Biography – Page 2 – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

The Grounds of Our Gratitude: Living in This Country

From Britannica Online: https://www.britannica.com/story/thanksgiving-day-in-the-united-states

This is from a sermon entitled “The Grounds of Our Gratitude,” that Lloyd C. Douglas preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, November 23, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

He gives four reasons for being grateful. The first (which I talked about in the previous post) was the fact that he and his people were alive during such an interesting era.

The second: “I am glad that I am permitted to live in this country. How would you like to be spending the only life you have to live in Russia these days? [The revolution in Russia had begun two years earlier and was still going on.] Or would you have preferred Armenia? [Their fate was uncertain in 1919.] How about Germany? [Having lost the war, they were expected to pay everyone else’s bills.] Can you think of any other country on the face of the earth that could offer you as much of advantage — security — liberty — and general satisfaction as this land in which we live?

“To be sure, we, too, are in a maze of serious problems; but they are not problems of how to deal with hardships so much as how to deal with excessive prosperity. It is not our poverty that has bothered us but our marvelous national riches.

“We are not now worried over the problem of trying to secure a larger liberty, but how to regulate those who would abuse the liberties that have been tendered them with such prodigality. Our industrial problem, for example, does not consist of a situation in which labor has more work than it really ought to be asked to do, but how to give the laboring man a contented mind, now that he has so much time on his hands to fret about the limitations of his job.

“Our problems are serious; but they are all problems arising out of progress, and not of repression or slavery. Any child in this country who wants an education can get it, and when he completes what the state has to offer him, absolutely free of cost, he has the equivalent of the education offered by the average college only twenty-five years ago.

“Any child who is lacking in mentality can find a safe refuge where his small capacities are trained to the utmost. A little while ago, the village idiot roamed the streets, either as an object of ridicule or crude and bungling sympathy of curious neighbors. In almost all the other nations of the world, such condition obtains at this hour. Here, the little child with the lame foot is invited by the state to come and be made whole, at the expense of the people.

“There is very little actual misfortune in America for which no remedy has been devised. There never was a more tenderhearted, more philanthropic nation known to human history. With all our obvious blunders, our mad rush, our almost insane desire to take shortcuts to prosperity (in the course of which we miss much, if not most, of the real satisfaction of life); with all our hard driving, and fierce competition, we are obliged to admit that our America, today, is, by all counts, the most livable country in the world.

“We can be thankful that it has been given to us to spend what little time is allotted to us on earth, right here in the United States.”

To be continued…

The Grounds of Our Gratitude: Living in These Times

by Ronald R Johnson

From the title page of “The Grounds of Our Gratitude.” In Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

He gives four reasons for being grateful.

The first, he says, “is that we are alive in this remarkably interesting period of the world’s life…. [W]e seem to have but one brief visit to this world in which we now live. And it is not for any of us to choose the time for that single visit. This is of considerably more importance than would appear on first thought. Even the distant friend, visiting our own little Ann Arbor for just once in his life, would deem himself fortunate to have arrived yesterday at the annual homecoming — everything a riot of color and a wealth of welcome. He would have formed quite another impression, had he visited us about the first of September, when the place had all the marks of a deserted city.

“The same thing is true of our visit to this old planet — earth. It is of great consequence that one’s single, brief stay here should occur when there is something really doing, something important afoot….

“Of certain generations in the Christian era, very little is preserved. Indeed, there are certain cloudy strips of time, about midway of civilization’s journey from Golgotha to Verdun, so innocent of any real achievement that we really know nothing about men’s thoughts, deeds, or aspirations for periods of three or four generations laid end to end.

“Now, if I am to have only one life in this world, I am glad that I didn’t have to take my turn then.

“Until very recently, a considerable portion of the earth-dweller’s time and energy was occupied with the business of keeping alive and dealing with bodily discomforts. I am not an extremely old gentleman; yet, in the course of my life I have seen common life made more enjoyable. I remember very distinctly when the streets of Ft. Wayne, Indiana (which was the nearest large town) were lighted for the first time by electricity, and what an object of curiosity it was! In the town in which I lived then — a place of 2,000 population — a man drove around in a cart every evening and lighted a few oil-burning lamps. Most of the sidewalks were wooden, and the long planks had a trick of warping and becoming disconnected at one end, to the occasional undoing of pedestrians groping their way along the dimly lighted streets — streets that would mire a wagon almost any time in spring, and from which blinding clouds of dust arose all summer.

