1171 lines
58 KiB
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1171 lines
58 KiB
Plaintext
18 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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WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE. 1
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UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER. 4
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THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER. 13
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SPIRITUALITY. 15
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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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WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.
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ONE HUNDRED years after Christ had died suppose some one had
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asked a Christian, What hospitals have you built? What asylums have
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you founded? They would have said "None." Suppose three hundred
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years after the death of Christ the same questions had been asked
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the Christian, he would have said "None, not one." Two hundred
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years more and the answer would have been the same. And at that
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time the Christian could have told the questioner that the
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Mohammedans had built asylums before the Christians. He could also
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have told him that there had been orphan asylums in China for
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hundreds and hundreds of years, hospitals in India, and hospitals
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for the sick at Athens.
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Here it may be well enough to say that all hospitals and
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asylums are not built for charity. They are built because people do
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not want to be annoyed by the sick and the insane. If a sick man
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should come down the street and sit upon your doorstep, what would
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you do with him? You would have to take him into your house or
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leave him to suffer. Private families do not wish to take the
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burden of the sick. Consequently, in self-defence, hospitals are
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built so that any wanderer coming to a house, dying, or suffering
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from any disease, may immediately be packed off to a hospital and
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not become a burden upon private charity. The fact that many
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diseases are contagious rendered hospitals necessary for the
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preservation of the lives of the citizens. The same thing is true
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of the asylums. People do not, as a rule, want to take into their
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families, all the children who happen to have no fathers and
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mothers. So they endow and build an asylum where those children can
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be sent -- and where they can be whipped according to law, Nobody
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wants an insane stranger in his house. The consequence is, that the
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community, to get rid of these people, to get rid of the trouble,
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build public institutions and send them there.
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Now, then, to come to the point, to answer the interrogatory
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often flung at us from the pulpit, What institutions have Infidels
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built? In the first place, there have not been many Infidels for
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many years and, as a rule, a known Infidel cannot get very rich,
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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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WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.
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for the reason, that the Christians are so forgiving and loving
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they boycott him. If the average Infidel, freely stating his
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opinion, could get through the world himself, for the last several
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hundred years, he has been in good luck. But as a matter of fact
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there have been some Infidels who have done some good, even from a
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Christian standpoint. The greatest charity ever established in the
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United States by a man -- not by a community to get rid of a
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nuisance, but by a man who wished to do good and wished that good
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to last after his death -- is the Girard College in the city of
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Philadelphia. Girard was an Infidel. He gained his first publicity
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by going like a common person into the hospitals and taking care of
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those suffering from contagious diseases -- from cholera and
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smallpox. So there is a man by the name of James Lick, an Infidel,
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who has given the finest observatory ever given to the world. And
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it is a good thing for an Infidel to increase the sight of men. The
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reason people are theologians is because they cannot see. Mr. Lick
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has increased human vision, and I can say right here that nothing
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has been seen through the telescope calculated to prove the
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astronomy of Joshua. Neither can you see with that telescope a star
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that bears a Christian name. The reason is that Christianity was
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opposed to astronomy. so astronomers took their revenge, and now
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there is not one star that glitters in all the vast firmament of
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the boundless heavens that has a Christian name. Mr. Carnegie has
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been what they call a public-spirited man. He has given millions of
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dollars for libraries and other institutions, and he certainly is
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not an orthodox Christian.
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Infidels, however, have done much better even than that. They
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have increased the sum of human knowledge. John W. Draper, in his
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work on "The Intellectual Development of Europe," has done more
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good to the American people and to the civilized world than all the
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priests in it. He was an Infidel. Buckle is another who has added
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to the sum of human knowledge. Thomas Paine, an Infidel, did more
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for this country than any other man who ever lived in it.
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Most of the colleges in this country have, I admit, been
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founded by Christians, and the money for their support has been
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donated by Christians, but most of the colleges of this country
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have simply classified ignorance, and I think the United States
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would be more learned than it is to-day if there never had been a
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Christian college in it. But whether Christians gave or Infidels
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gave has nothing to do with the probability of the jonah story or
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with the probability that the mark on the dial went back ten
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degrees to prove that a little Jewish king was not going to die of
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a boil. And if the Infidels are all stingy and the Christians are
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all generous it does not even tend to prove that three men were in
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a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than was its wont without
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even scorching their clothes.
