly one may be alone with oneself and God. T h e r e the forty days and forty nights of thought were passed. And even though the record of what took place be altogether in the realm of poetry one could hardly have a more accurate account of the struggle and the victory of a man of overwhelming personality. Alone with Himself and God H e thought through His problem. F o r the first time H e was doing what H e was to do time and time again—withdraw from men, withdraw into Himself and into companionship with God and ask how best H e might help men. Divine companionship alone would answer the question. "Command that these stones be made bread," release H i s pent-up energies, gratify His hunger, impress men. But he does not do it. F r o m depths deeper than His consciousness of mastery of nature come the words, " M a n shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." " T h e n the devil taketh H i m up into the H o l y City, and setteth H i m on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto H i m , I f thou be the Son of God, cast thyself

Jesus

of

Nazareth

147

down: for it is written, H e shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." His surging passion to enlist men in His service is threatening to direct His conduct. N o matter how you win men as long as you win them! Appeal to men's awestruck admiration and they are yours! And then again from the core of His being come more eternal words— " T h o u shalt not tempt the Lord thy G o d . " Again the devil taketh H i m up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth H i m all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and saith unto H i m , " A l l these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Did H e climb to the summit of E b a l and look down upon His own native land and out into the four points of the compass with their promise of the mastery of men? O r was H e in memory again standing on the hill behind Nazareth, looking down into the valley and watching the soldiers and merchants of Assyria and E g y p t and Rome passing by, and did H e long to gather them together for some vague but stupendous victory? H e knew that H e could lead them and H e longed to do it. Lesser men had done so, and why not H e ? Again from depths that with great tests H e was finding to be

148

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

deeper still H e and God come together and Jesus turns upon all that is superficial, all that is temporary, all that has any tincture of s e l f — " G e t thee hence S a t a n ; for it is written, T h o u shalt worship the L o r d thy God, and H i m only shalt thou serve. T h e n the devil leaveth H i m , and, behold angels came and ministered unto H i m . " Some temptations are so mighty that they come as if from an irresistible living tempter. And some victories over temptations are so ineffably soothing that a power outside ourselves seems to have come to our assistance and to have told us that we have done right. M i g h t y men have temptations in direct proportion to their might, and mighty men have comforts in direct proportion to the quality of their victory. A f t e r the close of the experiences that are represented by the temptation narratives Jesus, with a few friends, went farther into J u d e a , evidently for a mission more as one of J o h n ' s disciples than as a prophet working in his own right. H e left J u d e a and returned slowly toward H i s homeland of Galilee. T h e r e His real ministry began after H e heard that H e r o d had cast J o h n the Baptist into prison. I t was almost as if H e had considered H i m s e l f as one who held H i m s e l f in readiness to follow J o h n ' s lead, at least for the

Jesus of

Nazareth

149

present. J o h n ' s i m p r i s o n m e n t and later J o h n ' s execution forced H i m into a conspicuous position of leadership, so m u c h so that some of J o h n ' s disciples w e n t over to Jesus. M a k i n g Galilee and the region about the L a k e of T i b e r i a s the scene of H i s ministry H e filled the days and months with w o r d s and deeds of surpassing power. W e know the kind of influence H e had a m o n g men when we read the S e r m o n on the M o u n t , H i s teaching about the K i n g d o m of God as one finds it largely in the parables, and in the reports of the cures that H e w r o u g h t and H i s a p p a r e n t superiority to nature. A f t e r H i s first d e f e a t in N a z a r e t h these w e r e months of extrao r d i n a r y success, and a p a r t f r o m some f u t i l e opposition f r o m officials it seemed as if H e w e r e w i n n i n g the people to H i s t e a c h i n g and to H i s cause. T h e people followed H i m not only because they saw the miracles that H e did, but because H i s words and H i s conduct h a d the c h a r a c t e r of authority. T h e climax of our L o r d ' s success seems to have been reached at a time m a r k e d by the so-called F e e d i n g of the Five T h o u s a n d . W h a t e v e r the facts may be, the reported m i r a c l e represents a crisis in H i s career. H e t u r n e d m o r e and m o r e f r o m deeds of physical kindness to t e a c h i n g of

