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engaged. And that is saying a great deal, when you reflect that it has been the business of organized religion to stone prophets and crucify Messiahs and burn heretics, — and freeze out the lovers of truth when burning was no longer allowed. But this conflict was peculiarly discreditable because ignorance, credulity, ecclesiastical authority, dogmatism, and superstitution were all fighting under the banner of religion against the banner of truth. And not until the forces of religious conservatism were terribly weakened by desertion, and badly cut to pieces in the rear by the so-called "higher criticism," did this disgraceful and irrational warfare cease between sacred and profane, revealed and scientific truth, religion and science, supernatural creation and natural evolution.

Slowly and reluctantly religion has come to accept the new revelation, the new heaven and new earth revealed by science; and has found new inspiration in it. But the truthloving world has not yet forgiven organized religion for its cowardly distrust of truth; and the great army of deserters still prefers to march under the scientific banners of truth, and still looks askance at the old standards of religion.

V

Fortunately, the theory of evolution applies to the doctrine of evolution itself. Evolution and the explanations of it have also evolved and improved since the crude beginnings fifty years ago. And the result of this great intellectual and religious transformation which is associated with the name and fame of Darwin, is a new, more beautiful, more inspiring and universal religion than the world has ever had before. For, as we look back through the long vistas of evolution, we now see the gradual triumph of great moral and spiritual forces and principles all along the line. We see that all truth is sacred truth, that every discovery is a revelation; that all human history is sacred, and that all natural history is also God's story of the way the world is being created or evolved. From the family of fishes to the family of man, and from the family of man to the divine family of humanity, there is one unbroken revelation of the universal family law of love, of co-operation, of

division of labor, and above all, devotion of strong to weak. And the revelation grows in beauty and inspiration all the time. The kingdom of heaven on earth is seen to be the great family kingdom of social, industrial, and political organizations. Our politics is religious, our business is religious, our science is a constant revelation, our Bible is the great book of Nature and human nature and experience. The geologic books of stone are the Old Testament of that Bible. The books of chemistry and physics and biology and psychology are the Major and Minor Prophets. The schools of medicine and science and technology and philosophy and agriculture and arts are the New Testament of applied religion. The laboratory is lit with a divine light; the factories vibrate with divine energy; our whole life is transformed with the knowledge that we are part of an infinite world, sharing an infinite life, using and co-operating with infinite power, heeding more and more the motto of science and religion "Know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

For I believe the verdict of careful students of evolution will soon be, that natural selection, the struggle for life, the crushing out of the weak by the strong, is not the great means of progress or evolution. When we go down among the lowest vertebrates, we do not find simply the old "natural selection" process of evolution by excessive birthrate and consequent starvation, which Darwin borrowed from Malthus; we also find the beginnings of a devotion of the strongest to the weak of the maternal and paternal instincts. And as we follow up into the higher forms of animal life, we find constantly a diminishing number of young and an increasing devotion of strong to weak. In other words, the great family instinct of co-operation, and, above all, of devotion of strong to weak, is the one thing that made possible the higher forms of animal life and the existence of man. And as we follow the social evolution of man the process is still unbroken, — from the simple family to the larger family of the clan; and from the clan family, with devotion of strong to weak within and war between the clans, to the still larger family of the tribe; then to the family of tribes called the state, with the war going on

between the states; then to the family of sister states called the nation, the "motherland," the "fatherland," with peace and co-operation and devotion of strong to weak within. the great national family, and war between the nations. And now at last, in the organization for international justice and peace, we begin to see the new and latest phase of that one prolonged process of evolution from the family of fishes to the family of man, and from the family of man to the family of nations. Throughout, it has been the gradual triumph of sympathy.

Mr. Salter in my opinion, need not worry; evolution has been the gradual triumph of sympathy. In the higher phases of evolution, rational sympathy takes the form of preventive selection, and tries to prevent the weak coming into existence; and of remedial selection, which makes the weak strong where they can be strengthened; and of ethical selection, because rational devotion of strong to weak makes the weak strong and makes the strong stronger as nothing else under heavens can. So the great process of evolution, by preventing weakness, and making the weak strong, and the strong stronger, and the whole world better, sets the footsteps of humanity on the ever rising and endless pathway of eternal life and progress; and shows us that there are nothing in the world but families; that there is no successful law of life and progress but the great family law of fraternal co-operation and rational devotion of strong to weak. So the industrial family, the social family, the political families of town, city, state, nation, and the family of nations, all lead up, step by step, to the divine family of humanity, of the God of love, of "our Father who art." [Applause.]

PRESIDENT MEAD. Our theme at the Festival this afternoon is "The Brotherhood of Nations." The thought of one of our dear friends of the past has been with me constantly during this morning's meeting -the thought of Henry M. Simmons, who cared so much for this Association in the old. days. A brief time before Henry Simmons died he published a volume of essays or addresses which bore the pregnant title, "New Tables of Stone." That volume is published here in Boston by Mr. James H. West, who is one of the Directors of this Association. It expresses in a singularly impressive way the gospel of this time, the gospel of science as applied to the new problems of religion; and there is one address in the volume, that upon "The Cosmic Roots of Love," which develops in a powerful way the thought which was Mr. Cummings's closing thought, and on which Mr. Salter also touched. It is the thought elaborated so fully by Kropotkin in his book upon "Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution." Let us never forget that factor in evolution mutual aid, self-sacrifice, co-operation, love. John Fiske was the great exponent of the doctrine of evolution here in America in the day when the doctrine of evolution was unpopular and under fire; and in his "Destiny of Man," I think it was, he said truly that evolution gives us far more teleology than it takes away. That, after all, is the great thought; and this meeting will have done the work for which it was designed only if we go away feeling that Darwin and the doctrine of evolution have opened to us in our religious life a more entrancing vision, a sublimer prophecy, and a broader scope for imagination, than were ever possible before. [Applause.]

The Festival.

After a brief social gathering following the morning session, the Annual Festival was held in Kingsley Hall, Ford Hall building, Rev. Samuel M. Crothers, D.D., of Cambridge, Mass., presiding.

At the conclusion of the luncheon Dr. Crothers called the company to order, and spoke as follows, the announced topic for the afternoon being "The Brotherhood of Nations":

OPENING REMARKS OF THE CHAIRMAN, REV. SAMUEL M. CROTHERS, D.D.

Members of the Free Religious Association:

We come together on these annual occasions to recall the past and to think of the future. When this Association was founded its critics used to speak of it as the Cave of Adullam, where from the different churches every one came who had a grievance. Now, that was a very high compliment, because the Cave of Adullum is the most interesting place in the world. Stocks and stones have no grievances; they stay where they are put. In proportion as people have souls and sympathies they are conscious of grievances; and in proportion as they have vigor of expression they give voice to these grievances, so that the Cave of Adullam is always a place to see interesting people. But of course the great thing about a grievance is that it should be a real one. There is nothing quite so uninteresting as a cold grievance; you have got to take it when it is hot.

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