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The best college in this country -- or, at least, for a long
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time the best -- was the institution founded by Ezra Cornell. That
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is a school where people try to teach what they know instead of
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what they guess. Yet Cornell University was attacked by every
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orthodox college in the United States at the time it was founded,
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because they said it was without religion.
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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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WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.
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Everybody knows that Christianity does not tend to
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generosity.Christianity says: "Save your own soul, whether anybody
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else saves his or not." Christianity says: "Let the great ship go
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down. You get into the little life-boat of the gospel and paddle
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ashore, no matter what becomes of the rest." Christianity says you
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must love God, or something in the sky, better than you love your
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wife and children. And the Christian, even when giving, expects to
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get a very large compound interest in another world. The Infidel
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who gives, asks no return except the joy that comes from relieving
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the wants of another.
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Again the Christians, although they have built colleges, have
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built them for the purpose of spreading their superstitions, and
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have poisoned the minds of the world, while the Infidel teachers
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have filled the world with light. Darwin did more for mankind than
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if he had built a thousand hospitals. Voltaire did more than if he
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had built a thousand asylums for the insane. He will prevent
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thousands from going insane that otherwise might be driven into
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insanity by the "glad tidings of great joy." Haeckel is filling the
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world with light.
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I am perfectly willing that the results of the labors of
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Christians and the labors of Infidels should be compared. Then let
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it be understood that Infidels have been in this world but a very
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short time. A few years ago there were hardly any. I can remember
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when I was the only Infidel in the town where I lived. Give us time
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and we will build colleges in which something will be taught that
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is of use. We hope to build temples that will be dedicated to
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reason and common sense, and where every effort will be made to
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reform mankind and make them better and better in this world.
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I am saying nothing against the charity of Christians; nothing
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against any kindness or goodness. But I say the Christians, in my
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judgment, have done more harm than they have done good. They may
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talk of the asylums they have built, but they have not built
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asylums enough to hold the people who have been driven insane by
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their teachings. Orthodox religion has opposed liberty. It has
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||
opposed investigation and free-thought. If all the churches in
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||
Europe had been observatories, if the cathedrals had been
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universities where facts were taught and where nature was studied,
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if all the priests had been real teachers, this world would have
|
||
been far, far beyond what it is to-day.
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There is an idea that Christianity is positive, and Infidelity
|
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is negative. If this be so, then falsehood is positive and truth is
|
||
negative. What I contend is that Infidelity is a positive religion;
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||
that Christianity is a negative religion. Christianity denies and
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Infidelity admits. Infidelity stands by facts; it demonstrates by
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the conclusions of the reason. Infidelity does all it can to
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||
develop the brain and the heart of man. That is positive. Religion
|
||
asks man to give up this world for one he knows nothing about, That
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||
is negative. I stand by the religion of reason. I stand by the
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dogmas of demonstration.
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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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UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
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New York, January 15, 1892.
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TOAST.
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The Ideal.
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MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the first place, I
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wish to tender my thanks to this club for having generosity and
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sense enough to invite me to speak this evening. It is probably the
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best thing the club has ever done. You have shown that you are not
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afraid of a man simply because he does not happen to agree entirely
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with you, although in a very general way it may be said that I come
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within one of you.
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So I think, not only that you have honored me -- that, I most
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cheerfully and gratefully admit -- but. upon my word, I think that
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you have honored yourselves. And imagine the distance the religious
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world has traveled in the last few years to make a thing of this
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kind possible! You know -- I presume every one of you knows -- that
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I have no religion -- not enough to last a minute -- none whatever
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-- that is, in the ordinary sense of that word. And yet you have
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become so nearly civilized that you are willing to hear what I have
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to say; and I have become so nearly civilized that I am willing to
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say what I think.