ISO

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

stern spiritual nature. H e challenged even His closest followers as to who they thought He was. T h e people fell away. T h e apostles hardly comprehended His prophecy of trouble to come. And Jesus Himself retired into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon where He was unknown and whither few would follow Him. T h e r e H e reluctantly helped a woman who was not a Hebrew, as if He were testing the religious sympathy of the foreigner. Apparently H e spent some weeks there, as well as on the journey eastward through the hills and in the regions about Caesarea Philippi, north of the Sea of Galilee and on the slopes of Mt. Hermon. T h e narrative at this point is beautifully told. Jesus had determined in all things to put God first and to help men as God seemed to want men to be helped. H e had seemed to want men to find God through the help H e was constantly giving them. They were, by this method, coming no nearer God. A whole body meant neither good morals nor a comprehension of the duties of a citizen in the Kingdom of God. Discouraged, in need of help, bewildered as to what H e should do, He retired with three sympathetic friends into the highlands, and there, according to the story that has come down to us, H e was transfigured. His face shone. His garments were white and glister-

Jesus of

Nazareth

151

ing. And, more incredible still, there appeared talking with H i m Moses and E l i j a h . H e had become superior to time. H e was in timeless communion with the wisdom and encouragement of H i s people's past. H e came down from the mountain. H e lavished H i s renewed vigor on an epileptic, and H e set H i s face steadily toward J e r u s a l e m where H e knew H e must die and where H e would be willing to die, if by dying God would show H i m how to help H i s people. Only very gradually has the meaning of the experience called the Transfiguration become clearer to me. Until recently it has been only a beautiful legend without significance in the complete picture of our Lord. N o w it is indispensable to an understanding of the depth and richrrcss of the religious motive in our Lord's attempt to help men. I n the experience of the temptation H e had brought H i s great powers into harmony with the will of God so that H i s slightest and H i s grandest acts would assist men in an eternal way. T h e r e after there was a perfect unity between His will and God's. H e had shown that H i s kindness was God's kindness. In the experience of T h e Transfiguration H e seems to have made men realize that those who had made H i s nation's past and whose renown had come down to H i s own day were to

152

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

H i m not mere names, nor were they memories, but rather that they were living companionships. W i t h a spiritual life so deep, so rich, so at one with God, H e had but to crave the great companionships to enjoy them and to find strength in them. I hesitate to find this meaning in the story that comes at the crisis in Christ's career, for it rests only on my own feeling that there may be truth in it. But, I ask, is there any limit to the spiritual communion of a nature so unselfish as Christ's, so eager to help men, so at one with G o d ? Such a man finds Himself in communion with the ages. By the time Jesus had reached the turning point in His ministry H e had made clear His ideas of God, of human nature and of men's relationship to one another. God is a father; men are brothers; God and men together are a family with ties of relationship deeper than blood. Our L o r d used stories to make His meaning clear. T o persuade men of the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and of men's duty toward one another H e told the stories of the Prodigal Son, the Laborers in the Vineyard, and the Good Samaritan. T h e power and the appeal of the stories lies first in the personality of the One who told them, and, second in the response that men made to them and have made to them ever since they were first told.

Jesus

of

Nazareth

153

T h e deepest in our L o r d ' s spiritual nature seems to be speaking to the deepest in men's. A n d even m e n u n w i l l i n g to act on Christ's assumption that t h e r e is a divine f a m i l y and that G o d looks upon us as H i s c h i l d r e n , that we look upon H i m as a f a t h e r and upon one another as b r o t h e r s — e v e n they know that our L o r d was right. I n the P a r a b l e of the P r o d i g a l Son J e s u s wanted to tell men that no sin could separate a c h i l d f r o m the father's love, that G o d ' s suffering m i g h t be g r e a t e r than the child's and that G o d was f o r e v e r w i l l i n g to go out to meet the returning son. H e pressed h o m e the truth that the H e a v e n l y F a t h e r ' s love would burn away the sin o f the returning son and the temptation to sin again. S u c h was the stupendous truth that c a m e f r o m the rich depths of H i s own religious experience, and H e w o u l d have us take H i s word f o r it. A t our religious p e r i l we fail to assume that H e was right. B u t if we leave the p a r a b l e with only the c o m f o r t ing assurance that G o d is our f a t h e r we m a y have lost f u l l y h a l f of our L o r d ' s meaning. " N o w his e l d e r son was in the field: and as he c a m e and d r e w nigh to the house he heard music and dancing, and he c a l l e d one of the servants and asked w h a t these things meant. A n d he said unto h i m , T h y b r o t h e r is c o m e : and thy f a t h e r hath killed

