THE common mode of studying the Idea of Jesus Christ, with respect to Society, has uniformly been, to seek its manifestation in Ecclesiastical History. It seems not to have been doubted, that what his immediate followers thought and did, must necessarily have done full justice to his views; and this has led to the most laborious investigations of the history of the times — a history peculiarly difficult to investigate, from many causes. There is only here and there an individual, even of the present day, who has seen that, supposing we understood exactly the Apostolic church, it is after all below the mark, at which Jesus aimed, and really of little consequence to us, as far as our present modes of action are concerned.
There is certainly no reasonable doubt that the apostles organized churches, for the express purpose of promulgating the history and words of Jesus; with how much, or how little ultimate success, as to his aim of establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth, the past history and present condition of Christendom may show. What the apostles did, was, however, doubtless, the wisest thing they could do at the time, and we have received its benefits. The words and life of Jesus are promulgated to the hearing of the ear. An unfallen soul has been embalmed in the hearts, and brought down to succeeding generations on the mighty affections of those, on whom he necessarily made so prodigious a personal impression; and this development of an individual into the divine life is available for the encouragement and culture of all men. There has never yet been a criticism of those early Reminiscences, well called the Gospels, and the Epistles that accompany them, and the fine dramatic poem that concludes the New Testament, which has done any justice to them, as the divinest efflorescence of human nature through the medium of Literature. When we consider the technical reverence with which they are held sacred, loaded as they have been with the extraneous authority which councils, and popes, and synods have endeavored to give them, it is only wonderful that here and there a spirit is found so free and self-dependent as to accept them simply; as we accept the history of our native land, the poetry of our native tongue, the sweetness and magnificence of nature itself. Yet such only can appreciate them.
But while we acknowledge the natural growth, the good design, and the noble effects of the apostolic church, and wish we had it, in place of our own more formal ones, we should not do so small justice to the divine soul of Jesus of Nazareth, as to admit, that it was a main purpose of his to found it, or that when it was founded, it realized his idea of human society. Indeed we probably do injustice to the apostles themselves, in supposing that they considered their churches anything more than initiatory. Their language implies, that they looked forward to a time, when the uttermost parts of the earth should be inherited by their beloved master, and beyond this, when even the name, which is still above every name, should be lost in the glory of the Father, who is to be all in all.
Some persons indeed refer all this sort of language to another world; but this is gratuitously done. Both Jesus and the apostles speak of life as the same in both worlds. For themselves individually, they could not but speak principally of another world; but they imply no more, than that death is an accident, which would not prevent, but hasten, to themselves and others, the enjoyment of that divine life, which they were laboring to make possible to all men, in time as well as in eternity.
Not in the action of the followers of Jesus therefore, are we to seek the Idea of Jesus respecting Society; not even of those followers so generally admitted to have been inspired by him to a degree one man is never known to have inspired others. Like every great soul and more than any other, Jesus remands us to our own souls, which are to be forever searched with more and more purification of prayer, to find the echo, the witness, the inward sanction of his great utterances. In fine, the truth “as it is in Jesus” is not to be understood by studying Ecclesiastical History, even in the letters of the immediate disciples to their churches, but by following his method of Life and Thought. This method was to go to God first hand; to live faithful to the simplest principle of love; and to suffer courageously and gently whatsoever transpired in consequence of uttering what he believed to be the truth. Immediate consequences, even though they were so serious as the arming of a nation against an individual, and his being crucified, he set entirely aside; he did not even argue against a consideration of them; he ignored them wholly, and trusted to living out, without heat, but genially, all principles, — with simple earnestness.
We have been so robbed of this beautiful soul and the life it led in the flesh, by the conventional reverence in which it has been held, and which has made it weigh down our souls as a fruitless petrification laid upon them; instead of its being planted in our heart as a seed to germinate, and sprout, and flower, and bear fruit, and go to seed, to unfold again in new forms, that when we catch the subject in a natural point of view, it seems difficult to abandon it without doing fuller justice to it. But at present the object is not to unfold the beauty of Jesus Christ's soul and conversation in the world, but to speak of his Idea of human society, which must be sought as he sought it, in the soul itself; whose light he has encouraged us to seek by showing how it brought him to the secret of God.
