Is The Bible Worth Reading, and Other Essays
by L. K. Washburn · English · Gutenberg #35539 · 294,218 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Is The Bible Worth Reading, and Other Essays
Author: L. K. Washburn
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Most recently updated: June 16, 2020
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING, AND OTHER ESSAYS ***
Is The Bible Worth Reading
And Other Essays
By
Lemuel K. Washburn
New York
The Truth Seeker Company
1911
CONTENTS
Dedication
Is The Bible Worth Reading
Sacrifice
The Drama Of Life
Nature In June
The Infinite Purpose
Freethought Commands
A Rainbow Religion
A Cruel God
What Is Jesus
Deeds Better Than Professions
Give Us The Truth
The American Sunday
Lord And Master
Are Christians Intelligent Or Honest
The Danger Of The Ballot
Who Carried The Cross
Modern Disciples Of Jesus
A Poor Excuse
Profession And Practice
Where Is Truth
What Does It Prove
Human Responsibility
Abolish Dirt
Religion And Morality
Jesus As A Model
Singing Lies
A Walk Through A Cemetery
Peace With God
Saving The Soul
The Search For Something To Worship
Where Are They
Some Questions For Christians To Answer
The Image Of God
Religion And Science
The Bible And The Child
When To Help The World
The Judgment Of God
Christianity And Freethought
The Brotherhood And Freedom Of Man
Whatever Is Is Right
The Object Of Life
Man
The Dogma Of The Divine Man
The Rich Man’s Gospel
Speak Well Of One Another
Disgraceful Partnerships
Science And Theology
Unequal Remuneration
The Old And The New
Guard The Ear
The Character Of God
Not Important
Oaths
Dead Words
Confession Of Sin
Death’s Philanthropy
Our Attitude Towards Nature
Reverence For Motherhood
The God Of The Bible
The Measure Of Suffering
Nature
Creeds
Don’t Try To Stop The Sun Shining
Follow Me
Can We Never Get Along Without Servants?
A Heavenly Father
Worship Not Needed
Was Jesus A Good Man
How To Help Mankind
On The Cross
Equal Moral Standards
Authority
A Clean Sabbath
Human Integrity
Is It True
Keep The Children At Home
Teacher And Preacher
Fear Of Doubts
Bible-Backing
Beggars
Habits
Can Poverty Be Abolished
The Roman Catholic God
Human Cruelty
Infidelity
Atheism
Christian Happiness
What God Knows
The Meaning Of The Word God
What Has Jesus Done For The World
The Agnostic’s Position
Orthodoxy
Ideas Of Jesus
The Silence Of Jesus
Does The Church Save
Save The Republic
A Woman’s Religion
The Sacrifice Of Jesus
Fashionable Hypocrisy
The Saturday Half-Holiday
The Motive For Preaching
The Christian’s God
Indifference To Religion
Sunday Schools
Going To Church
Who Is The Greatest Living Man
[Illustration.]
Lemuel K. Washburn
DEDICATION
The writer of this book dedicates it to all men and women of common
honesty and common sense.
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
That depends. If a man is going to get his living by standing in a
Christian pulpit, I should be obliged to answer, Yes! But if he is going
to follow any other calling, or work at any trade, I should have to
answer, No! There is absolutely no information in the Bible that man can
make any use of as he goes through life. The Bible is not a book of
knowledge. It does not give instruction in any of the sciences. It
furnishes no help to labor. It is useless as a political guide. There is
nothing in it that gives the mechanic any hint, or affords the farmer any
enlightenment in his occupation.
If man wishes to learn about the earth or the heavens; about life or the
animal kingdom, he has no need to study the Bible. If he is desirous of
reading the best poetry or the most entertaining literature he will not
find it in the Bible. If he wants to read to store his mind with facts,
the Bible is the last book for him to open, for never yet was a volume
written that contained fewer facts than this book. If he is anxious to get
some information that will help him earn an honest living he does not want
to spend his time reading Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Kings, Psalms, or the
Gospels. If he wants to read just for the fun of reading to kill time, or
to see how much nonsensical writing there is in one book, let him read the
Bible.
I have not said that there are not wise sayings in the Bible, or a few
dramatic incidents, but there are just as wise sayings, and wiser ones,
too, out of the book, and there are dramas of human life that surpass in
interest anything contained in the Old or New Testament.
No person can make a decent excuse for reading the Bible more than once.
To do such a thing would be a foolish waste of time. But our stoutest
objection to reading this book is, not that it contains nothing
particularly good, but _that it contains so much that is positively bad_.
To read this book is to get false ideas, absurd ideas, bad ideas. The
injury to the human mind that reads the Bible as a reliable book is beyond
repair. I do not think that this book should be read by children, by any
human being less than twenty years of age, and it would be better for
mankind if not a man or woman read a line of it until he or she was fifty
years old.
What I want to say is this, that there is nothing in the Bible that is of
the least consequence to the people of the twentieth century. English
literature is richer a thousand fold than this so-called sacred volume. We
have books of more information and of more inspiration than the Bible. As
the relic of a barbarous and superstitious people, it should have a place
in our libraries, but it is not a work of any value to this age. I pity
men who stand in pulpits and call this book the word of God. I wish they
had brains enough to earn their living without having to repeat this
foolish falsehood. The day will come when this book will be estimated for
what it a worth, and when that day comes, the Bible will no longer be
called the word of God, but the work of ignorant, superstitious men.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The cross everywhere is a dagger in the heart of liberty.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
A miracle is not an explanation of what we cannot comprehend.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The statue of liberty that will endure on this continent is not the one
made of granite or bronze, but the one made of love of freedom.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Take away every achievement of the world and leave man freedom, and the
earth would again bloom with every glory of attainment; but take away
liberty and everything useful and beautiful would vanish.
SACRIFICE
The sacrifice of Jesus, so much boasted by the Christian church, is
nothing compared to the sacrifice of a mother for her family. It is not to
be spoken of in the same light. A mother’s sacrifice is constant:
momentary, hourly, daily, life-long. It never ceases. It is a veritable
providence; a watchful care; a real giving of one life for another, or for
several others; a gift of love so pure and holy, so single and complete,
that it is an offering in spirit and in substance.
This is to me the highest, purest, holiest act of humanity. All others,
when weighed with this unselfish consecration to duty, seem small and
insignificant. There is, in a mother’s life, no counting of cost, no
calculation of reward. It is enough that a duty is to be done; that a
service is to be rendered; that a sacrifice is called for. The true mother
gives herself to the offices of love without hope, expectation, or wish of
recompense. A mother’s love for her children cannot be determined by any
earthly measure, by any material standard. It outshines all glory, and is
the last gleam of light in the human heart. A mother’s love walks in a
thousand Gethsemanes, endures a thousand Calvaries, and has a thousand
agonies that the dying of Jesus upon a cross cannot symbolize. This
maternal sacrifice is the greater that it is made cheerfully, without a
murmur, and even with joy. If it is not sought; it is never pushed aside.
A mother’s sacrifice for her family makes a chapter of suffering, of
patient toil and strife, of heroic endurance and forbearance, that
religion is not yet high enough to appreciate; and this sublime devotion
is not in one home, but in _hundreds of thousands in every land_
everywhere on earth, and it is real, true, heart-born, and the utmost of
renunciation that human life has revealed.
The brief martyrdom of Jesus was not voluntary, was not lasting in its
pain or in its service to mankind. His death was cruel, his suffering and
agony terrible to think of, but it was all soon over. A few hours of
torture make up the tragedy of the cross. But the story of this
crucifixion may be fictitious, imaginary; most likely is such. Perhaps no
such man died such a death in any such way. Then how vain and foolish to
waste our sympathy on a fanciful sufferer, an imaginary martyr, who never
existed outside of the brain of the writer of the story, while there are
actual, real beings living who are making a greater sacrifice, doing a
holier duty, within our reach!
We need not go to a Bible to find those who deserve our tears, or who have
earned our admiration. The bravest heart that ever author wrote into
being, fails to come up to the lofty height of endurance, of a life
inspired by love, of heroic sacrifice, that can be found in hundreds of
homes in our land.
Far be it from my intention to paint less any deed of mortal that has
brightened the lot of man, or to throw discredit upon aught that is worthy
of human gratitude and praise. I yield most ready sympathy and most
willing admiration to every noble soul that has lived or died to make
earth better and happier, but I do not believe that greatness, goodness
and love are all dead, and that our whole duty is to stand and weep around
a tomb. I believe in living men and women, in living hearts and souls, in
living greatness and goodness and love, and I tell you all that the earth
never bore more loving, more humane, tenderer, braver, or truer hearts
than beat today in the living breasts of mankind.
And I place above all that is brave and true, great and good, in the past
or present, the mothers of our age.—What man cannot see that silent,
patient mother in her home, the victim of a multitude of trials, crosses,
annoyances, day after day and week after week, meeting all, bearing all,
with a saint’s look and manner; and what man, seeing her there, at the
side of the sick, worn out with watching and waiting, and then at the bed
of death, faithful and true to the last, though wounded in heart and
spirit never faltering in the way of duty, that would not say if there be
one sacrifice that is above, and greater than, all others, it is that of a
mother’s love?
THE DRAMA OF LIFE
With the passing of the season we are reminded of the rapid flight of
life. It seems but yesterday that the first bluebird of spring lit on the
bare bough of the apple-tree in the orchard near by, and the early robin
sang his welcome notes in our glad ears, and yet the bluebird and robin
are seen and heard no more, and the green promise of spring has changed to
the brown harvest of autumn, which will soon be stored for winter’s use.
This is the way every season comes and goes; a little long in coming
sometimes; but never long in going; and every year grows shorter as we
grow older, and every year goes more quickly as we near the border of old
age. Life soon changes from a glad look ahead to a sad glance behind. From
baby to boy, from boy to man, from man to tottering age;—how swiftly the
scenes change, and life comes and life goes, and the door of death opens
almost before the door of birth closes. The cradle and the grave touch,
and the blithe youth that lends his strength to feeble age finds himself
ere long leaning upon the arm of youth and strength. The circle of years
soon rolls round, and life is but a day of toil and a night of dreams. As
we look back upon vanished time and see the happy scenes of childhood
mingled with the surroundings of later life, days and months shrink to
hours, and years seem to be spanned by a sunrise and a sunset with a
little laughter and perhaps some tears between.
We who have travelled more than half way on the road cannot look backward
without a sigh, cannot think backward without a pang. Many of us have left
the graves of father and mother behind, perhaps the smaller graves of
children, where some of our heart lies buried too. The storms that beat on
us make life seem shorter; make the days go faster, and the night draw
nearer; and all of us have already, or must sometime, bow our heads to the
blast.
One human being in the great world of man, and in the greater world of
Nature, plays but a small part. Of but little account is a human life in
the vast, limitless universe. A man fills but a little space while alive,
and touches but a few hearts when he dies. We are fortunate if we make
during life, one true, loyal friend who stands by us while that life
lasts. We reckon this, after all, the grandest triumph of the human soul.
It is not difficult to gather dollars—quite a number, at least,—nor to win
a measure of fame, but to live, to be, to act, in such way as to bind one
true heart to ours, is a victory which we may be proud of. Some lives have
larger circumferences than others, radiate farther, influence more, but
none can win the rare tribute of perfect friendship from more than one or
two. Yes! man plays but a small part in the great drama of life. He is on
the stage but a few short hours, and most men are but poor or indifferent
actors at best.
Who cares when a man dies? Not the sun, for it shines just as gaily when
he closes his eyes to its golden light; not the birds, for they chatter
and sing over his coffin, and hop and sing on his grave; not the brook,
for it runs laughing on and never stops its gambols and song; not any of
the things of earth, but man.
When man dies, a few say, Is he gone? and then forget that he ever lived;
a few go to help carry his dead body to the grave, and then turn away to
join the business and pleasure of life, and forget that they have buried a
man; a few, some days after, call at the house where he lived and drop a
tear of sympathy for the weeping widow and tearful children, and then
forget that the husband and father is no more. But does no one care?
Perhaps a wife, who will carry his dead image in her heart as long as it
beats; perhaps a daughter, who will remember him a year or two, or a
little longer, who will miss his happy greeting, his loving kiss, his
proud, kind look as he lifts the heart’s dearest idol to his knee; and
this is all. And this is enough. We care for only a few; and why should
many care for us?
Though life is short and not always heroic; and though, when it ends, the
world goes on just the same, we love life and it is sweet while it lasts.
Though we travel quickly over the road, we enjoy for the most part, the
journey of life. We have pain, it is true; we learn of sorrow and grief;
we feel the pang of parting and weep on the white face of some loved one,
and yet, we find happiness, we enjoy living, and we regret when the
curtain is rung down and our part is played and the lights turned out.
When we strike the balance between pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow,
happiness and misery, most find that life is worth living.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
A dogma will thrive in soil where the truth could not get root.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The measure of liberty which man enjoys determines the civilization of the
age in which he lives.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The person who can make a loaf of bread is more to the world than the
person who could perform a miracle.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The indifference to Christianity may well alarm the men who live on the
credulity that gives it the show of life, but to those who delight in
actions of sincerity, it affords the greatest encouragement, for it
promises to the world a day when intelligence and integrity will be
respected more than ignorance and hypocrisy.
NATURE IN JUNE
We can hardly look anywhere in Nature without having the conviction grow
in the mind that there are more or less superfluous things on this spot of
the universe where our lot is cast, however it may be in Mars, Venus,
Saturn, or any other of the Greek-named planets or any heavenly
constellations with or without names. Just at this particular season of
the year, the presence of weeds in the garden or on the farm raises a
colossal doubt as to the fact of any wisdom guiding the divine voice when,
in a majestic sweep of its omnipotent power on the third day of the drama
of creation, it called into being the grass, the herb, the tree and
whatsoever bears leaf or blade or flower. To those who have to pull the
weeds out of the ground they are a curse of the first magnitude, and how a
creator, who had common sense, could take pride in making such vegetable
abortions as weeds we cannot comprehend. The most worthless things in
Nature are the most prolific. Chickweed will cover an acre while clover is
considering where it is best to go into business, and every pesky, nasty
little weed will live and laugh when the queenly corn droops its head in
the sun, and the beet and turnip cannot get nourishment enough to keep
them alive.
It is just the same in the animal world. An immense quantity of useless
beings go about on two and four legs or on none at all. The only excuse
for the snake is that he was made to eat the toad; for the toad, that he
was made to eat insects; for the insects—well, nobody has yet made a
wholesome excuse for their existence, anyway. It looks as though one being
in Nature was made simply to kill another being, and the last-made being,
man, is the supreme killer of the whole lot. Take the whole range of wild
beasts, and find, if you can, aught but malice in their creation, if they
were created. No plague ever destroyed hyenas and jackals. No one ever
found a sick rattlesnake or an invalid hornet. The fittest survive? The
fittest for what? To worry man, to make life miserable. Mosquitoes, wasps,
fleas, reptiles and wild beasts, poisonous vines and shrubs, noxious
blossoms whose perfume is the kiss of death, weeds that push and crowd
decent plants until they die in utter despair—these are the sturdiest
triumphs of the creative art. We cannot help wishing that the Lord-God had
not rested on the seventh day, but instead, had gone around and destroyed
about seven-eighths of what he had created. We might then have had quite a
decent world to live in.
Man builds a home for her he loves, he plants beside it all that will make
it beautiful to the eyes of his wife. He works and brings what is fair to
adorn it, and makes every room a casket to hold the jewel of love. He
looks at his home with pride, and feels that it is “the dearest spot on
earth,” a refuge safe and secure. The cyclone comes and in a moment all is
swept away. Man cannot trust the God of the winds.
There is no more terrible calamity that afflicts our globe at the present
time than an earthquake. It comes without warning, by day or night, when
man is at his place of business or when he is at rest. There is no way of
preventing it, no way of preparing for it. It may wait a hundred, a
thousand, years before it works its deadly ruin. But when it comes, havoc
is left. An earthquake may be good for the earth, but it is almighty
discouraging to the people that live on it. It may seek a beneficent end,
but it goes to work in a cruel manner to accomplish it. Human life counts
no more than the life of rats when an earthquake gets started. This
infernal visitor does not seek a spot where its malevolence can be wrecked
upon the rocks and hills. Oftener it goes to the thickly populated city or
town and topples over houses and swallows up dwellings, with men, women
and children. Does God send the earthquake? If he does, where is the
evidence of his love for man? If He does not, who does?
It is pretty tough business to try to reconcile Nature with the idea of
God’s watchful care over man. If the winds did not turn to hurricanes; if
the sunshine did not make drought; if the rain never became a flood; if
the sea never grew angry and sunk the ship; if the clouds always dissolved
in gentle rain or in dew; if there were no wild beasts; no venomous
snakes; no poisonous vines or flowers; if there were only what is bright
and fair and good on earth and nothing that was dark and cold and
repulsive, we might believe that a heavenly father had made the earth for
a dwelling-place for man. But as it is, we have to think as well of Nature
as possible and dodge her lightning, run from her water-spouts, keep out
of the way of cyclones and shift for ourselves while here. What follows
nobody knows. It may be better for us beyond this life; we hope it is no
worse. And it may be only sleep, sleep with no dreams and no awakening. We
should dislike to die on this side of the grave with the fear that we
should come out on the other only to meet a hurricane in the teeth, or
find an earthquake had been put under us to give us a shaking up the first
thing on that “shining shore,” or to be caught in a furious torrent that
poured down the sides of some heavenly mountain. Earth is a pretty good
place when the conditions are all favorable, but if we are to have another
life it ought to be a better one or else we should be saved the trouble of
dying.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The feet of progress have always been shod by doubt.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
A true man will not join anything that in any way abridges his freedom or
robs him of his rights.
THE INFINITE PURPOSE
A Christian writer recently said:—“The supreme duty of humanity is to get
into touch with the infinite purpose.” This may be so, but we want first
to understand just what the infinite purpose is before we subscribe to it.
When the infinite purpose is bent on getting up an earthquake we do not
care to “get into touch” with it, not much. When this purpose is forging
an electric bolt to shoot out of the clouds, we have no desire to “get
into touch” with any such thing. It makes a vast difference what this
purpose is bent upon, whether or not we want to go into partnership with
it. Now, when the infinite purpose is at work on the earth, turning dirt
into flowers, or vegetables, or trees, we should feel a joy in sharing its
labor, but when it is determined to burn and scorch everything on the face
of the ground with a heat that knows no abatement, we should want to sell
out our interest in the concern at once.
There is just as much nonsense connected with the use of this phrase “the
infinite purpose” as there is with “special Providence” or “Divine love,”
or any other religious expression which expresses nothing unless you are
religious. Where this “purpose” “makes for righteousness,” as Matthew
Arnold delighted to believe, we are willing to catch on to it, but where
it is going in the other direction we prefer to go our own way.