154

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

the fatted calf, because he hath received h i m safe and sound. And he was angry and would not go i n ; therefore came his father out and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, L o , these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandments: and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make m e r r y with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come which hath devoured thy living with harlots thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. I t was meet that we should make merry and be g l a d : for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost and is found." T h e father was filled with grief that the elder son did not share his joy. H e had made the great act of faith that a brother would be as happy as a father at a brother's return, and he was disappointed. " I t was meet that we should make merry and be g l a d : for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost and is found!" W i t h less tenderness, with more severity, the P a r a b l e of the L a b o r e r and the Vineyard brings home the same double truth. Again, like the story of the Prodigal Son, it comes not merely from a man's mind, but from a spirit filled with knowl-

Jesus of

Nazareth

155

edge of the ways of God. T h e householder is, of course, the H e a v e n l y F a t h e r . M e n are the laborers. As opportunity offers they take up their w o r k and all agree to the same reward. A t the end of the day they come for their wages, and all, those w h o have worked only for a few moments as well as those who have worked all day, receive the same. T h e latter " m u r m u r e d against the good man of the house, saying these last have w r o u g h t but one hour and thou hast m a d e them equal unto us which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of t h e m and said, F r i e n d , I do thee no w r o n g : didst thou not agree with m e f o r a penny? T a k e that thine is and go thy w a y : I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful f o r me to do w h a t I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?" T h e Heavenly F a t h e r thinks that his children look f o r an opportunity to live and w o r k with H i m ; the friendly co-operation in the same task is its own reward. T h e r e should be a brotherly as well as a fatherly pity for those w h o have not yet joined in the w o r k ; there should be a brotherly as well as a fatherly joy when at the last moment another comes in to work, and a brotherly as well as a fatherly happiness in the f u l l returns. " F r i e n d , I do thee no w r o n g . . . Is thine eye evil be-

156

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

cause I a m good . . . I w i l l give unto this last even as unto thee . . . T a k e that thine is and go thy w a y . " D i v i n e disappointment and surprise that men w i l l not take G o d ' s point of v i e w ! D i v i n e sorrow that they are not as eager as G o d is that those of lesser o p p o r t u n i t y shall share t h e i r blessings! J e s u s would say that G o d assumes w e are brothers and that under all circumstances w e w i l l act as such. H a v i n g mastered the conviction o f G o d , J e s u s tried to share it with men, h o p i n g that they would live by its useful, c o m f o r t i n g and p r a c t i c a l truth. A f t e r J e s u s told the P a r a b l e of the G o o d S a m a r itan there could be no doubt of the limits of social obligation. A man trained in the J e w i s h L a w c a m e to J e s u s and put H i m to the test. H e said, " M a s t e r w h a t shall I do to inherit eternal l i f e ? " H e said unto him, " W h a t is written in the l a w ? " h o w readest t h o u ? A n d he answering said, " T h o u shalt love the L o r d thy G o d with all thy h e a r t and with all thy soul and with all they strength, and with all thy m i n d ; and thy n e i g h b o r as thys e l f . " A n d he said unto him, " T h o u hast answered right, this do and thou shalt l i v e . " A n d he, w i l l i n g to j u s t i f y h i m s e l f , said unto J e s u s , " A n d w h o is m y n e i g h b o r ? " J e s u s then told the story of t h e G o o d S a m a r i t a n . A t the end of it H e said,

Jesus

of

Nazareth

157

" W h i c h now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him who fell among the thieves?" T h e lawyer answered, " H e that shewed mercy on him." T h e n said Jesus unto him, "Go and do thou likewise." T h e philosophy of the story is very simple. Y o u r neighbor is the man who needs you, even though he be an enemy ( " f o r the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans") and when you help the man who needs you the feeling of profound satisfaction that possesses you is p a r t of eternal life. Such is the simple, but profound philosophy of our Lord's life and our Lord's teaching. God is a father whose interest and affection are staked in H i s children's welfare. Men are sons of God and brothers of one another; each prefers another's welfare to H i s own; each has the father's interest in the brothers. T h e neediest member of the family makes the great claim, and the one who helps, even though he be the least in God's family, has been the real brother. Yes, so f a r as the theory of life is concerned one easily sees the meaning of Jesus. But men have found it difficult to take this teaching up into their lives. Is the bad son the beloved of his father? Is a respectable brother glad to see his disreputable brother restored to favour in the family? Does the man who has been