“I was ten when I saw a telephone for the first time, and several years older before I had occasion to use one. Such surgery as we had was very crude, and employed only as a last resort — and, if my memory serves me correctly, it generally proved to be, indeed, the last resort of the patient.

“I shall not forget the tremendous excitement that was caused when the first automobile appeared in town. It had only one cylinder and was in appearance like an old-fashioned buggy. The more discerning businessmen of the place agreed that it was an interesting toy, but assured one another that it would never be made practical. My own pet ambition as a little boy was to own some day one of those bicycles with a front wheel about five feet in diameter, trailed by a very small wheel less than a foot high. Altogether, it was a deadly weapon, but quite the thing with all the young men of the period. Practically the whole business of automatic machinery has come into being in the course of my own lifetime. I am thankful, today, that I have lived to see so many drudgeries of life rendered unnecessary.

“It is good to be living in a time when one does not have to spend quite so much of one’s nervous energy in the business of just keeping alive, and trying to cope with discomforts….

“Moreover, there are certain great issues before men’s minds today which serve to make this age of peculiar interest. The whole social order — the world ’round — is in a state of change. We know not what the next little group of years will bring forth, but we know that they will produce some radical revisions of our recent processes of living.

“There have been whole centuries when men grew up from boyhood to take over their father’s farm or shop or office and live precisely the manner of life that had been lived by their predecessors. Until very recently, the average American, speaking of his foreign-born neighbor, said, ‘He came from the Old Country.’ Which old country didn’t matter. All old countries looked alike — somewhere across the sea, they were.

“Now we have achieved an international consciousness — not an international conscience, as yet, but a recognition of the existence of other peoples and a growing desire to see them rid themselves of their old-world burdens of ignorance, disease, drudgery, and despair.

“True: the new knowledge has but added to our responsibilities and increased our obligations, but it is a great thing just to be alive in this period that shall be known in history as an era of radical changes more significant than any changes which have befallen human experience since the dawn of Christendom, nearly twenty centuries ago.

“I am thankful that, having but one life to live, I am permitted to be in the world now.”

To be continued…

On the Need for Prophetic Voices Today

by Ronald R Johnson

“Today we are bewildered by racket and confusion of such variety and extent that we need — more than commonly — to seek counsel of those whose ears are trained to hear significant messages spoken by the small voice of the Spirit of God.”

This is from a sermon entitled “Understudies,” that Lloyd C. Douglas preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on November 16, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

“A year ago [at the end of the First World War], we adorned our rhetoric of gratitude with the quotation of that quieting couplet of Kipling’s: ‘The tumult and the shouting dies: the captains and the kings depart.’

“At the present hour, while we feel assured of the departure of the captains and the kings, it is not so apparent that the tumult and the shouting have died. Indeed, it seems again to rise… from a low rumble… breaking into the shrill crescendo of a turbulent, angry world bent on doing it-knows-not-what, by some drastic process, it knows not how.

“Again, as we look about for adequate leadership in the solution of this vast problem of disorder, we grow depressed. They who spoke of sacrifice in golden words a little while ago, when the cold steel of the invader was held menacingly at the throat of a peaceful and prosperous civilization, have little to say to us now.

“Party politics warp the vision of our statesmen, and ballots upon measures affecting the future destinies of the race are determined by the outworn political denomination of these supposedly great men. In an epoch like ours, the world stands at the crossroads of history. A few years will probably fix the course of the next few centuries. Great crises will come again, inevitably, but they will spring from, and may be determined by, the crisis of our day. It is extremely doubtful if any generation ever faced such possibilities of future weal or woe as does our own, as it witnesses nations being born, ancient civilizations scrapped, time-hallowed customs discarded for the new and untried, civilizations begging for guidance and counsel of other civilizations which stand awed in the presence of the strange demand — with so little of genuine confidence in their own plans and purposes.

“It may well be proved true that the present generation, now groping about for a solvent of our problems — our intricate mesh of troubles — shall be quite unable to find a medicine for the world’s ills. Perhaps the best contribution we can make today will be the discovery of a new type of leadership which will give promise of better things to come tomorrow.”

