From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century, 11/25/1920.
[The following is the conclusion of Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“A few days ago this eminent lecturer spoke to a large audience of laymen in Chicago. The chance was his to make a notable contribution to that convention. What does it get from him? Why – the monkey jokes, of course! And the red cow! It is to be presumed that hundreds of laymen, going home from that convention under the impression that they had heard a great scientist speak his mind about evolution, will be on the alert now to detect the slightest deflection from orthodoxy on the part of their pastors. Let the good brother phrase his remarks in the language of modern scholarship, insisting upon a faith that may be held without damage to one’s intellectual self-respect, and he takes a chance of hearing unfavorably from the deacon who has just returned from the convention where ‘Darwinism’ – and all things scientific – had been weighed and found wanting.
“I write this partly to relieve my feelings, but mostly because there is no doubt in my own mind that we ministers, who have thought our way through these problems at no little cost of time and effort, should refuse any longer to tolerate such presentations of religion as that indicated above, if we may by any possibility put a stop to it! For Mr. Bryan to speak in any presence concerning the relation of religion and science is a piece of presumption! King David prayed, ‘Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins!’ David apparently considered this a serious offense – presumption. And David, being something of an expert on sinning, surely ought to be an authority.
“One is not forgetting that Mr. Bryan is a great and good man who means well and is loved devotedly by great masses of people. He has it in him to make a large contribution to religion. But however rich and active may be the wine of his faith and his enthusiasm, he really ought to stop trying to vend it in the old bottles. Oh – oh – but how fearfully old are the bottles!”
From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century, 11/25/1920.
[The following is a continuation of Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“Every year, in most of our great universities, the student is asked to state his religious convictions at the time of his registration. He is requested to name the denomination to which he belongs, or the denomination he prefers, if not a member. After the cards had been handed to me, this year, which belonged to my denomination, it occurred to me that some interest might attach to a comparison of these registration cards with those of last year. I would see how many students who registered last year as of the faith of which I am an adherent were registered this year as ‘without religious convictions.’ The investigation showed no case of the kind. To the contrary, there were sixty-nine students who stated last year that they were without religious convictions who announced, this fall, that they were adherents of our faith. It is not true that the freshman inevitably comes to the university to surrender his faith. But it is true that many a chap is obliged to come into a university community to find his faith!
“Mr. Bryan does not know this. Nobody ever told him. He never inquired. He would not believe it if he were told. He doesn’t want to believe it. It would dampen his enthusiasm about the awful effects of modern science upon Christian faith. Then he would lose heart for the monkey jokes. And the monkey jokes must be told. And the red cow – the same old red cow – must she not still eat green grass and give white milk to yield yellow butter?”
[Douglas will conclude his essay in my next post…]
From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on 11/25/1920.
[The following is a continuation from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“The total result of the Bryan address to his university audience was disgust on the part of religious people – both faculty and students – disgust over the speaker’s intellectual immorality, to say nothing of the crass impudence displayed by such an exhibition of ignorance before an audience of that character. But the really serious fact about the performance resided in the effect produced upon the students who never go to church, manifest no interest in religion, and who think of Christian faith with as little knowledge of its present-day claims as Mr. Bryan has of biology – which is next to nothing. This type of student understands that Mr. Bryan is a widely known and generally recognized religious leader in the country – frequent spokesman before ecclesiastical conclaves, and a general defender of the faith. The student is informed, from this respected quarter, that, to be a Christian, he must repudiate that which his own eyes have seen in the laboratory and believe certain ancient dogmas which he cannot hold without the sacrifice of his intellectual self-regard. It is extremely doubtful if Mr. Bryan will ever be invited to speak before this group again. But the damage is done!
“While we are on the subject – how much truth is there, after all, about the deplorable loss of religious faith which Mr. Bryan notices in academic circles? Let us see. Many people who do not know the facts are persuaded to believe that the typical freshman comes to the university firm in the faith of his fathers, fresh from Sunday School, convinced that the Bible is to be accepted as a textbook on geology, anthropology, astronomy, and all the rest of the natural sciences. After he has been here for a year or two, he loses his faith, becomes a cynic and a scoffer, flaunts his atheism or his infidelity, and repudiates religion as of no further use to him. What are the facts about this matter?”
[Douglas, having spent the past decade on major Midwestern college campuses, will give his answer in my next post.]
A page from Lloyd C. Douglas’s article, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” in the November 25, 1920 issue of The Christian Century.
