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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 06. A Small Group of Facts
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A Small Group of Facts
There is a small group of facts that underlie this teaching of certainty about the life after death. A fact is something that is really so. It stands in direct contrast with theory or speculation, with mere logic or argument. A fact is a real state of things. It is something to be reckoned with in practical life. It is something you can put your finger on and say "this is so".
The sun is a fact. You look up and see it. There it is. The theorist explains that you really don't see the sun. For it is some ninety-two or -three million miles away. And the human eye cannot see that far. It's the reflection you see. And he is quite right in his theorizing.
But the crowd, busy with its daily practical work, is impatient of mere theory. It says, "there's the sun in plain sight, you can see it. You feel its heat. You work by its light," And that settles the thing. The 'crowd pushes ahead with its work. And the crowd is right. The sun is a potent fact in common life.
Now, to the plain man on the street, too busy for fine-spun theory, there is a small group of facts that stand out to common view as plainly as the sun in the sky. And one's daily life can be shaped by them as really as by the sun.
First of all, Christian civilization is a fact. It stands out in sharpest contrast with the civilizaton of the Caesars, which overspread the world in the time of Christ. Treatment of the weak is the acid test of any civilization.
Then, there was slavery both white and black. Now, there is not only freedom from slavery, but the highest civil rights for the humblest and state education for all, from the poorest up.
Then, woman was a chattel, a piece of property merely. Now, she is loved, shielded, cultured, queen of the home, and more. Then, children were commonly despised and neglected, when not actually thrown to a horrible death. Now, they are prized and cared for as our most precious possessions.
Then, degrading superstition controlled in the care of the sick, and the mentally deficient, when they were not wholly ignored. Now, science and a gracious humanitarianism combine their best, even in caring for those who can offer no compensation.
Then, the most sordid unadulterated selfishness held complete sway. Now, actually billions of money are given voluntarily for the relief of the needy. Then, there were no commonly accepted standards of morality. The question of sex morality was quite commonly regulated by the fact of property rights, or ownership, as is quite common today where Christian civilization does not control.
Now, in all the lands known as Christian, there is a standard touching the great moral questions of truth and honesty and right sexual relations.
That standard is continually violated. But it is recognized, and has an incalculable influence in common life.
Take these few items simply as threads in the whole fabric of similar weave. It is not possible to state the case fully in brief words. For Christian civilization is an atmosphere filling the lungs of the western world. We are too much a part of it to sense it fairly. Only a Roman, dropping down into it, could appreciate the tremendous contrast, as he tried to catch his startled breath.
The contrast is stupendous. These things, and the like, are recognized as the distinctive traits of Christian civilization.' The contrast in this regard between western nations and those where Christian influence has not yet permeated, is both painful, and is a living exposition of Christian civilization.
And all this is in spite of the fact that our Christian civilization has just suffered its most savage, most unchristian, most uncivilized, blow; and that too, from within itself. It is in spite, too, of the fact that the present day feverish restlessness among so-called Christian nations brings sharply to view conditions and practices that are decidedly non-Christian.
Indeed the question has been freely raised how far our boasted Christian civilization is mere veneer, of varying thickness, for something radically different underneath; a pretense covering up something that needs hiding. This tree seems to 'have grown great until birds find their nests in its protecting branches, foul scavenger birds, preying on human kind.
But Christian civilization is not an original thing. It has not an independent life. It has no roots of its own. It is an outgrowth of something else. And that something else is greater than the outgrowth. The root is more than the shoot growing out of it, immensely more in this case.
If some yet more savage war swept over the world, and stuck to its job longer, and cleaned the whole thing of Christian civilization out of existence, the root out of which it grew would still remain. It would remain as full of life and fertility as before. It would put forth new shoots. And its growth would again largely cover the earth.