158

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

faithful and industrious enjoy seeing his fellow who has just come to a sense of obligation share in the benefits of faithfulness? I s an enemy in need one of the first moral obligations? A r e we happiest when we are helping h i m ? I t is an incomprehensible philosophy. I n action we deny it every day and every minute. Certain of our modern philosophies openly and honestly contradict it. A n d yet it has been taught and it has been lived by One to whom God was more real than H i m s e l f and to whom the ties of the spirit were more eternal than those of flesh and blood. O u r Lord's motive in doing good may be found not in a sense of duty, but in a vivid realization of God as a F a t h e r and men as brothers. However, there was more than this in H i s teaching. T h e r e was more than H i s determination in all things to do the will of God and in all things to persuade men that they were in every way to live as brothers. B e f o r e H i s day men had held and taught these truths. A f t e r H i s day others were to do so. H e H i m s e l f had, in reasserting the two great commandments, credited H i s own nation's leaders with a consecration to this way of looking at life. H e differed from others in the vividness of His teaching and in the contagion of H i s conduct and in identifying H i m s e l f with the divine

Jesus of

Nazareth

159

sources of conduct. " H e spoke with authority!" " N e v e r man spake like this m a n . " W h e n they were about to lay hands on H i m the soldiers fell b a c k w a r d ! " T r u l y this was the Son of G o d ! " I t is only by following the story to the end that the greatness behind the conduct and teaching more richly appeals to us. A f t e r the Galilean crisis, after Jesus knew that H i s miracles were not only doing little good, but were turning men's attention from the very purpose of H i s life, after H e seemed to have gained strength and clearness of vision from communion with God and from spiritual association with the leaders of H i s people's past, H e set His face steadily toward J e r u s a l e m . H e knew the H o l y C i t y ; H e had been there many times, occasionally privately, occasionally without any effort at concealment; H e loved J e r u s a l e m as the centre of H i s nation's history and as the place within which H i s people's national hopes were to be realized. Outside of J e r u s a l e m a prophet ought not to die! H e would put the people there to the test. G a l i l e e had failed. J u d e a might succeed. And so H e and H i s closest followers, fearing what might be in store for them, went on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus had friends in the neighborhood. W h e n it was convenient H e stayed with

160

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

them. I t was H i s custom to go frequently to the courts of the temple and there to talk with any bystanders and to tell them stories filled with spiritual truth. F r o m time to time H e seemed to challenge the leaders of the people. A t night H e would again go back into the country and to those who came nearer to understanding H i m . A t one time it seemed as if the people were actually going to believe all H e taught them and to acclaim H i m as their leader—possibly to try to make H i m their king, for with crowds about H i m , the road strewn with garments and palm branches, riding upon a royal animal, H e went into the H o l y City. H e may have thought that there was some chance of an outward manifestation of a spiritual victory. H e may have seen the transitoriness of it all, and nevertheless found profound satisfaction in the people's discovering in H i m any marks of their Messiah. W h a t e v e r the t r i u m p h it was of short duration, for H i s popularity and the selfassertion in H i s teaching irritated the men in power. A n d when H e drove the money-changers from the temple and would restore the temple to its purely spiritual uses everyone seemed to turn f r o m H i m . H e went back to Bethany knowing that H i s victory, if victory there was to be, must

Jesus of

Nazareth

161

be of a p u r e l y spiritual kind. A death for H i s nation b e c a m e more inevitable every day. O n e w h o has not been in the H o l y L a n d may h a r d l y a p p r e c i a t e the pathos of the culmination of o u r L o r d ' s life. W i t h the eye of my m e m o r y I can at this m o m e n t see the country round about J e r u salem and the city itself. O n e a f t e r n o o n I went out to Bethany with friends. W e stood f o r a moment behind the spot w h e r e M a r y and M a r t h a and L a z a r u s are said to have lived and w h e r e our L o r d is said to have stayed d u r i n g the last weeks of H i s life. Before we turned to c l i m b the southern slopes of the M o u n t of Olives we looked down toward the southeast until the land fell away into the valley of the Dead Sea. R i g h t before our eyes w e r e the fields and hills of B e t h l e h e m w h e r e D a v i d lived and w h e r e f r o m time i m m e m o r i a l " s h e p h e r d s had watched over t h e i r flocks by n i g h t . " I t was the view o u r L o r d enjoyed. I t was filled with memories of Moses and David, and with the deeds they had done f o r the Chosen People. I t must have filled the m i n d of Jesus with the spiritual possibilities for the f u t u r e . W e climbed slowly to the top of the M o u n t of Olives stopping f r o m time to time to read those portions of the N e w T e s t a m e n t w h i c h told of the events of P a l m S u n d a y and H o l y W e e k . A s wre reached the

