through his prayers, addressing them in the direction of Mecca. He was utterly oblivious of the crowd about him, and the simplicity, directness, and reverence in his whole movement appealed to me strongly. At various other times, on the desert, in the bazaars, in the mosques, and on the Nile boats, I witnessed similar scenes, and my broad-churchmanship was thereby made broader. Nor was this general effect diminished by my visit to the howling and whirling dervishes. The manifestations of their zeal ranged themselves clearly in the same category with those evident in American camp-meetings, and I now understood better than ever what the Rev. Dr. Bacon of New Haven meant when, after returning from the East, he alluded to certain Christian “revivalists” as “howling dervishes.”
I must say, too, that while I loved and admired many Christian missionaries whom I saw in the East, and rejoiced in the work of their schools, the utter narrowness of some of them was discouraging. Anything more cold, forbidding, and certain of extinction than the worship of the “United Presbyterians” at the mission church at Cairo I have never seen, save possibly that of sundry Calvinists at Paris. Nor have I ever heard anything more defiant of sane thought and right reason than the utterances of some of these excellent men.
But the general effect of all these experiences, as I now think, was to aid in a healthful evolution of my religious ideas.
It may now be asked what is the summing up of my relation to religion, as looked upon in the last years of a long life, during which I have had many suggestions to thought upon it, many opportunities to hear eminent religionists of almost every creed discuss it, and many chances to observe its workings in the multitude of systems prevalent in various countries.
As a beginning, I would answer that, having for many years supplemented my earlier observations and studies by special researches into the relations between science and religion, my conviction has been strengthened that religion in its true sense–namely, the bringing of humanity into normal relations with that Power, not ourselves, in the universe, which makes for righteousness–is now, as it always has been, a need absolute, pressing, and increasing.
As to the character of such normal relations, I feel that they involve a sense of need for worship: for praise and prayer, public and private. If fine-spun theories are presented as to the necessary superfluity of praise to a perfect Being, and the necessary inutility of prayer in a world governed by laws, my answer is that law is as likely to obtain in the spiritual as in the natural world: that while it may not be in accordance with physical laws to pray for the annihilation of a cloud and the cessation of a rain-storm, it may well be in accordance with spiritual laws that communication take place between the Infinite and finite minds; that helpful inspiration may be thus obtained,–greater power, clearer vision, higher aims.
As to the question between worship by man as an individual being, face to face with the Divine Power, and worship by human beings in common, as brethren moved to express common ideas, needs, hopes, efforts, aspirations, I attribute vast value to both.
As to the first. Each individual of us has perhaps an even more inadequate conception of “the God and father of us all” than a plant has of a man; and yet the universal consciousness of our race obliges a human being under normal conditions to feel the need of betterment, of help, of thankfulness. It would seem best for every man to cultivate the thoughts, relations, and practices which he finds most accordant with such feelings and most satisfying to such needs.
As to the second. The universal normal consciousness of humanity seems to demand some form of worship in common with one’s fellow-men. All forms adopted by men under normal conditions, whether in cathedrals, temples, mosques, or conventicles, clearly have uses and beauties of their own.
If it be said that all forms of belief or ceremonial obscure that worship, “in spirit and in truth,” which aids high aspiration, my answer is that the incorporation, in beliefs and forms of worship, of what man needs for his spiritual sustenance seems to me analogous to the incorporation in his daily material food of what he needs for his physical sustenance. As a rule, the truths necessary for the sustenance and development of his higher nature would seem better assimilated when incorporated in forms of belief and worship, public or private, even though these beliefs and forms have imperfections or inadequacies. We do not support material life by consuming pure carbon, or nitrogen, or hydrogen: we take these in such admixtures as our experience shows to be best for us. We do not live by breathing pure oxygen: we take it diluted with other gases, and mainly with one which, if taken by itself, is deadly.
This is but a poor and rough analogy, but it seems a legitimate illustration of a fact which we must take account of in the whole history of the human race, past, present, and future.
