Evening Star Newspaper, February 12, 1928, Page 45

The Story of Civilization —__(Continued from Third Page) _ adopt—or petend to adopt—their limi- tations; one must aim not to convince the reason, but to captivate the imagi- nation. For reason hesitates while im- agination leaps. ‘What distinguished Him was the per- fection of His moral creed and the | nobility of a life that never fell from the level of His teaching. The Golden | Rule had come down from the learned | Hillel in rabbinical tradition; Jesus made it His own by living it down to the final forgiveness that He utiered on | the cross. “All things whatsoever ve would that mm should do unto you. eien so do ye a'so unto them; for this 1s the law and the prophets.” Wits| hsve carped &t the positivity of the | rule, arguing that others may hl\‘(’; different tastes from our own: but| there is an inspiration and a spur to| ceeds in this categorical imperative which docs not spring from the cautions negative of Confucius. { o For to Christ virtue did not lie in Jusuice only, nor in abstention from as it tended to do in the code of | e Purfians: it 1ay in actjve kindness snd mutual' aid—in giving the hungry to cat and the thirsty to_drink, in | naked and sheltering the | siranger, in visiting the sick and com- | forting the prisoner. No wonder the | common peopie loved Him. Who had so | understood their suffering before? No wonder the women fell at His feet in melting devotion; He was so sympathet- ic with their burdens. so kind to their | children. and so tender to their sins.| The story of the woman taken in| edultery s of questionable authen- ticity; but though John alone reports it, it is too congenial to the nature ot the Master to be rejecied ha Be- hind every “fallen woman™ Jesus saw | the man who had lured her: it was, in defense of women that He spoke! with such immoderste severity of the| erotic imagination of the male: an with all His aversion to the physical | element in love He could not bring Him- | self to send Magdalen away. It is this | intelligent lenience with women that | makes Him so fitly the Founder and | Ideal of the religion that taught the | feminine virtues 1o mankind. i As for Himself, He seemed immuned to | sex; He avoided marriage and all family ties as hostile, in their confining nar- | Towness, to His task of preaching a | limitless love to' the world, His mis- | Suh was all in all to Him. He would brand the crueity and luxury of the rich, and redeem the poverty and desolation of the poor. He despised the | scquisitive commercialism that had displaced the pastoral life of patri- | archal ds He carried on the protest of the prophets against the town. If| He could have had His way, all debts would have been forgiven, and profit | would have disappeared as a motive in industry and trade. He would have had men retwrn to the fields and the sky, living as trustful parts of a bene- ficent nawre, as careiess and free as birds and fowers, Those who followed His as His dis- ciples lived in communistic simplicity. | No man mignt join the little band un- | Wl he haa given all his gooas W0 tlae Ppoor. The ireasury of the group was held in common. but one man was chosen to carry it, and was corrupted ¥ it into treachery. Their meals were eaten in common, as a pleasant act of brotherhood and a symbol of their spirituzl unity. CCa Just as this communism had its back- ground in patriarchal conditions, when the family was the unit and source of social order and economic life, so the hostility of Jesus-to the state grew out of sh theocracy, which admitted no | © hir kaig than God. It is true that| t counceled obedience to the law, 4 a man’s conscines supgrior legisiaticn, and thersby estab- ciple intolerable to lny. g dilemma: That to alter in- and laws is useless so long character remains unchanged. n2t humen character can nged only by trarsforming the in- | utions whizh mold it. Jesus never | ubted which horn of the dilemma H~> would take. a!l reform. He feit. must come from within: the kingdom #! Heaven is not a type of government, but a condition of the soul, Kingdom of God is witain you™ If men could outgrow envy and greed pugnacity and mastery, cruelty and pride; 1f they coyld lift themselves out of the jungle and rise to the practicable simplicity of the golden rule, that in fts=1f would be the supreme revolution. by the side of which any change of | svernment or state would seem ridicu- | jous and trivial Let us ignore the. state; let us obey it. and pay tribute | 0 it. as far &s we must: but meanwhile | et us build the kingdom of Heaven in the cleansed desires of our