128 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



unselfishness, lovingness, charity, truthfulness, bro- 

 therliness as he showed, and that coming to him 

 means coming to our better selves, to the Jesus 

 within us, to our capacity to be and do like him," 

 we should understand him. He would be speaking 

 words of soberness and truth. If he were to say 

 that salvation by Jesus Christ meant salvation by 

 cultivating Christ-like qualities, not the believing 

 this or that about Christ, but by living up to the 

 Christ-like ideal, — if he were to say these or the 

 like things, his words would be strong by the whole 

 weight of science and of human experience. What 

 he does say or do is to unfold the plan of salvation, 

 that curious device by which the first person of the 

 Trinity cheated the devil of his due, and in which 

 such cabalistic terms as the council of the God-head, 

 the fall of man, imputed guUt, vicarious atonement, 

 etc., play the leading parts. 



My orthodox brother will charge that I speak as 

 a natural man to whom these things are foolishness. 

 Well, the natural man has come a good way to the 

 front these latter days. He will not be sat down 

 on with impunity any longer. He is backed up as 

 he has never been before. Time was when he was 

 utterly squelched and disposed of by simply telling 

 him that he was the natural man, one with natural 

 forces, with the carnal, unregenerate, devil-beridden 

 natural world, and that all good things were on the 

 side of the extra-natural or theological man. He 

 was a poor, lost, and ruined creature — an outcast in 

 the universe. But how are the tables turned. It 