It will, in my opinion, be a sad day for this or for any people when there shall have come in them an atrophy of the religious nature; when they shall have suppressed the need of communication, no matter how vague, with a supreme power in the universe; when the ties which bind men of similar modes of thought in the various religious organizations shall be dissolved; when men, instead of meeting their fellow-men in assemblages for public worship which give them a sense of brotherhood, shall lounge at home or in clubs; when men and women, instead of bringing themselves at stated periods into an atmosphere of prayer, praise, and aspiration, to hear the discussion of higher spiritual themes, to be stirred by appeals to their nobler nature in behalf of faith, hope, and charity, and to be moved by a closer realization of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, shall stay at home and give their thoughts to the Sunday papers or to the conduct of their business or to the languid search for some refuge from boredom.
But thus recognizing the normal need of religious ideas, feelings, and observances, I see in the history of these an evolution which has slowly brought our race out of lower forms of religion into higher, and which still continues. Nowhere is this more clearly mirrored than in our own sacred books; nowhere more distinctly seen than in what is going on about us; and one finds in this evolution, just as in the development of our race in other fields, survivals of outworn beliefs and observances which remain as mile-stones to mark human progress.
Belief in a God who is physically, intellectually, and morally but an enlarged “average man”–unjust, whimsical, revengeful, cruel, and so far from omnipotent that he has to make all sorts of interferences to rectify faults in his original scheme–is more and more fading away among the races controlling the world.
More and more the thinking and controlling races are developing the power of right reason; and more and more they are leaving to inferior and disappearing races the methods of theological dogmatism.
More and more, in all parts of the civilized world, is developing liberty of thought; and more and more is left behind the tyranny of formulas.
More and more is developing, in the leading nations, the conception of the world’s sacred books as a literature in which, as in a mass of earthy material, the gems and gold of its religious thought are embedded; and more and more is left behind the belief in the literal, prosaic conformity to fact of all utterances in this literature.
To one who closely studies the history of humanity, evolution in religion is a certainty. Eddies there are,–counter-currents of passion, fanaticism, greed, hate, pride, folly, the unreason of mobs, the strife of parties, the dreams of mystics, the logic of dogmatists, and the lust for power of ecclesiastics,–but the great main tide is unmistakable.
What should be the attitude of thinking men, in view of all this? History, I think, teaches us that, just so far as is possible, the rule of our conduct should be to assist Evolution rather than Revolution. Religious revolution is at times inevitable, and at such times the rule of conduct should be to unite our efforts to the forces working for a new and better era; but religious revolutions are generally futile and always dangerous. As a rule, they have failed. Even when successful and beneficial, they have brought new evils. The Lutheran Church, resulting from the great religious revolution of the sixteenth century, became immediately after the death of Luther, and remained during generations, more inexcusably cruel and intolerant than Catholicism had ever been; the revolution which enthroned Calvinism in large parts of the British Empire and elsewhere brought new forms of unreason, oppression, and unhappiness; the revolution in France substituted for the crudities and absurdities of the old religion a “purified worship of the Supreme Being” under which came human sacrifices by thousands, followed by a reaction to an unreason more extreme than anything previously known. Goldwin Smith was right when he said, “Let us never glorify revolution.”
Christianity, though far short of what it ought to be and will be, is to-day purer and better, in all its branches, than it has ever before been; and the same may be said of Judaism. Any man born into either of these forms of religion should, it seems to me, before breaking away from it, try as long as possible to promote its better evolution; aiding to increase breadth of view, toleration, indifference to unessentials, cooperation with good men and true of every faith. Melanchthon, St. Francis Xavier, Grotius, Thomasius, George Fox, Fenelon, the Wesleys, Moses Mendelssohn, Schleiermacher, Dr. Arnold, Channing, Phillips Brooks, and their like may well be our exemplars, despite all their limitations and imperfections.
I grant that there are circumstances which may oblige a self-respecting man to withdraw from religious organizations and assemblages. There may be reactionary zeal of rabbis, priests, deacons, destructive to all healthful advance of thought; there may be a degeneration of worship into fetishism; there may be control by young Levites whose minds are only adequate to decide the colors of altar-cloths and the cut of man-millinery; there may be control by men of middle age who preach a gospel of “hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness”; there may be tyranny by old men who will allow no statements of belief save those which they learned as children.
From such evils, there are, in America at least, many places of refuge; and, in case these fail, there are the treasures of religious thought accumulated from the days of Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine, and Thomas a Kempis to such among us as Brooks, Gibbons, Munger, Henry Simmons, Rabbis Weinstock and Jacobs, and very many others. It may be allowed to a hard-worked man who has passed beyond the allotted threescore years and ten to say that he has found in general religious biography, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant, and in the writings of men nobly inspired in all these fields, a help without which his life would have been poor indeed.