And what is meant, when we say we will seek the Idea of human society in the soul itself? We can mean nothing else than this; what the soul craves from the social principle, to cherish and assist its perfection, is to be “the light of all our seeing” upon the subject. The Problem of the present age is human society, not as a rubric of abstract science, but as a practical matter and universal interest; an actual reconciliation of outward organization with the life of the individual souls who associate; and by virtue of whose immortality each of them transcends all arrangements.
Hitherto two errors have prevailed, either singly or in combination; one has led men to neglect social organization wholly, or regard it as indifferent; and to treat of an isolated cultivation of the soul, as if it could be continuously independent of all extraneous influence. A noble truth is at the foundation of this error, which has prevailed among the spiritual and devout. On the other hand, minds of a more objective turn, combined with social feelings, and sensibility to the temptations of political power, have been lost in organization, by making it a supreme object, and so have overlooked the individual souls, in each of which is the depth of eternity. A combination of these errors has in some instances produced theocratic societies, of which the most available instance is the Roman Catholic Church, which was not a reconciliation of these opposite errors, but a compromise between them; retaining the two extremes in their extremity, with all the evils arising out of the fact, that men as worldly as Leo the Tenth, and men as unworldly as Ignatius de Loyola, have had full play therein for all their vices.
And this method of the Roman Catholic Church, which is shortly characterized, though roughly perhaps, as that which Jesus refused to enter upon, when Satan offered to him the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory thereof, if he would fall down and worship him, (legitimate ends by illegitimate means,) this method has prevailed over the whole world, Protestant as well as Catholic. Time has been deliberately given over to the Devil, in a sort of understanding, that thus might eternity be secured for God; and by means of this separation and personification of the finite and infinite in the soul, an absurdity and lie have been enacted in society, and have entered into the sanctuary of man's Being.
But Falsehood is finite. The Soul begins to be conscious to itself, and to reject this lie from its own depths; and the kingdom of Heaven, as it lay in the clear spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, is rising again upon vision. Nay, this kingdom begins to be seen not only in religious ecstasy, in moral vision, but in the light of common sense, and the human understanding. Social science begins to verify the prophecy of poetry. The time has come when men ask themselves, what Jesus meant when he said, “Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these little ones, ye have not done it unto me.”
No sooner is it surmised that the kingdom of heaven and the Christian Church are the same thing, and that this thing is not an association ex parte society, but a reorganization of society itself, on those very principles of Love to God and Love to Man, which Jesus Christ realized in his own daily life, than we perceive the Day of Judgment for society is come, and all the words of Christ are so many trumpets of doom. For before the judgment seat of his sayings, how do our governments, our trades, our etiquettes, even our benevolent institutions and churches look? What Church in Christendom, that numbers among its members a pauper or a negro, may stand the thunder of that one word, “Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these little ones, ye have not done it unto ME;” and yet the church of Christ, the kingdom of heaven, has not come upon earth, according to our daily prayer, unless not only every church, but every trade, every form of social intercourse, every institution political or other, can abide this test.
We are not extravagant. We admit that to be human implies to be finite; that to be finite implies obstruction, difficulty, temptation, and struggle; but we think it is evident that Jesus believed men could make it a principle to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect; that they could begin to love and assist each other; that these principles could and would prevail over the Earth at last; that he aimed in his social action at nothing partial; that he did not despair of society itself being organized in harmony with the two commandments, in which he generalized the Law and the Prophets. He surely did not believe these things from experience, or observation of the world, but from the consciousness of Pure Reason. His own eye, so clear and pure, and bent inward on a complete soul, saw the immensity of it in its relation to God. Here was his witness, the Father who taught him, the all-sufficient force to be roused in the consciousness of every other man. When he bade every man, in order to this awakening, live on the principle and plan that he lived on, of unfolding and obeying the divine instinct, under the conscious protection of the Being of beings, considered as a father, — he saw that a kingdom of Heaven on Earth must necessarily follow; in other words, that the moral law would become supreme, and human nature, sanctified and redeemed, be unfolded in beauty and peace. Only at first, and because of the evil already organized in the world, would the manifestation of the Eternal Peace be a sword, and the introduction into the world of the Life, be, to the individuals who should do it, suffering and death.