After telling his congregation the story of Elijah putting his mantle on the shoulders of young Elisha, he drew this lesson:

“I see very little hope of any constructive leadership arising out of the ranks of our people who have been trained to think in terms of parochial and partisan interests. Our hope is in the future, and the clear-minded men and women that the future will produce. Our hope is in the youth who, with shining eyes, front an open door into the new age, with the old prejudices and presuppositions banished.

“If only we, who must admit ourselves baffled, can have the spiritual discernment to cast the mantle of our generation upon the shoulders of dynamic leaders, calling them out of their little labors into larger action, we shall have done our part. It may be that this is all that is now possible for us to do toward the solution of our present problems.

“Four years have ended the work of four centuries — and there is no going back. ‘Finis’ has been written at the end of a long episode, and there is no way by which we can knit together again the strands that are severed forever.

Raising his eyes toward the balcony, where the students liked to sit, he said, “Our hope is in you upon whom the mantle falls; and our obligation is to make you understand the nature of your trust.

“We do well who, in these turbulent days, listen for the small voice that stills our hearts — and leads us, once more, into the paths of righteousness.”

On Hearing the Voice of God

by Ronald R Johnson

From the title page of “Understudies.” In Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

“Doubtless God has often spoken to men who, though they had the capacity for understanding the message, balked at the heavy cost of obedience. It is a matter of record that many men who, having announced their receipt of such a message and their purpose to execute its demands, have lacked the necessary spiritual energy or physical courage to see it through.”

This is from a sermon about Elijah hearing the still small voice of God after expecting to hear it in the earthquake, wind, and fire. The sermon is entitled “Understudies,” and it was preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on November 16, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.) You’ll have to overlook the exclusive use of the word “men” instead of “people” throughout this sermon. It was 1919, folks.

Douglas continues:

“Many men, like Terah of Ur-Casdim, have left all to seek a promised land and, again like Terah, have stopped at Haran to rest awhile — where the vision paled, and conviction weakened, and the adventure closed.

“Much more often, however, men of sterling worth, who might have become agencies for the transmission of Divine messages — men brilliantly endowed by Nature with rare gifts of acumen and courage — have never trained their hearing to receive supernal direction. Like the casual layman waiting in the telegraph office, hearing nothing but a bewildering sputter of clicking magnets, while the trained ear of the operator is learning, from this same confused blur of metallic sounds, astounding facts about the lives of men and movements of nations — thus do many worthy and capable men actually hear messages which they are totally unable to comprehend. Their minds have been habitually set upon other things. Their training has been experienced at the hands of other forces.

“Again, there are resourceful men who become aware of supernal messages when certain… spectacular events are going forward in the world. Let the nations go to war and almost inextricably tangle themselves into one squirming mass of hatred and cruelty, and almost any man who thinks at all begins to wonder what eternal significance resides in the event — and questions God for light on the problem.

“Through the earthquake, wind, and fire, the average man who permits himself to think at all, fancies he hears — or reflects that he really ought to hear — some tidings from the Central Energy. But it is only the few who, after the storm has cleared — the earthquake over, the fire quenched, the wind exhausted — have the spiritual capacity to hear the small voice that stills them into a serene and confident faith that God is speaking.

“Those few constitute the prophetic college of the era. Whatever light shines upon the path of men, shines through them. Whatever means are resolved upon to find a new and better way to walk in, are of their devising.”

Douglas is speaking to an audience of professors and administrators from the University of Michigan, with students filling the balcony. There are also prominent business leaders in the pews: a mix of town and gown. But the crux of his message is for the students — “the understudies.” I’ll tell you about that in my next post.

Greatness Isn’t Cheap

by Ronald R Johnson

From the title page of “Buried Treasure.” In Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field which, when a man found, he concealeth; and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field” (Matthew 13:44).”

This is the text of a sermon entitled “Buried Treasure,” which Lloyd C. Douglas preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on November 9, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

In this sermon, Douglas emphasized the following point: in order to get the treasure, the buyer must also purchase the field. Douglas says:

“Have you not sometimes coveted an extraordinary gift in the character of a friend and wished it were yours — his poise, for example [there’s that word again], his absolutely perfect balance that keeps him strong and sound and fine and fair, regardless of his circumstances? You often think it would be, indeed, a great blessing to your turbulent and restless life to possess an anchorage like that; if you could have such perfect equilibrium, it would be like discovering a rich treasure.