True, there will be at times need of strong resistance, and especially of resistance to all efforts by any clerical combination, whether of rabbis, priests, or ministers, no matter how excellent, to hamper scientific thought, to control public education, or to erect barriers and arouse hates between men. Both Religion and Science have suffered fearfully from unlimited clerical sway; but of the two, Religion has suffered most.
When one considers the outcome of national education entirely under the control of the church during over fifteen hundred years,–in France at the outbreak of the revolution of 1789, in Italy at the outbreak of the revolution of 1848, in the Spanish-American republics down to a very recent period, and in Spain, Poland, and elsewhere at this very hour,–one sees how delusive is the hope that a return to the ideas and methods of the “ages of faith” is likely to cure the evils that still linger among us.
The best way of aiding in a healthful evolution would seem to consist in firmly but decisively resisting all ecclesiastical efforts to control or thwart the legitimate work of science and education; in letting the light of modern research and thought into the religious atmosphere; and in cultivating, each for himself, obedience to “the first and great commandment, and the second which is like unto it,” as given by the Blessed Founder of Christianity.
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS ESPECIALLY HISTORICAL
BY ANDREW D. WHITE
The Greater Distinctions in Statesmanship. Yale Literary Prize Essay, in the “Yale Literary Magazine,” 1852.
The Diplomatic History of Modern Times. De Forest Prize Oration, in the “Yale Literary Magazine,” 1853.
Qualifications for American Citizenship. Clarke Senior Prize Essay, in the “Yale Literary Magazine,” 1853.
Editorial and other articles in the “Yale Literary Magazine,” 1852-1853.
Glimpses of Universal History. The “New Englander,” Vol. XV, p. 398.
Care of the Poor in New Haven. A Report to the Authorities of Syracuse, New York. The “Tribune,” New York, 1857.
Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors. An address before the faculty and students of Yale College, 1857. With various additions and revisions between that period and 1885. (Published only by delivery before various university and general audiences.)
Jefferson and Slavery. The “Atlantic Monthly,” Vol. IX, p. 29.
The Statesmanship of Richelieu. The “Atlantic Monthly,” Vol. IX, p. 611.
The Development and Overthrow of Serfdom in Russia. The “Atlantic Monthly,” Vol. X, p. 538.
Outlines of Courses of Lectures on History, Mediaeval and Modern, given at the University of Michigan. Various editions, Ann Arbor and Detroit, 1858-1863; another edition, Ithaca, 1872.
A Word from the North West; being historical and political statements in response to strictures in the “American Diary” of Dr. W. H. Russell. London, 1862. The same, Syracuse, New York, 1863.
A Review of the Governor’s Message. Speech in the State Senate, 1864, embracing sundry historical details. Albany, 1864.
The Cornell University. Speech in the State Senate. Albany, 1865.
Plea for a Health Department in the City of New York. A speech in the New York State Senate. Albany, 1866.
The Most Bitter Foe of Nations, and the Way to Its Permanent Overthrow. An address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Yale College, 1866. New Haven, 1866.
Report on the Organization of a University, with historical details based upon the history of advanced education, presented to the trustees of Cornell University, October, 1866. Albany, 1867.
Address at the Inauguration of the first President of Cornell University, with historical details regarding university education. Ithaca, 1869.
The Historical and part of the Political Details in the Report of the Commission to Santo Domingo in 1871. Washington, 1871.
Report to the Trustees of Cornell University on the Establishment of the Sage College for Women, with historical details regarding the education of women in the United States and elsewhere. First edition, Ithaca, 1872.
Address to the Students of Cornell University and to the Citizens of Ithaca Oil the Recent Attack upon Mr. Cornell in the legislature. Albany and New York, 1873.
The Greater States of Continental Europe (including Italy, six lectures; Spain, three lectures; Austria, four lectures; The Netherlands, sis lectures; Prussia, five lectures; Russia, five lectures; Poland, two lectures; The Turkish Power, three lectures; France, from the Establishment of French Unity in the Fifteenth Century to Richelieu, four lectures). Syllabus prepared for the graduating classes of Cornell University. Ithaca, the University Press, 1874.