We are desirous to establish this point, because it is often taken for granted, since the period of the French Revolution, that all movements towards new organization are unchristian. One would think from the tone of conservatives, that Jesus accepted the society around him, as an adequate framework for individual development into beauty and life, instead of calling his disciples “out of the world.” We maintain, on the other hand, that Christ desired to reorganize society, and went to a depth of principle and a magnificence of plan for this end, which has never been appreciated, except here and there, by an individual, still less been carried out. Men, calling themselves Christians, are apt to say, that it is visionary to think of reorganizing society on better principles; that whatever different arrangements might be made, human nature would reduce them to the same level. But when we think of the effect that a few great and good men have had, what worlds of thought and power open on our minds! Leaving Jesus at the head, and ranging through such names as Moses, Confucius, Socrates, Paul, Luther, Fenelon, Washington, and whatever other men have worshipped the spirit and believed it would remove mountains, are we not authorized to hope infinitely? These men have trusted the soul in its possible union with God, and in just such degree as they did, have they become Saviours of men. If one of them is so prominent over the rest, as to have borne away that title preeminently, it is because he alone was sublime in his faith; he alone fully realized by life, as well as thought and feeling, that the soul and its Father are one, and greatly prayed that all his disciples should be one with God also, without a doubt of the ultimate answer of this prayer. He alone went so deeply into human nature as to perceive, that what he called himself was universal. He alone, therefore, among men, is entitled to the grateful homage of all men, for he alone has respected all men, even the lost and dead. When it came to that extreme of circumstance still he did not despair, but said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Here indeed was the consciousness of immortality which is absolute. The finite may go no farther than this. And human nature has not been insensible to this great manifestation, but has worshipped Jesus as the absolutely divine. There was a truth in this worship, the noblest of all idolatries, though in its evil effects, we are made aware, that “the corruption of the best is the worst,” and see the rationale of the old commandment, that we should make no image of the unimaginable God, even out of anything in heaven. Both the Church and the mass of our society are fierce to defend the position, that Jesus of Nazareth lived a divine life in the flesh. Not satisfied with the admission of the fact, they would establish the necessity of it a priori , by denying him that human element which makes evil a possibility. When Jesus said I, they would have us believe he meant to say the absolute spirit. Let us gladly admit it. When Jesus said I, he referred to a divine being. — Jesus is doubtless one transparent form of the infinite Goodness — but he is only one form , and there can be but one of a form in an Infinite Creation. Here is the common mistake. Jesus Christ is made the model of form and not reverenced as a quickening spirit purely. Because other men could not realize his form, they have been supposed to be essentially different natures, while another Jesus would not have been natural in any event. Oneness with God does not require any particular form. Raphael and Michel Angelo might have been one with God, no less than was Jesus, but they would doubtless still have been painters and sculptors, and not preachers, nor moral reformers. The same method of life, which made Jesus what he was, would make every other soul different from him in outward action and place. We do infinite injustice to this noble being, when we fancy that he intended to cut men to a pattern; when we say that any special mode of activity makes a member of his Church. A member of the Church of Christ is the most individual of men. He works miracles at no man's and no woman's bidding. He ever says words not expected. He does deeds no man can foretell. His utterances are prophecies, which the future only can make significant. His intimacy' with the Father isolates him even among his nearest friends. Ever and anon, like the lark, he departs even from the sight of his beloved mates on earth, into a “privacy of glorious light,” where indeed his music “thrills not the less the bosom of the plain.”
But if the world has always been right in seeing, that Jesus lived a divine life on the earth, the question is, what was that life? What was the principle and method of it? How did he live? Did he model himself on any form? Did he study tradition as something above himself? Did he ask for any day's man between himself and God? And did he, or did he not, teach that we should live as he did? Did he, or did he not imply, that that depth of soul to which he applied the word I, was an universal inheritance, when he said, “Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these little ones, ye have not done it unto me?” If this will not, what can teach, that the divine element to be reverenced in himself, exists also to be reverenced in all other men?