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And, in the second place, let me say that I have great respect
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||
for the Unitarian Church. I have great respect for the memory of
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Theodore Parker. I have great respect for every man who has
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assisted in relieving the heavens of an infinite monster. I have
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great respect for every man who has helped to put out the fires of
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hell. In other words, I have great respect for every man who has
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||
tried to civilize my race.
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The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church --
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||
and maybe more than all other churches -- to substitute character
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for creed, and to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by
|
||
the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the
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spring of his hope; that he should be judged by what he does; by
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||
the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may
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believe, And whether there be one God or a million, I am perfectly
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||
satisfied that every duty that devolves upon me is within my reach,
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||
it is something that I can do myself, without the help of anybody
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else, either in this world or any other.
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Now, in order to make myself plain on this subject -- I think
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||
I was to speak about the Ideal -- I want to thank the Unitarian
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Church for what it has done; and I want to thank the Universalist
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||
Church, too. They at least believe in a God who is a gentleman; and
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that is much more than was ever done by an orthodox church. They
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believe, at least, in a heavenly father who will leave the latch
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string out until the last child gets home; and as that lets me in
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||
-- especially in reference to the "last" -- I have great respect
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for that church.
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But now I am coming to the Ideal; and in what I may say you
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may not all agree. I hope you won't, because that would be to me
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||
evidence that I am wrong. You cannot expect everybody to agree in
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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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|
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UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
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the right, and I cannot expect to be always in the right myself. I
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have to judge with the standard called my reason, and I do not know
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whether it is right or not; I will admit that. But as opposed to
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any other man's, I will bet on mine. That is to say, for home use.
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||
In the first place, I think it is said in some book -- and if I am
|
||
wrong there are plenty here to correct me -- that "the fear of the
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Lord is the beginning of wisdom." I think a knowledge of the
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limitations of the human mind is the beginning of wisdom, and, I
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||
may almost say, the end of it -- really to understand yourself.
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Now, let me lay down this proposition. The imagination of man
|
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has the horizon of experience; and beyond experience or nature man
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cannot go, even in imagination. Man is not a creator. He combines;
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he adds together; he divides; he subtracts; he does not create,
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even in the world of imagination. Let me make myself a little
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plainer: Not one here -- not one in the wide, wide world can think
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of a color that he never saw. No human being can imagine a sound
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that he has not heard, and no one can think of a taste that he has
|
||
not experienced. He can add to -- that is add together -- combine;
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but he cannot, by any possibility, create.
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Man originally, we will say -- go back to the age of
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barbarism, and you will not have to go far; our own childhood,
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probably, is as far as is necessary -- but go back to what is
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called the age of savagery; every man was an idealist, as every man
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is to-day an idealist. Every man in savage or civilized time,
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commencing with the first that ever crawled out of a cave and
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pushed the hair back from his forehead to look at the sun --
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commence with him and end with Judge Wright -- the last expression
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on the God question -- and from that cave to the soul that lives in
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this temple, everyone has been an idealist and has endeavored to
|
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account in some way for what he saw and for what he felt; in other
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words, for the phenomena of nature. The easiest way to account for
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it by the rudest savage, is the way it has been accounted for
|
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to-night. What makes the river run? There's a god in it. What makes
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the tree grow? There's a god in it. What makes the star shine?
|
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There's a god in it. What makes the sun rise? Why, he is a god
|
||
himself. And what makes the nightingale sing until the air is faint
|
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with melody? There's a god in it.
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They commenced making gods to account for everything that
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happens; gods of dreams and gods of love and friend ship, and
|
||
heroism and courage. Splendid! They kept making more and more. The
|
||
more they found out in nature, up to a certain point, the more gods
|
||
they needed; and they kept on making gods until almost every wave
|
||
of the sea bore a god. Gods on every mountain, and in every vale
|
||
and field, and by every stream! Gods in flowers, gods in grass;
|
||
gods everywhere! All accounting for this world and for what
|
||
happened in this world.
