651 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
651 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
10 page printout
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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Contents of this file page
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ROBERT ELSMERE -- AND AN AFRICAN FARM. 1
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EIGHT HOURS MUST COME. 7
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A FEW FRAGMENTS ON EXPANSION. 9
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**** ****
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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A CRITICISM OF ROBERT ELSMERE -- JOHN WARD,
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PREACHER, AND AN AFRICAN FARM.
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IF one wishes to know what orthodox religion really is -- I
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mean that religion unsoftened by Infidelity, by doubt -- let him
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read "John Ward, Preacher." This book shows exactly what the love
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of God will do in the heart of man. This shows what the effect of
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the creed of Christendom is, when absolutely believed. In this case
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it is the woman who is free and the man who is enslaved. In "Robert
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Elsmere" the man is breaking chains, while the woman prefers the
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old prison with its ivy-covered walls.
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Why should a man allow human love to stand between his soul
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and the will of God -- between his soul and eternal joy? Why should
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not the true believer tear every blossom of pity, of charity, from
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his heart, rather than put in peril his immortal soul?
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An orthodox minister has a wife with a heart. Having a heart
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she cannot believe in the orthodox creed. She thinks God better
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than he is. She flatters the Infinite. This endangers the salvation
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of her soul. If she is upheld in this the souls of others may be
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lost. Her husband feels not only accountable for her soul, but for
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the souls of others that may be injured by what she says, and by
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what she does. He is compelled to choose between his wife and his
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duty, between the woman and God. He is not great enough to go with
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his heart. He is selfish enough to side with the administration,
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with power. He lives a miserable life and dies a miserable death.
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The trouble with Christianity is that it has no element of
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compromise -- it allows no room for charity so far as belief is
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concerned. Honesty of opinion is not even a mitigating
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circumstance. You are not asked to understand -- you are commanded
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to believe. There is no common ground. The church carries no flag
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of truce. It does not say, Believe you must, but, You must believe.
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No exception can be made in favor of wife or mother, husband or
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child. All human relations, all human love must, if necessary, be
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sacrificed with perfect cheerfulness. "Let the dead bury their dead
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-- follow thou me. Desert wife and child. Human love is nothing --
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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A CRITICISM OF ROBERT ELSMERE -- JOHN WARD,
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PREACHER, AND AN AFRICAN FARM.
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nothing but a snare. You must love God better than wife, better
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than child." John Ward endeavored to live in accordance with this
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heartless creed.
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Nothing can be more repulsive than an orthodox life -- than
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one who lives in exact accordance with the creed. It is hard to
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conceive of a more terrible character than John Calvin. It is
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somewhat difficult to understand the Puritans, who made themselves
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unhappy by way of recreation, and who seemed to enjoy themselves
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when admitting their utter worthlessness and in telling God how
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richly they deserved to be eternally damned. They loved to pluck
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from the tree of life every bud, every blossom, every leaf. The
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bare branches, naked to the wrath of God, excited their admiration.
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They wondered how birds could sing, and the existence of the
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rainbow led them to suspect the seriousness of the Deity. How can
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there be any joy if man believes that he acts and lives under an
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infinite responsibility, when the only business of this life is to
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avoid the horrors of the next? Why should the lips of men feel the
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ripple of laughter if there is a bare possibility that the creed of
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Christendom is true?
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I take it for granted that all people believe as they must --
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that all thoughts and dreams have been naturally produced -- that
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what we call the unnatural is simply the uncommon. All religions,
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poems, statues, vices and virtues, have been wrought by nature with
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the instrumentalities called men. No one can read "John Ward,
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Preacher," without hating with all his heart the creed of John
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Ward; and no one can read the creed of John Ward, preacher, without
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pitying with all his heart John Ward; and no one can read this book
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without feeling how much better the wife was than the husband --
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how much better the natural sympathies are than the religions of
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our day, and how much superior common sense is to what is called
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theology.
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When we lay down the book we feel like saying: No matter
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whether God exists or not; if he does, he can take care of himself;
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if he does, he does not take care of us; and whether he lives or
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not we must take care of ourselves. Human love is better than any
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religion. It is better to love your wife than to love God. It is
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better to make a happy home here than to sunder hearts with creeds.
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This book meets the issues far more frankly, with far greater
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candor. This book carries out to its logical sequence the Christian
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creed. It shows how uncomfortable a true believer must be, and how
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uncomfortable he necessarily makes those with whom he comes in
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contact. It shows how narrow, how hard, how unsympathetic, how
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selfish, how unreasonable, how unpoetic, the creed of the orthodox
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church is.