An Address before the State Agricultural Society, at the Capitol in Albany, on “Scientific and Industrial Education in the United States,” giving historical details regarding the development of education in pure and applied science. New York, 1874. Reprint of the same in the “Popular Science Monthly,” June, 1874.
The Relations of the National and State Governments to Advanced Education. Paper read before the National Educational Association at Detroit, August 5, 1874. Published in “Old and New,” Boston, 1874.
An Abridged Bibliography of the French Revolution, published as an appendix to O ‘Connor Morris’s “History of the French Revolution.” New York, 1875.
The Battle-fields of Science. An address delivered at the Cooper Institute, New York, and published in the “New York Tribune,” 1875.
Paper Money Inflation in France: How it Came; What it Brought; and How it Ended. First edition, New York, 1876; abridged edition published by the New York Society for Political Education, 1882; revised edition with additions, New York, 1896.
The Warfare of Science. First American edition, New York, 1876; first English edition, with Prefatory Note by Professor John Tyndall, London, 1876; Swedish translation, with Preface by H. M. Melin, Lund, 1877.
Syllabus of Lectures on the General Development of Penal Law; Development and Disuse of Torture in Procedure and in Penalty; Progress of International Law; Origin and Decline of Slavery; etc. Given before the senior class of Cornell University, 1878. (Published only by delivery.)
The Provision for Higher Instruction in Subjects bearing directly upon Public Affairs, being one of the Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878. Washington, 1878. New edition of the same work, with additions and extensions by Professor Herbert B. Adams, Baltimore, 1887.
James A. Garfield. Memorial Address. Ithaca, 1881.
Do the Spoils belong to the Victor?–embracing historical facts regarding the origin and progress of the “Spoils System.” The “North American Review,” February, 1882.
Prefatory Note to the American translation of Muller, “Political History of Recent Times.” New York, 1882.
The New Germany, being a paper read before the American Geographical Society at New York. New York, 1882. German translation, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1882.
Two addresses at Cleveland, Ohio, October, 1882. First, On a Plan for the Western Reserve University. Second, On the Education of the Freedmen. Ithaca, 1882.
Outlines of Lectures on History. Addressed to the students of Cornell University. Part I, “The first Century of Modern History,” Ithaca, the University Press, 1883. Part II, “Germany (from the Reformation to the new German Empire),” same place and date. Part III, “France” (including: 1. “France before the Revolution”; 2. “The French Revolution”; 3. “Modern France, including the Third Republic”), same place and date.
Speech at the Unveiling of the Portrait of the Honorable Justin S. Morrill. Ithaca, June, 1883.
The Message of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth. An address delivered before the class of 1853, in the chapel of Yale College, June 26, 1883. New Haven, 1883; second and third editions, New York, 1884.
Address at the First Annual Banquet of the Cornell Alumni of Western New York, at Buffalo, April, 1884.
What Profession shall I Choose, and how shall I Fit Myself for It? Ithaca, 1884.
Address at the Funeral of Edward Lasker. New York, 1884.
Address delivered at the Unveiling of the Statue of Benjamin Silliman at Yale College, June 24, 1884. New Haven, 1884; second edition, Ithaca, 1884.
Some Practical Influences of German Thought upon the United States. An address delivered at the Centennial Celebration of the German Society of New York, October 4, 1884. Ithaca, 1884.
Letter defending the Cornell University from Sundry Sectarian Attacks. Elmira, December 17, 1884.
Sundry Important Questions in Higher Education: Elective Studies, University Degrees, University Fellowships and Scholarships; with historical details and illustrations. A paper read at the Conference of the Presidents of the Colleges of the State of New York, at the Twenty-second University Convocation, Albany, 1884. Ithaca, 1885.
Studies in General History and the History of Civilization, being a paper read before the American Historical Association at its first public meeting, Saratoga, September 9, 1884. New York and London, 1885.
Instruction in the Course of History and Political Science at Cornell University. New York, 1885.
Yale College in 1853. “Yale Literary Magazine,” February, 1886.
The Constitution and American Education, being a speech delivered at the Centennial Banquet, in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, September 17, 1887. Ithaca, 1887.
A History of the Doctrine of Comets. A paper read before the American Historical Association at its second annual meeting, Saratoga, October, 1885. Published by the American Historical Association. New York and London, 1887. (This forms one of the “New Chapters in the Warfare of Science.”)