This notion of uniting the finite with the infinite purpose is all right,
providing the latter does not conflict with the former, but we have
serious objection to doing anything that will interfere with the highest
development of our humanity. The purpose which is at work in the world
does not make for health any more than for disease. It seems to carry a
tubercle with as much satisfaction as a ray of sunshine, and lends all its
forces to assist the highwayman with no more charge than it makes to the
law-abiding citizen.
It seems to us that it is necessary to divorce the “infinite purpose” from
a lot of intentions that do not work for human interests, before it will
be desirable to assume intimate relations with this purpose. We do not
want to “get into touch” with what is not going our way; that is, the way
of health, of prosperity, of happiness. We do not deny that we need to
give a higher direction to human thought. We affirm this fact as
positively as our most Christian contemporary. But before we advise
mankind to harness its wagon to the infinite purpose we want to be sure
where it is going. Man has to go to mill and market as well as to meeting,
and there is just as good a purpose manifested in getting the most
wholesome food for our stomachs as there is in getting the safest creed
for our souls. We are loth to trust any religious purpose as opposed to a
human one. We believe in man first, last, and all the time.
Now, let us admit that humanity needs a wiser purpose to guide it, but let
us also admit that it can be found in a wiser human head and human heart.
If what is called the infinite purpose is working for the highest end of
human life, there is no evidence of the fact. If there is anything better
than human energy back of a good human thought that will help this world,
we do not know what it is.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
The man who accepts the faith of Calvin is miserable in proportion to the
extent he carries it out.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Whatever tends to prolong the existence of ignorance or to prevent the
recognition of knowledge is dangerous to the well-being of the human race.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
A higher respect for man has been one of the chief promoters of
civilization. Advancement has always been toward right and truth when the
ranks were imbued with a proper regard for human hearts and human
happiness.
FREETHOUGHT COMMANDS
Say nothing about others that you would not have others say about you.
Be severe toward yourself; be kind to your fellow-man.
Do not give advice that you cannot follow.
Do not thank God for what man does.
Serve neither God nor Mammon, but humanity alone.
Do not try to be perfect as a "Father in heaven," but try to be better
than you yourself are.
Seek first to improve the earth, and heaven will be of less consequence.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Let us not forget that men speak according to the measure of their
knowledge and light, and that a superior enlightenment is a higher
authority.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and nothing so hard
to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the double enemy of
civilization. By its servility it is the prey of tyranny, and by its
credulity it is the foe of enlightenment.
A RAINBOW RELIGION
There is little doubt that the faith of the early Christians was what
might be classed under the head of rainbow religion. We learn from the New
Testament that it was taught that those who accepted the faith held by
John and Jesus and Paul were in some peculiar manner to be protected from
the common ills of life, and were to be especial favorites of their
“Father in heaven.” How sincerely this faith was held we cannot now
determine, nor to what extent it was put into practice, but that it
possessed the mind in a considerable degree there is no room whatever to
doubt. But this is not the question that we want settled, but rather the
value of this faith.
It is pleasant and comforting to believe that one is watched over by a
superior power which at any moment of peril or temptation is ready to
stretch forth its hand and rescue from danger and death, and it is on
account of the wonderful seductiveness of this faith that it has lasted so
long and has been so hard to overcome. But what we are interested in is,
whether or not such a belief has any foundation in fact or in human
experience. When Jesus bid his followers to cease giving thought to what
they should eat and drink and wear, telling them that their “heavenly
Father” fed the fowls of the air, and that they were better than such
fowls, thus implying that their heavenly Father would take proportionately
better care of them, was there any ground for any such teaching, and is
there any ground for this faith today? We claim that the “heavenly Father”
referred to by Jesus never fed anything, neither fowl nor man; and that no
human being was ever taken care of by any superior power or snatched by it
from danger or death. Such a faith is the veriest delusion, and it could
lodge and take root only in the childish mind. Jesus also taught that the
“Father which is in heaven” would “give good things to them that ask him.”
Is there any ground for this rainbow religion? Is there any evidence that
there is a “Father in heaven” who has good things to give to those who ask
for them?
We presume that this faith led men to give up work and to trust to begging
for a living. But the question is, which got the most good things,—those
who studied the laws of Nature and of life and worked in harmony with
them, or those who prayed for good things? How is it to-day? What good
things can be had by praying? Who has any good thing that he received by
asking his “Father in heaven” for it? The asking business has been carried
on for hundreds of years, and all that has been asked of God has had to be
given by man or has not been given at all.
Has it ever been true that Christians had any immunity from danger that
others did not have, or that they could live in defiance of the laws of
Nature? Jesus told his followers that in his name they shall cast out
devils, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it
shall not hurt them and they shall have the power to cure the sick by
laying their hands upon them. Have men, who professed to follow Jesus,
ever done the things which he said they shall do? Is there any man to-day
who can do these things? Is there any evidence that Christians are treated
by any power of the universe differently from what others are treated? And
is there any evidence that they possess any gift that is not shared by
others? As far as we can see Christians are subject to the same laws of
Nature that all others must obey, and they cannot either defy those laws
or act independently of them. If they fool with deadly serpents they will
get bitten and probably die—just the same as would an infidel; if they
drink a cup of poison, they will suffer and perhaps die just the same as
an unbeliever; if they have any sickness, they do not trust to the
laying-on of hands by a fellow-Christian, but send for a doctor the same
as a freethinker. The fact is, the world has learned better than to put
faith in these teachings of Jesus.
The Christian faith belonged to the childhood of the race, and ought no
longer to be preached to man. No one attempts to put this faith into
practice, to carry into life the teachings of Jesus. And why not? Simply
because _it is known to be false_. Christianity is a rainbow religion, a
representation of things for which there is no warrant in Nature; a
picture painted in false colors; a view of life copied from a diseased
imagination; a falsehood fed by priests upon which they live.
There is not an intelligent man or woman living to-day who has any faith
in the rainbow religion taught by Jesus; not an intelligent man or woman
who believes that a heavenly Father or a God will provide food or drink or
clothes for a human being; nor an intelligent man or woman who has faith
that he or she can get good things by asking a "Father in heaven" for them
and not an intelligent man or woman who cares or dares to put the
declaration of Jesus to the test; that those who have faith in him can
play with serpents without danger, and drink deadly poison with no more
harm than attends quaffing a glass of water.
We are then to conclude that Christianity is held only by the ignorant.
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There is greater argument in one fact than in all the creeds.
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It is easier to believe that a man is honest who says the Bible is the
word of God than to believe that he is bright.
A CRUEL GOD
There may be some other religion in the world that sings of a God more
cruel than the God of Christianity, but we do not know of any. At any
rate, we believe it is safe to say that no religion of a civilized people
has a God who is more vindictive. We have always wondered how men and
women could set such infernal ideas to music as we find in Christian
hymns. It is really too bad that human beings are compelled to sing such
lies as we find in the pious song-books of the church. The sentiments
contained in them are not fit for savages. It can only brutalize the heart
to sing of blood, and nothing but blood, no matter whose blood it is. The
“precious blood of Jesus” is just as suggestive of cruelty as the blood on
the executioner’s knife. Men become what they read, what they think, what
they sing, what they believe. Religions have made men wicked, cruel, hard,
unkind. It is impossible to have faith in a God of wrath and
vindictiveness without in time developing these qualities. Men grow into
the likeness of their belief. As a man believes, so is he, to a certain
extent.
The influence of cruel sentiments on the mind is greater with the young
than with adults. Some hymns sung in Christian churches are positively
brutal in tone. Think of _human_ beings singing the following verse:—
“But vengeance and damnation lie
On rebels who refuse His grace;
Who God’s eternal Son despise,
The _hottest hell shall be their place_.”
Christians seem to delight in pictures of hell. God would hardly be God to
them if he did not damn somebody. In painting the divine idea vengeance
and damnation are laid on thick.
Here is the Christian notion of father and son:—
“How justice frowned and vengeance stood
To drive me down to endless pain!
But the great Son propos’d his blood,
And _heavenly wrath grew mild again_.”
Think of the religion based on such an idea of God! And think on the
terrible effect on men and women which such religion must have!
The following description of the Christian God was probably written by one
of his adorers:—
“Adore and tremble for our God
Is a consuming fire!
His jealous eyes with wrath inflame,
And raise His vengeance higher.
“Almighty vengeance, how it burns,
How bright His fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for His foes.
“Those heaps of wrath, by slow degrees,
Are force into a flame:
But kindled, Oh! how fierce they blaze!
And rend all nature’s frame.
“At His approach the mountains flee,
And seek a watery grave;
The frighted sea makes haste away,
And shrinks up every wave.
“Through the wide air the weighty rocks
Are swift as hailstones hurled;
Who dares engage His fiery rage,
That shakes the solid world?
“Thy hand shall on rebellious kings
A fiery tempest pour,
While we, beneath Thy sheltering wings,
Thy _just_ revenge adore.”
And we are asked to love this God! We should just as soon think of loving
a tiger, a cyclone, a deluge, a fiend. Love goes out to what is lovely. We
can love what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble; a great-hearted
man, a pitying woman we cannot help loving, but if we should say that we
love such a God as is pictured in the words of that hymn we should lie.
Man cannot love hate, vengeance, wrath—even in a God.
The Christian church, down through the ages, has been like the God it
worshipped—full of hate, malice and cruelty. The world has grown kind and
humane just in proportion as it has given up worship of this divine
monster. We judge gods as we judge men, and we can respect and love only
what is worthy of respect and love from a human point of view. If there is
such a God as is painted in Christian literature he deserves, not to be
worshipped, but to be shot.
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The Bible upon which Christianity is founded does not say what
Christianity is, what a Christian is, nor what we must do in order to be a
Christian.
WHAT IS JESUS
Time was when Jesus was looked upon as God, or the Son of God. No one had
any doubt of his divinity or divine character; or if he had, he wisely
deferred to the superstitious majority and kept his mouth shut and so kept
his head on his shoulders. This idea that Jesus was God has been steadily
declining for several hundred years. Intelligence has pretty much given it
up, except where it is paid a big salary for preaching it. There is no
rational defence that can be made of the dogma of the divinity of Jesus.
It is one of many theological absurdities that was born when gods were
popular.
A large number believe that Jesus was a man and nothing more; a good man,
but still human. They look upon him as a product of human nature. He is
allowed a human father and mother, although the gospels, in which is found
the story of his life, hardly warrant so much earthly parentage. He is
regarded as a part of humanity, and his extraordinary deeds merely as
exaggerated performances of heart and hand of man. The people that look
upon Jesus as a man have a superstitious reverence for his humanity. He is
called “the one perfect man,” the “pattern of the race,” etc. Though a
man, they will have him every inch a man.
Yet others see nothing remarkable in the career of Jesus; nothing which
marks him for universal emulation; nothing which compels praise and
admiration. They think he was a sort of mild lunatic, possessed of the
idea that he was the Messiah of his people, and that in endeavoring to
further his scheme he antagonized the existing authority and met the just
punishment of his ambition.
But it is neither as God nor as a man that Jesus must be regarded, but as
a myth. No such person ever lived either as a human or divine existence.
He is simply a creature of fancy, the fruit of the imagination. He is a
character of the brain, the creation of religious genius.
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There is no justifiable Christianity in this age.
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A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living.
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The progress of the world depends upon freedom of thought and freedom of
utterance.
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If you can forgive the man who wronged you, the neighbor who slandered you
and help the poor about you, you need not be particular about making any
professions of righteousness.
DEEDS BETTER THAN PROFESSIONS
We have tears of regret to shed over the wreck of beauty and talent; but
if we take no steps to preserve beauty and talent from wreck, our
compassion is not to our honor but to our disgrace. The feeling of pity
which to-day expends itself in solemn warning or solemn weeping for the
poor unfortunates of earth, must devise means to rescue them from misery,
or it is but a mockery and a shame. One arm inspired with love of man will
do more than a thousand tender sentiments. Sympathy must take the form of
assistance, or it is not sincere.
When we do not love man as we ought, we hate ourselves. The way to get
heaven for ourselves is to give it to others. The way to be happy is to
make others happy. Selfishness kills every noble feeling and defeats every
good desire. We cannot have peace when we give pain to others. Our deeds
reward us. What wrongs man is wrong for man to do. We should live so as
not to regret the past nor fear the future. We set too great a value upon
earthly possessions, and spend our lives in gaining what we cannot hold.
We best enjoy the things of earth when we give up wanting them wholly for
ourselves. The best part of our happiness is having someone to share it.
GIVE US THE TRUTH
If there is one tree that man needs to eat of, it is the forbidden tree of
the knowledge of good and evil; and if any knowledge will keep him alive
and make him happy and perfect, it is just this knowledge which God forbid
him to acquire. We are dying to-day from ignorance, not from
knowledge,—dying because we do not know the good from the evil; and we are
dooming ourselves and future generations to premature death because we do
not eat more of the tree of knowledge.
To _know_ more is what we need. Let us look into things and find out what
the world means. If this universe is only an illuminated deception, the
man who discovers the fact will be a public benefactor. If things which
exist around us are lying to us,—if the stars that shine out through the
deep space above us are only fire-flies of the night, let us know it.
Knowledge will not hurt us so much as ignorance and deception. If the
flowers that uncover their beauty for our delight have but a phantom
loveliness, and nought is real in the enchanting world about us, then let
us be told the truth. The soul can bear it better than to be deceived. We
may be trusted with the knowledge of good and evil and of right and wrong,
ye God of Genesis! and praise be to the first-created man for breaking the
command to remain in ignorance and taking the first step toward solving
the riddle of life!
We learn everything by living. The truth is not revealed to us: we must
discover it. It is seen when we climb high enough to see it, or live wise
enough to feel it, or act true enough to utter it. When we hear the truth,
we hear only the echo of the universe. The last thing that we have to fear
is the truth and the consequences of knowing it. Let us not fear to speak
it or to hear it. And let us go with it whenever found. They who are
keeping the world from the knowledge of good and evil, who are trying to
discourage the preaching of truth, are the enemies of mankind.
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If man had no knowledge except what he has got out of the Bible he would
not know enough to make a shoe.
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The great work of man has ever been to rescue the present from the past;
to turn the mind from what it has left behind to the opportunities and
duties which are around it. For this has genius toiled down the ages, sung
its song of love, carved its dream of beauty and whispered to the world’s
dull ear its bright message of hope.
THE AMERICAN SUNDAY
Everybody has heard of what is called the “Christian sabbath,” and nearly
everybody has a tolerably clear idea of what is meant by a “continental
sabbath.” A “continental sabbath” may be described as a sort of week-day
Sunday, that is, as a religious holiday with more secular, than pious,
features. A Christian sabbath is so near dead in this country as a
religious fact that a definition of it cannot be had from real life. We
find the ideal sabbath of the Christians in the history of early New
England. For two centuries the people have been gradually outgrowing the
austere religion which made Sunday a day to be dreaded all the week. The
attempt has been frequently made by a small puritan contingent, which has
survived all these years, to resuscitate this dead sabbath and inflict it
upon the world again. But so far the effort has only met with deserved
failure.
Resurrections have never been successful. When the inhabitants of graves
have come out of their abodes it has been only to walk the streets for a
brief period, and then to return again to silence and rest. The stories of
ghosts, when true, are always short. These visitants never stop long or do
anything that is of any worth to the world. When the grave is once made
over the dead it is best to let it alone. There is nothing in cemeteries
to aid progress or civilization.
We do not need the revival of old customs or of old faiths. To endeavor to
rehabilitate the sabbath of our forefathers is as foolish as to try to
make people go back into log houses and cook over a fire-place. Some
persons can never realize that the world grows; that what was a help to
one age becomes a hindrance to another; that time corrects the mistakes of
men and that respect and reverence for our ancestors do not necessarily
require us to adopt their clothes or their habits.
Men and women are made fossils by their religion. The people who are
trying to-day to resurrect the puritan sabbath are people who have got
religion, but not much of anything else. A man who allows religion to
dominate all his thoughts, all his efforts, all his acts, usually is a
nuisance, if nothing worse.
A day of rest once a week is a good thing in itself, but it is a bad thing
when controlled by religion. We are in favor of Sunday as a day when man
can lay aside his business, his care, his tools, and enjoy himself, but we
want everybody to take their hands off of it. Sunday is not a day for
religion alone. If certain people wish to go to church on Sunday, let them
go; but when these people, who go to church on Sunday, wish to compel
everyone else to do the same, they need to be informed that _liberty on
Sunday is just as much a human right as liberty on Monday_. There are
better things that man has found than religion. Liberty is better, truth
is better, happiness is better. We would like to see an American Sunday on
this continent, a Sunday in harmony with the principles upon which our
government was founded, a Sunday which was not run by religion, a Sunday
for man and not for the church. Such a day would not be a sabbath, but it
would be a free day, a happy day. The notion of Sunday as a holy day is
too absurd, too ridiculous to deserve respectful attention. No man can
have fifty-two holy days in a year.
The minister must take his pious grasp off of the throat of Sunday.
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A true man is not troubled by anything but his own acts.
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The true man walks the earth as the stars walk the heavens, grandly
obedient to those laws which are implanted in his nature.
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A great many people are afraid of knowledge, but we have seen hundreds of
people that we thought would be improved if they knew more, but we have
never seen one that we thought would be better if he knew less.
LORD AND MASTER
The Christian is fond of referring to Jesus as his lord and master. We
wonder why, for it is evident that not a Christian of this century takes
Jesus for his lord and master. The fact is, that there is nothing that a
_man_ objects to more strongly than a master. Man wants to be independent.
He does not want anybody to be lord over him. The struggle of the race for
ages has been to get rid of lords and masters, to be free from tyrants.
Religion is after all only dead politics. The church makes sacred what the
state casts off. What sense is there in fighting for long centuries to
liberate the body, and voluntarily accepting slavery for the mind? Jesus
is the ghost of a dead king. But why should the world prostrate itself
before his invisible throne when it refuses to acknowledge by its
obedience that he is fit to rule the kingdom of conduct?
What hypocrites Christians are! What a farce it is for men and women to
call Jesus lord and master! They do not obey his slightest command, and
they ignore his teachings as undeserving their regard. There is not a
precept, that the Christian church teaches came from the lips of Jesus,
that Christians honor by practice, not one. Never did a lord receive so
little honest respect from his vassals; never a master so little true
obedience from his servants.
Men and women are not sincere when they profess to accept Jesus as their
lord and master. They doubtless feel grateful to him for saving them from
the fires of hell hereafter, but they look upon him as a mighty poor
example for them to follow here. As everybody knows, the church does not
require that its members shall practice the precepts given by Jesus. If
she did demand this of men and women her membership would speedily be
reduced to zero. We do not regard a man as honest, or worthy of respect,
who calls Jesus his lord and master and turns his back in contempt upon
the precepts he gave his disciples to practice.