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In "Robert Elsmere" there is plenty of evidence of reading and
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cultivation, of thought and talent. So in "John Ward, Preacher,"
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there is strength, purpose, logic, power of statement, directness
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and courage. But "The Story of an African Farm" has but little in
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common with the other two.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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A CRITICISM OF ROBERT ELSMERE -- JOHN WARD,
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PREACHER, AND AN AFRICAN FARM.
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It is a work apart -- belonging to no school, and not to be
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judged by the ordinary rules and canons of criticism. There are
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some puerilities and much philosophy, trivialities and some of the
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profoundest reflections. In addition to this there is a vast and
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wonderful sympathy.
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The following upon love is beautiful and profound: "There is
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a love that begins in the head and goes down to the heart, and
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grows slowly, but it lasts till death and asks less than it gives.
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There is another love that blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the
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sweetness of life and bitter with the bitterness of death, lasting
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for an hour; but it is worth having lived a whole life for that
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hour. It is a blood-red flower, with the color of sin, but there is
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always the scent of a god about it."
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There is no character in "Robert Elsmere" or in "John Ward,
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Preacher," comparable for a moment to Lyndall in the "African
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Farm." In her there is a splendid courage. She does not blame
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others for her own faults; she accepts. There is that splendid
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candor that you find in Juliet in Measure for Measure." She is
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asked:
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"Love you the man that wronged you?"
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And she replies:
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"Yes; as I love the woman that wronged him."
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The death of this wonderful girl is extremely pathetic. None
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but an artist could have written it:
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"Then slowly, without a sound, the beautiful eyes closed.
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The dead face that the glass reflected was a thing of
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marvelous beauty and tranquillity. The gray dawn crept in over
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it and saw it lying there."
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So the story of the hunter is wonderfully told. This hunter
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climbs above his fellows -- day by day getting away from human
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sympathy, away from ignorance. He lost at last his fellow-men, and
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truth was just as far away as ever. Here he found the bones of
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another hunter, and as he looked upon the poor remains the wild
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faces said:
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"So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to
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sleep forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very
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tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do
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your hands ache nor your heart"
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So the death of Waldo is most wonderfully told. The book is
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filled with thought, and with thoughts of the writer -- nothing is
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borrowed. It is original, true and exceedingly sad. It has the
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pathos of real life. There is in it the hunger of the heart, the
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vast difference between the actual and the ideal:
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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A CRITICISM OF ROBERT ELSMERE -- JOHN WARD,
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PREACHER, AND AN AFRICAN FARM.
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"I like to feel that strange life beating up against me.
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I like to realize forms of life utterly unlike my own. When my
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own life feels small and I am oppressed with it, I like to
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crush together and see it in a picture, in an instant, a
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multitude of disconnected, unlike phases of human life -- a
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medieval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet
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orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the
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heavy fruit trees; little Malay boys playing naked on a
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shining sea-beach; a Hindoo philosopher alone under his banyan
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tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the thought of
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God he may lose himself; a troop of Bacchanalians dressed in
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white, with crowns of vine-leaves, dancing along the Roman
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streets; a martyr on the night of his death looking through
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the narrow window to the sky and feeling that already he has
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the wings that shall bear him up; an epicurean discoursing at
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a Roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of
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happiness; a Kafir witch-doctor seeking for herbs by
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moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside come the sound
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of dogs barking and the voices of women and children; a mother
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giving bread and milk to her children in little wooden basins
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and singing the evening song. I like to see it all; I feel it
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run through me -- that life belongs to me; it makes my little
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life larger, it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in."
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The author, Olive Schreiner, has a tropic zone in her heart.
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She sometimes prattles like a child, then suddenly, and without
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warning, she speaks like a philosopher -- like one who had guessed
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the riddle of the Sphinx. She, too, is overwhelmed with the
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injustice of the world -- with the negligence of nature -- and she
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finds that it is impossible to find repose for heart or brain in
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any Christian creed.
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These books show what the people are thinking -- the tendency
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of modern thought. Singularly enough the three are written by
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women. Mrs. Ward, the author of "Robert Elsmere," to say the least
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is not satisfied with the Episcopal Church. She feels sure that its
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creed is not true. At the same time, she wants it denied in a
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respectful tone of voice and she really pities people who are
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compelled to give up the consolation of eternal punishment,
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although she has thrown it away herself and the tendency of her
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book is to make other people do so. It is what the orthodox call "a
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dangerous book." It is a flank movement calculated to suggest a
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doubt to the unsuspecting reader, to some sheep who has strayed
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beyond the shepherd's voice.