hearts, and @il things else will be added unto us. | and | e | and weary world to the name of Christ. that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children ther, even as a hen gathercth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” o ox X It is significant that Roman soldiers arrested Him. and that though the high | pricst_condemned Him, it was Pilate | who vielding at last to the importunity | of the erowd, sent Him fo tie ~ross 63 a mere fncident in an_epistemological | discussion. It 15 a terribie picture, trie to the spirit, if not 0 the letter, of his. | tory: this mob thirsting for . great great man's biood, and longing to sce a crucifixion. And vet only the most iliterate fool would charge an entire | people with such a deed: if ever people were held accountable for the sins of 1ts mobs and kings, what nation would be innocent? What should we say. then, of the Spanish. who killed more Jews in 50 yoars of the Inquisit‘on han Were killed by the Mosaic law in half a millenfum: what should we sav of the French with their 8t. Bartholomew and thefr_Scptember massacres, and their | 10.000 Communards sentenced and shot ina day: winat of the Engiish, who killed Cathoics under Protestant Kings. and | Protsstants under Catholic kings. to | edification of the crowd? all_tarnished with fratricidal blood So Christ carried His cross to Gol- | gotha, helped by an old Jew, Simon of | Cyrene. On the hill they laid Him down and nailed His limbs to the beams, According to Roman custom, they offer- ed to dull His suffering with strong drink, but He would not. The cross was raised between two men crucified for stealing: today. because of Christ, not | even the vilest thief would be punished | 0. At the foot of the cross s 3 sat and mocked “the King of the and gombled for His raiment 1 away Mary, His mother. kneit. and Mary dalo Of the disciples all had fled out John In all relizions the god is betrayed. in all men; but least of all in Christ. Let us hold against Him. if we | will, the errors which He shared with His time, and His impatient denuncia- tion of His enemies: they are as nothirg: above them rises the central and sublimest figure of history, sound- ing to every age, and in every heart that once has known Him, the eall to | human brotherhood. Here and there | some have heard the call and under- | stood—8t. Francis. Leanardo, Spinoza, | ‘Whitman: but some day there will be more. When all ephemeral theology | has been washod away from His memory: when His simple moral | philosophy. phrased in a dozen words and sanctified by His life, hos come to constitute the only test of those wha bear His name, then the world will honor Him as never before: and every nation His lovers and followe: no icnger divided into warri primeval creeds, will labor realire His dream. * From Christ to Constantine. Prom this height the story falls, and | imperiect men take up the thread where | it dropped from the Master’s hands We ‘e the picture of Peter and Jamcs carrying the glad tidings of the king- | dom to the cities of Judea; of John | the Apostle preaching a thousand | sermens with alwavs the same t “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self"-——and then losing himself, on Patmos, in & maze of senile visions: of | Paul burning with ambition and en- rgr. heaping his complicated theology } upon the helpless Christ, and preach- ing the resurrected God at Antioch and Ephecus, at Athens and Corinth, and beginning in his old age that brave at- tack upon the Eternal City which was to resuit in the conversion of Rome to | Christianity, and of Christianity to | Rome. Through his influence circum- cision was ro longer requised of prosclytes to the new faith: Christiani'y ceasec to be “a Jewish heresy,” and be- | came a religion for all the world. | The poor and downtrodden of the, iand accepted it gladly, for it brought | theni the hope of an earthiy triumph | wita the early return of Christ, and of | an everlasting triumph in hcavs ri 2 ‘The Greeks had held that slaves had no | souls, and they had closed the temples to them: but this marvelous religion offerec to all men a spiritual—and in | near prospect a material—equality, and | attributed to the lowliest of the low a | soul as preclous and immortal as that of the lordliest emperor. Some were converted less by hope than by fear: | the stern Christians announced, with | the fervor of men who are self-deceived, that those who refused the gospel would burn forever in hell. and be gnawed by insatiabled worms; to men of a certain | wisdom, until the persecutions came, it weemed safer to belleve. It