“Well, doubtless you can have it; but there are a few conditions attached to the possession of such a grace of character — long, patient, unfailing diligence in dealing dispassionately and calmly with difficulties; practicing your science consistently through the petty irritations of daily routine, as earnestly as under the heavy strains that all but crush. One does not take this treasure without accepting also the field in which it lies.

“Sometimes young people have been known to envy an influential man his gift of leadership. Just to possess his exceptional ability to direct the thought and action of large numbers of people — that [ability], they think, would constitute the most desirable acquisition in life. Yet, one does not take that gift of leadership without accepting also the somewhat drastic conditions which invariably accompany it — the almost complete abrogation of most of the simple yet exceedingly precious joys of private life; the sheer loneliness of it; the criticisms that bark and snap at it; the ridicule, the reviling, the invective. He who takes this treasure must also contract to take the field in which he found it; and a jolly rough piece of land it is, too, if they are to be believed who hold deeds to such property.

“Says another of his friend whose happiness seems to overflow continually, and [who] appears to be going through life on the crest of a wave that never dips or breaks, ‘Oh, if I could have that man’s radiant personality! I should give anything to be like that!’ But it just happens that people who have extraordinary capacities for happiness and good humor, who never seem to take anything very seriously: ah, but how they can suffer with a suffering that nobody is able to understand but other people of the same temperament.

“Says one, ‘I would give ten years of my life to have been able to write that song.’ Ten years of your life! That would be getting off rather easily. Before he was able to write that song, this man had to have his heart broken, and everything humanly desirable swept out of his life.”

Regarding the scripture text, Douglas says, “There are many bridges to be burned as one makes toward the Kingdom. Jesus states the case very simply, but very clearly, in this parable. Here is the discoverer, in the very ‘ecstasy of eagerness’ over his find. Here is the treasure, a chest of potential happiness, which may possibly be his if the right processes are pursued. And here is the field, which he does not want at all, but must take if he is to claim the treasure. And if he does take the field, it will cost him everything.

“All that he has gathered up in his life until now must be sacrificed. His little home, doubtless fraught with many associations very dear — it must go.

“It is just at this point that many a finding man who has stumbled upon the Kingdom hidden in a field fails to meet the conditions governing its possession.

“Certain old friendships hold him back, friendships with men who by their cynicism and unfaiths make it impossible for the discoverer of the treasure to claim his find. And he knows that if he is to own this treasure, he must cut loose from the old ties, the old influence, the old environment.

“It means a very great deal for him to dispose of everything, just to be able to negotiate for this field that he doesn’t want.

“It is at this point, I say, that most people miss their chance of achieving the Kingdom of Heaven in their hearts.

“The Master recognized the difficulty in the way. Indeed, he sometimes called special attention to it when he feared some zealous convert was about to take a step too long for him. Jesus never tried to induce anybody to accept the Kingdom of Heaven on easy terms. He never proposed an excursion rate, or a short cut, or a remnant sale.

“Intuitive psychologist that he was, the Lord knew that anybody who achieved the Kingdom of Heaven in his heart without giving anything for it would never realize any happiness in its possession. And following the logic of this bargain to its finest conclusion, he argues that if the Kingdom is to produce the highest degree of happiness, the discoverer must be willing to surrender all that he has, and take not only the treasure but the field as well.”

Some Controversial Comments on a Biblical Hero

by Ronald R Johnson

During the thirty years he was a pastor before becoming a bestselling novelist, Lloyd Douglas said some controversial things from the pulpit. Here is something he said about the prophet Daniel in the Old Testament. This is from a sermon entitled “Human Engineering,” which Douglas preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on November 2, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

“Doubtless there were many in those days [of the remote past] who ran about shrieking woes and generating them as they ran,” Douglas says; “and others foolishly whispering ‘Peace, peace,’ when there was no peace, as they and everybody else well knew. We do not hear much about them, the panic-driven, the fear-lashed, self-deceived — history has forgotten that they lived.

“But it holds in fond remembrance the outstanding deeds of a few men and women, of each perilous hour in human annals, who walked serenely, confidently, fearlessly in the midst of grave distresses and disasters.”

And here’s the controversial part: “I do not know that Daniel needs to be found alive in the morning with the lions. They who collected the fragments of his story and wrought a mosaic of it, centuries after, thought it better so, for they were temperamentally opposed to the idea of having a hero eaten in the last chapter.”