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It is hard for any one to read "John Ward, Preacher," without
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hating Puritanism with all his heart and without feeling certain
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that nothing is more heartless than the "scheme of salvation;" and
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whoever finishes "The Story of an African Farm" will feel that he
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has been brought in contact with a very great, passionate and
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tender soul. Is it possible that women, who have been the
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Caryatides of the church, who have borne its insults and its
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burdens, are to be its destroyers?
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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A CRITICISM OF ROBERT ELSMERE -- JOHN WARD,
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PREACHER, AND AN AFRICAN FARM.
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Man is a being capable of pleasure and pain. The fact that he
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can enjoy himself -- that he can obtain good -- gives him courage
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-- courage to defend what he has, courage to try to get more. The
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fact that he can suffer pain sows in his mind the seeds of fear.
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Man is also filled with curiosity. He examines. He is astonished by
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the uncommon. He is forced to take an interest in things because
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things affect him. He is liable at every moment to be injured.
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Countless things attack him. He must defend himself. As a
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consequence his mind is at work; his experience in some degree
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tells him what may happen; he prepares; he defends himself from
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heat and cold. All the springs of action lie in the fact that he
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can suffer and enjoy. The savage has great confidence in his
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senses. He has absolute confidence in his eyes and ears. It
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requires many, years of education and experience before he becomes
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satisfied that things are not always what they appear. It would be
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hard to convince the average barbarian that the sun does not
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actually rise and set -- hard to convince him that the earth turns.
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He would rely upon appearances and would record you as insane.
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As man becomes civilized, educated, he finally has more
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confidence in his reason than in his eyes. He no longer believes
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that a being called Echo exists. He has found out the theory of
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sound, and he then knows that the wave of air has been returned to
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his ear, and the idea of a being who repeats his words fades from
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his mind; he begins then to rely, not upon appearances, but upon
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demonstration, upon the result of investigation. At last he finds
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that he has been deceived in a thousand ways, and he also finds
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that he can invent certain instruments that are far more accurate
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than his senses -- instruments that add power to his sight, to his
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hearing and to the sensitiveness of his touch. Day by day he gains
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confidence in himself.
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There is in the life of the individual, as in the life of the
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race, a period of credulity, when not only appearances are accepted
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without question, but the declarations of others. The child in the
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cradle or in the lap of its mother, has implicit confidence in
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fairy stories -- believes in giants and dwarfs, in beings who can
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answer wishes, who create castles and temples and gardens with a
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thought. So the race, in its infancy, believed in such beings and
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in such creations. As the child grows, facts take the place of the
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old beliefs, and the same is true of the race.
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As a rule, the attention of man is drawn first, not to his own
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mistakes, not to his own faults, but to the mistakes and faults of
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his neighbors. The same is true of a nation -- it notices first the
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eccentricities and peculiarities of other nations. This is
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especially true of religious systems. Christians take it for
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granted that their religion is true, that there can be about that
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no doubt, no mistake. They begin to examine the religions of other
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nations. They take it for granted that all these other religions
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are false. They are in a frame of mind to notice contradictions, to
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discover mistakes and to apprehend absurdities. In examining other
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religions they use their common sense. They carry in the hand the
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lamp of probability. The miracle of other Christs, or of the
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founders of other religions, appear unreasonable -- they find that
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they are not supported by evidence. Most of the stories excite
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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5
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A CRITICISM OF ROBERT ELSMERE -- JOHN WARD,
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PREACHER, AND AN AFRICAN FARM.
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laughter. Many of the laws seem cruel, many of the ceremonies
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absurd. These Christians satisfy themselves that they are right in
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their first conjecture -- that is, that other religions are all
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made by men. Afterward the same arguments they have used against
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other religions were found to be equally forcible against their
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own. They find that the miracles of Buddha rest upon the same kind
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of evidence as the miracles in the Old Testament, as the miracles
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in the New -- that the evidence in the one case is just as weak and
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unreliable as in the other. They also find that it is just as easy
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to account for the existence of Christianity as for the existence
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of any other religion, and they find that the human mind in all
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countries has traveled substantially the same road and has arrived
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at substantially the same conclusions.