was the doctrine of another life, in which the | cruel rich would be punished and the | faithful poor would be rewarded with| every happiness, that won an ens!a\‘(-d‘ i We are | | over from the Mithraic sacrifice of the ! the ‘powers of what they ate. Like every truth, this moderate ideal LR ofiended all extremes. The peovle who | pome fell before the successors of | followed Jesus and listened i HIS evcry | ype aposties because it had never pos- | word as If entranced had looked o Him | cied’ s reul religion, & system of ec for a political liberaton and an earthly | mic beiief sanctioning morals and in- peradise; even after His death they ! gpiping nope. Untll Caerar came the | would transmit their misunderstanding | people of Rome and Italy had been con- of Him as & revolutionist destned 10| tent with an ineffectual mythology that overthrow all earthly kings and estabe | aped the pantheon of the Greeks, per- 1ish the poor in the palaces of the great. | wonifying every function and e ‘The Roman thorities. despite His | force and paralleling the Hellenic de! “Render unto Caesar the things that ties god for god. Zeus was here Ju are Caesar'’s,” resented His pacifist and | Hera was Juno, Athene was Min eommunist example. and looked with Hermes was Mercury, Hephalstos suspicion tpon the disinherited multi- | Vulcan, Demeter wap Ceres, Aphrodite tude that loved Him The priests of the | aas Venus and Ares was Mars. There temple and the weslthy Pharisees who | was no morzl sspect or value in this| supported every orthodoxy in church religion except as it shared in the pre- | and state saw in Him “a thoroughgoing vailing worship of the ancestral dead. | anti-cler: the least sacerdotal and If a man perlodically pald the tribute | most he 1 of men of prayer and ritual to tnese gods and 3 w the houschold genil who hovered over him in daily guard: it was At the outser of His mision He had enough. No eternal beave bltss teught in eynegogues and had referred would reward him for terrestrial virtue, 1o the gentiles wilth scorn (Matt, v.47, nor any hell punish bim hereafter for | ¥17) He had come not w destroy the injustice here. Ail men would descend Iaw. but to fulfil 1t He bade & man after death, Into the bowels of the carth | whom He had cured o go o the priest and Jive there in darkness indefinitely, | and “offer the gift that Moses com- but this hades vouid not be a place of | manded punishment, good and bad alike woula | But. like the prophets, M- unced (find there thelr eternal fat the replacement of wetive v y vain & religion of a thousend gor end formal ceremony )- | ® ingle saint pie” he said, quoting I By the tme of Lucretius th ating half the bListor onoreth me with bt s far trom e sug- t men might worship better mbers or in ¥ " h He n vas W he weeounted wa witsn thiee duys 1 et inade without s " Vared the ety ot as the god of ot w the God of humantty, | and proce Harist of the | killea Jehovah leaders of the | wrme Look at kingdom hrst powste ana | §f our propie balf- ik ' claers Juwid, mud Civat) wiss expedlent that one #CUNE natlirs for e prople AL tangue s wes Ding outside wo Hhat the Hie @wcipler. \hey | howels are " that i order haa gone ), le, fevernsh, stain wirest upon Mis r1e-entry add or lias stomig Carelews snd fearices thiroat wore withitn the | o ‘.,wmu Min goepel of unls !t ey iy b Wul (e prople |1 yrip it st i i now were s hsrdened | gl e constip fed ana cyn Wrbhian st y burned from Wi ws s Wl viswnsry He | brcsme Biter wnd wiied of the firee of bl end now Figoom widch e b hoswd s entuidint on Al carih yoceaed i Mie Gespondent Jaer teachi- | [ weyond 1he giave Lisere would be puritien s e St £i e vent into Garaen of Gelhiscmane He turned o gredict the suin of the | e Jevaralem, Jevuralem, thi | Tk e paonbein snn sonsth them |t Jivthe Jounk, Meother! wd 1) \ [ =i, “ pies m derutieiom with Serned it oul for Mis I the oty Choist came giler and vereal by Wi bwir er waste, | 1 ih TR o g @ Veaspooniul a1l gine s Vgt “ i ' n bl e " oRpng il catd S and s of the hittle bo | ) diave the Worest i tuils ying [ thie soy alter g Motiiers « i ) clranse howel and they de pleasant Fall dures e dor e o Childien ot al) ages Hitte one's e secten the stomarl e its Vaste ACross,Sick Child is Constipated! THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 12, 1928—PART 2. of myth had lest its hold tipon every influential stratum of the Roman peo- ple. The cosmopolitan character of the population in the capital made for the growth of skepticism, for where many different religions exist together it becomes difficult to believe any one of them