[The following is from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]
“A few days ago, Mr. Bryan lectured, on a Saturday night, in the auditorium of a great Midwestern university [probably the University of Michigan, where Douglas was the Congregational minister]. No monkeys appeared in the lecture. Indeed, it was a good address – old, commonplace, but acceptable. There was a large crowd. The students were enthusiastic. The Students’ Christian Association pressed the speaker to stay over and talk, in the same place, on Sunday noon. He consented. The word was quickly passed about the campus. There were five thousand persons present, next day. Fully three-fourths of them were students. The faculties were largely represented. It was understood that Mr. Bryan was to speak about the claims of religion upon the life of youth. It was a brilliant opportunity for a really great contribution to be made to the lives of many hundreds of young men and women. As I look back over many similar opportunities afforded celebrated speakers to set the cause of religion squarely before the face of the college man, I do not remember ever having seen such a crowd, in such a receptive mood! One envied this rare spirit his chance to do valiant service for Christianity that day. What came of it? The monkey talk!
“How this good man could ever have gained the consent of his own mind to commit the almost incredible impertinence of reading the old misquotations, spinning the old yarns, and assailing ‘Darwinism’ in the presence of hundreds of youngsters who understood enough about evolution to know that the speaker knew nothing about it whatsoever – yes; and in the presence of scientists who had made a life job of research in this field – how he could have done it, I do not understand; but he did it. He went further. He deplored the subversive effects of science on Christian faith; explained to the students that science was the enemy of faith; excoriated scientific men, advanced scholarship, modern learning, and generally anathematized higher education. All this was by way of preface to a statement of his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Adam was the first man. He was made of the dust of the ground. The Bible said so. Apparently nobody has ever gone to the bother of asking Mr. Bryan how he accounts for the fact that wherever explorers have gone they have found men boasting an ancestry easily traceable to remote periods whole millenniums before navigation was discovered or effected.
“A considerable volume of water has passed under the bridge, in the realm of science, since Mr. Bryan first came out as a biologist. Practically the whole theory of evolution has been rephrased during that time. Perhaps the genial ex-secretary of state is unaware of that fact. Surely he must be unaware of it, for his lectures still carry opportunities for the introduction of the same old stories, the same old misquotations, and the same old attacks against ‘Darwinism.’ His references to evolution have not grown an inch or gained a pound for twenty years. Meanwhile, let it be repeated, science has been busy. Mr. Bryan may have wished to inform himself upon this subject, or he may not; but science has been assiduously devoting itself to a sincere and honest investigation of the known facts.
“One of the interesting features of modern scholarship in this field – which may come as a shock to Mr. Bryan, should he ever have this matter brought to his attention – is the fact that the present-day scientist has long since left off talking of evolution in terms of ‘Darwinism.’ Mr. Bryan rarely speaks of evolution: his designation for it is ‘Darwinism.’ Ah – how he does put Darwin on the grille! Cannot some friend inform him, for his own sake, that Charles Robert Darwin is related to evolution, in the thought of the scholar, exactly as Robert Fulton is related to steam navigation, and as Langley is related to aeronautics, and as Dr. Harvey is related to present-day surgery? Of course, it used to make very little difference to the typical lecture audience whether Mr. Bryan was sure of his facts or not. But increasingly the American people have had opportunities to inform themselves about matters of a scientific nature, and the good man seriously underrates the intelligence of his audiences.”
A page from Lloyd C. Douglas’s article, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” in the November 25, 1920 issue of The Christian Century.
[This is a continuation of the essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” by Lloyd C. Douglas, published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. Douglas mentions that three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan had long ago started making fun of Darwin’s theory of evolution in his public addresses. Douglas continues:]
“So fully guaranteed to excite merriment in any crowd was this playfulness that the lecturer apparently could not resist the temptation of presenting it despite its irrelevancy to the subject under discussion. How weary he must have become reciting over and over, day after day, year by year, the same old monkey jokes! But the public would have them. How it must have rasped his sensibilities to repeat, again and again, the jaded pleasantry to the effect that if others wished to claim a chimpanzee for their grandfather, it was none of his affair – but as for him, etc., etc. And the cow – do you not remember? – the red cow that ate green grass and gave white milk from which they churned yellow butter? All of which disproved Darwinism.