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You cannot stuff your minds with the lives of saints and grow good on the
stuffing.
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Some persons are remembered solely for their virtues and others solely for
their faults. This is why we have a Jesus and a Judas.
ARE CHRISTIANS INTELLIGENT OR HONEST
Future generations will regard the men who accept the Christian
superstitions either as simple or dishonest.
We are forced to doubt the sanity or sincerity of people who profess to
believe in the doctrine of the trinity, in a “begotten Son of God,” in
miraculous conception, in the resurrection of the body, in the Bible as
the word of God, in miracles, and in heaven and hell. We ask
ourselves:—Are men intelligent who believe these things, or do they merely
profess to believe them, and are dishonest? We cannot reconcile faith in
the Christian superstitions with mental soundness and good sense.
What is there in Nature to suggest any of the Christian doctrines? Does
not everything we know, everything we have seen, everything we have
experienced, deny and disprove the Christian superstitions? Why, then, do
people accept them? We find no one that acts as though Christianity were
true, no one who lives as though hell were under his feet and liable at
any moment to pull him down to eternal damnation. We find men spending all
their energies in trying to get the good things of earth, just as though
they were told to do so by God, instead of commanded not to lay up
treasures upon earth, etc.
It is one of the serious problems of the age to know how to deal with
Christians. They are, as a rule, respectable and decent; they have good
manners generally, and they eat and drink, dress and talk, live and die
very much as other people, and yet they profess a faith that is absurd and
foolish and that has no foundation in fact or philosophy.
We like to think well of our fellow-beings, and we would like to think
well of Christians, but we cannot do so as long as they pretend to believe
what a person of intelligence, of good sense, cannot believe. Are
Christians honest? Perhaps they think so, but have they ever really
examined their belief in the light of the knowledge of the twentieth
century? If they will do this, we do not see how they can longer profess
to be Christians, if they are honest.
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When men are hungry roast mutton is better than the lamb that taketh away
wrath.
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If a man can look in the mirror of his own soul without shame, he can look
the whole world in the face without a blush.
THE DANGER OF THE BALLOT
Men speak usually as though voters ranged themselves on one side of a
political question, or another, according to their convictions or
principles. We wish this were so, then we should be nearer having a pure
ballot. But we cannot share this lofty view. It does not seem to us that
the average voter is a man of either political convictions or principles.
Party service does not require intelligent, independent action, and
politics to-day stands for party fealty more than for governmental ethics.
The main question that is decided by an election in our country is, which
political party shall have the privilege of dispensing the offices of
Government? There is a desire on the part of certain persons to obtain
office, for either personal or party advantage, and this desire is
oftentimes so fierce that it will betray the honor of citizenship. Where
this is done, or attempted, lies the danger of the ballot.
If men voted only as their political convictions dictated, we should have
a higher party morality and purer officers, but we must face the facts
even though the duty is not an agreeable one. Politics has degenerated to
a dirty business and political trickery and bribery secure victory where
honor, integrity and principle suffer defeat. The plain truth is, we have
a large class of voters who make merchandise of their right of suffrage,
and a set of demagogues whose business it is to bribe or coerce voters for
the advancement of selfish ends.
The honest, virtuous, intelligent, independent vote is the noblest power
of a freeman, but the purchasable vote, the ignorant vote, the vicious and
servile vote, is the opportunity of the knave and the scoundrel. The
purity of the ballot is the only safety of a Republic, and no greater
danger threatens this nation to-day than that which arises from the
corruption of the suffrage. A ballot should be the honest declaration of
our principles, the expression of our own opinions, the badge of our
manhood; but when it is held in the hand that has sold it for a price, or
will deposit it at the dictation of another, it is the prostitute of greed
and the hired assassin of the despot.
Every man should select his own ballot and vote to please himself, and any
person that would interfere with his right and duty to do this, should be
disfranchised forever. _The individual who does not know enough to select
his own ballot has no right to vote in this country._
There have been too many voters led to the polls, and used as party
troops. There are still slaves on election day who are afraid of the crack
of the whip. There ought to be permitted in this nation no political or
religious disability on account of the honest exercise of the right of
suffrage. A man should be protected from the politician and the priest.
When a man votes as he thinks, he has discharged the highest duty of
citizenship, but when he votes through bribe or fear, he forfeits the
privilege of the ballot. The polls are more sacred to man than the altar.
Religion might die and man could still have every blessing of earth, but
when liberty is killed, the noblest blessing of earth has departed.
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The petty salvation offered by Christianity is not much sought after
to-day, while the world is bending its mighty energies in the direction of
knowledge as never before, and the glory of the electric light, the song
of the steam-whistle, the music of the telegraph, the chorus of machinery
and the grand anthem of countless enterprises tell of a bright and golden
future time when man will master the elements of Nature and guide his life
through its course of years in perfect safety and security and step down
at the end of it,—“Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him
and lies down to pleasant dreams.”
WHO CARRIED THE CROSS
Who carried the cross upon which Jesus was crucified? Such a question
ought to be easy to answer, if the event ever occurred. There ought to be
no disagreement upon so simple a matter as this. But there is
disagreement, and quite a serious one at that. Three of the gospels
declare that Simon carried the cross, while the fourth gospel says that
_Jesus_ himself carried the cross upon which he was crucified. Now, which
is right? Is John right? If so, then Matthew, Mark and Luke are wrong. If
Simon carried it, Jesus could not have done so; and if Jesus carried it,
then Simon did not.
That there is such a discrepancy in the accounts of this alleged event
does not so much indicate that one is right and the others wrong in regard
to the carrying of the cross as that none is right. To our mind this
disagreement of the gospels is an indication that no such event as the
carrying of a cross upon which to crucify Jesus ever occurred.
Christians put forth the Bible as a work which in some way came from God;
as a book which is reliable in its statements, and correct in its
narrative of events. Now, it is patent to everyone that in the gospels
there are two distinct accounts of the carrying of the cross. How can
Christians reconcile this fact with their theory that God is the author of
the Bible?
It must be admitted by all that one mind could not have written or
inspired both of these stories, and it must also be admitted that if one
is true the other is false. What is the natural conclusion that an
unprejudiced mind would arrive at after reading the account of the
carrying of the cross for the crucifixion of Jesus in the four gospels? Is
it not that no such cross was ever carried for any such purpose?
There are too many gospels, too many stories of Jesus. It would have been
better for Christianity had all but one of these narratives been
destroyed. They contradict each other in so many essential points as to
make them totally unreliable as records of facts. It is plain that _not
one of the writers of the four gospels knew of what he was writing_.
We must in honesty say that no one knows who carried the cross on which
Jesus was crucified, and no one knows whether Jesus was crucified or not,
and no one knows whether any such person as Jesus ever lived, to be
crucified.
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Civilization has come about by going to school more than to church.
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Nature is the volume from which all of our knowledge has been translated.
MODERN DISCIPLES OF JESUS
The modern disciples do not resemble very closely the ancient disciples of
Jesus. In fact it is very hard to find a reason why Christian preachers
call themselves disciples of Jesus at all. According to the narrative of
the New Testament Jesus was not in love with money and what money will
buy; he did not have a high appreciation of the good things of the world;
he did not express any anxiety about his food or dress, nor manifest any
desire to have aesthetic surroundings.
And if we can credit the story of the gospels, Jesus charged his disciples
to be and do pretty much as he himself was and did. He said to them: “Heal
the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils; ... Provide
neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your
journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman
is worthy of his meat.... It is enough for the disciple that he be as his
master.”
Whether or not the ancient disciples heeded these words of their master,
and carried out his instructions, we do not know, but there is abundant
evidence that his modern disciples do not pay his commands the compliment
of obedience. If there is one item that the clergyman of to-day looks
after it is his salary. He deliberately disobeys all of the injunctions of
Jesus to his disciples, and thinks he is doing his duty to do so.
This is the funny part of his discipleship to us. He does not consider the
charge of Jesus worthy of being heeded. When we point to the commands of
Jesus, and ask some Christian minister why he does not obey them, he
coolly informs us that it would be the height of folly in this age to
attempt to do as Jesus commanded his first disciples. In other words the
Christian clergyman acts upon the ground that the orders of Jesus to his
apostles are incompatible with personal dignity and decent living, and
that only a person utterly devoid of all sense of fitness and social
responsibility would undertake to follow his directions.
We agree with the action of the modern disciple of Jesus in regarding his
commands as foolish and unfit to be obeyed, but we want him to take an
honest stand before the world and say so like a man. Now he is a
hypocrite, when he assumes a place in the Christian ranks but refuses to
obey the orders of his master. The modern disciple of Jesus is more
concerned about putting money in a bank or investing it in real estate
than he is about “laying up treasures in heaven.”
If there is one person who believes thoroughly in looking after himself
and his in the world, and getting all the good things out of it, it is the
Christian minister. He is well housed, well fed, well dressed, and, as a
rule, has a comfortable income. How he must laugh when he reads the New
Testament! He probably regards Jesus as a chump to tell men and women to
take no thought for what they shall eat and drink and wear, and not to lay
up a few dollars for a rainy day. He has to make believe honor the poor,
unsophisticated peasant of Galilee, in order to get his fat living. He has
to fool the fools that support him in luxury, but all the reverence he has
for Jesus you could put in your eye.
If it paid better to tell the truth and to take an honest position in the
world, we presume that most ministers would quit playing the hypocrite,
but as long as Christianity pays its preachers more than they can get from
any other source, we may expect them to profess to follow Jesus and then
do as they please.
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Every fact is backed up by the whole universe.
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Christianity is a black spot on the page of civilization.
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The church is a bank that is continually receiving deposits but never pays
a dividend.
A POOR EXCUSE
The excuse of the poor for not going to church is a poor excuse. The woman
who does not go to church because she cannot dress well enough, cannot
have much respect for her master. Jesus did not rail against the poor, but
the rich. He did not condemn Lazarus, but Dives. Christian churches should
be filled with rags, not silks; with paupers, not bankers. No one can be
too poor to feel at home in the church of him who was too poor to have a
place to lay his head. A Christian church is the church of poverty, and
its minister should welcome the tramp, the beggar, the rag-muffin, and
should give the cold shoulder to the rich merchant, the well-dressed
politician, the prosperous citizen.
It is a singular thing that while silks despise rags, rags respect silks.
The poor Christians ought to glory in their poverty, ought to be proud of
their patches. They should have utter contempt for good clothes, and go to
the church of Jesus with a feeling of pride that they honor him by being
poor, as he was. Velvet, satin and broad-cloth are insults to him whose
ragged royalty they profess to reverence.
If the poor were not as big hypocrites as the rich, they would drive the
richly-dressed worshipers out of the church dedicated to the
poverty-stricken Nazarene, who has been elected to the office of savior. A
person has not very much Christianity when his religion is ashamed of his
old clothes.
PROFESSION AND PRACTICE
There are a great many persons who are anxious to pass for more than they
are worth, to stand for more than they represent. They always get on the
side of the majority, because that is considered the safe side, the side
that is most likely to have the largest number of loaves and fishes. These
people are willing to pay the price of popularity; willing to do anything
that is regarded as respectable, even to denying their own souls. The
easiest way to win favor is by professing the popular faith, no matter
what it is. A true man will be true to his convictions, true to his
principles; but such a man may not receive applause, may not make money,
may not be allowed to enter the door of society. In order to win the favor
and secure the good-will of the majority, it is necessary to go with it,
no matter where it is going. The thoughtless, the weak and simple, follow
the crowd.
Profession is demanded of him who would join the ranks of the pious.
Profession is required of the man or woman who belongs to the church. The
performance of every duty, the practice of every virtue, is not a
sufficient recommendation to popular favor. It is a fact that profession
without practice is accepted in preference to practice without profession.
The man who gives his life to man without thought or care about God is
considered a bad man, while he who gives his life to God without thought
or care about man is regarded as holy and saintly. Nobody can do God any
good or any harm, and all the worship that is offered him is a waste of
time.
The man who stands up in public and asks God in prayer to help the poor,
to bless the suffering, is looked upon as a good man, while he who does
not pray nor ask God to do anything, but helps his needy brothers and
sisters, is pronounced wicked and sinful. Values have become strangely
mixed in the eyes of mankind. Religion is considered as worth more than
morality; worship more than work; prayer more than performance and
profession more than practice. This is wrong, false and foolish.
Profession is a mighty poor jewel, a cheap and flashy substitute for the
diamond of practice. It is a confession of fraud; a mask for a face; a
coward’s excuse; a hypocrite’s wile. Honesty need not profess to be
honest.
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When a minister says that God will help you, ask him to put up the
collateral.
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The church spends thousands of dollars to save a dogma, where it spends a
cent to find a truth.
WHERE IS TRUTH
Men have enthroned truth in some far-off kingdom, away from the world, as
though it were too pure to live on earth. It has been made supernatural,
and only to be known by being revealed. But truth is everywhere; its voice
is heard in everything. The very pebble at our feet holds its image, and
its light twinkles in the white splendor of the distant star.
Man has searched for truth in books, but has not found it there. He has
invented words to conceal his disappointment, such as God, heaven,
providence, etc. Nature contains all the truth, and so far as men have
read Nature aright they have learned what is true, but we cannot catch and
hold Nature in our philosophies. She breaks through all the finely-woven
theories we put about her, and man, in his attempt to bind Nature with his
thoughts, binds only himself.
Men in all ages have tried to read the secret of the universe. We have
been told that God directs it, that a divine mind planned it and keeps it
in motion. Why not let the universe explain itself? Why not read it by its
own light? Why not confess our ignorance? God is a figure of speech, but
Nature is a reality. Let us trust what we know. Nature is never
capricious. Fire will always burn, water will always drown, frost will
always freeze. Though we have confidence in Nature, let us acknowledge
that we do not yet comprehend the meaning of things. The old habit of
inventing words to hide our ignorance has been adopted by science as well
as by religion. Evolution does not reduce the mystery of existence to a
simple problem. What we call truth is more than we have yet found. The
unknown is still provocative of investigation, and the only prayer of the
mind is, more light. We must beware of accepting dogmas, whether of
science or religion. No statement is the last word of truth. Doubt is the
first step of progress, and inquiry is the way to knowledge.
There is nothing that stands more in the way of human advancement than the
authority of opinions. Some dragon of assertion ever disputes our right to
the golden fleece of truth. If we ask for proof of God’s existence or
man’s immortality, we are answered with a text, but a text is only the
dead opinion of a dead man. This age demands truth, not the belief of a
person who lived centuries ago.
Because superstition holds the contents of a book sacred we are not to
enslave reason to its statements. We will not be bound by the opinions of
others, neither must we bind others to our opinions. We must make freedom
sacred, and cease condemning men for disbelief or unbelief. The bondage of
faith is the slavery of the soul. It makes man unjust, unwise and unkind.
Allegiance to a creed makes us ill use a man simply because he does not
believe as we do.
No church has all the truth, and no school either. So-called religion
merely shows where the search after truth ended. But truth is the infinite
reality, and it will always be for man to find.
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Christianity is like a slow clock—always being moved ahead.
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The day of the Bible is passed. Books have taken its place.
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Better be late to church Sunday morning than late at home Saturday night.
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Man to-day has more and better ways of getting a living than at any time
in the history of the race.
WHAT DOES IT PROVE
Christians say that the resurrection of Jesus proves his claim to be the
Messiah. But what proves the resurrection? Certainly not the contradictory
stories of the gospels. The story of the resurrection of Jesus from the
tomb merely proves that somebody lied, that is all. A pretty Messiah Jesus
was! The Messiah of the Jews was to be a king who should restore the lost
splendor of the house of David; who should overthrow the power of the
Romans and build up the Israelitish kingdom. This king never came. Jesus
was just about as much a Jewish Messiah as Crispus Attucks was a President
of the United States.
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No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can be made as
large as man.
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To correct in ourselves what we condemn in others would remove most of the
evils of life.
HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY
There is nothing that tends to perpetuate the weakness of humanity more
than religion. Men have been taught for ages that they were dependent upon
God for all they have. This kind of teaching must be corrected; it is
false. Man is dependent upon man. No God will help or hurt him. Be he ever
so good no God will praise him; be he ever so bad no God will blame him.
What he wants to escape is his own condemnation.
In order to develop an independent spirit in man it is necessary to
increase his responsibility. Man must be taught to rely upon his own
strength, upon his own body and mind. He must learn his relations to
Nature and abide by the laws of his being. He must know this: if he would
have anything he must deserve it. Human destiny follows human conduct.
The old notion that man is responsible to God cannot be proved. There are
no facts that corroborate that notion. Man is responsible to himself. It
is this truth that is calculated to elevate and ennoble human life. Let
human beings understand that there is that within themselves that is to be
respected, and that they are responsible to themselves for all they do,
and they will be more worthy of respect and live more worthy lives.
ABOLISH DIRT
We should like to see one generation brought up to hate dirt. Every child
ought to be taught that clean hands and face and clean clothes help to a
clean life. There are too many homes on this earth that human beings live
in that are dirty, in which those three household gods—the broom, the mop,
and the dust-rag—have no place.
Children should be taught to drive dirt out of the house as they would a
mad dog. Dirt is the food of disease. It is the enemy of health and
happiness. Abolish dirt.
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If God exists, what objection can he have to saying so?
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When we have nothing to give a beggar, we can at least tell him so kindly.
RELIGION AND MORALITY
A religious man is not trusted to-day because he is religious. Faith in
vicarious atonement is not accepted as a moral substitute for meeting
one’s obligations. Worship of God is not equivalent to helping your
neighbor. The fact that a man is religious may not be proof that he is a
bad man, but it is no evidence that he is a good man. The most
contemptible wretch that ever robbed the widow or orphan could shine in a
prayer-meeting, where words are passed for virtues. The veriest scoundrel
can pay a pew tax and march up the aisle of the church with sanctimonious
countenance. Religion is such a superficial affair that it carries no
moral recommendation. Without morality religion could not borrow a dollar
on its name, while morality without religion can get all the accommodation
it asks for. The real virtues of a man do not depend upon religion. Men
have lived good lives while believing in dozens of gods and without faith
in a single god. Morality is not the offspring of theology. You cannot
pick out a moral man by hearing him pray. A great deal of religion is worn
to conceal moral defects.
We should watch the man who stands up in public and says: I am moral. We
should say to him: It is not necessary for you to proclaim your morality;
your daily life will show how moral you are. The world is becoming
suspicious of him who stands up in public and says: I am religious.
A great many people seem to think if they profess to love God it is not
necessary for them to love man.
We are not denying that a great many good men and women are religious;
that a great many good men and women go to church and prayer-meeting. We
do not deny that a great many moral men and women profess faith in total
depravity, in vicarious atonement, but we do not see how their faith has
anything to do with their morality. There is no particular necessity for
Christians to be good. Their faith saves them, not their conduct. Religion
is not doing, it is believing, or pretending to.