But if there is a divine principle in man, it has a right, and it is its duty to unfold itself from itself. Justice requires that it should have liberty to do so — of men. A social organization, which does not admit of this, which does not favor, and cherish, and act with main reference to promoting it, is inadequate, false, devilish. To call a society Christendom, which is diametrically opposite in principle to Christ's idea, is an insult to the beautiful soul of Jesus. To crush the life he led wherever it appears in other men, is taking the name of Jesus in vain. Yet does any man say his soul is his own, and standing by Jesus' side, commune with God first hand, calling the greatest names on earth brethren of Jesus, he is excommunicated as irreverent, by the very society which laughs to scorn, which would imprison as mad, if not as impious, whoever proposes to live himself, or to organize society on the Christian principles of cooperation. Not less fiercely than the necessity, a priori , of Jesus' own perfection is contended for, is also the necessity, a priori , of a society of competition contended for, whose highest possible excellence may be the balance of material interests; while the divine life is to be for men as they rise, but a hope, a dream, a vision to be realized beyond the grave!
There are men and women, however, who have dared to say to one another; why not have our daily life organized on Christ's own idea? Why not begin to move the mountain of custom and convention? Perhaps Jesus' method of thought and life is the Saviour, — is Christianity! For each man to think and live on this method is perhaps the second coming of Christ; – to do unto the little ones as we would do unto him, would be perhaps the reign of the Saints; — the kingdom of heaven. We have hitherto heard of Christ by the hearing of the ear; now let us see him, let us be him, and see what will come of that. Let us communicate with each other, and live.
Such a resolution has often been made under the light of the Christian Idea; but the light has shone amidst darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Religious communities have ever but partially entered into the Idea of Christ. They have all been Churches, ex parte society, in some degree. They have been tied up and narrowed by creeds and tests. Yet the temporary success of the Hernhutters, the Moravians, the Shakers, even the Rappites, have cleared away difficulties and solved problems of social science.* It has been made plain that the material goods of life, “the life that now is,” are not to be sacrificed (as by the anchorite) in doing fuller justice to the social principle. It has been proved, that with the same degree of labor, there is no way to compare with that of working in a community, banded by some sufficient Idea to animate the will of the laborers. A greater quantity of wealth is procured with fewer hours of toil, and without any degradation of any laborer. All these communities have demonstrated what the practical Dr. Franklin said, that if every one worked bodily three hours daily, there would be no necessity of any one's working more than three hours.
*We would especially refer the reader to the history of the Rappites. An interesting account of them may be found in Mellish's Travels, published in 1812; and their history since proves the triumphant superiority of community to divided labor.
But one rock upon which communities have split is, that this very ease of procuring wealth has developed the desire of wealth, and so the hours redeemed by community of labor have been reapplied to sordid objects too much. This is especially the case with the Shakers, whose fanaticism is made quite subservient to the passion for wealth, engendered by their triumphant success. The missionary objects of the Moravians have kept them purer.
The great evil of Community, however, has been a spiritual one. The sacredness of the family, and personal individuality have been sacrificed. Each man became the slave of the organization of the whole. In becoming a Moravian, a Shaker, or whatever, men have ceased to be men in some degree. Now a man must be religious, or he is not a man. But neither is a Religieux a man. That there are other principles in human nature to be cultivated beside the religious, must be said; though we are in danger, by saying it, of being cried out upon, as of old, “Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” The liberal principle always exposes a man to this outcry, no less than the religious principle, passionately acted out, has ever exposed the enthusiast to the charge, “He hath a Devil.” Inanes voces!
But although Christianity is a main cause, it is not the only cause of the movements towards Reform, which are perceived all around us. In Europe and America there are opposite impelling forces, which have brought the common sense of men to the same vision, which Jesus saw in religious ecstasy or moral reason.