A little later he continues this thought: “I do not know whether Daniel spent a night unhurt among the lions or not. Maybe so! Stranger things have happened right before our own eyes. Maybe not! Probably not! But history gives us a Daniel nevertheless, who was quite capable of saying to King Darius that, rather than move his wheel one point nor’-nor’-east of the course he had laid, he would go to the lions — come what may!”

Why would a preacher of the gospel consider it possible — even “probable” — that Daniel was eaten by the lions? Because he’s encouraging his congregation to do what’s right even if they must face dire consequences; and Douglas thought that biblical miracles like Daniel’s made modern believers unwilling to face such consequences. Douglas thought that, sometimes, it was more important to take a heroic stand and lose than to expect God to deliver us from all harm.

“Of course,” he said, “there is a glamor of myth enhaloing these… figures whose names have been cut indelibly on the monuments to heroism” even though, “in their own generations,” they were “very much as we ourselves are. Doubtless the epic poems which pay them homage are subject to heavy discount; and the legends which recite their adventures are more ornamental than serviceable; but down underneath the rhetorical palms and laurels, there was once a vital fact, a dynamic force that motivated a life so effectively the world was unable to forget.”

This was the thing Douglas wanted his congregation to find: this motivation that would see them through hard times. It could be found, he thought, in the teachings of Jesus. But in order for his people to get to it, Douglas felt it was necessary to acknowledge that the age-old reliance on miraculous deliverance would not help them in their hour of need.

A Message for Today (Through a Voice from the Past)

by Ronald R Johnson

From the title page of “Human Engineering.” In Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

“It has been our open boast that we are a forward-looking people. That is well for us. For we have come into new times, not precisely such times as we predicted who, a year ago, forecast a new heaven and a new earth as a reward for our experiences, but undeniably new times, distinguished by unusual conditions in the whole social order.”

This is from a sermon by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on November 2, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

His opening sentence refers to his own parishioners (the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor). The phrase “new times” refers to the fact that the First World War had ended the previous year, and there were still a lot of loose ends to tie up.

Douglas explains: “America in particular grapples with a group of problems which, while they have undoubtedly been in the making for some time, only now begin to stand forth in high relief against a restless, shifting background…” Because this shifting background “formerly constituted all that was normal and supposedly permanent in life,” this new set of problems are “challenging us either to solve them with promptness and firmness or crumple up under them.”

The conditions he’s describing would set the stage for the Second World War. A lot of people were smart enough to see that, but that doesn’t mean they knew what to do about it.

If you feel like we’re going through difficult times now, you may be interested in Douglas’s advice. He didn’t know what was coming, but he had sensible thoughts about it all.

“Somewhere,” he says, “there is a solvent of the vexing problem – that much is sure.”

Really? We may not think so, but he did, because he believed that God was ultimately in charge.

“He who has ordered the destinies of the race,” continues Douglas, “knows the way out of this trouble…. And until that sure answer to our present need has been proposed and recognized as the right exodus from our difficulties, it will be well for us to practice a mental poise. For however we are to help in reducing our social and economic chaos to normal order, it is reasonably certain we shall not be of much assistance while in a state of stampede or nervous panic.

“Without presaging any more gloom than is good for us to anticipate, let us not any longer try to deceive ourselves about the current conditions in American life – a social fabric badly rent, barely able to stand the strain of the loom – a warp too heavily mixed with easy riches, quickly won; a woof of accumulated discontent due to hard knocks and memorable injustices. Let us not minify in our own minds… the obvious deduction that we are entering upon a period in our American development which is to test our patience, assay our courage, and try our faith.

“Not knowing what to pray for today, perhaps we will do well to pray for steadiness…”

That was one of Douglas’s main themes: poise. I’ve talked about this in a previous post. He believed that one of the primary benefits of Christian life was that it would stabilize us, allowing us to navigate rough seas without capsizing.

In the rest of this sermon, Douglas would tell the story of Nehemiah rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity. But this opening section is significant because it shows how he perceived the social and political conditions of his time, and that, even then, he was prescribing the very things that Dean Harcourt would illustrate in his novel Green Light: stability and poise.