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It may be truthfully said that Christianity by the examination
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of other religions laid the foundation for its own destruction. The
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moment it examined another religion it became a doubter, a skeptic,
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an investigator. It began to call for proof. This course being
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pursued in the examination of Christianity itself, reached the
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result that had been reached as to other religions. In other words,
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it was impossible for Christians successfully to attack other
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religions without showing that their own religion could be
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destroyed. The fact that only a few years ago we were all
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provincial should be taken into consideration. A few years ago
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nations were unacquainted with each other -- no nation had any
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conception of the real habits, customs, religions and ideas of any
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other. Each nation imagined itself to be the favored of heaven --
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the only one to whom God had condescended to make known his will --
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the only one in direct communication with angels and deities. Since
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the circumnavigation of the globe, since the invention of the steam
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engine, the discovery of electricity, the nations of the world have
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||
become acquainted with each other, and we now know that the old
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ideas were born of egotism, and that egotism is the child of
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ignorance and, savagery.
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Think of the egotism of the ancient Jews, who imagined that
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they were "the chosen people" -- the only ones in whom God took the
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||
slightest interest! Imagine the egotism of the Catholic Church,
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||
claiming that it is the only church -- that it is continually under
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||
the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and that the pope is infallible and
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||
occupies the place of God. Think of the egotism of the
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||
Presbyterian, who imagines that he is one of "the elect," and that
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billions of ages before the world was created, God, in the eternal
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counsel of his own good pleasure, picked out this particular
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Presbyterian, and at the same time determined to send billions and
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billions to the pit of eternal pain. Think of the egotism of the
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man who believes in special providence. The old philosophy, the old
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religion, was made in about equal parts of ignorance and egotism.
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||
This earth was the universe. The sun rose and set simply for the
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benefit of "God's chosen people." The moon and stars were made to
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beautify the night, and all the countless hosts of heaven were for
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no other purpose than to decorate what might be called the ceiling
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of the earth. It was also believed that this firmament was solid --
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that up there the gods lived, and that they could be influenced by
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the prayers and desires of men.
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||
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||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
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||
|
||
A CRITICISM OF ROBERT ELSMERE -- JOHN WARD,
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PREACHER, AND AN AFRICAN FARM.
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We have now found that the earth is only a grain of sand, a
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speck, an atom in an infinite universe. We now know that the sun is
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||
a million times larger than the earth, and that other planets are
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||
millions of times larger than the sun; and when we think of these
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||
things, the old stories of the Garden of Eden and Sinai and Calvary
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||
seem infinitely out of proportion.
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At last we have reached a point where we have the candor and
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||
the intelligence to examine the claims of our own religion
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||
precisely as we examine those of other countries. We have produced
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||
men and women great enough to free themselves from the prejudices
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||
born of provincialism -- from the prejudices, we might almost say,
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||
of patriotism. A few people are great enough not to be controlled
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||
by the ideas of the dead -- great enough to know that they are not
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||
bound by the mistakes of their ancestors -- and that a man may
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||
actually love his mother without accepting her belief, We have even
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||
gone further than this, and we are now satisfied that the only way
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to really honor parents is to tell our best and highest thoughts.
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These thoughts ought to be in the mind when reading the books
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||
referred to. There are certain tendencies, certain trends of
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||
thought, and these tendencies -- these trends -- bear fruit that is
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||
to say, they produce the books about which I have spoken as well as
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||
many others.
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||
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||
END.
|
||
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||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.
|
||
|
||
I HARDLY know enough on the subject to give an opinion as to
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||
the time when eight hours are to become a day's work, but I am
|
||
perfectly satisfied that eight hours will become a labor day.
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||
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||
The working people should be protected by law; if they are
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||
not, the capitalists will require just as many hours as human
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||
nature can bear. We have seen here in America street-car drivers
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||
working sixteen and seventeen hours a day. It was necessary to have
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||
a strike in order to get to fourteen, another strike to get to
|
||
twelve, and nobody could blame them for keeping on striking till
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||
they get to eight hours.
