| Show missionary N fh M alky A y I 1 I 1 D IQ lu A 0 F K tELI filON SERMON BY REV WILLIAM T BROWNIN K OF P HALL american nation the political mission ary of the world this a mat ter of destiny I 1 I 1 i what does it mean to say that tha t religion Is missionary W what hat Is involved in the very fact of religion I 1 think a very familiar millar fi illustration will answer this question for us the american nation la is the political missionary of the world that Is to say it is and has been from tho beginning the missionary nation in a political sense among the nations of the world this Is not a matter of choice it isa Is a matter of destiny from the moment this continent was discovered years ago this political destiny was fixed for the american nation here was a vast continent possessed by no king or noble or ecclesiastic untrammeled by a single tradition unstained by the greedy or irreverent touch of any sort of despotism no matter it if it did have to be peopled by men into whose natures all the vices and follies and falsehoods of king ridden priest ridden superstitious cursed europe had been ingrained here was an atmosphere mo sphere in which those vices and follies and falsehoods could not thrive here was a world that was wa bound to enlarge the vision and quicken the pulses and kindle the hopes of men here first political revolution succeeded while its later attempt in europe miserably failed america Is the political missionary of the world that Is her destiny and that is her greatest glory what does it mean during the year ending last june over one million immigrants landed on these shores one eightieth of our total population came to us in a single year one hundred and thirty years ago at the outbreak of the war for independence there were about three millions of people nople here since the civil war our population has nearly trebled where have these people come from the vast majority of them have come from across the atlantic from great britain and germany from norway and sweden from austria and russia and italy why have they come here because they were invited to come who or what invites thorn them america how by what she Is struggling peasant farmers of norway and sweden and germany and finland america Is saying here are broad acres acra of fertile land which you CU may have for your own and here Is N a government which may and must be what the people will it to be in III your dour crowded european home the land is not youra yours and the government is not yours come over ov here and you shall be the equal of all other men you may look king or kaiser or czar aza r in the eyes as his peers that is what th the broad broa broadacres dacres acres and the democratic institutions of america are saying the all the agrarian population of europe Liu rope to the benighted pea peasants of the great slavic empire this nation Is saying under the american flag every right for which you are giving up your lives in vain over yonder is freely granted to the least and lowest in commerce in education in statesmanship your countrymen who have come here are already occupying places of honor and trust trusts hundreds of thousands of peasants in the rural districts of austria who are literally living like beasts living in the very barns which shelter the cattle which they tend living without privacy without any of the sanctities of civilized life with nothing an their environment to make them value their manhood or womanhood to the theae people what does not america mean this Is the land of the immigrant it is the one nation of the world which ae belongs longs to the men and women who want w t something better than any other nation can give we americans have got to do tio the political missionary work of the world it Is our only salvation the only path we can follow which does not lead backward and it is the only political salvation for the world W we may establish stricter immigration laws we may demand lemand that other nations do their part but under no circumstances can we escape our mis flonary task we cannot be a free country without being a missionary nation it would be impossible to use too strong language to describe the service which this nation has bas performed and is performing as a missionary of civilization it has taken the raw material t of Eu ropes hopeless classes and from that material turned out men and women who are the peers intellectually and morally and socially of any any I 1 it has given to hundreds of thousands of m men and women opportunities which otherwise they would never have known nearly a third of the teachers in the public schools of new york city are russian jews can you th think 11 what an almost infinite adva advance nee that means from the condition of these same people or their parents in rus ela sla perhaps the t he second wealthiest man in america is an immigrant from scotland what would andrew carnegie have been to today day but for america he lie would not have hay e been at all there would have been no such man as we know him to be scotland in aa a its history of a thousand years or more has never once achieved a parallel to andrew carnegie today this offspring of the peasantry itry of scotland this child of the lower caste aste c of great britain Is ir easily the most distinguish ed scotchman liv living ing la is the friend and intimate of kings an and d presidents a man of broad culture and held in regard the world over on account of his wealth and liberality all that carnegie is america made him without america he would have no existence one of our magazines Is giving us the story of another immigrant imp Impi lgrant grant whose career illustrates what america has meant and means what would carl schurz have been but for america he ile might have been ben shot as a revolutionist ti he might have h been exiled ed but he never could have h ave been anything comparable to what america made him A man whom ge germany amany could not tolerate td lerate for whom it had nothing but a prison or the fate of a coward america haft bat made a statesman of the highest rank a united states senator a it member of two presidential cabinets I 1 I 1 I 1 and one of the most wholesome political forces america has known america has been for or more than a century and a half a voice heard round t tho lid world saying to all sorts of men and women you aronat slaves you are not serfs you aro are not by any human or divine right the subject of 1 I ny iny political which you had no 0 voice in creating crea tint and which you have TIO no power to change you are n equals you arc are brothers every power or privilege usurped today by king n or queen or noble or 0 landowner or ruler of any kind Is yours belongs to you by most sacred right it ia is your right to live to bo be free to have a in determining your destiny your powers are godlike your prerogatives atiles are divine it Is your right to think to know to develop the capacities you possess that Is what america means because that Is whal what democracy mean but religion means something more than that and religion must say something more than that it must say ay to all sorts and conditions of men and women you are more than political oal equals you are moi moie more e than ihan human capacities for gain you arc infinitely more than industrial commodities modi ties more than industrial masters or industrial slaves this Is what you men and women are you are sons and daughters of the living god you may ma a know yourselves in that sublime relation rotation and there Is nothing which you can gain commercially or politically or intellectually or socially