There is a big opportunity to lie in religion. You cannot tell when a
person says he believes in God whether he is telling the truth or not. It
is mighty easy to be religious. But the moral man has no such chance. He
is not judged by his professions, but by his actions.
Religion makes hypocrisy easy, but morality offers the hypocrite no show
whatever.
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Never forget the good deeds that others do to you, nor remember those that
you do to others.
JESUS AS A MODEL
It is common to speak of Jesus as though he touched the borders of every
human experience, and sounded the depths of every joy and every woe, but
there is no warrant for such statements.
He lived a very narrow life, and his brief career cannot be stretched to
cover the limits of our earthly existence. He is held up for us to
imitate, as though he had left a pattern for every hour of our lives, and
a model for every day from the cradle to the grave. This is simply
nonsense. This “model” business has been overworked. Jesus had a great
many crude, foolish ideas, and did a great many deeds that are not worth
repeating. As a model of what is best in this age he is a wretched
failure. It is a mistake to look upon Jesus as a fit person to lead our
century to a higher life.
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There is nothing to live for in the past.
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We must condemn christianity, not christians; strike the church, but spare
the heart.
SINGING LIES
Go into any Christian church and you will hear the choir and the
congregation singing lies. Is it not time to stop it? Is music married
irrevocably to falsehood? Take up an ordinary hymn-book and you will
hardly find a sensible line in it. The entire contents of the book is
about God, heaven, salvation, and other equally unknown quantities, states
and conditions. Why not sing sense? Why not sing facts? Why not sing
truth? Why not sing the glories of Nature, of life, of man?
Music is a wonderful power, a wonderful educator of the feelings and
emotions. It is essential, therefore, that music be inspired by what is
true, by what is good, by what is right. Truth should be set to music and
the lips taught to sing what science has discovered, what art has done,
what the universe reveals, what the world is living for.
The common Christian music is a wail of despair, a cry of sorrow, a shriek
of fear. It is composed of false conceptions of Nature, of humanity, of
life. It is a “doleful sound.” The triumph of faith which it celebrates is
not a full, round, complete joy.
The Church does not know the music of laughter, the music of the heart.
Its song seems always to hover on the brink of fear. It is not the glad
note of natural freedom, but the uncertain joy of the escaped convict.
The free song must come from the free heart, must denote the free thought.
Let life that is healthy, happy and human be set to music. Let us sing as
we live, as we think, as we feel. The music of the hand, the mind, the
heart, should be on the lips. If we could only sing what sings through us,
the world would listen with rapture. We do not want “harmonious madness”
nor harmonious idiocy. Pious music is stupid, false. It is inspired by the
sickness of the world. We need a stronger note, a sturdier song.
Lies enough have been sung. Let truth now fill the air. Out of the great
hope of the race let new songs come. We are beginning to live for life on
earth, for happiness here, for love here, for victory here. Let the hands
and feet, the brains and hearts of men and women move to the music of
truth.
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There is not a village where poverty does not pinch the stomach or starve
the mind, where misery does not need charity and where wealth could not
bless.
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Piety could do nothing better than imitate morality.
A WALK THROUGH A CEMETERY
In walking through a country graveyard one sees a prominent granite or
marble monument here and there, but more of the stones that mark the
resting-places of the dead are modest in appearance, plain and humble. But
there are some graves that are unmarked by any outward token of
remembrance. Such graves may hold the dust of as great and good men and
women as those spots above which has been raised the lofty shaft and
costly design.
Graveyards are just as deceptive as are the homes of the living. A fine
house is not proof of the moral, the manly or womanly worth of its
occupant. Saints do not sleep beneath the gilded roof any more than under
a leaky thatch. So also the wise, the good, the true, are not the ones
over whose ashes rises the chiseled stone. The dead may deserve monuments
that the living are not able to buy.
A graveyard might be called a library of lies. Epitaphs are to be read,
and believed, if you can believe them. We have found as big falsehoods in
cemeteries as in newspapers. “Say nothing bad of the dead” is kindly
counsel, but, say nothing of the dead on a tombstone, is wiser.
We have seen a towering stone covered with words of praise over the ashes
of a man, who, while living, was simply a lover of money. We have seen the
sunken grave of a woman, with no marble to adorn it, who lived a heroic
life of love and duty beyond words to tell. If virtues bore monuments one
would rise over the neglected grave of that saintly woman that would reach
the clouds, and that other grave would be stripped of its marble and left
to oblivion.
Though a cemetery is more or less a museum of vanity and pride, there is
at the bottom of the costly display of granite and marble a tender
feeling, a commendable virtue. There may be as much love and respect for
those in unmarked graves as for those who sleep in costly masonry or
beneath sculptured stone. In walking through a graveyard, if our steps
should go to the places where no monument invited the eye, they would be
more likely to walk over the dust of those who did life’s duty well, than
if they paused only before the imposing shaft or read the marble tale of
virtue that never was told in deeds.
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God never helps those who need the help of men and women.
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No man ever knew Providence to interpose when his neighbor’s hens are
scratching up his garden.
PEACE WITH GOD
A good, pious lady said to us not long ago: “Don’t you think that you
ought to make your peace with God?” We have never had a bit of trouble
with God. We have got along with him tip top. He has never shown that it
was at all necessary for us to make peace with him. We have never
quarrelled. If we are not at peace with God, we did not know it. We have
no wish to have a row with anyone, and if God has the idea that we are mad
with him or want to injure him in any way, we wish to disabuse his mind of
such a notion.
We wish to say that we have never had any dealings with God, to our
knowledge. If we have seen him, we did not know it. If he has spoken to
us, we were not aware of the fact. If he has been in our presence at any
time, we were not conscious of it.
We do not know that we have ever wronged God or that God has ever wronged
us. We do not say that some word or act of ours may not have injured God.
All we can say is that we have no way of finding out whether such is the
fact or not. Of course, we could not take the word of a priest or minister
on this point. We want God’s own assurance in the matter.
Up to this time God has made no complaint to us that we have wronged him,
or that we need to make our peace with him, and until we hear from his own
lips that we owe him an apology, we do not intend to make one.
God is just as good to us as though he was dead. He does not cross our
path, stand in our light, dog our steps, or interfere with what we are
doing. He does not get in our way any more than if he lived in the planet
Jupiter. So we do not see that we need to make our peace with him. We do
not comprehend how there can be any collision between us.
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Priests will pardon thieves but not philosophers.
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Priest and God have formed some of the worst combinations in history.
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Too long has this world been at the feet of the priest. Man is never in
that position for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the priest.
SAVING THE SOUL
The man who can deliberately, and in cold blood, as it were, try to save
his soul, must be grossly selfish. To do that which shall redound to one’s
own advantage or profit, without care or consideration of another, shows
little humanity. The finer feeling is that which looks after others rather
than one’s self. It can only increase selfishness to seek salvation.
When a man gets the idea that his soul must be saved, and goes to work to
save it, the things that he will do in order to insure its salvation tend
to lessen its value; and by the time he thinks his soul is saved it is
generally not worth saving. The more willing we are to be lost, the more
chance there is that we will not be.
The cheapest method of saving one’s soul is by believing something. This
requires but little effort and no brains. Christianity is organized
gullibility. It tells people to believe what it teaches and it will save
their souls. It remains to be seen whether Christianity fulfils its part
of the contract.
It occurs to us that before we try to save our soul we ought to know that
we have a soul and that it needs saving. We fail to see any necessity for
anxiety on account of our soul. We do not care to go into the salvation
business and let the priest get all the dividends. Any person who can
seriously talk about “saving his soul” ought to have a guardian.
THE SEARCH FOR SOMETHING TO WORSHIP
What is there in the universe that deserves worship? Is there anything?
What is there that men and women should kneel to, pray to and adore? If
there is anything that deserves such worship from human beings, where is
it? Let us see if we can find any such thing.
We look at the earth and its inhabitants, and while we see much which
calls for admiration, we find nothing to worship. The mountain impresses
us with its towering grandeur, the ocean with its vast extent and terrible
power, but we cannot get on our knees to rocks, no matter how high they
are piled; nor pray to water, no matter how much there is of it. The
flower elicits our wondering delight, but we cannot adore a rose, a
sunflower or a daisy. We own the marvelous beauty of the animal form, but
we cannot worship a horse, a tiger or a dog. We hear the gladness and
madness of melody which comes from the throat of the bird, but sweet and
entrancing as it is, we cannot adore a skylark, a nightingale or a thrush.
We see man, the fairest form that walks the earth, the most marvelous
piece of work that Nature reveals to our senses, but we cannot worship our
own image.
Beyond earth the eye looks, and cloud, black or bright, is seen and the
endless blue beyond the cloud, but man cannot get on his knees to vapor or
pray to the sky. In the daytime the sun is seen, and at night the moon and
countless stars, but man cannot worship a ball of fire nor a dying planet,
or adore a point of light.
We can find nothing on the earth or in the heavens that we can worship. Is
there something not on the earth or in the heavens? If so, what is it and
where is it? What do men and women kneel to? Nothing. What do men and
women pray to? Nothing. What do men and women worship? Nothing.
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Coals out of the ashes of love will never light the fires of friendship.
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The names of most men live on account of the falsehoods told about them.
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We should scorn the person who would be mean enough to allow his
fellow-being to be punished for his deeds. Yet we have a religion in our
midst that is founded on this kind of meanness.
WHERE ARE THEY
Where are the sons of gods that loved the daughters of men?
Where are the nymphs, the goddesses of the winds and waters?
Where are the gnomes that lived inside the earth?
Where are the goblins that used to play tricks on mortals?
Where are the fairies that could blight or bless the human heart?
Where are the ghosts that haunted this globe?
Where are the witches that flew in and out of the homes of men?
Where is the devil that once roamed over the earth?
Where are they? Gone with the ignorance that believed in them.
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No man was ever yet canonized for minding his own business.
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No man was ever yet sorry to find that he had married a good cook.
SOME QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIANS TO ANSWER
How do ministers know what pleases God?
What is “inspiration of God?”
When God “inspired men of old,” what did he do to them?
What has God revealed to man that has ever helped him get a living?
If we do not need to worship God six days in the week why do we need to
worship him on the seventh?
If there were no ministers and no priests, how long would there be any
churches?
If God will answer prayer, what is the necessity of working?
If God weeps when the poor suffer, what does he make it so cold for?
If rich men cannot enter the kingdom of God, what business have rich men
to be in Christian churches?
If God is our “father,” does he take very good care of his children?
If God sends what blesses us, who sends what curses us?
If Christianity makes the world better, why is there so much vice and
crime?
If “salvation is free,” why is anybody lost?
THE IMAGE OF GOD
We wonder if anyone knows what is meant by the expression, “the image of
God.” It is said in the Bible that God “created man in his own image.”
If man makes anything in his image we know how this thing looks, but when
God creates something in _his_ image we are at a loss to comprehend what
is meant unless God has the likeness of man. In ancient times there is no
doubt but what the assertion that God “created man in his own image” was
accepted literally, that the people looked upon God as a big man. Later
they came to look upon man as a little god.
But we are dealing with the brain of the twentieth century, with the
common sense of a scientific age, when it is no longer believed that God
“created” man at all. To-day the “image of God” is a puzzle. If God
“created man in his own image,” in whose image did he create the elephant,
the lion, the bear, the ox, the goat, the snake, the beetle, the bee, the
fly, the gnat? These could not all have been created in the divine image,
unless the divine image is a multitudinous likeness.
Is it not about time that a few literary murders were committed, that some
one went through our literature and killed off a lot of nonsensical
expressions that, if they ever meant anything, are meaningless today? If
there was more honesty in the pulpit a great many Bible expressions would
go out of fashion. One of the first that needs to die or be killed is this
foolish expression, “the image of God.” It may be religious, but it lacks
sense. It means nothing in this age. God is a term that eludes definition.
It is a survival of an age of ignorance.
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A man may be a fool and not know it, but he cannot be a fool without
others knowing it.
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There is a pious regard for certain men and women who have in past ages
been, as it were, the world’s salvation. We would honor these men wherever
piety offers her praise, but we would not, like piety, forbid man the
right to excel them. We all know how much easier it is to be saved by
another than to save ourselves, but it cannot be denied that there is a
certain respect, a feeling of admiration, a thrill of reverence for the
man who says: I am a free moral being and scorn to allow another to suffer
for my sins.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE
When religion attacks science it is like trying to cut down the tree of
truth with the hatchet of falsehood. It is unfortunate for Christianity
that it was founded on the book of Genesis. A scientific fact is higher
authority today than a religious fable. Science has found so many facts
that contradict the stories of Genesis that to accept these stories as
divine truth is to make falsehood the word of God.
The one particular enemy of every religion is science. With merciless
labor her votaries have dethroned one after another idol of man. Science
has no creed, no dogmas. Her search is for facts, and on these she stands.
If what is discovered by lovers of truth is contrary to the tenets of
religion, such tenets must be abandoned, for what is scientifically false
cannot be religiously true.
The Christian church is built upon a lot of divine say-soes. Science has
found that these say-soes are not so. The only honest thing for Christians
to do is to give up the book of Genesis as a reliable record. What men
have said that God has said is not necessarily sacred. Men may have lied,
and lies are not holy. Christianity has been afraid of the divine name.
What it has found in the name of God it has blindly worshiped as the word
of God. This stupid action has been a prolific source of mischief. Faith
has carried on its innocent back a thousand impositions through fear to
doubt.
Science has not found the name of God in the earth or in the heavens. It
has ignored the guide-board which the priest of religion nailed to the
Bible, “this book shows the way to truth,” and has studied the volume of
Nature instead. Whatever it has found has been told. What may be honestly
inferred from the facts of science is that all religions are humbugs, and
that Christianity is a fraud.
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The only way to a better life is by living better.
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The person who tells a lie does not know what he will have to do next.
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A great many persons have the idea that the universe would run off the
track but for them.
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Have a good time, make life cheerful and bright, dance if you want to,
sing if you can, play as long as you live and leave the world with a
smile.
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD
The longer we live the more are we convinced that no adult person would
accept the Bible as a divine work if he had not been taught the dogma of
the Bible’s divinity when a child. Let the matured mind come to the
perusal of the Bible without the religious prejudice in favor of its
divine character, and it would reject the book as unworthy the
consideration of the intelligent, educated man. Let the refined sense,
which all education in art, manners and social morals seeks to cultivate,
begin to read the Bible, without the religious prejudice in favor of its
sacred character, and before a dozen pages had been read, it would close
the volume with disgust and hide it out of sight, or burn it as soon as
possible.
The Bible’s divinity rests upon the mental and moral corruption of the
young. Were children not taught that this book was sacred, men and women
would look upon it as unholy. Do people realize what harm they are doing
to the mind of the child when they teach it to accept the Bible as God’s
word? They are telling the child that falsehood is sacred; that ignorance
is holy; that foul stories are pure; that vile words are clean, in the
mouth of God. Fathers and mothers would not tell their children what they,
and what priests and ministers, tell them God wrote or inspired man to
write.
What is needed to-day is to tell the truth about the Bible. Tell men and
women that ignorant, uncultured, unrefined men wrote it hundreds of years
ago, and that it is unfit in its present shape to put into the hands of a
child that a mother wishes to grow up honest, true and pure.
Liberals should not allow their children to touch the Bible. They should
keep it from them until they are old enough to know that no book was ever
written by a God, and then, if they read the Bible, they would see its
true character. We must guard the minds of our children from Christian
influences. We pity the child that is taught that the Bible is the word of
God, but we despise the man that teaches this falsehood.
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Most men would kill the truth if truth would kill their religion.
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The truths which God revealed have been overthrown by the truths which man
has discovered.
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People used to think that to mix religion with business spoiled the
religion, now they think it spoils the business.
WHEN TO HELP THE WORLD
Recently an old man, over eighty years of age, lay on his death-bed. He
could no longer keep possession of the wealth he had accumulated. In a few
hours he must leave it to the world from which he had taken it and kept it
so many years. He had not been a generous man. He had loved money. He
loved to get it and loved to keep it, and if he could have carried his
wealth with him, whither he was going with that unknown guide, Death,
there is no doubt but that he would have done so. He had given nothing to
the world while he lived and he would not have given anything when he
died, only that he was obliged to do so. This is the only charity of a
great many people.
When death comes, then the hand of avarice must open. Nothing can be
carried through the grave. So the old man must at last release his hold
upon his gains. He must leave his loved dollars to somebody. He had
gathered them for himself, not for others. He had thought only of himself
when he gathered them, and now, when he was to part with them, he did not
know what disposition to make of them. The lawyer was present at his
bedside; the minister was also with him.
The will had been drawn. He had bequeathed certain sums to public
charities and remembered the church. Life was almost gone. He hesitated
yet to give up the control of his money to others. The pen was placed in
his dying fingers for him to affix his name to the will. But he had waited
too long. He died with the name unwritten, the pen unused in his dead
hand.
Not voluntarily did he part with a cent of his fortune. His millions will
now be divided by the law.
Is there in the bare possession of money the happiness that men desire,
that men dream of, that men _want_? Is a dollar the highest goal of human
effort, the crown of human endeavor? Is this dollar, the insignia of
fortune, the true sign of good fortune? We believe not. The man who works
for this and nothing else, is the slave of avarice; as hard, as cruel, as
merciless a tyrant as ever cursed the earth.
Let every man strive for independence. Let man be rewarded well for his
labor. Let every hand keep busy, but let there be a desire higher than
money, a dream nobler than of gain, a want above the possession of riches.
There is a better charity than that unwilling gift which death compels us
to make; it is to help the world while we live. There are two ways of
doing this: by giving back a part of what we take,—that is one way and a
good way—and by taking less from others, that is another way and a better
way. The help that men need to-day is justice. Thousands are poor that one
may be rich. Thousands toil that one may live in idleness. Thousands are
in want that one may live in luxury. Thousands have not a dollar that one
may have millions. This is not right, not fair, not just. Men must take
less while they go through life.
It is not enough that a man on his deathbed give a college a million, a
public library a million, a public park a million. _He should have no
millions to give._ He should live a more just life and help others by
trying to get less for himself. The public bequest is the popular
atonement for large fortunes, but such atonement does not efface the
sufferings of poverty and want they entail.
We say to the rich, do not wait until you die before you try to help your
fellow-men. Help them while you are living. When a man has made money he
should make a noble use of it, or he wrongs himself and the world.
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Where the cross has been planted only superstitions have grown.
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Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator is the mother
of a chicken.
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Unless some people change their habits before they die, there will be a
lot of dirty angels in the next world, if there is any next world.