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Then, when they had got about to the top, when their ingenuity
|
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had been exhausted, they had not produced anything, and they did
|
||
not produce anything beyond their own experience. We are told that
|
||
they were idolaters. That is a mistake, except in the sense that we
|
||
are all idolaters. They said, "Here is a god; let us express our
|
||
idea of him. He is stronger than a man; let us give him the body of
|
||
a lion. He is swifter than a man; let us give him the wings of an
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|
||
Bank of Wisdom
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||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
5
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||
UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
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eagle. He is wiser than a mall" -- and when a man was very savage
|
||
he said, "let us give him the head of a serpent;" a serpent is
|
||
wonderfully wise; he travels without feet; he climbs without claws;
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he lives without food, and he is of the simplest conceivable form.
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And that was simply to represent their idea of power, of
|
||
swiftness, of wisdom. And yet this impossible monster was simply
|
||
made of what man had seen in nature, and he put the various
|
||
attributes or parts together by his imagination. He created
|
||
nothing. He simply took these parts of certain beasts, when beasts
|
||
were supposed to be superior to man in some particulars, and in
|
||
that way expressed his thought.
|
||
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||
You go into the territory of Arizona to-day, and you will find
|
||
there pictures of God. He was clothed in stone, through which no
|
||
arrow could pierce, and so they called God the Stone-Shirted whom
|
||
no Indian could kill. That was for the simple and only reason that
|
||
it was impossible to get an arrow through his armor. They got the
|
||
idea from the armadillo.
|
||
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||
Now, I am simply saying this to show that they were making
|
||
gods for all these centuries, and making them out of something they
|
||
found in nature. Then, after they got through with the beast
|
||
business, they made gods after the image of man; and they are the
|
||
best gods, so far as I know, that have been made.
|
||
|
||
The gods that were first made after the image of man were not
|
||
made after the pattern of very good men; but they were good men
|
||
according to the standard of that time, because, as I will show you
|
||
in a moment, all these things are relative. The qualities or things
|
||
that we call mercy, justice, charity and religion are all relative.
|
||
There was a time when the victor on the field of battle was
|
||
exceedingly merciful if he failed to eat his prisoner; he was
|
||
regarded as a very charitable gentleman if he refused to eat the
|
||
man he had captured in battle. Afterward he was regarded as an
|
||
exceedingly benevolent person if he would spare a prisoner's life
|
||
and make him a slave.
|
||
|
||
So that -- but you all know it as well as I do or you would
|
||
not be Unitarians -- all this has been simply a growth from year to
|
||
year, from generation to generation, from age to age. And let me
|
||
tell you the first thing about these gods that they made after the
|
||
image of men. After a time there were men on the earth who were
|
||
better than these gods in heaven.
|
||
|
||
Then those gods began to die, one after another, and dropped
|
||
from their thrones. The time will probably come in the history of
|
||
this world when an insurance company can calculate the average life
|
||
of gods as well as they do now of men; because all these gods have
|
||
been made by folks. And, let me say right here, the folks did the
|
||
best they could. I do not blame them. Everybody in the business has
|
||
always done his best. I admit it. I admit that man has traveled
|
||
from the first conception up to Unitarianism by a necessary road.
|
||
Under the conditions he could have come up in no other way. I admit
|
||
all that. I blame nobody.
|
||
|
||
But I am simply trying to tell, in a very feeble manner, how
|
||
it is.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
Now, in a little while, I say, men got better than their gods.
|
||
Then the gods began to die. Then we began to find out a few things
|
||
in nature, and we found out that we were supporting more gods than
|
||
were necessary -- that fewer gods could do the business -- and
|
||
that, from an economical point of view, expenses ought to be cut
|
||
down. There were too many temples, too many priests, and you always
|
||
had to give tithes of something to each one, and these gods were
|
||
about to eat up the substance of the world.
|
||
|
||
And there came a time when it got to that point that either
|
||
the gods would eat up the people or the people must destroy some
|
||
gods, and of course they destroyed the gods -- one by one and in
|
||
their places they put forces of nature to do the business -- forces
|
||
of nature that needed no church, that needed no theologians; forces
|
||
of nature that you are under no obligation to; that you do not have
|
||
to pay anything to keep working. We found that the attraction of
|
||
gravitation would attend to its business, night and day, at its own
|
||
expense. There was a great saving. I wish it were the same with all
|
||
kinds of law, so that we could all go into some useful business,
|
||
including myself.
