What and Where is God? A Human Answer to the Deep Religious Cry of the Modern Soul. Richard La Rue Swain
without being converted. This is the case with those who wish religion only if it will give them more pleasure than their sins. Though they may not deeply analyze it, yet their conversion is an experiment to see which they like the better; and when their hypnotic happiness leaves them, they return to their greater pleasure in sin. Or, when the idea and method are rational, one may be converted without being hypnotized. In this case a complete dedication of self to the will of God is trusted to bring its own rich reward in noble enthusiasm and fine appreciation.
Since I had always been a Christian, it was not conversion that I needed, but a deeper commitment of myself to the will and work of God. And as I have already explained, this I did before trying to "get religion." The moral will is the spiritual spine. If it stands erect in its duties toward God and men, the whole spiritual life will come into normal feeling and action. My unconditional submission to the will of God was normal, beautiful, and necessary. But the experience which came two days later should be characterized as a super-normal psychic state, self-induced. While the psychic state lasted my true religious feelings coöperated vigorously; but when it subsided, as it was bound to do, my true religious emotions likewise disappeared. For years, all references to spirituality were understood by me to mean an exciting, nervous thrill; such a thrill as I had once felt. This led me to study the feelings, a few years later, to see if I could determine their value. I found that I was able to hypnotize a man so that he thought he saw God; and then I could cause him to fall down in adoration before his imaginary deity. Or, by taking ether, I could reproduce the glory world of my own so-called conversion. Feelings alone are not to be trusted, for the objects which they often create do not exist. On the other hand, real objects, valid and knowable, produce appropriate feelings when we are rightly related to them. Never have I been in such a state of pain or dejection but that I knew that I loved my children if my attention was called to it. I still demand, therefore, an objective, knowable God before I can love Him.
While greatly deploring such religious exercises as are calculated to produce extreme psychic states, yet I bring an indictment against the average Church of this generation because its religious feelings are sub-normal. The latter condition is probably as dangerous as the former. Even our physical temperature must be allowed to run neither too high nor too low. If in everything but religion we feel warmth and enthusiasm, we reveal a deplorable religious condition. For if one intelligently and fully commits himself to the will and service of God, appropriate feelings will come to him as surely as color comes to ripening fruit.
When prayer availed me nothing in bringing back the spirit of God—as I conceived of it—I first questioned my own heart. And when it no longer condemned me, I then questioned God. As I understood it, to produce a rapturous feeling was God's part. My part was to believe and obey. If only the hand of faith could succeed in laying hold of God the spiritual current would come on with a thrill. A great deal of this sensational religion still exists. It is to be found in all our great cities as well as in rural communities.
Let two errors like false experiences and false images of God unite and they will bring forth a whole brood of errors. So far as I am able to analyze, I always had a perfect sense of God's character. If He existed at all, He was infinitely great and wise and good. But these characteristics simply meant the quality of God and not God Himself. Character without being was like a smile without a face. It was this God behind the character that I utterly misapprehended. My false picture of God's being, of the universe, and the relation between the two was the cause of my religious vexation. If we add to these the fickleness of a sensational experience—labeled, true spiritual religion—we may begin to understand my religious undoing.
I dare say that the subject of extreme religious experience will not trouble many of my readers, but half the population is vexed by false images of God and the universe. These false images are so prevalent that one trembles for the future of religion in a scientific age. As to certain aspects of God's existence, the confusion is becoming greater every day—and there are good reasons for it. Since the masses are coming to have a fairly accurate conception of the main outlines of the universe, their false images of God's being are faring badly in this new world. Many are casting out their unsatisfactory image of God without anything to take its place. Some claim that we are much better off to think of God's character without trying to form any conception of His being. Generally, however, when His image goes God goes with it. Those who have been steeped in religion from their youth, may continue to worship God after He has almost disappeared; but succeeding generations will have little interest in such an evasive God. They will wish to know that God is before they attribute character to Him.
The various psychic cults are trying to find a more satisfying idea of God; but they are simply making a bad matter worse. Over against this, however, is the popular phrase of the day, "No one can possibly conceive of what God is like! So do not advertise your ignorance by trying." This, probably, is the saddest of all.
The religious dynamo is in the heart, or moral feelings, while the circuit is in the head, or formal ideas. If the circuit is broken the light goes out. As long as one's ideas are not discredited by himself, he may get some light with a very poor circuit. But once let him thoroughly discredit his own mental images, and the light will cease to shine.
The dynamo may be run long after the circuit is broken, and the light has gone out. I ran mine for many years. The minister's wife previously referred to was doing the same thing. Many students reported to Professor Leuba that they continued to pray, through habit or sentiment, but that God had so faded from their minds that prayer no longer meant anything to them. Many learned scientists revealed the "broken circuit" of their thoughts by giving their crude conceptions or no conceptions of God. These men have long since ceased to run their religious dynamo.
If the lights refuse to come on, after a while one grows tired of stoking the furnace merely to keep the dynamo running. Therefore, in the succeeding chapters my aim will be to show how I mended my circuit.
After continuing my fruitless struggle for two years I became desperate. For one thing, I had no religious young people with whom to associate. When not alone, I worked with vile men who never allowed much time to elapse without indulging in obscene conversation. Living in a community where we had never seen a railroad, or a piano, or an organ, I found little to entertain or comfort me. And my religion added greatly to my burden. There was just work and privations and fruitless prayers. So it is not strange that at the end of two years I wished that I might die. This feeling came to me with such force one day, when I was working in a distant, lonely place, that I gave audible expression to the wish. Not that I wanted to die on that particular day! I have never seen the time when I wanted to die to-day. But hoping that I might die in ten years, I resolved anew that I would just stiffen my neck, and grit my teeth, and pray on until the end came—which I hoped would not be too distant. During these two years I was very faithful to every known Christian duty. Once I even tried to pray in prayer meeting, but broke down with fright in the middle of the first sentence. I regularly bore testimony, however, to my determination to go forward in the Christian life.
Soon after the time of my deep depression it was announced that a series of revival meetings was to be held in the community. An uneducated old minister, rather feeble in body, was to conduct the meetings. As there were but few Christians to help him, it looked like a great undertaking. This question rose in my mind, "Would it be wrong for me to take an active part in persuading others to become Christians while I myself am in doubt of God's existence?" I had not then heard of people doing Church work to gain social standing. And if I had, it could not have been a motive because socially I already belonged to the "four hundred." Some men were reported to have joined the Church to beat a neighbor in a horse trade or an ox trade—and this I knew to be very wicked. But as I had neither horses nor oxen to trade there were but two motives that compelled me to go forward. The first motive was the hope that in this way I might find God. The second was that I might help someone else to be religious—since other people appeared to have more faith. I decided that the proposed course was justifiable because if God did not exist it could make but little difference, and if He did it was very important that people should be brought to Him. Consequently, I selected a young man of my own age. He was on his way to the schoolhouse with a band of hilarious young people when I called him aside. We were very late in reaching the services because out in the dark