162

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

summit we caught sight of J e r u s a l e m and we thought of our Lord's w o r d s — " O J e r u s a l e m , J e r u s a l e m , thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! B e h o l d your house is left unto you desolate." W e saw the slope down which H e went. W e saw the city wall at a point through which H e probably passed. T h e whole scene lay before our eyes. T h e sight made the events very real. T h e pathos of it all was profound. According to the ancient records Jesus spent H i s last evening with H i s nearest friends, one of whom betrayed H i m that night. A f t e r their supper H e and the chosen three went into the garden of Gethsemane and there H e prayed. L i k e the experience of the temptation, like the retreat into the hills of the north country, this withdrawal into the seclusion of the garden gave H i m the opportunity to be alone with God. R e m e m b e r that here was a young man hardly thirty years old, conscious not only of energies without limit and of love illimitable, but also of a profound desire to help H i s people, asking H i m s e l f how H e could best serve them. H e had tasted the joys of success; H e wanted to help them through living con-

Jesus

of

Nazareth

163

secration. H e knew that H e could do it. But whether it was the best way, God's way, H e was in doubt. " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from m e : nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." T h e decision was made; H e was at peace; H e gave Himself to the soldiers; H e was crucified knowing that through death, as time went on, and as men understood H i m better, H e would serve them best. H e passed from life forgiving His enemies, commending His mother to the care of a beloved disciple, and His soul to His heavenly Father's keeping. N o t many days after it was said that H e had overcome death in victory and had appeared unto His disciples at Jerusalem and in Galilee. W h a t happened one does not know. But one does know that the mood of His followers for some reason changed from despair and sorrow to hope and joy. And one does know that a Christian Church founded its life on the resurrection fact. One does know that the earliest Christians, although their accounts of the event might vary, never doubted the reality of the event itself. Back to this life the great leaders of Christian philanthropy have turned for strength and for wisdom to do their work. I t would be truer to say that they find H i m nearby ready to be drawn upon

164

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

for strength and wisdom. Great though some of these leaders have been they acknowledge H i m as their Master and they stand in humility before the majesty of His nature. In a clear and convincing way H e has told them what God thinks of men and how H e would help them, and they have tried to put His principles into action. I t was a life of extraordinary unity with God and of equally extraordinary unity with human nature. Some men say that really to know and to understand our L o r d one must go to the earliest sources and ascertain there in accurate detail what H e said and what H e did. A f t e r doing so one would be able to sketch in a story much like the one I have written above. T h o s e who accept this point of view regret that the story has in any way been added to or commented upon by a later generation — b y the author of the Fourth Gospel, for example, or by St. Paul, or by early leaders in the Christian Church. T h e r e are, however, other men who will not limit the comprehension to the information contained in the earliest sources. T h e y feel at times as if the companions of Jesus had been almost too near fully to understand H i m , and that it may be the task of ages thoroughly to master the meaning of His personality. O f this group I am one. T o me not only the earliest sources, but the

Jesus

of

Nazareth

165

F o u r t h Gospel and the L e t t e r s of St. P a u l and the l e a r n i n g and e x p e r i e n c e of religious and scholarly m e n f r o m that day to this are a l t o g e t h e r insufficient f o r the work, a l t h o u g h together they have b r o u g h t to the w o r l d ' s attention the meeting-point of G o d and men. M e n of later times m a y add to the k n o w l e d g e of the men of the e a r l i e r days truths of w h i c h the first f r i e n d s of o u r L o r d h a d never d r e a m e d . T h e F o u r t h Gospel m a y preserve to us a p p r e c i a t i o n s of Christ's n a t u r e of w h i c h the sources of St. M a r k ' s Gospel are ignorant. St. P a u l may t h r o u g h spiritual experience have learned things of C h r i s t of w h i c h the sources of St. M a t t h e w give us no i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e C h u r c h of the F o u r t h and F i f t h C e n t u r i e s m a y have expressed aspects, and eternal aspects, of Christ's n a t u r e of w h i c h the F o u r t h Gospel and St. P a u l did not d r e a m . A s s u m i n g t h e r e f o r e a r i g h t to i n t e r p r e t the Person of C h r i s t and the m i n d of C h r i s t by w h a t seems to be the richest spiritual experience, I find in H i m a motive f o r p h i l a n t h r o p y the factors of w h i c h have been a g u i d e and inspiration to the p h i l a n t h r o p y of the past and w h i c h o u g h t at least to be kept in m i n d to give r i g h t direction to the p h i l a n t h r o p y of the present and the f u t u r e . F o r one finds in C h r i s t a consciousness that makes H i s