St. Francis of Assisi’s Dad

by Ronald R Johnson

From the website of Trinity Episcopal Church of downtown Toledo, Ohio: https://www.trinitytoledo.org/the-feast-day-of-st-francis-of-assisi/

A quotable quote from Lloyd Douglas…

This is from a sermon entitled “The Pearl-Trader” which he preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on October 26, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

He’s talking about the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus and asked what he might do “to make his name forever deathless.” In Douglas’s words, Jesus told him that

…if he wanted to immortalize himself, let him consecrate his fortune to the uplift of his downtrodden countrymen, and then follow. He thought it over and decided that he couldn’t do it. It would have made a great story, if he had done it.

Francis of Assisi did it, and his name will be familiar to the chisels of sculptors, and his face will be a model for artists, and his sacrifice a theme for inspirational poets, long after most of the kings’ names have been forgotten.

His wealthy and princely father cautioned him against his rash deed. Perhaps you remember his father’s name. I don’t.

Does It Cost Too Much?

by Ronald R Johnson

From the title page of “The Pearl-Trader.” In Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

In my last post I showed how Lloyd Douglas, in 1919, was already moving in the direction his imagination would take him a decade later with his bestselling novels. I’ve been talking about a sermon entitled “The Pearl-Trader” which he preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on October 26, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

In this sermon he had his congregation imagine a pearl that had special powers (just like Christ’s garment would do in Douglas’s novel, The Robe). Those powers were the kinds of things that the Holy Spirit would do in the life of anyone who followed Jesus, but Douglas helped his congregation to see its effects more vividly by imagining them as properties of an object (in this case, a Super Pearl). As I mentioned in the previous post, this was similar to the plot devices Douglas would use later in his bestselling novels.

But he also anticipated his novels in another way: by imagining the main character (in this case, the Pearl Merchant) raising objections (the very ones that his listeners might be thinking of) and seriously considering them. In this sermon, and in his future novels, Douglas would seek common ground with his listeners (and later his readers), then explain why he thought those objections could be overcome. In this sermon, the Pearl Merchant wants the Super Pearl with its special powers, but the seller’s price is unbelievably high: he insists on the Merchant’s entire pearl collection.

Again, Douglas uses his imagination, but this time he does it in order to lead his listeners through the merchant’s thought process:

“I think I see this man deciding that he absolutely can’t make the trade – for several reasons. He had come to be very fond of hearing himself called a ‘skeptic.’ If he acquired the wonderful pearl, he would have to leave off all his bumptious sophistries and confess to his old friends that he had really come to a decision about a few things, and that he had turned in his stock of doubts for a serene and simple-hearted faith.

“That would be very difficult. I doubt not many a man has gone through life fairly bracing himself against the tug of his own spirit, just because he enjoyed the sensation of having certain solicitous friends and relatives worrying over his soul’s salvation. He fears that once he relieves them of this anxiety, they will lose all interest in him.

“And he may have good cause to think so. The sheep that is out in the dark, fast in a barbed-wire fence, is always a great deal more interesting than the sheep calmly ruminating in the fold. You may recall how the elder brother of the Prodigal felt on that point. Not once had they declared a holiday in his honor; but when this scapegrace tatterdemalion comes home, the whole place is upset. Nor can the Prodigal expect that the general stir caused by his return is going to last forever. After a while, he will become a familiar figure, and people will either forget him, or he will have to distinguish himself for something else besides his erstwhile profligacy.

“The pearl-trader knew all this. And he disliked to give up his ‘Agnostic pearl.’ Moreover, he had grown fond of hearing himself described as a just man. ‘Ah, yes,’ they would say, ‘he’s fair, but a mighty hard customer when it comes to transgressions. Let his enemies look out for themselves. A loyal friend, but a firm and uncompromising judge.’

He hesitated to have any man say, ‘What’s come over the pearl-trader? Getting soft, I should say.’ He hesitated, too, before the idea of loosening up some of his static wealth. It was a satisfaction just to own property. He knew he would be much more interesting to the public as a man of riches than as a philanthropist. Some of his friends would think him foolish.

“I can see him confiding his dilemma to a trusted friend, and I can hear that friend saying, ‘If you don’t want to exchange your entire stock of pearls for this one jewel, why not bargain for a part of it? Let the owner cut it, as he would a diamond.’

“‘No, my friend,’ responds the pearl-trader sadly. ‘One does not cut pearls. I must take it or leave it, just as it stands.'”