In Europe it is the reaction of corrupt organization. Wherever in Europe the mass are not wholly overborne by political despotism, there is a struggle after some means of cooperation for social well being. The French and English presses have teemed, during the last quarter of a century, with systems of socialism. Many, perhaps the majority of these, have been planned on inadequate or false views of the nature of man. Some have supposed the seeds of evil were so superficial, that a change of outward circumstances would restore peace and innocence forthwith to the earth. Such persons little appreciate the harm that false organization has actually done to the race. They little appreciate the power of custom, of disobedience to the natural laws of body and mind. They take everything into consideration but the man himself. Yet the most futile of these schemers can afford some good hints, and very sharply and truly criticise society as it is, and teach all who will listen without heat or personal pique.
But in England there are degrees of cooperation which do not amount to community. Neighborhoods of poor people with very small capitals, and some with no capital but the weekly produce of their own hands, have clubbed together, to make sufficient capital to buy necessaries of life at wholesale, and deal them out from a common depot at cost to one another. These clubs have been often connected with some plan for mental cultivation, and of growth in the principles of cooperation by contemplation and consideration of its moral character. We have lately seen a little paper published by one of these clubs for the mutual edification of their various members, which was Christian in its profession and spirit, and most ably supported in all its articles. Benevolent individuals of all sects in England are looking towards such operations for relief of the present distress. We have lately seen a plan for a self-supporting institution of 300 families of the destitute poor, which was drawn up by the author of “Hampden in the 19th Century,” (who has become a Christian and spiritualist, since he wrote that book). This plan numbers among its patrons some of the most respectable ministers of the Established Church, and William Wordsworth of Rydal Mount, which proves to what a pressing necessity it answers. Reaction in Europe is a signal source of a movement towards reorganization. And in America, reaction, no doubt, does something, but not all. The light here has come mainly from a better source. The theory of the Constitution of the United States, which placed the Rights of man to equal social privileges, on a deeper foundation than ancient compact, was the greatest discovery in political science, the world had ever made. It was the dawn of a new day, which is tending fast to noonday light. It is true American life has never come up to the theory of the Constitution as it is; — and yet is that theory but a dawning ray of the Sun.. The light has touched the Image of Memnon, and waked a music which does not cease to unfold new harmonies. The end of society is seen by many to be the perfection of the Individual spiritually, still more than a fair balance and growth of material good. This idea clothes itself in various forms. The Abolitionists, the Non-resistants, those so earnest against the imprisonment for debt and capital punishment, in short, every set of social reformers, come ever and anon to the great principles, that there is an infinite worth and depth in the individual soul; that it has temporal interests as well as eternal interests; that it is not only desirable that it should be saved hereafter, but that it live purely and beautifully now; that this world is not only probation, and in a large degree retribution; but it is the kingdom of heaven also, to all who apprehend God and nature truly.
There have been some plans and experiments of community attempted in this country, which, like those elsewhere, are interesting chiefly as indicating paths in which we should not go. Some have failed because their philosophy of human nature was inadequate, and their establishments did not regard man as he is, with all the elements of devil and angel within his actual constitution. Brisbane has made a plan worthy of study in some of its features, but erring in the same manner. He does not go down into a sufficient spiritual depth, to lay foundations which may support his superstructure. Our imagination before we reflect, no less than our reason after reflection, rebels against this attempt to circumvent moral Freedom, and imprison it in his Phalanx. Yet we would speak with no scorn of a work, which seems to have sprung from a true benevolence, and has in it much valuable thought. As a criticism on our society it is unanswerable. It is in his chapters on the education and uses of children, that we especially feel his inadequacy to his work. But he forestalls harsh criticism by throwing out what he says, as a feeler after something better. As such it has worth certainly.