completely true and the vest completely false; comparison sets in and then eclecticlsm and then doubt; at last, one suspects them all. Cicero and Lucian openly ridliculed the religion of Rome; Juvenal lamented that disbes lef in the gods had led to a riot of perjury, frustrating the administration of the'law, and Caesar. as he performed the sacred rites, smiled to his friends Fof the head of the state was by his | very office supreme pontiff of the pagan | faith; the Roman administrators weve too clever to neglect religion as an in- strument of rule, “The varfous modes | | of worship which prevailed in the Ro- {man world were all considered oy the | people as equally true, by the philos | pher as equally false and by the mag! rate as equally useful.” ok Kk ‘The decay of the old faith left place and hunger for a new one. Religion will live as long as man, for hope springs eternal in the human breast. From the Orient, that great reservoir | of religion, new’ creeds poured into Rome, each rivaling the others in con- lation to the unifortunate and prom- ! of everlasting happiness to come. of those faiths prepared the way Christlanity by organizing “mys- terics.” esotzric ceremonies which rep- resented the death of some hero or god, and his triumphant resurrection. The primitive Christians fell heir to Egyptian, Persian, Judaic mythology, ritual and festivals. For the Jewls! | Sabbath they substituted Sunday, in imitation of the worship of the Sun god. Mithra, and from Persia, too, they took the feast of Christmas, not be- cause it was literally the anniversary of the birth of Christ, but because the custom had spread, in the Orient and at Rome. of celebrating, in the fourth wesk of Docember, the nativity of the sin—that Winter solstice (or haltine of the sun) when the great orb turned | north again and redeemed the cold of | Winter with the Iengthening of every | day. Many another Christian feast was wisely placed to synchronize with ancient holy days: so Easter was the Jewish Passover. mingled with memo- ries of the resurrection of Adonis, the Babylonfan celebration of Ishtar, and the old vegetation festivals that heralded the awakening of Spring. Candles and altars were inherited from Persians and Jews: the magnificent drama of the mass was gradually put together from the chants ceremonies of the old Hebraic ritual, and the first churches were converted synagogues. The idea of sacrifice, common to al- most every ancient faith, was taken sacred bull and the Jewish sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb; nence Christ was the Agnus Dei, the Lumb of God. The eucharist was an adaptation of the old custom of eating an image of the deity, on the theory that men absorbed Baptism Was a primitive rite that had once signalized the initiation of youths into adult life and privileges. The idesa of a trinity had long been prepared in the theology of Egypt and the East: the Assyrians and Persians had known it: the Hindus had divided God into Brahma, Vishnu and Siva: the Egyp- tlans had worshiped a triad of Osiris, Isis and Horus; temples had been raised to Isis and her divine child in all.the larger cities of the empire: and to this day the explorer finds images of these gods along the Danube, the Seine and the Rhine. The Christian faith trans- formed the worship of tsis, Astarte and Venus into the worship of Mary (“the fairest flower of all possy”) at the same time that the Christian clergy took over the rarb and tonsure of the | Egyptian priests. | e ok ox Meanwhile at Alexandria a genera- tion of metaphysiclans was elaborat- ing a theology for the new religion Fhilo Judacus” began by attempting to reconcile, through smybolism and alie- gory the theorises of Plato and the re- ligion of the Old Testament; here rose that doctrine of the Logos, or word, as the incarnate wisdom of God, which s0 appealed to the author of fourth gosel Gradually the founder of Christianity, the most hu- man figure in history, was transformed from the gentle lover of the poor and the passionate scorner of the rich into | Turn Ha:lir >D7ark With Sage Tea BY JEAN MACON. ‘The old-time mixture of Sage Tea and Sul- phur for dark- ening gray, streaked an d faded hair “is £ randmother’s recelpe, and folks re again w7 1 using 1t o keep ' thelr halr & good, € v e P 5 BN color, which is quite sensible, as we are living in an age when a youthful appearance is of the greatest advan- tage. Nowadays, though, we don't have the troublesome task of gathering the sage and the mussy mixing at home. All drug stores sell the ready- to-use product for only 75 cents, im- proved by the