THE JUDGMENT OF GOD
We hear less of what is called the “judgment of God” than formerly, but
quite enough to show that this foolish superstition still lingers in the
human mind. It used to be believed that God was on the lookout for the bad
boy who went fishing or skating on his holy sabbath and that when he
caught him he immediately made use of him to prove his loving-kindness and
tender mercy by making him get into the water where he could drown him. It
was never related that God took this boy by the shoulder or even by the
ear and led him back home to his parents with the request that they take
better care of him in the future. This was not God’s way. There would be
no judgment in this. God must murder the poor boy who could see no
difference in the conduct of the birds and fishes on Sunday from their
conduct on Saturday, and have him carried back to his father’s arms and
his mother’s heart a corpse, a cold, dead thing, no longer needing love,
kindness, and a parent’s great, forgiving charity. This was God’s way. He
delighted in seeing a dead boy taken out of the frozen stream and laid
down in the presence of his poor, grief-crazed mother. He thought this
would make the mother love him more and other boys keep his holy sabbath.
So when any misfortune befell on Sunday a human being who was not on his
way to God’s house, or engaged in other pious occupation, it was believed
to be a judgment of God and people took care to avoid a similar
punishment. This kind of religious teaching does not enjoy the reputation
that it once did for the reason that it has become discredited by human
experience. All things considered it is just as safe to go sailing or
swimming, fishing, or driving, on Sunday as on Monday and men have learned
that no penalty attaches to violation of the fourth commandment. As people
become sensible they cease to be religious.
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Prayer is begging from a pauper.
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The egg of prayer never yet became a chicken.
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Prayer is like a pump in an empty well, it makes lots of noise, but brings
no water.
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A great many people who worship Jesus would not let him come in at the
back door.
CHRISTIANITY AND FREETHOUGHT
Christianity is opposed to freedom, and consequently freedom is opposed to
Christianity. A Christian cannot be a freethinker, and a freethinker
cannot be a Christian. When a man is required to believe certain
doctrines, he is not free to think. A creed is to keep the mind from
inquiry. Questions lead to doubt, and doubt is the death of faith.
The church condemns freethought, because freethought cannot be bound by
its chain of dogma. There is no place in the Christian church for the
exercise of liberty. If the mind finds a new truth that contradicts the
old dogma, the truth must be strangled that the dogma may hold its power
over the thoughts and deeds of men.
To be a Christian is to surrender to the priest or minister in the name of
Christ. It is to be a monkey on the end of an ecclesiastical string to get
pennies for his master. It is to crawl at the feet of superstition.
To be a freethinker is to search for truth without fear. Where there is
love of freedom there is no reverence for authority. There is no faith in
God as sacred as love of man.
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There may be lots of Providence in the world, but no man seems to know
just where it can be found.
THE BROTHERHOOD AND FREEDOM OF MAN
From the fall of Rome a new era marks the history of man; a new soul was
born out of human experience. The idea which had been prophesied by the
philosophers of India, Egypt and Greece now appeared in life, and what had
been hoped for seemed about to be realized. Born in an age of slaughter
and inhumanity the thought of the brotherhood of man fell upon the world
like a star out of the night’s sky. Though the power of this idea was not
fully comprehended by the people upon whom it blazed forth, still the
promise it contained was able to kindle enthusiasm in the hearts of the
few, who bequeathed it to the world as the destiny of mankind. Human life
was inspired with a new purpose under the power of this grand and noble
sentiment. Although it was not understood and the subject of much
misapprehension, the thought of uniting man in one great endeavor grew and
endowed nations with a feeling that never before had moved their hearts.
Its advent gave the world a new ambition and the mind was enlisted in the
great cause of love and fellowship of man.
There was another sentiment not less true or beautiful but more
revolutionary, which about the same time began to assume likeness in human
affairs, which must be considered of larger importance in the new social
movement, which, during the first century of the so-called Christian era,
commenced to be felt. The declaration of the sovereignty of man was more
prophetic of change in government and society than the doctrine of the
brotherhood of man. No government taught that man ought to judge for
himself what is right, and no church preached that man should love his
neighbor as himself.
Political and religious organizations then as now were arrayed against
individual rights. The state and the church controlled the person. Man was
crucified between these two thieves. One robbed him of his body, the other
of his soul. Our history assigns the origin of these two great
principles—man’s right to judge for himself and his duty to help his
fellow-being—to Christianity. But one was born before the beginning of the
Christian era and the other long after the Christian church was
established. One represents man as opposed to authority; the other the
soul resisting tradition.
There is more or less talk about the freedom and brotherhood of man, but
they exist as ideas yet more than as facts. It is true that man enjoys a
certain measure of liberty in many directions, but the victory of freedom
has not yet been won. So too is there a kind of human sympathy in society,
but the broad and magnificent destiny which dwells in the bosom of human
brotherhood is more a dream than a reality.
There has been too much time wasted in disputing who was the human author
of these great and sublime conceptions, and too little expended in trying
to plant them in human hearts and cultivate them in human lives. It is
unimportant who first stood against the world of tyranny and demanded his
right of independence, or who first felt indignation for the wrongs
inflicted upon his race and pity for the victims of cruelty, and pleaded
for more humanity towards man. The secret can never be wrested from the
silent past, and we can gain nothing by fighting over graves.
The world seems nearer the full realization of human freedom and
brotherhood than ever before. What is needed now to hasten the fruition of
the glad promise of a better destiny for the world is to take authority
from the priest and selfishness from man.
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Prayer is a hook that never caught any fish. It is a gun that never
brought down any game.
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No man ever got an answer to prayer that he could show to another person.
WHATEVER IS IS RIGHT
There are a great many familiar sayings, that are in the mouths of nearly
everybody, which are perfect nonsense, and one of these many sayings is
the one we have chosen for the subject of this article. One would imagine
that falsehood became sacred by repetition, judging from the way that
certain untruths live in the literature and language of mankind. Many a
holy text is only holy by being with what is true, as we pay respect to
many a man whom we know to be unworthy because he is related to
respectable people.
The saying that “whatever is is right,” is a dogma of the philosophy of
indifference. To anyone who works for the right and suffers wrong, such a
dogma is impertinent. Is the deed that sinks a man to the realm of brutes,
and the deed that lifts him to heights where virtue in her high estate
dwells alone, both right? The worst light for a human soul is that light
in which a bad act looks like a good one. We cannot afford to trifle with
things pure and true. To succeed grandly in life we must side with what is
right.
There is a class of people that hold a don’t-care philosophy. These people
don’t care what they say or do; they don’t care what takes place in the
world or what the world suffers or endures. The tent in which they dwell
is pitched above the plane of human wants and sufferings. They look from
their serene abode upon the troubled elements below, and, in contemplation
of what is beneath them, pronounce with pious gravity the highest text of
their system of philosophy: “Whatever is is right.”
To those who have never seen the bitter tear start under the infliction of
injury; to those who have never heard the sigh that disappointment and
deception have wrung from a breaking heart; to those who have never
witnessed the sufferings which tyranny imposes upon its victims; to those
who have never felt the miseries which selfishness heaps upon human
beings, this doctrine may seem true; but to those who have beheld the
consequences of evil doing, and felt the hard hand of injustice upon their
lives; to those who have been the victims of deception, and realized the
terrible fate of disappointment; to those who have been trodden upon and
denied the rights of men; to those who have been the slaves of the world’s
cruel masters, how false it is!
We cannot disguise the fact that there is wrong in the world. It haunts
every dwelling-place of man. It follows man to his business, to his work.
It goes with him when he seeks his pleasure. It does not leave him when he
enters his home.
Every harsh word is wrong, every unjust judgment is wrong, every cruel act
is wrong, every deception is wrong, every wicked or impure thought is
wrong. Go where we will we shall meet the ugly face of wrong. On the
street its presence will bring shame into the face; in our dealings with
the world it will come before our eyes in all its hideous reality. Even
when alone we cannot keep this phantom away.
Is it right that a human being should cause another pain and anguish that
will leave their marks on the heart and brow for life? Is it right to make
a man suffer unjustly, to add to misfortune the weight of cruelty? Is it
right to deprive one of honor, of fortune, of life? Is it right to bear
false witness against a brother-man, to abuse a neighbor, to slander and
malign a human soul? Is wrong right?
Go to the garret of the poor wretch where want stares him in the face,
where extortion robs his family of every joy and every comfort, where the
day is made dark from no ray of human love coming into the heart, and the
night darker from the absence of warmth and light. Go to the home rent
asunder by vice and see the broken promises once so fair and bright, now
blushing with shame; hear curses from lips that once spoke in love; see
the skeletons of vows beautiful when breathed by the lips of the holiest
passion on earth, but now hideous in their ruin. Go to the den of
wickedness, to the house of crime supported by lust and greed; look upon
the pictures of wretchedness and sorrow, of sin and guilt painted by the
hand of wrong; behold the wrecked human lives that are floating on the sea
of existence, only drifting until some sudden wave shall overwhelm them
and sink them out of sight, leaving behind a memory that man should
contemplate with pity and which kindness would blot out forever. See the
world in its vice, in its suffering, in its misery, in its tears and its
shame and let your lips say, if they can, that “Whatever is is right.”
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It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of
obedience.
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I believe that if God dwelt above the earth in the twelfth century of the
Christian era, and witnessed the cruelty of priests and heard the cries of
their poor victims when their bones were broken upon the rack or their
flesh was burning in the wicked flames, and these priests should have
lifted up their voices to this God and given him the glory of the awful
sacrifice, he would have said to them: You lie; I never commanded one of
my children to murder another. You are no ministers of mine, and your
victims, with their heresies, are a thousand times holier in my sight than
are you with your pious dogmas and holy sacraments.
THE OBJECT OF LIFE
Men live for less than their advancement. The object of life is not human
improvement. Ambition has not self-denial for a mark but
self-gratification. A thousand pander to one. Passion, instead of
principle, is the power that guides. We do not save to help save the
world, to aid progress and truth, but to have means to satisfy selfish
desires. The highest consideration of mankind is self. Everything is done
for one. Humanity is a word of little meaning. It is not often regarded as
a great, living, suffering being, which demands of every person his or her
best life. Man is not loved as the supreme fact of Nature. When not a
beast of burden, he is too often a beast of pleasure.
As long as self is to be preferred to all, it matters little what is
employed to promote it. Self is alone sacred to selfishness. General
interest is sacrificed to individual possession. Every man thinks the
world _his_ first. It is regarded as magnanimous to leave what you cannot
take.
The world no longer permits the stronger to kill the weaker, but it allows
the wealthy to oppress the poor. Money is holier than man. Human life is
less sacred than property. To save a dollar is regarded as a more
necessary virtue than to save a human heart. Society cares more for
fortune than for truth. It is easier to win your way with hypocrisy than
with honesty. The world does not ask: What are you worth morally? but,
what are you worth financially? Self-interest has made it the object of
life to injure our fellows. To get an advantage over another is the
victory man seeks. One must fall that another may rise.
Those who are at the bottom support those who are on top. The toilers are
the foundation of society. We need to be more careful of what is beneath
us than of what is above us. “I write not these things to shame you, but
to warn you.”
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When you are falling, you cannot stop where you wish to.
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The power that conquers men to-day must be the power of enlightened
opinion.
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Two dollars given to the son do not atone for one stolen from the father.
MAN
The Hebrew psalmist sings of man:—“Thou madest him a little lower than the
angels.” A modern psalmist writing on this subject says:—“Man was made a
little higher than the brutes.” Man is a rare animal; he is the only
animal that can make a fire, but he is more than a brute. We do not know
how much less than an angel he is, for we do not know the dimensions of an
angel.
What we do know is, that this strange, rare being, called man, is capable
of doing a good deed, but is prone to do a bad one; that he has developed
virtues above the brute and vices below the brute; that he is better in
public than in private, and yet take him all in all he might be worse. We
have had the weakness of human nature preached until we have almost come
to expect man to be immoral and vicious, and are surprised if anyone
asserts that man is strong enough to resist temptation, and disappointed
if he does not come up, or down, to our expectations of vileness and
wickedness.
While we have faith in man in the minority rather than in the majority,
still we are inclined to think that most men are bad from circumstance
more than from choice. We trust to better conditions for better men, and
depend upon our best men to establish such conditions.
There is some criticism of virtue that vice offers which is as pertinent
as the censure of vice which virtue indulges in. We admit that there are a
great many sinners that are preferable to some kinds of saints, who are no
more to blame for their sins than their more fortunate fellow-beings are
for their saintliness. But we do not mean to say that every good man is a
villain in disguise, nor every rogue a righteous man who has not been
found out.
There are men and women whose goodness is looked upon as “flat, stale, and
unprofitable” because it is that kind that is good from favorable
circumstances, and not from the exercise of any strength of their own, but
such virtue is better than vice. We cannot afford to lose any power that
protects the world from evil, and we rejoice in all the favorable
circumstances that guard human beings.
Men are educated into bad habits through the constant assertion of human
weakness, and the publicity which is given to bad deeds. We can never
build man very high on the foundation of “total depravity.” It is to be
regretted that we think so meanly of mankind. We must start with a better
assumption of human nature than that held by Christianity.
We ought to emphasize man’s strength and give prominence to the good deeds
of men. It is not necessary to lie about human nature one way more than
another. Man has been painted worse than he is. We do not ask to have him
painted better than he is. We want a true likeness. Man will make the best
picture without any fictitious coloring.
We are aware that we have not yet outgrown our animal inheritance, that we
are still fettered to earthly things. Man can more easily deny his soul
than he can his stomach, but for all this there is greatness in him. While
man can fall to the lowest depths from which he sprung, he can rise to the
height which is visible in his purest hours. What we ought to do is to
encourage, all we can, the conditions most favorable to the development of
the noblest part of man. Every temptation to vice should be driven from
the public gaze. If man must fall, let him fall out of sight.
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People who rely most on God rely least on themselves.
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The original sin was not in eating of the forbidden fruit, but in planting
the tree that bore the fruit.
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The people who boast the loudest of carrying their cross are never around
when man cries for help.
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An audience composed of the best-dressed people in a town stands for "pure
religion and undefiled" to-day.
THE DOGMA OF THE DIVINE MAN
There are growing indications all along the Christian line that the dogma
of the divinity of Jesus is being abandoned. It is seen that such a dogma
involves confusion and misapprehension. When the question, “How can a God
who is infinite exist in a form that is finite?” is pressed to an answer,
no satisfactory reply is forthcoming. There is apparent absurdity in this
doctrine. The general definition of God, as put forth to-day by the
Christian Church, is irreconcilable with the dogma of the divinity of
Jesus. If Jesus was God he was not a man; if he was a man, he was not God.
To talk about his divinity is to talk nonsense, if Joseph was his father
and Mary his mother. Man is not divine; God is not human. The mixing up of
these two terms is done simply to impose upon the credulous and
superstitious. We cannot think that any man of real good sense believes
this Orthodox dogma. It seems impossible for intelligence to so contradict
itself. The brain stoops that accepts this dogma. For a man to confess his
faith in Jesus as divine is to admit that his hat is not full. The
evidence adduced to prove the divinity of Jesus proves the divinity of
Apollo, of Hercules, of Prometheus, of hundreds of mythological heroes.
Are Christians prepared to admit this? If not, then they are called upon
to tell the world why not. What is meant by divine? What kind of a man is
a divine man? Let us see. Divine means superhuman, supernatural, God-like;
hence a divine man is a superhuman man, a supernatural man, a God-like
man. Does anyone know what these definitive terms mean? Does a person know
what he is talking about when he says a man is superhuman? Can a man be
more than man, more than human, more than natural?
The dogma of a divine man is a dogma of deception. It is a theological
cobweb. It is spread to catch flies.
The idea prevailed in the past that what could not be understood must
necessarily be profound, as though muddy water was deep water.
Does anyone comprehend the dogma of the Trinity? It is believed because it
cannot be comprehended. The tribute of faith has been paid to occult
nonsense long enough.
How does anyone know what is superhuman? What is human? The fact is, Jesus
has had his day. His reign is drawing to a close. He is being seen for
what he is,—a myth. Faith in him as a God is dying. The belief that Jesus
was divine is a blot on the intelligence of this century. But the blot is
growing smaller.
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Lots of men who would not associate with infidels for fear of
contaminating their characters are not yet out of jail.
THE RICH MAN’S GOSPEL
The presence of numberless rich men in Christian pews leads one to wonder
if the gospel of Jesus has been kicked out of the church. Such men do not,
and cannot, respect the person to whom every church is dedicated. The
gospel of Jesus is not the gospel of the rich, but of the poor; not of the
banker, but of the beggar. It is impossible for the wealthy man to be a
Christian. If he had any faith in the doctrines of Jesus he would “sell
what he has and give to the poor.” And not only this, but he would be poor
himself.
Jesus never said a kind word of the rich. He never uttered a word that
contains any consolation for the millionaire. He never gave any command
that encourages the “laying up treasures upon earth.” What is a rich man
in the Christian church for? He has no business there, if he is an honest
man. He is living exactly opposite to the life Jesus commanded. He is
doing what Jesus told men not to do. He refuses to do what Jesus said a
man must do in order to be his disciple.
Either the rich man who joins the church is a hypocrite, or the minister,
that receives such a man into the church, is. There is a hypocrite
somewhere. You do not find that Jesus went into the temple to flatter the
money-changers; he went in there to drive them out with a whip.
The rich man’s gospel is not found in the New Testament. That is sure. It
may be preached from a Christian pulpit by a so-called Christian minister,
but the man who preaches this gospel denies his professed Lord and Master.
Jesus did not say, “Lay up treasures upon earth.” Take all you can from
the poor. Form trusts and combinations to enrich yourselves. Worship
Mammon. There is a misunderstanding evidently on the part of the rich man
who joins the Christian church. If he would read the New Testament he
would learn his mistake, and see that he was in the wrong place. He does
not seem to be aware what Jesus preached. There is one thing certain, the
Christian church that receives into fellowship a millionaire, has more
reverence for the millionaire than for Jesus.
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The beating of humanity’s heart cannot be felt by placing the finger on
the church’s pulse.
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What a queer thing is Christian salvation! Believing in firemen will not
save a burning house; believing in doctors will not make one well, but
believing in a savior saves men. Fudge!
SPEAK WELL OF ONE ANOTHER
There is nothing that will make this world brighter and happier than to
speak well of one another. We sometimes wonder how a mean story about a
fellow-mortal gets started, and how it is kept going. Surely no base
report ever had birth in a kind intention, and no mouth ever repeated it
with the wish to make the world better.
Envy, malice and ill-will can make no decent defence of themselves. Now,
it costs no more to say a good word of a brother or sister than to say a
bad one, and there is no obligation on the part of a person to blacken
human reputation. It is a mean heart that cannot do justice to another. If
we must speak of our neighbors, let us speak kindly. Let us refer to those
things that are pleasant, and discuss that in their characters that is
worthy of praise. It hurts us to say bad things of other people, and it
may hurt them. There is certainly some part of everyone’s life that can be
commended. What we know of others that is not good, let us not refer to.
