Theological prejudice involved in the idea of tribal or national Deities bore inevitable sour fruit in the shape of National Prejudice, which, with the possible exception of Sectarian Bigotry, is perhaps the most invincible foe of human progress. Hard to uproot are these hostile traditions! True ideas take long to realize, but the principle of progress is in the idea, and we cannot doubt that the wide acceptance of the Unity of God will be accompanied by a corresponding abatement of racial instincts, suspicions, and fears. The idea that nations are independent entities will yield to that of Human Solidarity. The realization of Human Solidarity will place the fact of Interdependence beyond dispute. Mutuality will take the place of hostility. Cooperation will replace competition. Instead of the false notion that a nation is endangered by the prosperity of its rivals, and that competition to the extent of war is necessary for self-preservation, we shall get the true notion of a Community of Interests, when every commercial tariff will be erased, every trade barrier thrown down; when every Custom House will be turned into an International Club and every Barracks into an International Theatre. With the old gods will pass away the old traditions and the old statesmen, and the human race will have entered definitely on the era of Universal Peace.
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;—
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.
(Lowell.)
If I am asked to furnish warrant for these shining expectations, I refer you to the Conference of Living Religions, which clearly intimates that religion is now striving to unite on the things that are fundamental and common to human nature. I have long seen, and frequently pointed out, that the Religions of the Orient were becoming subject to the same liberalizing influences as were those of the West. Criticism, Science, and Sociology are at work upon the Rig-Veda as well as upon the New Testament, and upon the Qur’án as well as upon the Bible. The spirit of the East and the West is evolving a common perception and a common purpose — the perception of the Unity of God, and the purpose of the Unity of Man; the mystical concept of the Kingdom of Heaven striving to realize itself in a Commonwealth of Nations—the grand dream of all the ages, bequeathed to this age to realize in one great, pacific, World-State.
Is it a dream?
Nay, but the lack of it the dream,
And failing it, life's lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.
(Walt Whitman .)
It is plain that the idea of the Unity of Man follows on that of the Unity of God. This is the rock on which to build the civilization of the future—the Common Nature underlying all differences; while the militaristic civilization based on division and mistrust—“our unsurpassed civilization,” as an affected writer puts it—sinks deeper and deeper into the blood-soaked sands of time.
Let no one, however, suppose that ourtask is done! Let no one exclaim with the Lotos-eaters, “Here will we rest.” Progressive religion has yet stern work to do. It has to despatch the Ecclesiastical Gods to the same limbo as the vanishing Gods of the Tribe. The Externalities of Religion have to be cut away like dead branches, that the inner life, the life of the soul, the Communal Life of the race, may expand and bear its myriad fruits for the healing and enrichment of the peoples. The idea of Divine Favoritism must be banished from every form of