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||
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||
For a man to get up before daylight and work till after dark,
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||
life is of no particular importance. He simply earns enough one day
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||
to prepare himself to work another. His whole life is spent in want
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||
and toil, and such a life is without value.
|
||
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||
Of course, I cannot say that the present effort is going to
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||
succeed -- all I can say is that I hope it will. I cannot see how
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||
any man who does nothing -- who lives in idleness -- can insist
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||
that others should work ten or twelve hours a day. Neither can I
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||
see how a man who lives on the luxuries of life can find it in his
|
||
heart, or in his stomach, to say that the poor ought to be
|
||
satisfied with the crusts and crumbs they get.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.
|
||
|
||
I believe there is to be a revolution in the relations between
|
||
labor and capital. The laboring people a few generations ago were
|
||
not very intellectual. There were no schoolhouses, no teachers
|
||
except the church, and the church taught obedience and faith --
|
||
told the poor people that although they had a hard time here,
|
||
working for nothing, they would be paid in Paradise with a large
|
||
interest. Now the working people are more intelligent -- they are
|
||
better educated -- they read and write. In order to carry on the
|
||
works of the present, many of them are machinists of the highest
|
||
order. They must be reasoners. Every kind of mechanism insists upon
|
||
logic. The working people are reasoners -- their hands and heads
|
||
are in partnership. They know a great deal more than the
|
||
capitalists. It takes a thousand times the brain to make a
|
||
locomotive that it does to run a store or a bank. Think of the
|
||
intelligence in a steamship and in all the thousand machines and
|
||
devices that are now working for the world. These working people
|
||
read. They meet together -- they discuss. They are becoming more
|
||
and more independent in thought. They do not believe all they hear.
|
||
They may take their hats off their heads to the priests, but they
|
||
keep their brains in their heads for themselves.
|
||
|
||
The free school in this country has tended to put men on an
|
||
equality, and the mechanic understands his side of the case, and is
|
||
able to express his views. Under these circumstances there must be
|
||
a revolution. That is to say, the relations between capital and
|
||
labor must be changed, and the time must come when they who do the
|
||
work -- they who make the money -- will insist on having some of
|
||
the profits.
|
||
|
||
I do not expect this remedy to come entirely from the
|
||
Government, or from Government interference. I think the Government
|
||
can aid in passing good and wholesome laws -- laws fixing the
|
||
length of a labor day; laws preventing the employment of children;
|
||
laws for the safety and security of workingmen in mines and other
|
||
dangerous places. But the laboring people must rely upon
|
||
themselves; on their intelligence, and especially on their
|
||
political power. They are in the majority in this country. They can
|
||
if they wish -- if they will stand together -- elect Congresses and
|
||
Senates, Presidents and Judges. They have it in their power to
|
||
administer the Government of the United States.
|
||
|
||
The laboring man, however, ought to remember that all who
|
||
labor are their brothers, and that all women who labor are their
|
||
sisters, and whenever one class of workingmen or workingwomen is
|
||
oppressed all other laborers ought to stand by the oppressed class.
|
||
Probably the worst paid people in the world are the workingwomen.
|
||
Think of the sewing women in this city -- and yet we call ourselves
|
||
civilized! I would like to see all working people unite for the
|
||
purpose of demanding justice, not only for men, but for women.
|
||
|
||
All my sympathies are on the side of those who toil -- of
|
||
those who produce the real wealth of the world -- of those who
|
||
carry the burdens of mankind.
|
||
|
||
Any man who wishes to force his brother to work -- to toil --
|
||
more than eight hours a day is not a civilized man.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.
|
||
|
||
My hope for the workingman has its foundation in the fact that
|
||
he is growing more and more intelligent. I have also the same hope
|
||
for the capitalist. The time must come when the capitalist will
|
||
clearly and plainly see that his interests are identical with those
|
||
of the laboring man. He will finally become intelligent enough to
|
||
know that his prosperity depends on the prosperity of those who
|
||
labor, When both become intelligent the matter will be settled.
|
||
|
||
Neither labor nor capital should resort to force. --
|
||
|
||
The Morning Journal, April 27, 1890.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
A FEW FRAGMENTS ON EXPANSION.
|
||
|
||
A NATION rises from infancy to manhood and sinks from dotage
|
||
to death. I think that the great Republic is in the morning of her
|
||
life -- the sun just above the horizon -- the grass still wet with
|
||
dew.
|
||
|
||
Our country has the courage and enthusiasm of youth -- her
|
||
blood flows full -- her heart beats strong and her brow is fair. We
|
||
stand on the threshold of a great, a sublime career. All the
|
||
conditions are favorable -- the environment kind. The best part of
|
||
this hemisphere is ours. We have a thousand million acres of
|
||
fertile land, vast forests, whole States underlaid with coal;
|
||
ranges of mountains filled with iron, silver and gold, and we have
|
||
seventy-five millions of the most energetic, active, inventive,
|
||
progressive and practical people in the world. The great Republic
|
||
is a happy combination of mind and muscle, of head and heart, of
|
||
courage and good nature. We are growing. We have the instinct. of
|
||
expansion. We are full of life and health. We are about to take our
|
||
rightful place at the head of the nations. The great powers have
|
||
been struggling to obtain markets. They are fighting for the trade
|
||
of the East. They are contending for China. We watched, but we did
|
||
not act. They paid no attention to us or we to them. Conditions
|
||
have changed. We own the Hawaiian Islands. We will own the
|
||
Philippines.