|
||
|
||
So day by day, they dispensed with this expense of deities;
|
||
and the world got along just as well -- a good deal better. They
|
||
used to think -- a community thought -- that if a man was allowed
|
||
to say a word against a deity, the god would visit his vengeance
|
||
upon the entire nation. But they found out, after a while, that no
|
||
harm came of it; so they went on destroying the gods. Now, all
|
||
these things are relative; and they made gods a little better all
|
||
the time -- I admit that -- till we struck the Presbyterian, which
|
||
is probably the worst ever made. The Presbyterians seem to have
|
||
bred back.
|
||
|
||
But no matter. As man became more just, or nearer just, as he
|
||
became more charitable, or nearer charitable, his god grew to be a
|
||
little better and a little better. He was very bad in Geneva -- the
|
||
three that we then had. They were very bad in Scotland -- horrible!
|
||
Very bad in New England -- infamous! I might as well tell the truth
|
||
about it -- very bad! And then men went to work, finally, to
|
||
civilize their gods, to civilize heaven, to give heaven the benefit
|
||
of the freedom of this brave world. That's what we did. We wanted
|
||
to civilize religion -- civilize what is known as Christianity. And
|
||
nothing on earth needed civilization more; and nothing needs it
|
||
more than that to-night. Civilization! I am not so much for the
|
||
freedom of religion as I am for the religion of freedom.
|
||
|
||
Now, there was a time when our ancestors -- good people, away
|
||
back, all dead, no great regret expressed at this meeting on that
|
||
account -- there was a time when our ancestors were happy in their
|
||
belief that nearly everybody was to be lost, and that a few,
|
||
including themselves, were to be saved. That religion, I say,
|
||
fitted that time. It fitted their geology. It was a very good
|
||
running mate for their astronomy. It was a good match for their
|
||
chemistry. In other words, they were about equal in every
|
||
department of human ignorance.
|
||
|
||
And they insisted that there lived up there somewhere --
|
||
generally up -- exactly where nobody has, I believe, yet said -- a
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
being, an infinite person "without body, parts, or passions," and
|
||
yet without passions he was angry at the wicked every day; without
|
||
body he inhabited a certain place; and without parts he was, after
|
||
all, in some strange and miraculous manner, organized so that he
|
||
thought.
|
||
|
||
And I don't know that it is possible for anyone here -- I
|
||
don't know that anyone here is gifted with imagination enough -- to
|
||
conceive of such a being. Our fathers had not imagination enough to
|
||
do so, at least, and so they said of this God, that he loves and he
|
||
hates; he punishes and he rewards; and that religion has been
|
||
described perfectly tonight by Judge Wright as really making God a
|
||
monster, and men poor, helpless victims. And the highest possible
|
||
conception of the orthodox man was, finally, to be a good servant
|
||
-- just lucky enough to get in -- feathers somewhat singed, but
|
||
enough left to fly. That was the idea of our fathers. And then came
|
||
these divisions, simply because men began to think.
|
||
|
||
And why did they begin to think? Because in every direction,
|
||
in all departments, they were getting more and more information.
|
||
And then the religion did not fit. When they found out something of
|
||
the history of this globe they found out that the Scriptures were
|
||
not true. I will not say not inspired, because I do not know
|
||
whether they are inspired or not. It is a question, to me, of no
|
||
possible importance, whether they are inspired or not. The question
|
||
is: Are they true? If they are true, they do not need inspiration;
|
||
and if they are not true, inspiration will not help them. So that
|
||
is a matter that I care nothing about.
|
||
|
||
On every hand, I say, they studied and thought. They began to
|
||
grow -- to have new ideas of mercy, kindness, justice; new ideas of
|
||
duty -- new ideas of life. The old gods, after we got past the
|
||
civilization of the Greeks, past their mythology -- and it is the
|
||
best mythology that man has ever made -- after we got past that, I
|
||
say, the gods cared very little about women. Women occupied no
|
||
place in the state -- no place by the hearth, except one of
|
||
subordination, and almost of slavery. So the early churches made
|
||
God after that image who held women in contempt. It was only
|
||
natural -- I am not blaming anybody -- they had to do it, it was
|
||
part of the must!