“Now, Mr. Bryan is not a clown. At heart, he is serious, earnest, and self-respecting, as is sufficiently proved by the fact that he has consistently championed the things that make for better and nobler living. He really couldn’t go on telling and retelling these jokes about evolution indefinitely and retain his own self-esteem. So, he grew serious about the matter. But nobody can speak seriously on this profound subject without study. Only a skillfully trained biologist could trust himself to talk about evolution before an intellectual audience. Mr. Bryan, however, not having gone into this subject quite far enough to discover just how extensive was this field of science, and not being required to check his data because of the unexacting nature of the typical audience, talked of this theory with a degree of self-assurance utterly inexplicable on any other ground than that nobody had ever done him the kindness to take him aside and whisper a friendly admonition in his ear. He was to be forgiven, for it was a clear case that he knew not what he did.”
[I will continue Douglas’s essay in my next post…]
The title page of Lloyd C. Douglas’s article, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” in the November 25, 1920 issue of The Christian Century.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been sharing Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted – A Congregation!” as it appeared over five installments in The Christian Century during the summer of 1920. Now that he had made a name for himself at the Century, he continued to be a frequent contributor throughout the first half of that decade. His next article, which appeared in the November 25, 1920, issue, was about three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. It was entitled, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade.”
It was prompted by Bryan’s recent public appearance at the University of Michigan, where he (apparently) ridiculed the theory of evolution. It made Douglas so mad, he wrote the following essay.
“Monkeys are funny animals. A joke about a monkey is good for a hearty laugh anywhere. The very word ‘monkey’ will provide a smile, even if nothing should be predicated of the subject. Vaudeville actors understand that when all other tricks fail to provide suitable entertainment, is there not the time-tried monkey joke? Certain popular lecturers have always known that no Chautauqua crowd on a hot afternoon in July is too dull, stupid, or sleepy to react promptly under a few carefully chosen words relative to this little animal which seems to symbolize humor – though so inexpressibly sad of countenance.
“Elderly readers will recall that a long time ago, the Hon. William J. Bryan began employing this interesting this interesting and amusing device to entertain his vast audiences from the lecture platform. His own use of the monkey was made in connection with satire and ridicule hurled at the Darwinian theory of evolution. Anybody who had seriously read Charles Robert Darwin’s theory of ‘the descent of man’ was in a position to know that Mr. Bryan was taking great liberties with this celebrated scientist’s hypothesis but saw no reason why the lovable and good-natured lecturer shouldn’t be permitted license to distort, misquote, and otherwise incorrectly present the Darwin belief, if it was understood that he was doing it only in play and for the sole purpose of raising a laugh.”
Does it sound like Douglas approved of that? Just wait. His essay will continue in my next post.
From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted—A Congregation, Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship,” in The Christian Century, 9/2/1920.
[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. He and his wife are on vacation and he is taking stock of the recent improvements.]
“These self-searching queries had been giving our friend some painful hours tonight. He had become shamefully stricken with remorse – the kind that sends a dull ache into the throat and a stinging pain into the eyes. As Blue reviewed the so-called ‘service of worship’ customarily rendered in Broad Street Church, it galled him to reflect upon those cold, gray ashes that stood for an altar fire. It humiliated him to remember how lifeless, how perfunctory the thing really was – so exceedingly dull that even he himself thought of it, when and if he thought of it, as a mere something-necessarily-to-be-gone-through preliminary to the main event of the hour – his sermon! Why, some of his members had frankly accounted for their habitual tardiness at the Sunday morning service with the bland explanation, ‘Oh, all that we care for is the sermon anyway!’ – and Blue had been so short of sight as to feel complimented!
“Torn now with remorse, the preacher resolved to analyze that profitless, cold, and all but sacrilegious ‘order of worship’ – a piece of mummery that had become so trite and feeble that even he was heartily glad when the last wearisome yawn of it had been dutifully recited, and the book chucked back in the rack. Blue was under contract with his own soul to mend matters at that point, without further delay! This was the burden of his thoughts tonight. It was a very, very serious problem. It was not much wonder he didn’t hear the turtles, or see the moon, or chat with Mrs. Blue! He was under conviction of a blunder that was considerably more serious than a mere misdemeanor. He had failed at a vital point! So – he took up that ‘order of worship’ item by item and looked at it.