What Douglas does in this sermon is the very thing he will do again and again in his novels: he will lead his readers through the main character’s thought process, acknowledging his readers’ objections but showing why the main character decides, ultimately, to do the audacious thing he’s been contemplating. Here is how the sermon ends:

“And so, at length, [the pearl-merchant] carried his precious pearls to the city and spread them out upon a table and received in exchange this most beautiful and wonderful pearl in all the world. No longer did he wander about in quest of goodly pearls, now that he had found the best.

“It is after this manner, said Jesus, that the Kingdom of Heaven is realized in the heart of an individual. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

“Which is another way of saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is no easy thing to gain; but that, when a man has the calm discernment to realize its value, he will give up everything in this world to possess it, as they who have known its peace and happiness have testified for ages, by the splendor of their faith and the immortality of their ever-shining deeds.”

The Super Pearl

by Ronald R Johnson

In my last post I began talking about how Lloyd Douglas indulged his imagination in a sermon about one of Christ’s parables. The title of his sermon was “The Pearl-Trader,” and he delivered it at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on October 26, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

He imagined the Pearl Merchant having in his collection a pearl from Athens (his Agnostic pearl), another from Rome (the Justice pearl), and another from Alexandria (his Prosperity pearl) – all of them representing attitudes that were probably prevalent among the people in Douglas’s church.

Still using the imagination for which he would later become famous, Douglas described the merchant coming upon a “Super Pearl” that outshone any of the others in his collection. As Douglas says, the merchant “learned that whoever possessed this remarkable jewel would inevitably be strangely influenced by it. First of all, the wearer of this pearl would find his mind set at rest about the inexplicable mysteries of life. He would become invested with a simple, trustful, childlike faith in the reality of an unseen power leading him on by paths which he had previously found hard, but now quite easy to travel. In the presence of these mysterious forces, he would find himself saying, ‘I am persuaded. No; I cannot explain, but I am persuaded!’

“Again, this super-pearl, while it permitted its wearer to deal justly, forever urged him to interpret Justice with Charity, and temper Justice with Mercy. The ‘quid pro quo’ would fail any longer to satisfy the demands of him who wore this pearl. His measure would henceforth be heaped up, pressed down, and running over. His judgments would henceforth be warped in favor of the defendant. He would forgive and forbear and entreat, where previously he had balanced the scales in a spirit of absolute justice, regardless of the circumstances.

“And again, this pearl had the peculiar quality of making its owner ashamed of riches unless they were working for the common good. No man could wear this pearl and pile up wealth for the sake of satisfying his own love of ease. He might be rich, but the riches must not rust. He might be learned, but the learning would have to function, somehow, in the interest of human happiness. He might be famous, but he would have to find and rest his fame on the value of his investment… in the life of the race.”

Do you see what Douglas is doing? He’s anticipating the kind of thing he will do later in The Robe: he’s taking a physical object and asking his listeners to imagine that it produces the kinds of results that are normally produced by the Holy Spirit. He will also do something like this in Magnificent Obsession and Forgive Us Our Trespasses, although in those novels he will treat certain passages of scripture as though they have magical qualities. In all of these cases, he will base entire novels on the insight he’s developing here in this sermon: that people in the modern secular world are much more likely to understand what the Holy Spirit can do in their lives if they are asked to imagine an object endowed with magical properties. To modern sensibilities, that makes more sense, because people can imagine this magical object doing something in their lives, whereas the Holy Spirit’s work requires their cooperation, and they may not want to cooperate. Douglas is saying to his people: “Let’s play a game. Let’s imagine a ‘Super Pearl’ that can change your life. All you have to do is wear it.”

Part of Douglas’s genius was his ability to demonstrate, in very specific ways, how this magical pearl would improve their lives. For the skeptics in his audience, he described how the Spirit gives us a sort of “inner knowing”; it’s not about proving anything but about having a peace and confidence that aren’t based on proof. For the “Justice Only” people in the crowd, he tries to show that “Justice Tempered with Mercy” will lead to a more satisfying moral code. For the “Prosperity” people in his congregation, he argues that the real adventure is not only to acquire wealth but to do it in a way that benefits others.

It is, of course, quite possible for Douglas’s listeners to reject what he’s saying. But again, he uses his imagination to disarm them; and again, he anticipates a method that he will use quite effectively in his novels. I’ll tell you about that in my next post.