“THE CHALLENGE OF AN INHERITANCE“
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* * * *
The
Anniversary Sermon
Delivered
on the occasion of
THE
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
OF
(Unitarian)
By
The
minister, Dr. W. Waldemar W. Argow
“THE
CHALLENGE OF AN INHERITANCE“
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* * * *
The text is taken from
Josiah Royce’s writings: Thru the long centuries of human history there has
been building a Beloved Community in which all souls that love, all souls that
aspire, are alike bound together in one life…….. We are thine, O Beloved
Community! Take us, use us! Let our whole lives be an offering laid on thy
living altar.
The honor which is mine
this morning brings me to my knees in humility as I contemplate the magnitude
and splendor of these hundred years which now are enfolded in the ages. Who is
sufficiently gifted with insight, eloquence or skill to appraise the far-ranging
scope of influence
It is not my intent to
review the fascinating epic of
This goodly inheritance is
something vastly more than stone and mortar fashioned into a building; it is
something greater than a record of deeds nobly done in the ebb and flow of
years; it is something infinitely finer than a rosary of sacred associations
hallowed by the sentinel of time; indeed, it is an uncompromising insistence
upon certain imperative truths which are essential to the survival and growth
of Democracy and with it the salvation of mankind. This morning these walls are
vocal with clarion voices that seek to arrest our attention, and thereby make
us mindful of the price with which we were bought. Before us they pass, out of
the halls of memory where devotion has enshrined them; and as they pass, their
voices become oracular, calling us to heed the rising tide that threatens to
destroy us.
I would be unfaithful to my
trust, and would profane the prophetic mantle of John Storer, Samuel May,
Samuel Calthrop and John Applebee as time lays it upon my shoulders, if I did
not on this day of high remembrance seek to make vivid to your hearts what it
was our founding fathers felt was the supreme fact about life itself. For them
this church was something vastly more than a mere protest society against
certain theological dogmas which were current in their day. Nay, not so! They
had an insight into the nature of Reality which was born out of a divine
convulsion in their souls, and which they felt was absolutely essential for the
out-working of civilization as begun in
Grant me now the privilege
of recounting the inheritance which is enshrined in this philosophy of life
they have bequeathed unto us.
They held these truths to
be axiomatic and self-evident, validated by a kind of instinctive intellectual
apperception, namely, the sacredness of
the individual who in and of himself possessed certain specific absolute rights
which God has given him and which could not be taken from him without doing
violence to him as a person. They maintained that no group of men, whether that
group be the state or society, had by reason of its
superiority in power and number given the individual their rights, therefore
could not abrogate them. Among these rights was the right to think the thoughts
he wished and then to express them as he wished; the right to shape his life as
to him seemed best, provided that in so doing he left others free to do the
same; that he had the right to associate himself with others into any kind of
government, society or organization he chose, to promote his and their
well-being. Thus our fathers held that liberty was as essential to the
survival of man upon the earth, as was food and water for the survival of his
body. They contended that the only authority to which the individual was
finally responsible was the authority, not of the state, a Book, a Council, a
society, but of truth; and this truth was to be arrived at thru the exercise of
free discussion and free investigation. They insisted that religion was man’s
quest of the highest as the individual conceived the highest, and was not
therefore to find its sanctions in a body of traditions, set as dogmas or an
ecclesiastical council. For them man's great quest was the achievement of
individuality, and that cooperation of man with man was the medium for its
realization.
Moreover, they insisted
upon the trustworthiness of the human mind as capable of solving its problems,
however perplexing and stupendous they may be. It was for this reason that they
placed such complete reliance upon a free press, free assembly, free speech and
academic freedom, knowing that when intellectually honest minds foregather for
a solution of their problems, there the highest good would emerge. To that end
they insisted upon the individual's responsibility to help and be helped by
others within the pattern of this individual freedom. For them the verdict of
history was that man had come to be what he was only as he overcame obstacles
and assumed responsibility for the intelligent direction of his own destiny. To
achieve this they placed wholehearted reliance upon truth as the only power of
might which would in the long run be the final arbiter. The swirling sands of
history had revealed to them that whatever may be at the heart of life, truth
at least was there and that truth, apprehended by man's free exercise of the
mind, would at long last bring him to his highest estate.