“In the first place, it was a service absolutely devoid of thrills! (I daresay such use of the word ‘thrills’ will entitle the writer to some more piously-phrased, albeit unsigned, communications from his brethren, warning him to flee the wrath to come.) Well – anyhow – whate’er the future may have in store for him who boswells* for D. Preston Blue, it was a service devoid of thrills! There wasn’t a single feature of it calculated to quicken a man’s respiration or grip his throat or stir his pulse. What little of solemn ritual there was in it possessed no current – just lazily ambled along on a level like the sleepy Yangtse-kiang for five hundred miles without a ripple. It reached no high spots; led up to no climaxes; pointed to no definite goal; and, having no destination in mind, it failed to arrive anywhere.”
(*”boswells” is a verb referring to Douglas’s role as narrator of Blue’s story, just as James Boswell famously narrated the story of Samuel Johnson.)
[Douglas’s article will continue in my next post…]
From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted—A Congregation, Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship,” in The Christian Century, 9/2/1920.
[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. He’s on a fishing trip, and he’s stranded on the lake, unable to get the engine of his boat to work.]
“Whereupon, old Nate Ruggles had chugged alongside in his funny little tub to inquire what ailed her – a query that had been gradually arising in the minister’s own mind for some time. He said exactly that; though this satirical delicacy was quite wasted on Nate, whose palate had never been trained to appreciate such lemon-flavored rhetorical dainties. The old man cackled in the self-assured treble of native wisdom aged seventy-eight, dragged his rheumatism over the rail, and fell to examining the object of Blue’s solicitude with judicial eye and confident fingers.
“Presently he reported on his findings. Dexterously shifting his quid to a position which made articulation possible, Nate remarked, sagely, ‘Parson, you’ve a-flooded ‘er with gasoline, and your batteries is a-runnin’ low. Yessir, them two things is wot ails ‘er. She’s a-been gettin’ too much gas, and not enough spark!’
“And now it was ten o’clock. The turtles were yawp-yap-yap-yap-yoodle-hooing down by the boathouse, but D. Preston Blue did not hear them. The three-quarter moon had flung a long bridge of gold across the lake, but Blue failed to observe it. His wife sat at his elbow, but he was only half-conscious of her presence. Since early twilight, the preacher had been at grips with a serious problem. Suddenly rousing from his apparent torpor, he exclaimed, ‘I’ve got it!’ ‘Yes?’ queried Mrs. Blue in a tone of mingled interest and amusement. ‘I am so glad you have, my dear. I have been horribly lonesome. So tell me what it is that you have got!’ And he told her. It took him nearly all night to tell her; for it was a long story.”
A page from Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted—A Congregation, Third Phase—The Sermon Sample,” in the August 26, 1920, issue of The Christian Century.
[The following is an excerpt from the third installment of Lloyd Douglas’s series about the fictitious minister, Rev. D. Preston Blue in the Christian Century during summer/fall 1920. The series was called, “Wanted – A Congregation!”and the third installment, dated 8/26/1920, was titled, “The Sermon Sample.”]
“[Blue] had decided that he was going to make a strong bid for a crowd on Sunday morning, October third. This was to be the official opening of his campaign for a large congregation. Possibly this will be a good time to begin his contemplated series on ‘Shipwrecks.’ He commences to lay out his plans. The process takes many, many hours of hard labor. It requires as much thought as an architect puts into the blueprints for a new house. When he has mulled it all over, his private memorandum reads somewhat as follows:
October third – ‘The Titanic’ – unsinkable boat – not provided with lifeboats – lifeboats unnecessary because ship unsinkable – provided with palm gardens, gymnasium, swimming pool, elevators, etc. Sinks on her first voyage. Not prepared for an emergency. The Titanic kind of a life – modernly popular – pleasure-seeking, but unequipped with moral safeguards, faith, trust.
October tenth – ‘The Eastland’ – excursion boat – no ballast – wrecked at the wharf – never able to start with her human cargo. Like indulged youth that never has its chance at life – wrecked before it reaches the open water.
October seventeenth – ‘The Ibernia’ – destroyed by fire – coal ignites in the bunkers – proper that the coal should be burned – but not in the bunkers. Appetites, passions, ambitions of high value if made to function under required conditions – a menace if ‘burned in the bunkers.’
“Now, the problem of advertising this series of sermons in the papers is so simple that it needs no comment. Mr. Blue can buy enough space on Saturday in The Morning Star to give the public an advance notion of his themes, exactly after the manner of the ‘butcher boy’ in the train who presents each passenger with a few salted peanuts and comes around later to sell a bagful. Blue must not give his cause away by telling too much. Any active imagination can work this all out for Mr. Blue, should the latter be in doubt.”