166

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

kindnesses to men arise in a rich consciousness of what H i s mission was and why H e was sent to fulfil it. H e r e and there we catch a glimpse of the vastness of H i s appreciation of life's meaning. H e looks forward to an endless opportunity to help men; in another mansion H e and the thief will be together for their common good. H e also looks b a c k w a r d — " A n d now, Ο F a t h e r , glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Is it an assumption? Is it a m e m o r y ? Is it a truth arrived at in communion with H i m s e l f and with G o d ? W h a t e v e r it is, it is a consciousness on H i s part that H e has forever been on a mission with God. H e has come because of God's will. H e is here because of God's will. H e will go on because of God's will. I t is a stupendous conception of the meaning of life. M a y it not have some significance for lesser lives than H i s ? W h e n c e come they? W h a t are they now? W h i t h e r go they? And here and there we catch a glimpse of H i s appreciation of what a man may be. I f we see it through the F o u r t h Gospel's comprehension of Christ we find that there is a point of self-consecration at which the D i v i n e W i l l and the H u m a n W i l l become one—in which it seems to be a kind

Jesus

of

Nazareth

167

of second nature for man to think God's thoughts after H i m . How frequently Jesus says that the F a t h e r and H e are one! I f we discover it through the religious experience of St. Paul we find that it is almost possible to lose oneself and to become, as it were, a part of Christ. " F o r ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in G o d . " " I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me." I f the author of the Fourth Gospel and St. Paul had religious experience sufficient to reveal to them the inner nature of Christ they had discovered not only that Christ's mission among men was merely a continuation of an eternal companionship with God, but that it would not be fulfilled until H e were alive in men in a very real and practical way. T h i s further revelation as to the nature of Christ does not stop with the Fourth Gospel and St. Paul. T h e first few centuries of Christian experience has much to say about it. I f we may acknowledge that these chapters throw light on the problem, we know that there was in H i m a strange commingling of the divine and the human. T h e Christian Church would not allow H i m to be thought of as only divine or as only human; it insisted through generations of uncertainty that H e was both. Reflection on His life had forced the Church to this paradoxical conclusion. I t seemed foolish,

168

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

and it still seems foolish to some, to say that our L o r d was divine and human, for these terms are commonly used as if they were contradictory. B u t may it not seem more foolish to say that One whose life seemed so wholly divine or so wholly human was exclusively divine or human? W i t h practical common sense and with justice to religious experience the C h u r c h faced the facts and affirmed that H e was both. I t is therefore a gathering together of all sources of information about our L o r d that gives us H i s picture—a picture that is by no means finished yet, and can never be. Increasing knowledge of human nature and increasing knowledge of God will increasingly change and enrich it. But with the information we now have, all of which comes of spiritual experience and with the enlightenment that comes of reflection on it, we know that Jesus vividly assumed that H e was the Son of God, that H e was a brother of men, that H e looked upon all mankind as a family, that H i s will was one with God's, that H e lived at full power only when H e was within the hearts and minds of men, that within His personality the divine and human became one. I t is a stupendous declaration. B u t it would be more baffling if we were to say less of H i m . Less would not account for the facts.