Silence is never more charitable than when it spares a human heart.
There are many of our friends who are striving to make a success in life.
Nothing will aid them more than to speak well of them. Everybody can be
generous with kind words, and yet they are worth more than gold. They are
the diamonds of speech, which the poorest can wear.
Don’t be afraid to speak well of men, to praise good deeds. No one will
think worse of you for speaking kindly of others. It is not necessary that
we speak well only of those deeds that men sing in words of song. There
are scores of little every-day acts, that give the perfume of self-denial,
of sacrifice, and that deserve praise. If we were to give any advice to a
man or woman, who wished to help the world as they passed through it, it
would be this, Speak well of men and women.
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A receipt for bringing up a child will not apply to a whole family.
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To build one house for man is better than to build a dozen houses to God.
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We often hear a man say that the world owes him a living. So it does, if
he earns it. But man owes the world something. The debt is on both sides,
and it is only by giving what is due to others that we get what is due to
ourselves. We receive assistance when we render it, and it is by a law of
our nature that the world turns from a man who turns from the world.
DISGRACEFUL PARTNERSHIPS
Six marriages out of ten are disgraceful partnerships. The ones to
question our assertion will be the married men, and the very ones, too,
responsible for the disgrace. Marriage is a union where the two partners
should share alike the profits and the losses. There should be no head of
the firm in the sense of making one subservient in any way to the other.
The wife has just the same right to handle the money of the firm as the
husband. The family purse should not be carried in the husband’s pocket
unless he is willing to pass it out whenever his partner requests it, and
no questions asked.
Most men treat their wives worse than servants. If a wife asks for some
money, the husband, in most instances, wants to know what she is going to
do with it and how much she wants, instead of giving her what is her
right. Married men do not recognize their wives as equal partners in the
family concern. They think they should have what they want and their wives
what they are pleased to give them. How many homes have been broken up by
carrying out such a principle as this? More than men will confess.
This state of things is not confined to the homes of poverty. Not at all.
It exists where there is plenty. Many a proud woman is almost daily
humiliated by a man to whom she is obliged to go for what money she needs.
The pain that niggardly husbands inflict upon sensitive wives is only
known by themselves. Many a woman has said: “I would rather go without the
money than have so much trouble to get it from my husband.” What must a
woman have suffered to be forced to make such a confession as that!
A marriage in which a woman is daily made to feel her dependence upon a
man, is attended with the gravest moral perils. The only just rule is for
the husband to allow his wife a fair share of his income, for her to do
with as she pleases. Not only marital harmony would be promoted by such an
arrangement as this, but love would burn longer and purer on the family
altar, private morality would be conserved, and all the relations of life
elevated and dignified thereby.
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The most beautiful thing is the beauty we see in those we love.
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The money that men waste would make them rich, and the time they waste
would make them wise.
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
Every day we are told of some wonderful discovery of science. But what has
theology discovered? The scientist is searching for the truth; the
theologian is trying to save his idols. Of all the great inventions and
discoveries that go to make human life easier, happier, more rich and
glorious, not one can be laid to the work of theology. These triumphs all
belong to science. Some day the world will become wise enough to confess
that the priest is of no benefit to mankind. The investigator, the
student, the inventor, is the true philanthropist, the real benefactor. He
finds what is useful to his race, what adds comfort and joy to existence.
Science is the hope of the world, the only savior that humanity has had
adown the ages or will have as man lives on through the centuries.
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Many a man who was too good to play cards has broken a bank.
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A dog can get rid of another dog that cannot get rid of the flea on his
back.
UNEQUAL REMUNERATION
A great many small men draw large salaries, and a great many large men
draw small salaries. Of course we measure men by their ability to do
something of value to their race. It is a sorry fact that one person is
paid ten thousand dollars a year for playing base ball or riding a
race-horse, and that another person in unable to earn seven hundred and
fifty dollars for the same length of time by performing some useful labor.
A mechanic, who actually adds to the wealth of the nation, who produces
something of value, is paid less than a jockey or a base ball pitcher
whose business (?) is chiefly maintained for purposes of gambling.
But there are other phases of this question that present equally
disproportionate features. An actor, who merely repeats the words of
another, receives one thousand dollars a night for his performance, while
a lecturer who imparts original knowledge to his hearers, is paid twenty
dollars and his expenses for his thought and labor. A singer is given five
thousand dollars for appearing three nights of a week upon the stage, and
a reformer is allowed what her audience will drop into the contribution
box. One explanation of this is: “There is only one Caruso.”
There is another explanation, and that is: People will pay more to be
entertained, to be pleased, than to be instructed, to be enlightened or to
be told what is right and best.
It is a sad fact that many are paid too little for what they do. As a rule
the actual laborers, the real workers of the world, both male and female,
do not receive fair compensation for their work, while thousands of people
who merely hold an office are paid far more than they are worth. Teachers,
writers and professors are all underpaid. The highest work that man or
woman is doing is the work of education, training the human mind to think
truly, to act nobly, and yet a lawyer receives more in a day than a
teacher in a year.
The world that will pay one thousand dollars an hour to hear the voice of
Melba, will grumble at paying ten cents an hour to a washerwoman. The
world that will give a person ten thousand dollars a year for pitching
base ball will object to raising the wages of our mill operatives five per
cent. The world that will pay ten thousand dollars a year for riding a
horse, wants a woman to teach school for fifty dollars a month.
We say, pay talent well and genius generously, but pay well also the arm
that toils; pay the needle, the saw, the spade, the hoe, the mop.
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Every man who claims the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness,” is bound to show that he deserves this right.
THE OLD AND THE NEW
This is essentially an age of change. Things which have been established
for centuries are no longer regarded as fixed. That which has been looked
upon as absolute is now respectfully held to be uncertain. The foundations
of old ideas are being disturbed and man finds that he has built upon
sandy bottom. Much which in times past answered the human soul, now
affords no satisfaction. It is plain that a revolution has commenced that
will be far reaching and important in its actions and reactions. There is
to be a general overhauling of matters secular and religious, political
and social and a wholesale clearing out of old words and forms, of
outgrown habits and customs, may be expected. The world of man is about to
take account of stock and to have a universal comparison of estimates of
values. Too long have we been subsisting upon the say-soes of our
ancestors and taking their eyes and ears as infallible.
For many years men have regarded all questions of religion as settled, and
that the whole duty of this and future generations was to accept the
conclusions of the past upon all religious matters. We do not understand
how men ever came to regard such conclusions as final or how they came to
expect the whole human race to receive them as the utmost of human
knowledge. We do not look upon the questions of religion as settled, and
the growing doubts of the infallibility of the common religious ideas
demand that we reconsider these questions. To do this we have not to go
into any theological discussion. No learned authorities are to be
consulted to establish or refute any line of argument. No dictionary of
terms is to be examined to settle the meanings of words. We have only to
decide whether mankind had better facilities for observing and studying
the phenomena of the universe in past times than we have to-day; whether
their eyes and ears were better than ours, and their methods and
opportunities for ascertaining the truth of things higher than those of
this age.
If men in the past had facilities inferior to ours for observing the
phenomena of the universe, it would follow that their ideas of the
universe would be inferior. Now, if we have superior ideas of the
universe, ideas nearer the truth of things, why should we be expected to
surrender these and hold ideas which are false?
It seems to us that the questions of religion may be settled by deciding
whether or not we are to believe our own eyes and ears and trust our own
knowledge and experience. It is certain that if we can trust our senses
and our knowledge, the old ideas of the universe, of the origin of earth,
of life, of man, and of good and evil and the whole catalogue of religious
things are incorrect; and if we accept them we do so contrary to our
reason and understanding.
With faith in the present, and in all that makes it peculiar,—its
scientific tendencies,—and with the belief that out of the doubt and
uncertainty that are now around us will come higher convictions which will
deepen and widen life’s purpose and make humanity a fairer word and a
fairer reality, we say:
“Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
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Hell is where cowards have sent heroes.
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A man never fell down stairs that he did not blame the stairs.
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The cross people carry to-day is made of gold or set with diamonds.
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There is nothing in this world of ours that will work harder, fight
harder, wait more patiently and suffer longer than love, unless it be
hate.
GUARD THE EAR
Much of our character depends upon what we hear. A person may be saved or
lost by what reaches him through the ear. The ear has no defense. It is
open to every sound. It cannot be deaf. It _must_ hear. We cannot open it
to one person or shut it to another. It is filled with songs of deepest
thoughts or words of ugliest shape without choosing either. It is at the
mercy, and the soul as well, of whatever is uttered. The ear is
falsehood’s, as well as truth’s, servant. It carries what it hears, and is
as faithful to the vilest as to the purest speech. It is temptation’s
peculiar channel. The eyes may be shut, the lips may be closed, but the
ear is always open. We may decide what we will say, what we will see, but
not what we shall hear.
We perceive how important it is that none but pure, true, brave and
sincere words be spoken. If a person never heard a bad word he would never
utter one. The character of everyone born into the world is determined
largely by the world. Men do pretty much what they are taught to do. The
heart at birth is pure, and were it not taught impurity, would remain so.
We regard the ear as the chief door of the assault against the human
heart. Guard the ear and you save the boy and girl.
THE CHARACTER OF GOD
The character of God would stand vastly higher in human estimation if he
had visited the garden in which he had placed the first human pair and
picked up the serpent and cast him over the garden wall before he had a
chance to tempt Eve, instead of waiting until the mischief was done, and
then cursing the whole lot for what he might so easily have prevented.
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No man can be himself with fear always at his heels.
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Death can get into a house when everything else can be kept out.
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It is plain enough that men and women care for God. This is too apparent
to be disputed, unless men and women are hypocrites. What is not so plain
is that God cares for men and women.
NOT IMPORTANT
A Christian contemporary says: “No question is so important to mankind as
religion.” We wonder how a person could write that sentence without
writing after it, a la Artemus Ward, “This is a goak.” Of course, a
preacher is the author of it, or a person who gets his living out of
religion. Had the writer said, “No question is so important to ministers
and priests as religion,” he would have told the truth; but as it stands,
it is a falsehood. We can mention several questions of more importance to
mankind than religion. The question of something to eat and the question
of something to wear are of vastly greater importance than that of
religion. So, too, is the question of education, or the question of
government, of more importance than religion. It is first necessary for
man to live, then to find a place to live, then to find the things to
sustain life, then to live happily and well. All this is prior to any
religious consideration. We believe the church as an organization would go
to pieces but for clergymen and those who are interested in keeping it
alive in order to get a living out of it. It would be nearer the truth to
say: No question is less important to mankind than religion.
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A man’s reputation oftentimes depends upon the success he has had in
hiding his character.
OATHS
The superstition prevails that unless man swears to tell the truth he will
tell a lie. This superstition makes the sanctity of the oath. But is it a
fact that a person will, under oath, always tell “the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth?” It is the general opinion that judicial
swearing is simply a judicial farce. We concur in the general opinion.
An oath is the liar’s retreat. Behind it falsehood puts on the robes of
truth. The perjurer delights in swearing, for the act invests him with the
appearance of honesty. An oath makes the tongue of vice as pure as the
lips of virtue. It gives a rogue the weapon of the gentleman. It permits
guilt to wear the dress of innocence.
The man who is willing to tell the truth feels that his honesty is
impeached when asked to take an oath, while the knave, who is bound to
lie, feels that his knavery is protected by the God in whose name he
swears. No more senseless custom survives in our age than the
administration of the oath. We do not believe that a judge or lawyer has
one whit more confidence in human testimony because it is given in the
divine name.
Is it not time to recognize this fact, that men can tell the truth without
the help of God, and that those, who cannot do so, do not succeed any
better with his help? In other words, an oath is calculated to pass a
scoundrel for an honest man. While it does not insure truth-telling, it
does serve to dignify a falsehood. It is time that a lie was obliged to
stand on its own bottom, and not be passed for what it is not, because it
is told in the name of God.
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God’s name is not considered good at the banks.
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To depend upon God is like holding on to the tail-end of nothing.
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A man cannot be happy who believes in hell, any more than he can sweeten
his coffee with a pickle.
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The church wants us to believe that God will go out of his way to strike a
blasphemer and work a week to save the soul of a murderer.
DEAD WORDS
There is not one real, true, live word in the Christian vocabulary of
salvation. Eden, the stage on which was performed the tragedy of original
sin, is a dead word; devil, the name of the scaly gentleman who took the
leading part in this tragedy is a dead word; hell, the abode of all those
who descended from the original sinners, is a dead word; Christ, the title
of the man who offered to ransom the human race and save men and women
from hell, is a dead word; atonement, the word that stands for the
expiation to be made by Christ, is a dead word. These words that the
Christian church uses in its exhortations to mankind have no heart of
truth in them. They stand for no facts; they represent no realities. Take
away these dead words from the Christian preacher, and you take away his
powder, shot and wads. Let the Christian be held to facts and obliged to
tell the truth, and his lips would be dumb. There never was such a place
as the Garden of Eden; never such an individual as the devil. There is no
such place as hell. There never was a Christ, and no atonement made, for
there was no necessity of any being made. If there was no such thing as
faith, Christianity could not make a convert on the earth. If ministers
were obliged to furnish the proof of their statements, there would be no
preaching.
CONFESSION OF SIN
When the church teaches that “confession is good for the soul,” it teaches
false doctrine; it is only good for the church. Men once confessed their
sins, believing that it was the evidence of the loftiest courage to
acknowledge that they had made fools of themselves or that they were the
veriest knaves. But never was a greater mistake made. Confession is itself
a sin, a base betrayal of one’s own heart. It shows utter lack of shame.
Our sins should be sacred. We should let no eyes see them but our own. To
exhort one to confess one’s sins is to ask the sinner to become the slave
of his confessor.
Man has learned to keep still in respect to those things that concern no
one but himself. He has found that where he has done wrong it is wiser to
hold his tongue than to speak. We are not likely to confess what will harm
us. This prudence is utility in morals. A wanton confession of wrongdoing
shows a loss of self-respect, and a virtuous confession is proof of mental
weakness. No human necessity requires self-degradation. To tell what we
have done is to pay a compliment to prurient curiosity which it does not
deserve. When we are commanded to do such a thing, resistance is a greater
virtue than compliance.
The human conscience to-day says: “Hands off.” It is impertinent to touch
the soul against its will. Secrecy is our right. No one can demand that we
expose our indiscretions. If the church asks if we have sinned, we feel
justified in answering: “It is none of your business.” A man’s sins are
his own. Our actions are private and subject only to voluntary betrayal.
We are at liberty to own our weakness or our meanness and to tell whatever
we have done; but when another attempts to coerce a confession from us, we
refuse to submit to such unwarrantable authority, and assert our right to
be custodians of our own deeds. The court which does not require a man to
criminate himself is higher than the church which bids a man lay bare his
soul.
There is no ear pure enough to listen to the story of the secret struggles
of the human heart. The doctrine of “confession of sin,” which has been
taught by the Christian church, is detrimental to manhood and womanhood.
It is a police arrangement where the private conscience is under the eye
of the priest. There can be no independence where the soul has surrendered
to another.
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To make crime easy is to make criminals. One cannot rob the clothes-line
if the clothes are in the house.
DEATH’S PHILANTHROPY
Every now and then a man dies and the world praises his name, and men die
every day whose names we never hear.
Why is the one lifted up above the other?
In the case we have in mind it was because the man, when he died, left
several millions of dollars to churches, to charities, and to public
benefactions.
This age honors the accumulation of wealth. It puts its stamp of honor
upon the man who gathers a large fortune into his hands. If this man at
his death bequeathes all of his fortune, or a large portion of it, for
what the world is pleased to call charitable purposes, he is called a good
man, and his name is spoken with pride and praise.
Now, we believe in all the virtues that would make a man wealthy, but not
in the vices: and we believe that a man may have all of these virtues and
not have much money when he becomes old, or when he reaches the banks of
the river of death. We want to praise the man that the world does not
praise, the man who does not live or die for praise, and who does not care
for it. We do not think that death’s philanthropy is as grand and
beautiful as life’s philanthropy.
The man who lives to get money and to keep money, that at the last, when
he can no longer keep it, he may bestow it where it will be a monument to
his name, is not half so noble as the man who lives in such a way that he
makes life easier for his fellow-beings, giving his little every week,
here and there, and letting his gift fall quietly and out of sight of men.
It is the truest philanthropy not to rob man, not to take money from the
world and hold it until the stronger hand of death opens the strong hand
of greed. This is man’s noblest way to live; to take only what can be used
for profit or pleasure. To take more than this is to rob mankind.
What generosity is there in parting with money only when death makes the
fingers let go? Men who carry their millions to the grave would carry them
beyond it, if they could. When only death can conquer selfishness, its
noblest bequest merits but little praise.
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There is no vicarious suffering for the one who has eaten too much.
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The nation that proclaims the right of free speech, but will not protect
that right, has abandoned its principles.
OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS NATURE
The idea that Nature is to be worshipped, either as God, the unknown, or
the incomprehensible, is being seriously questioned. We wish first to know
what good such worship does. It cannot be of any benefit to Nature. Is it
of any benefit to man? This is the only question to be answered.
Almost everybody is ready to say that man should not worship the sun, the
moon, the stars, or any earthly thing; but a great many still think that
man should worship the mysterious something of which everything is a
manifestation. We have outgrown the worship of objects. We look upon the
person who sees a God in any natural object as an idolater; as one whose
mental vision is unillumined by any true idea of the universe. But there
is a demand that man shall worship God, or the unknown force or power in
Nature that is the source of all things.
We admit the unknown quantity of the universe; but we do not see the
necessity of worshiping it. We do not see any good in praying to it, or in
singing to it. Nature is all a mystery and all the mystery there is, but
why do we need to keep saying so in prayer and praise when the silent fact
is ever before our eyes? We do not need to go down on our knees to every
mysterious thing, and stay there. Let us freely and frankly confess that
Nature is incomprehensible, and then go about our business like men, and
try to learn what will help ourselves and our fellow-beings.
REVERENCE FOR MOTHERHOOD
An author of some note, in an article published in a Protestant journal,
while admitting that the “holy Catholic church” had been about as unholy
an institution as could well exist, claimed that Romanism had its good
points. Among them he instanced “its reverence for motherhood.” For proof
of his assertion he pointed to the homage paid to the image of Mary and
her child by the average Roman Catholic.
We admit the homage, but deny the reverence. To begin with, where is the
reverence for motherhood among the Roman Catholic priests? Why, these men
have not respect enough for woman to elevate her to the dignity and honor
of motherhood. These men are married to the church, to Christ and not to
women. Their sacred office would be lowered by taking a wife.