which can for a moment be a substitute tute for the sense the joyous sense that you are a child of the eternal until you know that until that consciousness takes possession of you and inspires your life in its every part you can have nothing else as you ought to have it you can be nothing else as you ought to bo be that Is what religion must say to men and women that Is what genuine religion is bound to say that and nothing less was what the life of jesus did any say and has been saying in spite of all perversion and all superstition sti tion tor for all these centuries tow now it would not be enough for america to say to the world of oppressed and needy men all that it does eay say it it were not really fio ag what it says america must make good that is its only salvation its only hope of escaping raping es the fate which has attended the burled buried civilization of the past i the glory of america lies exactly and only in the measure in which it Is doing what it claims to do and what the moral demands of human life require it to do and it Is doing that exactly in the measure in ia which it is realizing democracy it performs its task exactly to the extent that it is true to itself true to its own meaning its own inheritance its own gracious destiny it is not the constitution of the he united states that determines that america must be it is the constitution of man that determines determiner what Am america erict must be america must be what the moral and social needs of human nature require it to be and therein lies its supreme greatness that as no other nation under the sun it possesses possesses the elasticity and the possibility lity of adapting itself to these human needs as time and experience may disclose thorn them how much more true Is it then that nothing ing can be called religion which does not possess this power power of meeting and satisfying tte the highest needs and demands of the human soul as they disclose themselves Yes apat that which calls itself religion must make good or it must disclaim that title here is a question which cannot be evaded which ought not to tobe be evaded adeall are all sorts sort sortland sand and conditions of men and women today being challenged by this voice of religion lonZ Is there any institution or any system on this earth which is actually speaking this gospel of genuine religion to men Is the christian church bearing that gospel to the world Is it stirring the souls of men with immortal hope Is it inspiring men with a splendid faith I 1 Is there today any such rep response on the part of men and women anywhere in christendom to that institution which assumes to represent religion as there has been and is to even the feeble and halting haltin voice of democracy which america has been for a century and a half calf these questions have but one answer there Is no such institution speaking this inspiring message of religion what Is the church of saying and what has it been saying for centuries to the vast mass of starving ignorant pillaged plundered peasants of that unhappy empire you have only to read your papers to know that among that swarming mass of people there are souls which are awakening souls which are becoming conscious conlous of a destiny above tho the brute conscious of rights and opportunities for which the powers that be in russia have never made the tho smallest provision which those powers have persistently arid wid continuously denied I 1 aay say there are hundreds and thousands of men and women in russia who have dincov ered the handwriting of god on their own souls have recognized the divine signature of their sacred origin and destiny in the desire for education for freedom for a 4 hand bond in making the laws which they shall obey for the right to enjoy the fruits of their own toll for the most rudimentary rights of human beings they have seen the sacred scripture the sacr edest scripture in existence in these awakening demands of their own consciences and they have demanded that the external conditions of their life shall be made to correspond to these inner sacraments of the spirit so deeply have they felt this moving pf af the very spirit of god himself upon their sours that they have given the world the noblest examples of heroism that history has record of they have crimsoned crim tho the soil of that empire with their blood content to die it if only they could so bear their witness before the world their witness to this sacred law of the eternal and what has the christian church in russia said tp those peasants it has said exactly and only what the bitterest andi alid most terrible despot despotism imn the corid has known has decreed the christian church of rus sla sta has had and has today the conscience of the russian bureaucracy it has no eyes to see ap ears t to 0 hear hea r no soul to feel the message and the signature of this woid word woi d of the living god en engraved grayed upon life we awakening aspirations and the insistent demands of the revolutionary peasants who are the men and women in russia who are tha the ministers minister of religion are they the cowering priests of its subsidized church or are they those mon en and women alone who by their deeds and their sacrifices ces aro arc saying as clearly in russia as ever jesus did in palestine that every least and lowest man or woman in that empire is as sacredly the child of the eternal as tho the czar on hla his throne that among gods sons there can be bo no such thing as privilege that we WO all are brethren no man and ap institution on this earth earth which puts the smallest 1 ban on human freedom which attempts to silence one single aspiration in a human breast which tells men they can never bo be more or better than they are which makes a mockery of justice and a virtue of submission to oppression can speak one syllable of 0 the message of religion beligio n to men religion Is the message of a limitless 4 hope a measureless destiny an unspeakable joy JO a worldwide world wide human brotherhood the he question of religion 11 for you and me Is not at all are you a member of some christian church are you a believer in lu some authorized creed are you ide identified n tirl C id W with I 1 ali a some 0 in e evangelical church it Is not even the question what do you vou think of J jesus esus of nazareth it Is an incomparably more practical and immediate question than that a question that rises from the very vely vel y ground you walk upon from the very atmosphere you breathe from the pages of from every newspaper you read the very probest pro by which you get your bread and butter it is tho the question are you contributing to the building of that human society right here on the earth whose whoso voice every child that to comes into shall be the we world r ld the voice of religion which shall challenge the worship 0 of bev every e ry man and ani woman wOl nall which shall impossible make it for us not to know higher and our nobler destiny the holl bell est summons man or woman can have or know la IS that which calls to the comradeship the fellowship the secra ment beut of those men and women be they few or many who whether in tho e face of the jeers and persecutions of a dead church in palestine and under the shadow of a menacing cross built by a dead daa d religion or under tinder the ban bail 0 of f social misrepresentation and ana thema today are concentrating all they have and all they are to the tak of establishing justice on the earth and so of making the face of god clearer to the eyes of men and bring ing all souls closer to the beating oi of the eternal heart |
