Felix Adler

“ Those whom we love are not given to us merely for our joy or our happiness. Their truest ministry consists in being to us revealers of the divine. They quicken in us the seed of better thoughts, help us to estimate rightly the things that are worth trying for and the things that are not{96} worth trying for; help us to become more equal to the standard of our own best insight, and grow into our truer selves. And this influence abides when they are gone.
Let us learn from the lips of death the lessons of life. Let us live truly while we live, live for what is true and good and lasting. ”

“ A second mark of the higher life is Serenity, and there is perhaps no surer sign by which exalted natures can be known. To be serene under all circumstances whatsoever, even in moments of imminent peril, in times of sudden reversal of fortune, of grievous personal loss or of public calamity, is the unmistakable badge of moral ripeness. But is it possible to preserve one’s serenity in the supreme trials of life? It is possible, I should answer, if we have formed the habit of asking on every occasion. What is it right to do now? ”

“ An exalted type of morality is displayed by those who, cut off from the opportunities of culture, and from most of the pleasures and comforts of existence, yet nourish, under the ashes of disappointed hopes, the feeblest remaining spark of the spiritual life, because they believe it to be a spark from an imperishable fire, even from that undying flame which burns at the heart of things, and which is destined to grow brighter and brighter as time rolls on. ”

“ The wife is just the one woman in the world who best performs for{60} her husband these high offices. She helps him to decipher his soul, to gain self-knowledge—the most difficult kind of knowledge, to discover what qualities are latent in him; she reads his defects in the light of his possible excellence; she spurs him on to his best performance; sustains him by her faith when he fails; and when he succeeds and gains the world’s applause helps him to rate it at its proper worth, and to aspire toward aims that rise beyond the common approbation. ”

“ The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth.
We call him a hero who maintains himself, single-handed, against superior numbers. We call him a master-horseman who sits a fiery and vicious steed, guiding him at will. And in like manner, we call him a moral hero who conquers the enemies within his own breast—and we admire and revere the soul which can ride its own passions and force them into obedience to the dictates of reason. ”

“ The stages of the progress of mankind may be compared to a series of mountain ranges. First the foothills, then the higher hills, then mountain range on mountain range beyond them. As we gain the loftier eminences we see the snowy summits before us, touched by the light of the moral ideal, transforming themselves before our eyes into what appear to be the ramparts and the spires of the Golden City. We climb still higher, and the vision travels with us, lighting on{85} the next succeeding range. ”

“ The reward of the effort is the wider outlook upon the ultimate aim; the truer estimate of its character as infinite, and, along with this, the recognition of that infiniteness of our own nature which enables us to conceive of and aspire to such an aim.
Joy is a light which those who possess are bound to keep burning brightly for the sake of others as well as for their own sake. Every pure joy in the world is so much pure gain. ”

“ We are soldiers fighting a good fight. The call that awakens us out of despair in times of affliction is the trumpet-call of duty, summoning us back to the battle.
The experience of progress in the past, the hope of progress toward perfection in the future, is the redeeming feature of life; it is the one and only solace that never fails. ”

“ Theologians often say that faith must come first, and that morality must be deduced from faith. We say that morality must come first, and faith, to those whose nature fits them to entertain it, will come out of the experience of a deepened moral life as its richest, choicest fruit.
Precisely because moral culture is the aim, we cannot be content merely to lift the mass of mankind above the grosser forms of evil. We must try to advance the cause of humanity by developing in ourselves, as well as in others, a higher type of manhood and womanhood than the past has known. ”

“ She should take part in the struggle of society to create new and better conditions in politics, in social life, in religion. The real home-keeper should be in touch with the larger life of the world, in order that she may bring the breath of larger interests into her life, in order that she may open the windows of her house and let in the fresh breezes of the intellectual world around her. ”

“ Marriage is the fountain upon which the tree of humanity depends for its life. If the fountain be pure, the tree will flourish and bear wholesome fruit. If the fountain be poisoned the tree must perish.
The god of Love is a jealous god. This does not mean that love should be wholly concentrated upon one person, but rather that the god of Love is jealous of anything in the heart that is not akin to love—jealous{57} of hate, jealous of meanness, jealous of low and sordid aims.
The love of husband and wife is an epitome of every other kind of love. ”

“ This fair earth, with its fir-clad hills, its snowy mountains, its sparkling seas, its azure vaults, and the holy light of the stars, is but a painted screen behind which lurks the true reality.
The beauty of this earth and all that is precious and great in this human life of ours is but a hint and a suggestion of an eternal fairness, an eternal rightness. ”

“ Many of us stumble, not because we lack the desire to do what is right, but because we fail to discern what the right is.
I believe in the supreme excellence of righteousness; I believe that the law of righteousness will triumph in the universe over all evil; I believe that in the attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness, however imperfect it must remain, are to be found the inspiration, the consolation, and the sanctification of human existence.{119}
We live in order to finish an, as yet, unfinished universe, unfinished so far as the human, that is, the highest part of it, is concerned. ”

“ Day by day there are triumphs to be won over the passion that stirs in our breasts; over the rising anger that sears our lips; over the turpitudes that defile our hearts; over the spirit of impatience and mutiny that threatens the authority of our reason. By such triumphs we are raised above our baser selves, and the fire which consumes our grosser natures, like the flaming chariot of Elijah, bears us living into a higher world. ”

“ It is the moral element con{18}tained in it that alone gives value and dignity to a religion, and only in so far as its teachings serve to stimulate and purify our moral aspirations does it deserve to retain its ascendency over mankind. ”