The holy vows of these priests are not half as holy as the marriage vow. A
priest never had half as pure a thought as is born in the heart of a
father. He never performed a rite half as consecrating as dancing a
laughing child on his knee. These holy old bachelors have done all their
religion would allow them to dishonor motherhood.
The pretence that woman as woman, as mother, as wife, as sister, or
daughter, is particularly respected by Roman Catholics is simply absurd.
To prove this we point to the homes of the Roman Catholics. We confess
that the Romish church encourages motherhood, that Roman Catholics are
urged to help increase the church membership, but we claim that nowhere is
there less reverence of woman as woman, as mother, as wife, as sister, as
daughter, than among the Roman Catholics.
Because a Catholic crosses himself before a wooden Madonna, or a
plaster-paris image of the mother of Jesus, it is no proof of his
reverence for motherhood. Not a bit. The Catholic reverences Mary as the
mother of God; he pays her homage as a divine person; worships her, not as
a mother, but as a superior being.
The man that has reverence for motherhood is the man who loves and
tenderly cares for his own mother and the mother of his children, but the
man who prostrates his mind before a carved figure of the “Virgin Mary”
and pounds his wife and kicks his daughter into the street has reverence
for nothing.
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Adam might have obeyed God, but he could not resist Eve.
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It looks easy to break off a bad habit that somebody else has got.
THE GOD OF THE BIBLE
The blind, foolish faith in the Bible is the cause of intellectual
dishonesty, moral hypocrisy, and religious tergiversations without number.
This faith makes the twentieth century kneel to a God that it would be
ashamed to introduce among civilized beings.
We would no sooner go to Moses to learn about deity than we would go to
Noah to learn how to build a steamship. We do not believe in getting
divinity through a straw three thousand years long. If we must have a God,
let us have one that has had the advantages of civilization. We might
possibly give this Lord God of the Bible a quarter of mutton, as did Abel,
or a peck of potatoes, as did Cain, if we were convinced that he was
living anywhere in the universe, just to keep on the right side of him,
but we would not care to be on an out-of-the-way road with him after dark
unless we had a revolver with us. We know of no more villainous character
in all literature; and for men and women, who pretend to love what is pure
and good, who pretend to honor what is upright and just and who pretend to
revere what is noble and true, to worship this God of Christianity, this
God of Moses, this God of the Bible, is a sad commentary on human
intelligence and human integrity.
We know that all theological discussions have been wretchedly barren of
results; we know that theology has made no contribution to actual
knowledge; we know that no one knows anything about any such being as God,
and we also know that every God worshipped to-day by men and women is only
an imaginary person or thing. No one knows what God is or where he is, and
yet ministers speak about him just as though they had been to his house
and taken tea with him.
Theology has received attention out of proportion to its achievements. It
has done the cackling while science has laid the egg.
We do not like to hear men say: “God did this” and “God said this,” when
he has never opened his lips to speak to man and never lifted his hand to
help him. We call such language dishonest, and the time will come when the
men who have made such use of the divine name will be condemned as
impostors.
What this generation should do is to take the Lord God of the Israelites,
that lies dead on the banks of time and bury him from human sight forever.
Not another human being born on this earth should be allowed to read of
his cruel deeds, and if Christian ministers were honest, and had the
courage of their honesty, they would tell the world that the being called
God in the Bible was no God, only an idol of a rude and barbarous age.
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A theologian is a person who uses the word “God” to hide his ignorance.
THE MEASURE OF SUFFERING
The little boy who asked his mother “if hell was worse than the
toothache?” imagined that the limits of suffering were reached in his
agony. Many of us have doubtless experienced pain that we thought marked
the utmost of endurance. In the Christian dream of future punishment man
is represented as burning eternally. Fire probably inflicts the intensest
pain that the human body has ever suffered. Hell is fitly represented by
fire.
Suffering takes various shapes. Pain comes in a thousand forms. But there
is a limit to the endurance of pain. Unconsciousness comes to the relief
of the mind when agony can no longer be borne. Hell, such as has been
taught by Christianity, is not a logical conclusion. All suffering that we
know anything about ends itself. The victim is released by exhaustion.
Hell is impossible.
The finer suffering which is called remorse, which follows wrong-doing,
gradually wears out. Its lash loses its sting. The sinner becomes callous
to his act or finds a balm for his regret in the lapse of years. The
finger of time erases the memory of every wrong, and soothes with its
touch every pang. We can escape the fate of wrong-doing by doing better.
Reform opens the door of every hell invented for man’s punishment. The man
who does right, wherever he is, will have the reward of right-doing, the
fate of right-doing.
It is this fact which makes the idea of endless pain for man’s deeds done
on earth illogical. Man can turn around on the road of evil as well as on
the road of good, and hence he can change his fate whenever he changes his
life. The measure of human suffering makes it impossible for man to endure
pain forever. He must either perish utterly as a sentient being or be
driven by his punishment to better behavior.
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No man ever yet tore down his altar and found a God behind it.
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Trying to find God is a good deal like looking for money one has lost in a
dream.
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We could believe in God if he shortened the road for the lame, led the
blind or fed the starving.
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We are told that “all things are possible with God,” and yet God cannot
boil an egg in cold water.
NATURE
Some people are afraid of the word Nature. They cross themselves when they
hear it pronounced. It has a sound like “Old Nick” in their ears. To these
pious souls the word Nature banishes God from the universe. This is looked
upon by many as the highest offence of language. It has been the custom
for several centuries to abuse Nature, to call it bad names, and associate
it with depravity and everything evil. Theology has condemned the word,
and the pulpit has touched it only with the tips of its fingers. To speak
of Nature as anything good is regarded as throwing dirt in the eyes of
God.
Nothing clings to the world like a superstition. Start a fear in the human
breast, and it will make every heart quake before it can be driven out.
Let a bad habit become fixed, and it will be as hard to dislodge it as it
is to plant a good habit.
But men are getting over their fright somewhat. The natural is found to be
the true, not the false; the right, not the wrong; the good, not the bad.
Nature has been slandered, lied about. It was once thought necessary to
assassinate this word in order to preserve the Orthodox religion. The
necessity still remains, but orthodoxy is dying.
Nature is a large word. It means about all there is. If there is a God, he
is natural.
CREEDS
This is the age of revision. Churches are all hurrying to catch up with
the world. There is a desire to square ideas with facts, and shape beliefs
with knowledge. Religion must suffer in this process. Something will be
lost, but only what is bad, false and wrong. Creeds are out of date. They
are behind the times. They are the dead leaves from the tree of knowledge,
the dead branches on the tree of life. The world’s faith is in the living;
in the bud, the blossom, the promise of things—not in the husk, the shell,
in dead and useless things.
New creeds are to take the place of old ones. What people believe now, not
what people believed hundreds or thousands of years ago, must be put into
a profession of faith. For a man to profess what his father and mother
believed is to make birth useless and existence valueless. We are to live
to add to life, not to repeat it. Is theology the only thing that people
put their trust in? A theological creed has to be accepted with the eyes
shut. We want a creed of the heart, of the head, of the senses, of the
whole man. There is no theology worth believing in. The creed of the
church is a gravestone.
If we were to make a creed for the world of men to accept we would make it
out of human hearts. We would go where a man had helped another; where a
woman had sat beside the sick and suffering; where man had been crucified
for being true; where he had been burned for being honest; where he had
stood against the world protesting against its wrongs and proclaiming the
right, and where he had fallen with a martyr’s crown upon his forehead;
and we would write these into a creed, and have men say: I believe in men
and women who have lived good lives, who have taken the unfortunate by the
hand and lifted up the fallen, who have pardoned a woman’s fault, who have
shown their love of truth by being true, and who have done right even when
they were wronged for so doing.
The grandest life is the grandest creed; and, if man’s faith was faith in
what has made the world better and brighter and happier, he would be
better off than by believing in a God that is cruel, unjust and unkind,
and in a heaven where the highest joy is found in laughing at those who
are in hell.
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It has been discovered that the man who was lost in thought was not a
church member.
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We do not say that another world is not worth a single thought, but rather
that this world is worth all our thoughts, and needs them.
DON’T TRY TO STOP THE SUN SHINING
If there is one person on earth who is to be envied it is the happy,
cheerful man or woman who always sees the bright side of life, the good
side of a fellow-being, and the warm, sunny side of what belongs to earth.
If there is a person to be pitied, it is the sour, gloomy man or woman,
who sees only the dark side of life, the bad side of a fellow-being, and
the cold, cloudy side of what belongs to earth. Everything bright,
beautiful, fair, sweet, and good grows in the sunshine. We would not have
a flower without the sun. Cheerfulness is to the human heart what the
sunbeam is to the earth—the source of gladness.
We ought to cultivate happiness. We ought to have the home filled with
what is beautiful. We ought to let the sun shine into our lives. People
who are sour and moody look upon the smiling, happy person as foolish, and
wonder what there is in life that one can find to enjoy. They want to tear
the flower to pieces, stop the bird singing, trample upon the joy of the
child, and hush the laugh of mirth. If you cannot enjoy life, don’t try to
prevent others from doing so. Don’t throw a shadow on the human heart.
Don’t try to stop the sun shining.
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Laying up treasures in heaven never kept a man out of the poor-house.
FOLLOW ME
Jesus said: “Follow me.” But we decline; we had rather not. We do not wish
to follow a person until we know where he is going.
If by following Jesus is meant living as he lived, doing as he did,
believing as he believed, teaching as he taught and dying as he died, we
are not in it. We shall have to say: Thank you, we guess not. We prefer to
go some other way.
We do not see any necessity of following anybody very far, if at all. This
following business is played out. Those who profess to follow Jesus don’t
do it in the daytime.
But we can go a little farther and say that we do not think Jesus was a
man that a self-respecting person would like to follow. He does not
inspire us with any particular admiration. The man who could let his lips
forget to speak kindly of his mother cannot have our admiration. The man
who came not to bring peace, but a sword, to the world cannot have our
admiration. The man who said: “believe and be saved, believe not and be
damned,” cannot have our admiration.
If we follow anybody, it is going to be a person that commands our
respect, whose greatness and goodness compel our admiration, and who did
not try to win men by tricks. We regard Jesus, as he is painted in the
four gospels, as a character below the ideal of this age, a character
that, to imitate, would dwarf the noblest man. If Jesus were alive it
would be his duty to-day to follow others, rather than to command others
to follow him.
CAN WE NEVER GET ALONG WITHOUT SERVANTS?
We recently overheard a remark which made us query if we cannot get along
without servants? A lady was commenting on the character of the “help,”
which one was obliged to employ to-day, and expressed the opinion that, if
our public schools continued to fill the heads of children with the notion
that one person was as good as another, it would not be long before it
would be impossible to get help at all.
There seems to be an idea abroad in this land as well as in others, that a
certain class of people are for the purpose of producing servants for
another class of people, and that this servant-producing class has no
right to give their children an education that is calculated to elevate
them above the position of their parents. We are not in sympathy with this
idea. If there is one person on this earth that is of less account than
another it is the person who is helpless, who is dependent upon others for
everything that makes life possible or endurable. We must confess that
there are too many people in this country who are of this kind, who must
have someone to do for them what they ought to do for themselves.
Why should one person be expected to wait upon another? Why should a man
or woman look upon a fellow-being as fit only to be a servant? Is one born
to serve and the other to be waited upon?
Such notions have no right on our democratic soil. In this country there
must be no caste, no division of society into classes.
We rejoice that such a criticism of the character of the “help” employed
in the houses of the rich as we overheard, is true, for it reveals a
condition of things that may lead to what is much needed to-day, viz.: a
simpler mode of living on the part of a great many of our American people.
Is it necessary to live in such a way that a dozen or more servants are
required in a home to keep it in order?
We believe the community in which all are independent and none are
servants is the ideal one. Why should not this be the ambition of the
race, to live in a manner that will leave others their independence and
encourage in them the desire for a home? Our children all ought to be
taught to work, and be made to work, and not be brought up with the notion
that they have the right to expect others to wait upon them.
We do not wish to imply that one individual should not consider it his or
her duty to help another or to work for another. What we desire to convey
is this, that if people did more of their own work, and waited upon their
own wants more, they would not only be doing what is best for themselves,
but also what is best for the community in general. For men or women to be
dependent upon servants and almost helpless without them, is not a
condition to be proud of, but to be ashamed of. The man who cannot harness
or drive his horse; the woman who cannot buy and cook a dinner for her
family, has not been properly educated.
The home in which there are the fewest servants is the happiest home. The
father that brings up his sons to work, to know how to earn a living; the
mother who teaches her daughters to cook, to sew, to do housework, is
doing them good, not harm. There are too many know-nothings and
do-nothings in the world. It is honorable to be useful in this world, and
it ought to be dishonorable to be useless. Let us work for the day when we
can get along without servants; when life shall be so simple that each
family can do its own work. The servant system is but little different
from the slave system, and it ought to be abolished.
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The money man gives to get him into heaven is what he ought to use to
improve the earth.
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The Unitarian walks with a cane, the Congregationalist, Methodist,
Presbyterian and Baptist go with crutches, the Episcopalian has to be
pushed about in an invalid’s chair, while the Roman Catholic crawls on his
hands and knees and is led around with a ring in his nose by a priest.
A HEAVENLY FATHER
It may pay some persons to talk about a heavenly father who cares for his
earthly children, but we prefer to get money in a more honorable business.
Honor bright, now, gentlemen of the pulpit, did you ever see anything that
convinced you that there is a power in the universe outside of the human
body, that cared a snap for men, that showed any more love for a child
than for a crocodile? Tell the truth, and let us see how far apart we are
on this question.
We have no objection to being taken care of by a heavenly father, or by
any person or power that is wiser and kinder than man. But we do not want
to put our trust in such a being or power and then, just when we needed
most the help and counted on it, find that we had been deceived. We admit
the good that is in Nature, the beautiful, the attractive, but we cannot
put faith in the God of earthquakes. When we listen to a bird’s
full-throated song, and surrender ourselves in delicious rapture to the
spell of its wondrous melody, we are ready to acknowledge that a benignant
power gave life to this sweet little charmer, that can start such a flood
of joy in the human heart, but when in strolling among the meadow’s
blossoms we are confronted with the repulsive head and ominous attitude of
the rattlesnake, we ask: Who made you? We admire Nature in some forms, but
detest it in others. We pick the rose with a blessing on its perfect
beauty and perfumed breath, but we shun the white flower of the
dogwood—the poisonous hypocrite. When the sky is fair and blue, and a
smile is on the face of heaven, we feel that only kindness and love sit
enthroned above us, but when the blue changes to black and the smile to a
frown, which grows deeper and darker until the whole heavens threaten
destruction to earth; when the heedless lightning, with brutal stroke,
fells at our feet a form we love, we wonder where the kindness and love
have gone that we saw only a few hours before. Nature does not keep one
mood long. She has made things fair and things foul; she blesses, but she
curses also; she wins us with some temptation of beauty, and then punishes
us for yielding; she puts in our heart an angel of love, but she puts
there, too, a devil of hate; she caresses us one minute and kicks us the
next; she licks our hand, and then without warning she bites us.
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There is more power to-day in a drop of ink than in a ton of powder.
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A man may have respect for old age and not like to find gray hairs in his
butter.
WORSHIP NOT NEEDED
The world will never throb with new life until the spell of worship is
broken. Nothing holds mankind down so much as veneration for its idols.
Shake off the lethargy that worship has brought upon the soul. Live like
men, and you need not worship gods. When we live true to the soul we cease
to ask for anything. Worship is denial of self. Let us have no disputes
about divinity. Let God take care of himself. The light of the stars
proves their existence. The universe needs no counsel of defence. That
which is evident need not be explained.
The great question for us to answer is not what God wants, but what men
need. Let us live to ourselves. Worship is interruption. Let our life
satisfy. Worship is apology. If we are doing our best, what need to excuse
our work? What good does it do to praise God? That is the true love which
obeys, not that which adores. We want willing hands, not lifted ones.
Worship is superfluous. It adds nothing to the soul. It increases our
cares, not our virtues. The test of everything is, does it help man?
We challenge the church to prove its claim to man’s support. It throws a
shadow upon the earth instead of letting more light upon it. The priest is
in man’s way. Worship is a compliment to the deity that he does not need,
and a burden upon man which he is not able to bear. Nature does not
worship. She grows. Worship is opposition to reform. It palsies the
world’s thought. It means stagnation. It is difficult to get advocated
what will correct society, because mankind spends so much time in the
church that it has no time to spend in the theatre of improvement. Worship
is hypocrisy’s disguise. What a train of splendid deceit marches up the
aisles of the church! What a mask is worship, but the world can see
through it. When falsehood kneels in praise of truth; when extortion and
cruelty call God father; when meanness and vice are the disciples of
Jesus, and when crime and sin say, “Thy will be done,” the name of
religion is a blush on the forehead of the world.
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We would not dethrone the world’s heroes. The more human beings we can get
the world to honor and respect the better humanity will be, but when a man
or woman has been for ages almost worshipped by the world; when time, with
its forgiving hand, has erased deed after deed until naught else is left
of the man or woman but a holy memory, an unreal soul, whose virtues are
as ghostly as shadows cast by the moon, it behooves us to look with
unprejudiced mind at this phantom of existence and to see with naked eye
this object of adoration, for one may be certain that beneath the idol’s
robes will be found a human form and with it all the peculiarities of
human nature.
WAS JESUS A GOOD MAN
We denied in the presence of a Christian, who wished to have a religious
talk with us, that Jesus was divine. This denial was somewhat anticipated,
we imagine, as the gentleman who challenged our views was knowing to the
fact that we did not pay pew rent anywhere. But he thought to secure
assent from us by saying, “You will have to admit that Jesus was a good
man.” What constitutes a good man? A good man is a man who is kind,
loving, merciful, reasonable, and just. Would a just man pay the laborer
who had worked but one hour as much as he paid him who had toiled all day?
Would a reasonable man curse a fig tree because it did not have fruit on
it out of season? Would a loving man say: He that hateth not father and
mother is not worthy of me? Would a merciful man send those who did not
agree with him into everlasting fire? Would a kind-hearted man bring a
sword rather than peace on earth?
The truth is, we do not know _what_ kind of a man Jesus was. Good men have
been killed by bad ones, and bad men killed by good ones. If Jesus was
killed because he was a blasphemer the chances are that he was better than
those who put him to death, but if he was killed because he sought to
overturn the government and secure the throne for himself, he may have
been a very bad man. But by the gospel-record we hold that Jesus was not a
man for this age to honor or imitate.
HOW TO HELP MANKIND
There are various ways of helping the world, and all are to be commended.
