Published Weekly. Price $1.50 a year, or 5 cents single copy "Some great cause, God's new Messiah" MESSIAH PULPIT NEW YORK (Being a continuation of Unity Pulpit, Boston) Entered at the Post-office, Boston, Mass., as second-class mail matter. MR. SAVAGE'S BOOKS. SERMONS AND ESSAYS. Christianity the Science of Manhood. 187 pages. 1873. Life Questions. 159 pages. 1879 1880 Beliefs about Jesus. 161 pages. 206 pages. 1883 The Modern Sphinx. 160 pages. 1883 $1.00 1.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 200 pages. 1884 1.00 The Religious Life. 212 pages. 1885 1.00 Social Problems. 189 pages. 1886 1.00 My Creed. 204 pages. 1887. 1.00 Religious Reconstruction. 246 pages Signs of the Times. 187 pages. 1889. 1.00 Helps for Daily Living. 150 pages. 1889 1.00 Life. 237 pages. 1890 1.00 Four Great Questions Concerning God. 86 pages. 1891. Paper The Minister's Hand-book. For Christenings, Weddings, and Funerals. Cloth Paper Sacred Songs for Public Worship. A Hymn and Tune Book. Unitarian Catechism. With an Introduction by E. A. Horton. Per dozen .25 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.25 1.50 1 50 1.00 .50 Price, Paper, per copy, 20 cents. Price, Cloth, per copy, 30 cents. Per dozen Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in "Messiah Pulpit." Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; single copy, 5 cents. GEO. H. ELLIS CO., Publishers, 272 Congress St., Boston, Mass. 104 East 20th St., New York. Published by G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York. Life beyond Death. 1899. Published by E. P. DUTTON & CO., New York. $1.50 1.50 $1.00 net Living by the Day. A Book of Selections for Every Day in the Year. 1900 $1.00 HOW WE MAKE OUR OWN WORLDS. "With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with the perfect man thou wilt shew thyself perfect; with the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the perverse thou wilt shew thyself froward."-PSALM Xviii. 25, 26. It would seem that the writer of these words regarded the world as being something like a mirror in which we see our own faces. There is a proverb, "To the pure all things are pure." We know that different men live in different kinds of worlds, although their nominal homes may be on the same street. There are two factors which enter into making our worlds what they are. One is the self, what we are: the other is our surroundings, what the scientific men speak of as environment. And there are two classes of philosophers or scientific writers, accordingly as they take their attitude or outlook in one direction or another. There are those who seem to think that we have almost nothing to do with the making of ourselves, that we are the creatures of circumstance, playthings in the hands of what they call fate. There are others who believe that the individual is so powerful that he shapes the plastic material of the universe almost as he likes. Looked at from the point of view of those who think that the world makes us, we shall find a good deal that tends to confirm that opinion. For example, it would seem as though nearly all the important questions in respect to each one of us were settled before we had an opportunity to say anything about it even before we had a chance to think seriously about it. For example, I had no choice as to what century of the world I was to be born in, whether in the Middle Ages or further off in barbaric times. I was not consulted as to whether my birthplace should be in Africa, Asia, Europe, or America, as to whether my parents should be idol-worshippers or followers of Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, or Jesus. I had no choice as to whether my parents should be Protestant or Catholic, as to whether they should be ignorant or educated. Think what a difference there is! There are fathers who are anxious that their children shall be trained, shall learn to know, shall have the advantages of an education. There are others who do not seem to care, the children are sacrificed to their own selfishness. Then as to whether my parents should be orthodox or liberal I had nothing to say. You may carry this point out as far as you please; and you would suppose that the matter of character, temperament, education, practical destiny, were all settled before we have anything to say about it. Then there is another way of looking at it. To illustrate this point, I shall have to refer to a writer once famous, perhaps holding a greater position in the world of thought than to-day. I refer to Buckle, the author of the "History of Civilization." Mr. Buckle believed and taught that the environment practically created the individual; that, if a man was wise enough to read all these conditions, and could be told of the country, soil, climate, food, and total surroundings, he could tell you, with almost practical certainty, as to what the outcome in the individual character would be. There is another writer whose statements must be regarded as rather extreme. I refer to the late Professor John W. Draper, the famous scientist, an old New Yorker. He said that, if the individual was started at the North pole on a journey southward, and he should go slowly enough, stopping long enough at each vital point of his journey, so that the influences of his environment could produce their normal and natural effect upon him, such a man on such a journey would pass through every phase and type of humanity that the world has ever seen. So strongly did he believe in the power of the environment as shaping the individual beyond any power that he might have of resistance. On the other hand, let us turn for a moment and see what a wonderful work men have performed in reshaping their environment. Call up the picture of the earth when it was all waste and wilderness, before men began to change their surroundings, when they had just waked up to their consciousness of humanity, along the seaboard, by the rivers, and in the jungles. Think what has been accomplished since that time! If a man had occupied some point in space where he could have looked upon the world as it turned in its daily round, he would have seen plains and rivers and oceans and wood, all the natural features of the untamed planet. He would have seen tribes of men, wild, uncivilized, wandering here and there. The Suppose such a man could see the earth to-day. There is hardly a point of the planet, except the inaccessible north and the inaccessible south poles, that has not been transformed by the thought and the genius of man. oceans that used to be regarded as a barrier between places, and as separating nations, are now ferry-ways, sped across in every possible direction by ships driven by the wonderful power of steam. Then think of the change that has been wrought by the cultivation of the earth, the desert places which have been turned into fields and gardens, with thousands of acres of corn and wheat, the mountain sides turned into vineyards. Then picture to yourselves the scattered |