New Chapters in the Warfare of Science: Meteorology. Reprinted from the “Popular Science Monthly,” July and August, 1887. New York, 1887.
College Fraternities. An address given at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, with some historical details. The “Forum,” May, 1887.
New Chapters in the Warfare of Science: Geology. Reprinted from the “Popular Science Monthly,” February and March, 1888. New York, 1888.
The Next American University. The “Forum,” June, 1888.
The French Revolution. Syllabus of lectures, various editions, more or less extended and revised, for students at the University of Michigan; Cornell University; University of Pennsylvania; Johns Hopkins University; Columbian University; Tulane University; and Stanford University. Various places, and dates from 1859 to 1889.
The Need of Another University. The “Forum,” January, 1889.
A University at Washington. The “Forum,” February, 1889.
New Chapters in the Warfare of Science: Demoniacal Possession and Insanity. Reprinted from the “Popular Science Monthly,” February and March, 1889.
New Chapters in the Warfare of Science: Diabolism and Hysteria. “Popular Science Monthly,” May and June, 1889.
The Political Catechism of Archbishop Apuzzo. A paper read before, and published by, the American Historical Association, Washington. December, 1889.
My Reminiscences of Ezra Cornell. An address delivered before the Cornell University on Founder’s Day, January 11, 1890. Ithaca, 1890.
Remarks on Indian Education. Proceedings of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1890.
Evolution and Revolution. A commencement address before the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1890.
The Teaching of History in our Public Schools. Remarks before the Fortnightly Club, Buffalo, 1890.
Democracy and Education. An address given before the State Teachers’ Association at Saratoga, 1891. Published by the Department of Public Instruction, Albany, 1891.
The Problem of High Crime in the United States. Published only by delivery–before Stanford University in 1892, and, with various additions and revisions, before various other university and general audiences down to 1897.
The Future of the American Colleges and Universities. Published in “School and College Magazine,” February, 1892.
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. New York, 1896. French translation, Paris, 1899. Italian translation, Turin, 1902.
An Address at the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Onondaga Orphan Asylum. Syracuse, 1896.
Erasmus, in “The Library of the World’s Best Literature.” New York, 1896.
An Open letter to Sundry Democrats (Bryan Candidacy). New York, 1896.
Evolution vs. Revolution, in Politics. Biennial address before the State Historical Society and the State University of Wisconsin, February 9, 1897. Madison, Wisconsin, 1897.
Speech at a Farewell Banquet given by the German-Americans of New York. New York, 1897.
Sundry addresses at Berlin and Leipsic. Berlin, 1897-1902.
A Statesman of Russia–Pobedonostzeff. The “Century Magazine,” 1898.
The President of the United States. Speech at Leipsic, Germany, July 4, 1898. Berlin, 1898.
Address before the Peace Conference of The Hague at the Laying of a Silver and Gold Wreath on the Tomb of Grotius at Delft, in Behalf of the Government of the United States, July 4, 1899. The Hague, 1899.
Walks and Talks with Tolstoy. “McClure’s Magazine,” April, 1901.
The Cardiff Giant. The “Century Magazine” for October, 1902.
Farewell Address at Berlin, November 11, 1902. The “Columbia” magazine, Berlin, December, 1902; reprinted “Yale Alumni Weekly,” January 14, 1903.
Speech at the Bodleian Tercentenary, Oxford. “Yale Alumni Weekly,” March 11, 1903.
A Patriotic Investment. An address at the fiftieth anniversary of the Yale class of 1853, New Haven, 1903.
Reminiscences of My Diplomatic Life. Various articles in the “Century Magazine,” 1903-5.
The Warfare of Humanity with Unreason, including biographical essays on Fra Paolo Sarpi, Hugo Grotius, Christian Thomasius, and others. “Atlantic Monthly,” 1903-5.
Speech at the Laying of the Corner-stone of Goldwin Smith Hall. Ithaca, N. Y., October 13, 1904. Published by the Cornell University, 1905.
The Situation and Prospect in Russia. “Collier’s Weekly,” February 11, 1905.
The Past, Present, and Future of Cornell University. An address delivered before the New York City Association of Cornell Alumni, February 25, 1905. Ithaca, 1905.
The American Diplomatic Service, with Hints for its Reform. An address delivered before the Smithsonian Association, Washington, D. C., March 9, 1905. Washington, 1905.
Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White. New York, 1905.