“ It is the blessed sense of safety that comes to him who feels that he is rooted in another’s affection, the sense of mutual protection, of mutual care and kindness, in{56} sickness and in health, in good and in evil fortune, in life and close to the gates of death. Where the wife is, there is the home; and where the husband is, on land or sea. Oh, what a glad feeling it is to have one’s own hearth! As the hearth gives warmth to the house, so marriage supplies an undiminishing inner warmth to those who partake of its blessings in the right spirit. ”

“ The authority of conscience is founded on human nature itself. The imperative, which we cannot disown, comes from within. The distinction between right and wrong is as aboriginal as that between the true and the false. But whence shall we derive the strength to do the right and shun the wrong? What feelings are there which, in default of the hope of happiness and the fear of punishment in another world, and apart from the penalties of human legislation, shall sustain us in the struggle against evil? ”

“ So do they who have long since been gathered into the silent city of the dead still live in the deeds we do for their sake, in the earnest effort we put forth toward greater rectitude, patience, purity, under the influence of their unforgettable memories.
The conservation of moral energy is in a certain sense as true as the conservation of mechanical energy. We are not dust merely that returns to dust; we are not summer flies that bask in the sunshine of a passing day; we are not bounded in our influence by the narrow boundary of our years. ”

“ Marriage is an estate in which we seek to help each other to solve the total problem of our lives. The attraction of the sexes, seen in the light of this conception, is glorified and transfigured. Marriage is an estate in which we charge ourselves, not only with the comfort and the happiness of another, but with the problem of the total spiritual destiny of another. ”

“ The criterion of all right relations whatsoever is that we are helped by them. And so, too, the criterion of right relations to the dead is that we are helped, not weakened and disabled, by them. Does the remembrance of our departed beloved ones have this effect upon us? Does it make us better and purer men and women than we should otherwise have been, stronger if not happier? Do they come to us as gentle monitors in silent hours of thought? Does their approving smile stimulate us to greater bravery for the right, to more earnest self-conquest? ”

“ Poverty, Sickness, Sorrow, and the experience of Sin are the great instrumentalities for moralising our natures. They are dark gateways through which we pass into a temple of light—into the innermost sanctuary of a truer life. ”

“ It is the nature of the noble and the good and the wise that they impart to us of their nobility and their goodness and their wisdom while they live, making it natural for us to breathe the air they breathe and giving us confidence in our own untested powers. ”

“ We are to go out as teachers among the people, discarding the limitations imposed by the theologies{120} of the past, and holding up the moral ideal, pure and simple, as the human ideal, as the ideal for all men, embracing all men, binding on all men—the ideal of a perfect society, of a society in which no men or class of men shall be mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for others ”

“ Life has ever seemed to me a task. It has its interludes of joy. But, on the whole, it is an arduous, often a desperately arduous task. I think of the dead as of those who have finished their task, who have graduated from this exacting school, who have taken their degree—and some of them, surely, with honour. ”

“ Let us have before us, whatever we do, a sovereign aim, but let us also make sure that it be a worthy aim, one that will purge the clay from our eyes, from our lips, from our brains, from our hearts.
A great man helps us by the standard which he erects. He never really is level with his own standard, and yet we do not therefore reject him. He helps us by what he earnestly tries for, and by what he suggests to us that we should try for; he helps us, not so much by what he achieves,{10} as by what he reveals, by the insight which he gives us into the nature of good. ”

“ The “great occasions,” morally speaking, are those that add to our strength by the very magnitude of the calls they make upon us, and that flatter our self-esteem by the dramatic incidents which are apt, at such critical moments, to attend the struggle against evil; but it cannot be too forcibly stated that the higher life, as a rule, must be led on the level of everyday existence, where the temptations to be resisted are commonplace and the petty details of duty seem to deprive the effort we put forth of all dignity and grandeur. ”

“ But the crowning grace of all is Humility, in the sense in which it implies and presupposes dignity.{78} Dignity is based upon the consciousness of a divine element in human nature, of an infinite aim, a boundless destiny. Humbleness is due to a sense of the incalculable distance which still separates us from the goal. These two, inseparably combined, are the invariable accompaniment of moral greatness wherever met with. Self-righteousness and a cynical contempt of human nature on the other hand are the two chief enemies of moral progress. ”

“ They have not grasped the whole truth who see in the sympathetic side of human nature, in the tender and amiable impulses of the heart, the well-spring of our moral judgments. These gentle qualities—pity, tenderness, sympathy—are the sweet, younger sisters of Virtue; but Virtue herself is greater than they. ”

“ No one can be, in the full sense, a good man who is not a good citizen.
There is a difficulty in the way of teaching the higher life, due to the fact that only those who have begun to lead it can understand the meaning of it. Nevertheless, all men can be induced to begin to lead it. Though{67} they seem blind, their eyes can be opened so as to see. Deep down in every human heart is the seed of a diviner life, which only needs the quickening influence of right conditions to germinate. ”

“ Religion has been so eager to supply us with information concerning the universe outside of us, its origin and its destiny, because our life is linked with that of the universe, and our destiny is dependent on the destiny of the universe. ”

“ Ethical religion affirms the continuity of progress toward moral perfection. It affirms that the spiritual development of the human race cannot be prematurely cut off, either gradually or suddenly; that every stone of offence against which we stumble is a stepping-stone to some greater good; that, at the end of days, if we choose{107} to put it so, all the rays of progress will be summed and centred in a transcendent focus.
Religion is concerned with the foreign relations of mankind, that is to say, with our relations to the whole of outside nature. ”