addition of other in- gredients, called “Wyeth's Sage and Sulphur ' Compound” It is very popular because nobody ean discover it has been applied. Bimply moisten your comb or a soft brush with ft and draw this through your hair, taking one small strand at a By morning the gray hair disappenrs, but what delights the ladies with Wyeth's Sage and Sulphur Com- pound s that, besides beautifully darkening the hair after a few applications, It also produces that soft Justre and appearance of abun- dunce wh 15 %0 attractive - Ad- vertisement 4 Tongue | i Brown tps prsted on e and fon e [ o connerfot fig o dvnggist for i bottle of Califoving g Syrup” then are o sy rups a god who had descended from heaven to die for the “original sin" of Adam and Eve. The figure of great teacher disappeared and became remote and inaccessible in a mist of unintelligible myth. Religion ceased and theology began. ' Doubtless it was their poverty that made riches seem so sinful to the early Christians. But there was no envy, and much huverr‘. in their hostility to oaths,, to idolatry, to capital punish- ment and to war; it was in fighting these that they dared to oppose an empirp, and brought persecution down upon their heads. Rome tolerated them so long as they seemed a small and harmless sect: but when it was found that Christians would not bear arms, and that soldiers who had been converted to the new faith deserted from the army; when it appeared that most of the Christlans were of the lowest ranks of soclety, that they preached and practiced communism and condemned every form of war— then the governments began to doubt the expediency of toleration. Orders were sent out that though every faith, however strange, was to be left {rce, the practitioners of every faith must swear allegiance to the emperor and sanction their pledge by an offering to the gods of Rome. The adherents of other creeds were willing to make this con- cession, thinking it only a matter of form; but the Christians, abhorring oaths, and secretly hating the state as the source of all violence and exploita- tion, refused to obey t% order, and stood by their refusal through every temptation and punishment. Diocletian KAUFMANN'S SECOND \WNGVERSARY \NAL forgot his usual wisdom, and attempted. by a severe persecution that lasted ten years, to wipe out the new sect; but the Christians whom he put to death for withholding the oath and ceremony of allegiance accepted their martyr- dom with & courage born of their confi- dence in paradise, and many who came to scoff at their sufferings remaincd to pray at their graves. * ok ko Constantine, coming to power In 324, saw in this spreading faith a principle of integration which might yet restore unity to a divided and chaotic empire, and a source of discipline that seemed providentially designed to support and sanctify a dynasty recently established by a ‘serere persecution that lasted habits of the race. Arriving in Italy as 1415 H a conqueror, he won the Christians to his side at once by the edict of Milan, whereby its stolen property was return- ed to the church and every official in the realm was commanded to protect the Christlans in the practice of their faith. When this measure of toleration won him a valuable aild and heiped him to reunite again the empire that had recently been torn into eastern and western halves, Constantine was con- vinced that*the future lay with the Christians: and though he postponed his own initiation into the faith till the year of his death, he announced him- self as a convert and urged every citizen of his realms to do the same. When it | became politically wise to be a Chris- tian the victory of the new religion was assured. It was Constantine that cre- I ated the church. E | STREET 5 ‘Therefore it was unnecessary that bis successor, Theodosius, should pass laws forbidding citizens to worship any long- er in the temples or to carry on the an cult and faith; that faith was ng since dead, and it was quite futile for Julian the “Apostate” to attempt itz restoration: only skeptics followed him and skeptics belleve too little to fight much for anything. Soon the church. enriched with great gifts from fts im- perial converts, became the strongest power in the land. And when the em- perors lost themselves in suicidal strife and barbarian inundations at last de- stroyed the power of the state the Bishop of Rome, called now the Pope (papa) or father of all Christians. quiet- Iy stepped into the vacant place and ruled all Europe in the name of Christ (Copveight 1928 by Wil Durant N. W. 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