Jesus of

Nazareth

169

T h e practical consequences of such a character in action are, if we may take Christ's word for it and the word of those who seem to have known H i m best, of high significance—"I am among you as one that serveth." All our Lord's idea of H i m self is packed into that sentence. H e gave Himself first; second, H e gave what H e had to give. H i s first interest lay in those of greatest n e e d — the naked, the hungry, those in prison, the sorrowful, the sinning. T h o s e who do not help them do not come in contact with H i m . T h o s e who do not come in contact with them prevent H i s helping them. In some mystical way H e was present in the sufferer. His solicitude for them was eternal, not simply temporal. H e had an interest in their bodies, but a greater interest in their souls. H e wanted to help them in life, but life to H i m was not confined to three score years and ten; they may be only a moment of discomfort in an eternal life. " W h i c h is better, to say thy sins be forgiven, or to say, arise take up thy bed and w a l k ? " H i s power to understand and to help came from constant return to God through moments of tranquillity, through contemplation and prayer. H e was never impatient either to do all the good there was to be done or to complete it all within the

170

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

limits of H i s life. T h i n k of the uncured sick, the lepers that remained unclean, the uncomforted mourners that were still in G a l i l e e after H i s ministry was o v e r ! T h e process of help was not merely physical, nor could H e help if H e was continuously helping. I t might be that in order to help permanently H e would have to die. T h e r e was an eternal tranquillity about H i m as H e went about doing good. H i s communion with God gave H i m supreme power to help. H e descended beyond the means for cure of body and soul to the power for cure. Unlike men, but possibly forecasting what they may one day be able to do, H e had power to abandon the superficial motives and abilities to be kind and to release the full energy of a nature at one with God. H e was, like God, a creator. H e had matured those qualities which we find in a rudimentary condition within ourselves: we want to help, H e could help. T h e inspiration of God and the energy of G o d were forever present in H i s philanthropy. W e might do well, as we go about our modern philanthropies to keep in mind the Person of Christ.

Jesus of

Nazareth

171

I have now brought these five addresses to a close. M y subject has been the Religious Motive in Philanthropy. I have dealt with it purely biographically, letting the lives of four Christian characters tell their own story. M y men have been Samuel Barnett, founder of the university settlement of T o y n b e e H a l l in L o n d o n ; Vincent de Paul, not only the patron saint of many modern Roman Catholic charities, but a pioneer in methods of charity which have now been universally accepted; St. Francis of Assisi, possibly more like our L o r d in his methods of help than any other man in Christian H i s t o r y ; Jesus of Nazareth, to whom each of these men prayed, and with whom they lived as with a contemporary, whose ideals and, so far as in them lay, whose methods, they followed—Jesus of N a z a r e t h whose perfect union with an Heavenly F a t h e r and whose perfect identification of H i m s e l f with men put H i s service on an eternal basis. L e t me end with the same words with which I began. I know that our philanthropies have reached a point beyond those of any past age. W h i l e many of our philanthropists are religious, I know that some of our most useful social leaders and helpers are indifferent to religion, that some confess that they have no religion, that some not only have no religion but are anti-religious, and

172

Religious

Motive

in

Philanthropy

t h a t m a n y o f t h e m are doing good w o r k . W i t n e s s o u r attempts at prison r e f o r m , o u r R e d Cross, o u r hospitals, and countless o t h e r signs of kindness to sufferers w h i c h are by no means e x c l u s i v e l y in the hands of religious people. A n d yet as I a l l o w m y eye to survey the past I seem to find that men of religion have in m a n y cases been pioneers in p h i l a n t h r o p y . I n s p i r e d by C h r i s t S a m u e l B a r n e t t ministered to the p o o r of E a s t L o n d o n ; in h o u r l y c o m m u n i o n w i t h C h r i s t V i n c e n t de P a u l treated the g a l l e y slave as a h u m a n b e i n g ; lost to h i m s e l f and at one w i t h C h r i s t St. F r a n c i s m a d e bodies w h o l e and minds c o n t e n t ; increasingly in comm u n i o n with an H e a v e n l y F a t h e r J e s u s o f N a z a reth treated all, even the worst sinners, as sons of G o d and as b r o t h e r s of one another. A s I rev i e w the present situation and as I recall the past I w o n d e r at times w h e t h e r it would not be wise to r e m e m b e r h o w religious men have pioneered in p h i l a n t h r o p y ; w h e t h e r , without religion, philant h r o p y m a y not lose its p r o p e r estimate of the natures of those w h o m it so efficiently tries to h e l p ; w h e t h e r , w i t h o u t religion the readiness to serve the needy m a y be a l t o g e t h e r unselfish; w h e t h e r , w i t h o u t religion r i g h t p h i l a n t h r o p y m a y not in a m e a s u r e lose its m o m e n t u m . A t any rate these are p r o b l e m s w h i c h are vital to society today. I leave t h e m with you f o r your honest thought.