Furthermore, they contended
that the purpose of human life was not to preserve or glorify the state as a
superior entity, greater than himself; not to maintain or enhance this nebulous
thing called society, but to unfold and to realize the potentialities that lay
dormant within each person. They had no illusions about the inequality existing
between persons, and that therefore it would be folly to level the highest down
to the level of the lowest, or even try to raise the lowest to the level of the
highest. Yet despite this they held to a rigorous trusteeship of every person
to help every other person to realize his or her potentialities. Duty was for
them the essence of the moral law. It was therefore the duty of every person to
help every other person to help himself become all that he was capable of
becoming. And this was to be done within the pattern of liberty. Never did they
conceive of liberty as an absence of restraint, allowing the individual to pursue
his own selfish way; nor on the other hand did they think of liberty as certain
concessions granted them by the state or society. On the contrary, for them
liberty was the medium in which, thru the exercise of self-imposed disciplines,
the individual was to win his liberation from the limitations of his
undeveloped nature. To put it graphically, liberty was to be like the wide open
reaches of the air in which the bird was to exercise the power of flight thru
the disciplined use of his wings. They never conceived of the state of society
as owing there anything whatsoever. Contrariwise, they held that every man owed
every other man everything. They talked less of what society owed them, and
more of what they owed society Free men are debtors one to another and not
pensioners of society or the state.
Again, they contended that
the achievements of the individual’s hands, talents and genius were as sacred
as his own being, and that these were not to be destroyed by violence or
confiscated by a process known as law. To be sure, since this work of his hands
of necessity involved the labor and efforts of others besides himself, a
portion of it should be used to maintain the mutual process we call societal
organization. True, wealth was in part of social origin, but only in so far as
it was produced by individual persons. An impersonal mass of “social” bricks
never fashioned themselves into a building. Therefore, no matter how intricate
society may become in its relationships, the unit of it will forever be the individual.
Destroy him and you destroy society. A hundred worthless pennies can never make
a worthful dollar.
Therefore, above all else,
they contended that man the individual was before any form of social
organization or government existed; that he is greater than the state or even
society, and that he did not enter society to become less than he was. Society
and the state receive their worth from the individual; the individual does not
receive his worth from them. Since therefore he was prior to the state, the
state can, and even may be destroyed without in any way affecting the essential
spiritual genius of man the individual. If man’s first concern had been
security, he would never have left the safe confines of the jungles and
embarked upon the perilous venture of spiritual emancipation. If, therefore,
the supreme function of the state or society is to provide security, and man
makes this his chief concern, then indeed is he doomed to a return to the
jungle from which he climbed at great cost.
When our fathers declared
these truths as the very substance of life itself, the world was just beginning
to evolve out of a spiritual darkness, and seeking for the light. It was their
fond hope that gradually thru the exercise of this native liberty, all the
world would at length be led to their acceptance, and man the individual would
ascend from glory to glory. They believed that a coming dawn would fret the
inky darkness until the vigil stars would change from evening to morning stars.
But a day has come when we face not an evolution toward a higher concept of
life and its ascending glory but a reversion to an existence wherein the
individual, and with him his fellows, move steadily backward and down ward into
an animality from which he has slowly emerged. Today we face not an ignorant
world as our fathers did, but an arrogant antagonistic world, one that has
tasted the sweetness of a growing liberty, and now has decided to eat the
bitter fruits of spiritual decadence. Our fathers fought an offensive battle;
we must fight a defensive battle, taking our last stand on the issues whether
man is first a body that has a mind, or whether he is a spiritual entity that
uses a body. On the outcome of these issues hang the fate of what we call
civilization.
It ought to be evident that
liberal religion with its uncompromising declaration of the inherent rights of
the individual as the most precious of all realities,
becomes for us today the very life-blood which alone can make human survival
possible. To support and proclaim it is from henceforth no longer an optional
matter, nor one of sentimental preference. Indeed, it now becomes a challenging
crusade greater than any which man ever faced since the day when the first
individual felt a divine irritation in his breast urging him to part company with the beasts. This day calls for a greater
heroism than that of our fathers. It demands an intellectual discipline, a
moral discernment and a spiritual sensitiveness which they never knew. Our
heritage is great; so great that we may risk our all to keep it inviolable.
That we can do it, and that we are equal to it; I doubt not at all; for in our
veins flows the blood of an heroic race which builded
better than it knew.
Here then is our great
heritage! From henceforth it is entrusted to you older men and women of the
golden years; to you in mid-years, the toilers at the helm; to you youth with
the glow of hope throbbing in your veins; and to you little children who are
the great tomorrow! I swear you upon the alter of a
great memory to honor it! I swear you upon the wealth of a vast inheritance to
preserve it! I swear you upon a great hope to enhance it! I swear you upon the
urgency of a great challenge to answer it!
From this hour tremulous
with destiny we step over the threshold of the past into the untried future
with steadfast tread and abounding assurance that the future belongs to those
who follow the footprints of the Eternal in his march to certain victory!
May
“I’ll summon out of
this unfathomed store, great souls who in the midst of hopeless days kept faith
and knew the loveliness of God. Such splendid lives, and still more splendid
deaths, which rallied their faltering age with valientness and left strong
memories to breed strong hopes. For such undying fellowship has power to swell
our shrunken souls to nobler mould and make us true men. I’ll still proclaim
the vision splendid till it strikes God-fire in old and broken heats, and urges
on the world to consummate its dream. God’s unsurrendered; so am I! Therefore,
I live communicate with hope. I’ll light my candle – and I dream”
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