Perhaps the way that costs the least, and consequently helps the least, is
the giving of good advice. This, we believe, is about the poorest thing
that can be given to man. It is a gratuity on the giver’s part which is
never received quite as it is bestowed. But it is usually born of good
intentions, and so we have to be thankful for it, even if we do not use
it. To those who are inclined, however, to render assistance to their
fellow-beings, we would say: Give good advice last, or, at any rate, give
something with it. There is no use telling a poor man where there is a
good restaurant when he has no money in his purse.
Another way of helping the world is the material way—giving something that
will relieve its wants, pay its debts, or add to its independence. The
sympathy that takes the shape of dollars and cents always reaches the
heart. The rarest virtue in this world of ours is generosity, and the
rarest man is he who gives to the world asking for no dividends but in the
happiness of his fellow-creatures. Money, when wisely bestowed, comes
about as near the shape of an angel as any earthly thing can assume.
But there are other ways of assisting the world, and while we admit all
the good that can be done with money, men and women need to-day to be
helped with truth, helped with justice. Mankind are suffering from
falsehoods, from wrongs as well as from ignorance, from want and poverty.
Those who are unjust to their fellows should help them by dealing justly
by them. Those who are keeping the world in darkness should help it by
telling the truth. Truth and justice are every man’s right, and every
man’s due. You can help the world by being just to it, by using your
fellow-beings honestly, squarely, justly. You can help it by telling the
truth and by concealing nothing that is true.
Man needs an education in unselfishness. He must learn to work for himself
without working against others. The advantage which a man gains to-day is
too often at the disadvantage of his brother or sister. It is a poor
victory which inflicts suffering. The true measure of man’s success is the
joy his life confers upon the world.
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The man who wants to be an angel is never in a hurry to begin.
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The man who gets on his knees has not learned the right use of his legs.
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Ignorance is all that saves some people: if they knew more they would do
worse.
ON THE CROSS
Christianity teaches that Jesus was divine. To admit that he was not
divine is to give up Christianity. In the light of this teaching let us
look at Jesus on the cross. After a brief, but rather peaceful career,
Jesus is arrested, tried and convicted as a blasphemer, and sentenced to
be put to death. It is said that he died on a cross. How did he die? It is
said by Christians “like a God.”
There have been brave deaths on the gallows and at the stake. Men have
died sublimely whom society has condemned as criminals. In our day there
has been as lofty heroism evinced in the face of the most terrible of
deaths as ever martyr of old manifested when dying for his faith. We know
that men have walked into the arms of an ignominious death without a
tremor, and with magnificent courage shining in their faces.
Brave dying proves less than brave living. The sacrifice of a lifetime
shows the courage that commands our deepest admiration. Some mother, some
sister, or daughter who has offered herself for years upon the hidden
altar of duty has performed a deed beside which a moment’s suffering is as
naught. But the average mind fails to discern heroism, except where the
suffering is apparent.
We will admit for the moment that Jesus died upon the cross. We will allow
all the pain and agony of such a cruel and terrible death. We will let
every picture of his suffering that has drawn tears from the eyes of women
be accepted as true. We would not rob the manner of his death of a single
pang. It was merciless, pitiless, devilish. Crucifixion is the essence of
cruelty, the refinement of torture, the invention of brutality. We
acknowledge all the horrors of the cross. We do not wonder that a man
should shrink from being nailed to its arms, but we do wonder that a God
should. We are not surprised that human weakness should cry out of its
breaking heart for sympathy and help, but we cannot understand why divine
strength should ask for pity or aid. If Jesus was God he should have died
in divine silence. The record of the last hours of Jesus shows that he
died disappointed. The cross proves that Jesus was human. When he cried
out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," a keener anguish pierced
his heart than when the cruel iron was driven through his flesh.
The dogma of the divinity of Jesus should have died on the cross, when the
man of Nazareth gave up the ghost.
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The man who does no thinking before he acts does twice as much afterwards.
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Adam may not have been so perfect after the “fall,” but he was not so big
a fool.
EQUAL MORAL STANDARDS
Why are girls brought up with more care as to their personal habits than
boys? And why do women have fewer vices than men? It is an undeniable fact
that what is looked upon with indifference in a man would be regarded with
disgust, if not horror, in a woman. Boys do things that would not be
tolerated in girls. Why are there two standards of behavior? Why is one
sex held to stricter moral account than the other? Why is a man allowed to
do what is condemned in a woman?
The average daughter is better behaved, has better personal habits, than
the average son. The average mother has fewer vices than the average
father. The average woman is less vicious than the average man. Whose
fault is it that this is so? It is somebody’s. Whose is it? It is time to
find out. Have men fixed the standard for women, and women for men? It is
approximately true that either sex is what the other demands of it. Women
are too indulgent towards the other sex. We believe it lies with them more
than with men to elevate the moral standard of the world.
A father would not take his daughter to places where he takes his son,
would not condone in her habits which he overlooks, if not encourages, in
his boy. Picture a father going to a saloon with his daughter, and there
treating her to a “Tom and Jerry,” or a “beer,” and then calling for
cigars for two, and sitting there smoking together for half an hour or so!
A man will do this with his boy but not with his girl. Why not? If it is
right and harmless for one, why not for the other? Is it true or not that
what is right for men is wrong for women?
We ought to have only one moral standard. The sexes should be held to like
behavior. Men can have just as good habits as women. We do not believe in
forgiving in one what we condemn in another, in allowing a young man to do
with impunity what we will not tolerate in a young woman.
If we are to have one standard of morals, which shall it be? Shall it be
the highest or lowest? Shall it be the standard for man or for woman?
Shall we permit women to do as men do, or shall we insist that men shall
be equally pure in personal habits with women? The divided standard of
conduct which now exists should be done away with. Let us demand equal
behavior of the sexes, and let that behavior be fashioned after the
highest moral demand of society. We do not wish to educate boys to be
girls, but we can educate boys to have as good habits as girls have, which
would be a great gain to the world.
We must hold women largely responsible for the vices of men. There is not
a vicious habit which a man would not lay at the feet of woman did she
demand it. Not a man would tolerate in a woman what a woman tolerates in a
man. Let us have one moral standard for men and women, for both sexes, and
mete out to each the same punishment for violation of its restrictions.
AUTHORITY
The man that does what his reason says is right is the man that should be
honored by men. There can be no higher authority for doing a thing than
that it is right. It is not whether a thing has ever been done before,
but, _Is it right_? If there is no precedent, then it is a duty to
establish one.
How many accept the opinions of others because they fear to question their
authority! This regard for what other people think and say is well enough
only when it does not destroy independence of thought and speech in
ourselves. Another’s opinion is not to be respected when it is a fetter to
our freedom.
We need not rehearse the evils which the world has borne on account of its
fear to do right _alone_. Man must have someone to share the danger, to
share the blame, but a dozen cowards are not worth so much as one brave
man, and right is no _more_ right because ten say it instead of one. A
thousand felt what Luther said; a thousand believed what Parker did. The
best man in us is often the one that does not speak. The truest belief of
the heart is the one never confessed. Man seldom comes to the surface. He
rarely has a call to be himself, but to be somebody that will please the
world. Man is obliged to make himself into a theological likeness; into a
political representation. It will be centuries before men can assert
themselves fearlessly without injury.
It is no easy matter for a man to set himself against popular opinion and
maintain his position. Every power is brought to bear upon him that
falsehood can invent and malice employ. A person who refuses to
acknowledge the authority of the hour asserts a higher. When a man slaps
the world in the face he should have truth on his side and courage to meet
the stake and the cross. The majority never forgives him who denies its
judgment. The individual that challenges the majority must prove his right
of defiance. When a man is greater or better than men he must pay the
penalty. The world cannot yet forgive anyone for excelling it. Authority
when it debases man should be disputed; when it denies man his rights
should be rejected.
It is plain to be seen, without illustration or example, that man’s
authority is not found in his own mind. He has no history that reaches
beyond custom. Man begins with man so far as facts prove. Society rests
upon hearsay and religion upon tradition. A claim has only to be made upon
ignorance to be granted. This good-natured world of ours would believe
anything, or make-believe believe it, to save its soul. It takes either a
very shrewd man or a moderately mean one to dodge every duty of life and
remain respectable. It is dangerous to go outside the beaten path, not
only on account of the persecution of the present but on account of the
folly of the future. The world can easily twist an action into a law or a
man into a God if profit hang on the end of its deed. The authority of
half man’s actions to-day depends upon some accident or fraud of the past.
Man wants a little of the fabulous yet in his meat and drink. He loves to
think that Jesus is present when he drinks his wine and eats his bit of
bread, although it is a mystery.
Popular opinion is the authority of most words and actions. We speak to
men as to children—to please them. We tell them some parable or fairy
story instead of telling them their faults honestly and trying to make
them better. Most men begin by bowing to public opinion and end by
carrying it on their backs.
The authority of the world may be disputed without any of the stars being
thrown out of their course or any of the processes of life being
disturbed. The notion that all has been discovered that is essential to
the welfare of man is a mistaken one. The other notion that the
preservation of whatever is elevating and refining depends upon the
religious opinions of mankind, is equally delusive. The authority of the
Bible, of Jesus, of the church, has been quoted until the world is
prepared for a better. We might lose the Bible and not lose our place in
the ranks of civilization. Jesus might be forgotten and man would still
strive for a higher life. The church might perish in a night and not a
single particle of goodness be lost. If we speak honest words, do honest
work and live honest lives, we need not ask for God’s help or the help of
anybody. We do not give to immorality the hours we redeem from
superstition. We give to manhood and womanhood every hour which we make
natural and free. It is not necessary for a man to go to church in order
to be righteous. The world found assistance before Jesus was born. There
has always been saints outside of a convent. We need no book holy that
good counsel shall be valuable. The highest authority is the highest human
enlightenment. It needs no priest back of opinion to give it force.
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Why does a man enter the Christian ministry?
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The reason that revelation is always made to the simple is that the wise
could not be imposed upon.
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There is no sadder grief than that which lies at the bottom of a life that
has been wrecked through deception.
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An organization that requires the suppression of facts and the
discouragement of knowledge in order to maintain its supremacy, is the
relic of a tyranny which our free age and our free thought are in duty
bound to remove from the earth.
A CLEAN SABBATH
In a discussion with a lady, recently, upon the Sunday question, after the
various pros and cons had been set up and bowled down, she exclaimed: “For
mercy’s sake, don’t say any more against the sabbath. Why, if it were not
for Sunday, most people would never wash themselves nor change their
clothes.” Sunday, then, is to be established for the sake of cleanliness.
The command for keeping the sabbath should therefore read: Six days shalt
thou labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh day wash thyself and
change thy clothes. If people will not keep clean without a divine
command, we are in favor of cleanliness. We do not know of any better use
to put God’s name to. Sunday is certainly the cleanest day of the week. If
people will make themselves clean and neat only for God’s sake, we are
willing to endure a little superstition for the blessing of cleanliness.
But is there any ground for the assertion of the lady? As everyone knows,
religion has produced the filthiest specimens of humanity that ever
offended the senses of man. Dirt, and not cleanliness, was deemed next to
godliness by the saints of old. The filthier a human being became, the
holier he grew. It was regarded in the middle ages, that is, in the ages
when everything was sacrificed to religion, as almost a sin to keep clean.
It was waste of time to care for the body. It was taught that it was
holier to worship than to wash. Nor did these dirty old saints of old go
nasty entirely on their own authority. They were nasty for Christ’s sake.
They went unclean because Jesus had encouraged nastiness. He believed more
in clean hearts than in clean hands. He taught his disciples that “to eat
with unwashed hands defileth not a man.” Dirty Christians are still
plenty, but civilization prevails over superstition and the reign of dirt
is doomed. The follower of Jesus quotes his master to defend his filthy
condition in vain to-day. The gospel of decency has been preached, and
what is manly and womanly is honored more than what is godly and pious.
Clean infidelity is preferable in good society to nasty piety. There may
be honor in rags, but there is none in dirt. Soap and water cost less than
religion, but are worth a thousand times as much to the world. If Romanism
required its devotees to take a bath instead of going to mass, it would
confer a greater boon upon the world.
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No man gets estimated for exactly what he is, and it is lucky he doesn’t.
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A great many men and women are remembered for what somebody has said about
them.
HUMAN INTEGRITY
It is hard for a man to be a man. It is easier to be almost anything else.
We do not find the reason for what we do in ourselves, but seek it in
someone else, or somewhere else. Manhood is not our standard of action.
Human integrity is generally looked upon as an eccentricity. We almost
despise a person who is more upright than the conventional man. Throughout
society there runs a stream of circumstance upon which lives float like
chips. The man who turns against this stream, and seeks to stem it, is
looked upon as a madman or a fool. Everybody admits that the world is
hardly going right, but everybody goes with it. The current of human life
can be turned into a larger channel by a larger man. Mind follows mind.
We do not demand the truth; we do not insist upon the right; we are
satisfied with less than integrity. It is not in a spirit of carping that
we say this, but because it is true. Let us glance at the world as it lies
before us. Theories pass for facts, faith for evidence. We assert without
knowledge; we are positive without proof. Man is condemned for not
believing, although living a pure and noble life; he is praised for
believing, although living a selfish and cruel life. Men are not judged by
human nature, but by opinions which are uppermost in public esteem. Men
and women are bad according to the standard of one age; good according to
that of another. Theologies, which may be wrong, condemn men who may be
right. Justice is never man’s precedent. The world quotes Moses, David,
Paul, Jesus, to defend its conduct or prove its guilt.
Authority is another’s opinion. Law is what has been done and sanctioned
by mankind. The decision of one court binds another. One text is quoted to
prove another. A man’s act is made a rule of life. We say, to defend
ourselves: “He did it.” The world’s power of attorney is in its own
handwriting. Our appeal is to some one else. We get our politics from our
fathers, our religion from our mothers. The church is preaching what
others believed.
The mind still leans. Only a few could stand without a support. The props
of the world keep it from falling. Men are not upright of their own
strength. No man’s action is the patent of manhood. The world does not
ask, “What virtues are yours?” but, “What creed do you accept?” A dozen
agree and call some one else a doubter, a Freethinker, an Infidel, an
Atheist. To be able to stand alone is to be blamed by those who cannot do
so.
Man must learn this, that he has no greater strength than his own; that he
has no higher duty than to obey the behest of his own nature. When we
forsake the world’s follies and shams we shall find something better. We
are never abandoned until we have been abandoned by ourselves.
When we refuse to do our duty we must still expect Nature to do hers. The
sun and moon do not stand still at man’s command. It is greater to keep
one’s integrity than it is to gain the whole world.
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It is harder to live when those we love are dead.
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The trouble with divine revelation is that we do not know who did the
business.
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A person has not much excuse for living who can make no better use of life
than passing it in a nunnery.
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Men talk of alleviating the aching hearts and souls of the world, but if
they would relieve the aching backs and arms of men and women by being
kinder to those who toil, there would be fewer suffering hearts for their
sympathy’s consolation. It sounds vulgar, perhaps, to speak of backaching,
but the pains of work are among the saddest facts of human life.
IS IT TRUE
There is a lot of sentiment going around the world strangely at variance
with human action. No one lives as he professes to believe, as he says he
thinks. Men declare a thing to be true but act as though they wished it
false. It is frequently stated that:
“Honor and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
Who believes it? Did Pope when he wrote it? Does a person that reads it? I
doubt it.
It ought to be true, perhaps, that men should be respected, honored, and
praised just as much for carrying a hod well as for writing a poem or
acting Hamlet well, but it is not so regarded.
A man as a man may be just as worthy, just as honorable, just as much
deserving the respect of his fellows who uses a pick and shovel on the
highway, but it is a fact that the common laborer as such is not respected
nor honored as much as the man who pays him for his labor. All the honor
may lie in doing well whatever he has to do, but it is _what a man does_,
not how he does it, that receives the honor of the world, just the same.
Probably thousands of women are acting well their part as washerwomen in
Boston at this time, but are they honored as Sarah Bernhardt is for acting
Cleopatra? Would wealthy women pay ten dollars to see a woman scrub a
floor, even if she could scrub better than any woman who ever scrubbed
before? We guess not. There is the point.
There is no such epitaph as this on the marble of the world: He acted well
his part as a coal-heaver. It is true that Lincoln is pointed to as having
been a rail-splitter when a young man, but had he never been anything else
he would not have had a monument an inch above the ground. It is not
Garfield the tow-boy, but Garfield the statesman, the President, that is
honored.
It is a fact that merit is not always appreciated, but it is equally a
fact that no merit is seen in the common occupations of life. A person
might wear his fingers to bones in what is regarded as menial employment,
and all his giant labor would not call forth a single word of praise. A
dollar or two a day is all the reward the world gives for manual labor. No
one sees heroism in farm work, in kitchen work. No one contributes money
to erect a statue to the hod-carrier. Work is not honored. The man or
woman who is obliged to work in order to live is regarded with pity or
contempt by those who live upon the labor of others.
It is not true that all the honor lies in doing well whatever we have to
do. Such a saying is as false as to say “Ask, and you shall receive.”
Honor is not given gratuitously. It has to be earned. But it is a fact
that we do not honor all labor, all virtue, equally.
KEEP THE CHILDREN AT HOME
Fathers and mothers want to see their children grow up into good, moral,
respectable men and women. How to insure this desirable result is a
serious problem. It is seen that the school is not sufficient to insure
character, nor does the church exert sufficient influence to guide the
feet in right paths.
We have the deepest faith in what the school is doing and trying to do,
and would help it in every way to promote the instruction in those
branches of knowledge which are deemed essential to a sound and useful
education, but we cannot fail to see that the school, however much it may
assist the child in the formation of good habits, is not of itself
competent to build up character. The school cannot take the place of the
home, nor can the teacher do the work of the parent. We believe that the
best way to have good boys and girls, and therefore good men and women, is
to have good homes for them to live in. If parents gave more attention to
making their homes attractive to their children, they would not be so apt
to seek amusement in other places. The more a child is kept at home, the
more certain it will be to escape the evils of life. A good home is the
first and most powerful factor in forming the character of children.
There is too much thought given by parents generally to the church and too
little to the home. They shirk their duty and their responsibility, and
pray God to look after what they neglect. With the father at work and the
mother at mass, the children will be in the street. Those parents who put
the home above the church are throwing around their children the best
influences that earth affords. When children are left to the care of God
they too often fall into the hands of the policeman. Let the path between
the home and the school be well worn, but never mind if the grass grows in
the road that leads to the church.
The child will usually love home if home is made lovely. If parents wish
to drive their children into temptation, let them shut the sunshine of joy
out of the house, forbid the playing of games, burn up the pack of cards
that is found in one of the boy’s rooms, call a ball-room the “devil’s
headquarters,” and pronounce a malediction upon all youthful sports. It is
easy enough to drive a boy or girl out into the dark. Put out the lights
at home. Those parents who know the evil influences of the world will make
their homes bright and beautiful and then keep their children there as
long as
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