The prospectus of a plan of a community has also been published in a religious paper, called the Practical Christian, edited at Mendon, Massachusetts, by Adin Ballou, which is worthy of more attention. With a single exception, the articles of this confederation please us. It is a business paper of great ability, and the relations of the private and common property are admirably adjusted. The moral exposition of this paper, which follows it, shows a deep insight into the Christian Idea, and no man can read it, without feeling strongly called upon to “come out from the world.” But the objection to this plan is, that admittance as a member is made dependent on the taking of the temperance, abolition, nonresistance pledges, the pledge not to vote, &c. The interpretation of this in their exposition is very liberal and gentle, it is true; and as they there speak of their test rather as a pledge of faithfulness to one another, and as a means of mutual understanding, than as an impawnment of their own moral will, it is difficult for one who is a temperance man, an abolitionist, a nonresistant, and who does not at any rate vote, — to find fault. But after all is said for it that can be, they must admit that this test makes their community a church only, and not the church of Christ's Idea, world-embracing. This can be founded on nothing short of faith in the universal man, as he comes out of the hands of the Creator, with no law over his liberty, but the Eternal Ideas that lie at the foundation of his Being. Are you a man? This is the only question that is to be asked of a member of human society. And the enounced laws of that society should be an elastic medium of these Ideas; providing for their everlasting unfolding into new forms of influence, so that the man of Time should be the growth of Eternity, consciously and manifestly.
To form such a society as this is a great problem, whose perfect solution will take all the ages of time; but let the Spirit of God move freely over the great deep of social existence, and a creative light will come at His word, and after that long Evening in which we are living, the Morning of the first day shall dawn on a Christian society.
The final cause of human society is the unfolding of the individual man into every form of perfection, without let or hindrance, according to the inward nature of each. In strict correspondence to this, the ground Idea of the little communities, which are the embryo of the kingdom to come, must be Education. When we consider that each generation of men is thrown, helpless, and ignorant even of the light within itself, into the arms of a full grown generation which has a power to do it harm, all but unlimited, we acknowledge that no object it can propose to itself is to be compared with that of educating its children truly. Yet every passion has its ideal having its temple in society, while the schools and universities in all Christendom struggle for existence, how much more than the Banks, the East India companies, and other institutions for the accumulation of a doubtful external good! how much more than even the gambling houses and other temples of acknowledged vice!
The difficulty on this subject lies very deep in the present constitution of things. As long as Education is made the object of an Institution in society, rather than is the generating Idea of society itself, it must be apart from life. It is really too general an interest to suffer being a particular one. Moral and Religious Education is the indispensable condition and foundation of a true development. But an apparatus for this of a mechanical character, in any degree, is in the nature of things an absurdity. Morals and Religion are not something induced upon the human being, but an opening out of the inner life. What is now called moral and religious education, in the best institutions, is only a part of the intellectual exercises, as likely to act against as for the end. Those laws, which should be lived before they are intellectually apprehended, are introduced to the mind in the form of propositions, and assented to by the Reason, in direct opposition to the life which the constitution of society makes irresistible. Hence is perpetually reproduced that internal disorganization of the human being, which was described of old in the fable of man's eating of the tree of Knowledge, to the blinding of his eyes to the tree of Life; the whole apparatus of education being the tempting Serpent. Moral and Religious life should be the atmosphere in which the human being unfolds, it being freely lived in the community in which the child is born. Thus only may he be permitted to freely act out what is within him; and have no temptations but necessary ones; and the intellectual apprehension follow rather than precede his virtue. This is not to take captive the will, but to educate it. If there were no wrong action in the world organized in institutions, children could be allowed a little more moral experimenting than is now convenient for others, or safe for themselves. As the case now is, our children receive, as an inheritance, the punishment and anguish due to the crimes that have gone before them, and the Paradise of youth is curtailed of its fair proportions cruelly and unjustly, and to the detriment of the future man.
In the true society, then, Education is the ground Idea. The highest work of man is to call forth man in his fellow and child. This was the work of the Christ in Jesus, and in his Apostles; and not only in them, but in Poets and Philosophers of olden time; in all who have had immortal aims, in all time; whether manifested in act or word, builded in temples, painted on canvass, or chiselled in stone. All action, addressed to the immortal nature of man in a self-forgetting spirit, is of the same nature, the divine life. The organization which shall give freedom to this loving creative spirit, glimpses of which were severally called the Law in Rome, the Ideal in Greece, Freedom and Manliness in Northern Europe, and Christ by the earnest disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, is at once the true human society, and the only university of Education worthy the name.
N. B. A Postscript to this Essay, giving an account of a specific attempt to realize its principles, will appear in the next number.