Christ is part of a caravan of pilgrims making their way into Jerusalem for Passover Week. They are singing the songs of deliverance. Douglas says:]
“There was just a slim chance that Israel, feverishly anxious to find adequate leadership, would listen to [Christ’s] message. If ever they were in a mood to hear an interpretation of God’s will, one would think that time was now.
“If he could only lead them to see that their Messianic hope must reside, at last, in a new social order, in a new spiritual commonwealth.
“It was worth trying.
“It would probably be unsuccessful, but it was worth trying. He resolved to submit himself to the outward tests of the Messiah, as picturesquely foretold by the prophets.
“His disciples were ordered to go find a colt, the foal of an ass. They spread their garments on the beast, in the presence of the curious throng of wayfarers. The word was passed along that the Young Prophet of Nazareth who was reputed to have healed the sick, whose words were quoted on every hand as words of authority, was about to ride into Jerusalem as the Messiah.
“Messengers rushed to Jerusalem and spread the tidings.
“Jesus rode slowly at the head of a vast concourse of people. Jerusalem poured through the city gates and hurried out to meet him.
“It is said that the road which he took still exists, winding around the shoulder of Olivet amid groves of figs and palms until, suddenly, across a wide ravine, Jerusalem rises like a city painted on the clouds.
“The crowd rifled the trees of their foliage and strewed the branches along the road for the advancing king. The cries of ‘Hosanna!’ filled the air. The multitude grew hysterical with joy. Never was there a scene of such enthusiasm; never a crowd so infatuated with a sublime idea.
“To those tumultuous throngs, it seemed that the knell of Rome had sounded. The long and often disappointed dream of Jewish nationality was coming true! The golden age had dawned — for, at last, a Jewish king was riding to his capital in triumph.
“Amid this tumult of delight which swept away all sober sense, no one was any longer capable of seeing things in clear and lucid outline; all swam through a dazzling mist; all caught the glamor of imagination.
“And least of all did the multitude perceive the growing sadness on the face of Jesus.
“At the distance of about a mile and a half from Bethany, the road abruptly bends to the right, a narrow plateau of rock is reached, and with a startling suddenness the whole city is revealed. Nowhere perhaps in all the world is there to be attained a view of a metropolis so complete in itself or so dramatic in the suddenness of its revelation.
“It was here that the procession halted.
“There stood the temple, filling every corner of the area with its multiplied and splendid colonnades, with its superb and lofty edifices, which crowded to the very edge of the abyss and rose from it like a glittering apparition.
“The whole city was planned upon a scale of almost equal grandeur. On every hand, mansions of marble rose out of gardens of exquisite verdure. Terrace upon terrace, the city climbed. In the northwest it was crowned by the porticoes of Herod’s palace; a vast aqueduct spanned the valley; and from the Temple to the upper city stretched a stately bridge; while the walls themselves, built of massive masonry and apparently impregnable, suggested a city ‘half as old as Time.’
“It was thus that these ecstatic pilgrims thought of the sacred city. Jerusalem — beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth — would endure forever, when Rome had vanished.
“If Jehovah had humbled her by permitting Roman occupation, it was only for a day — and the hour had now struck. The King was coming to his own. How delightful it was to shout ‘Our King’!
“But these were vain hopes and fond illusions, not shared by him whom they acclaimed. Where all was hope and pride and triumph, he alone was not elated. He alone saw the city with the prophet’s brooding eye; and as the procession halted on this rock plateau from which the whole vast panorama lay unfolded, an utter sadness fell upon his heart.
“And he wept.
“Jerusalem had rejected the things that might have made for her peace. It was too late to avert the disaster.
“To the consternation of his followers, Jesus wept what must have seemed to them tears of weakness in the very hour when courage was most needed to affirm of himself what they affirmed of him, that he was a king.
“Now, I think that anybody could tell the rest of this story even if he had never heard it. Need it be said that the crowd left off chanting and fell into little groups to discuss the situation in bewilderment? Need it be said that they threw away their palm branches and retired from him?
“He rode on into Jerusalem and saw it through. But it was a day of great disappointment — both for him and Jerusalem.
“They were not ready for an ideal king who believed in the social commonwealth of souls. They wanted a king who could give them political freedom — and, at length, political power.”
The Lloyd C Douglas Page 