|
||
|
||
Japan and China will be our neighbors -- our customers. Our
|
||
interests must be protected. In China we want the "open door,"
|
||
and we will see to it that the door is kept open. The nation that
|
||
tries to shut it, will get its fingers pinched. We have taught
|
||
the Old World that the Republic must be consulted. We have
|
||
entered on the great highway, and we are destined to become the
|
||
most powerful, the most successful and the most generous of
|
||
nations. I am for expansion. The more people beneath the flag the
|
||
better. Let the Republic grow.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
I BELIEVE in growth. Of course there are many moss-back
|
||
conservatives who fear expansion. Thousands opposed the purchase
|
||
of Louisiana from Napoleon, thousands were against the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
A FEW FRAGMENTS ON EXPANSION.
|
||
|
||
acquisition of Florida and of the vast territory we obtained from
|
||
Mexico. So, thousands were against the purchase of Alaska, and
|
||
some dear old mummies opposed the annexation of the Sandwich
|
||
Islands, and yet, I do not believe that there is an intelligent
|
||
American who would like to part with one acre that has been
|
||
acquired by the Government. Now, there are some timid, withered
|
||
statesmen who do not want Porto Rico -- who beg us in a
|
||
trembling, patriotic voice not to keep the Philippines. But the
|
||
sensible people feel exactly the other way. They love to see our
|
||
borders extended. They love to see the flag floating over the
|
||
islands of the tropics, -- showering its blessings upon the poor
|
||
people who have been robbed and tortured by the Spanish. Let the
|
||
Republic grow! Let us spread the gospel of Freedom! In a few
|
||
years I hope that Canada will be ours -- I want Mexico -- in
|
||
other words, I want all of North America. I want to see our flag
|
||
waving from the North Pole.
|
||
|
||
I think it was a mistake to appoint a peace commission. The
|
||
President should have demanded the unconditional surrender of
|
||
Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines. Spain was helpless. The war
|
||
would have ended on our terms, and all this commission nonsense
|
||
would have been saved. Still, I make no complaint. it will
|
||
probably come out right, though it would have been far better to
|
||
have ended the business when we could -- when Spain was
|
||
prostrate. It was foolish to let her get up and catch her breath
|
||
and hunt for friends.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
ONLY a few days ago our President, by proclamation, thanked
|
||
God for giving us the victory at Santiago. He did not thank him
|
||
for sending the yellow fever. To be consistent the President
|
||
should have thanked him equally for both. Man should think; he
|
||
should use all his senses; he should examine; he should reason.
|
||
The man who cannot think is less than man; the man who will not
|
||
think is a traitor to himself; the man who fears to think is
|
||
superstition's slave. I do not thank God for the splendid victory
|
||
in Manila Bay. I don't know whether he had anything to do with
|
||
it; if I find out that he did I will thank him readily.
|
||
Meanwhile, I will thank Admiral George Dewey and the brave
|
||
fellows who were with him.
|
||
|
||
I do not thank God for the destruction of Cervera's fleet at
|
||
Santiago. No, I thank Schley and the men with the trained eyes
|
||
and the nerves of steel, who stood behind the guns. I do not
|
||
thank God because we won the battle of Santiago. I thank the
|
||
Regular Army, black and white -- the Volunteers -- the Rough
|
||
Riders, and all the men who made the grand charge at San Juan
|
||
Hill. I have asked, "Why should God help us to whip Spain?" and
|
||
have been answered: "For the sake of the Cubans, who have been
|
||
crushed and ill-treated by their Spanish masters." Then why did
|
||
not God help the Cubans long before? Certainly, they were
|
||
fighting long enough and needed his help badly enough. But, I am
|
||
told, God's ways are inscrutable. Suppose Spain had whipped us;
|
||
would the Christians then say that God did it? Very likely they
|
||
would, and would have as an excuse, that we broke the Sabbath
|
||
with our base-ball, our bicycles and bloomers.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|