|
||
|
||
Now, I say that we have advanced up to the point that we
|
||
demand not only intelligence, but justice and mercy, in the sky; we
|
||
demand that -- that idea of God. Then comes my trouble. I want to
|
||
be honest about it. Here is my trouble -- and I want it also
|
||
understood that if I should see a man praying to a stone image or
|
||
to a stuffed serpent, with that man's wife or daughter or son lying
|
||
at the point of death, and that poor savage on his knees imploring
|
||
that image or that stuffed serpent to save his child or his wife,
|
||
there is nothing in my heart that could suggest the slightest
|
||
scorn, or any other feeling than that of sympathy; any other
|
||
feeling than that of grief that the stuffed serpent could not
|
||
answer the prayer and that the stone image did not feel; I want
|
||
that understood. And wherever man prays for the right -- no matter
|
||
to whom or to what he prays; where he prays for strength to conquer
|
||
the wrong, I hope his prayer may be heard; and if I think there is
|
||
no one else to hear it I will hear it, and I am willing to help
|
||
answer it to the extent of my power.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
So I want it distinctly understood that that is my feeling.
|
||
But here is my trouble: I find this world made on a very cruel
|
||
plain I do not say it is wrong -- I just say that that is the way
|
||
it seems to me. I may be wrong myself, because this is the only
|
||
world I was ever in; I am provincial. This grain of sand and tear
|
||
they call the earth is the only world I have ever lived in. And you
|
||
have no idea how little I know about the rest of this universe; you
|
||
never will know how little I know about it until you examine your
|
||
own minds on the same subject.
|
||
|
||
The plan is this: Life feeds on life. justice does not always
|
||
triumph., Innocence is not a perfect shield. There is my trouble.
|
||
No matter now, whether you agree with me or not; I beg of you to be
|
||
honest and fair with me in your thought, as I am toward you in
|
||
mine.
|
||
|
||
I hope, as devoutly as you, that there is a power somewhere in
|
||
this universe that will finally bring everything as it should be.
|
||
I take a little consolation in the "perhaps" -- in the guess that
|
||
this is only one scene of a great drama, and that when the curtain
|
||
rises on the fifth act, if I live that long, I may see the
|
||
coherence and the relation of things. But up to the present writing
|
||
-- or speaking -- I do not. I do not understand it -- a God that
|
||
has life feed on life; every joy in the world born of some agony!
|
||
I do not understand why in this world, over the Niagara of cruelty,
|
||
should run this ocean of blood. I do not understand it. And, then,
|
||
why does not justice always triumph? Why is not innocence a perfect
|
||
shield? These are my troubles.
|
||
|
||
Suppose a man had control of the atmosphere, knew enough of
|
||
the secrets of nature, had read enough in "nature's infinite book
|
||
of secrecy" so that he could control the wind and rain; suppose a
|
||
man had that power, and suppose that last year he kept the rain
|
||
from Russia and did not allow the crops to ripen when hundreds of
|
||
thousands were famishing and when little babes were found with
|
||
their lips on the breasts of dead mothers! What would you think of
|
||
such a man? Now, there is my trouble. If there be a God he
|
||
understood this. He knew when he withheld his rain that the famine
|
||
would come. He saw the dead mothers, he saw the empty breasts of
|
||
death, and he saw the helpless babes. There is my trouble. I am
|
||
perfectly frank with you and honest. That is my trouble.
|
||
|
||
Now, understand me! I do not say there is no God. I do not
|
||
know. As I told you before, I have traveled but very little -- only
|
||
in this world.
|
||
|
||
I want it understood that I do not pretend to know. I say I
|
||
think. And in my mind the idea expressed by Judge Wright so
|
||
eloquently and so beautifully is not exactly true. I cannot
|
||
conceive of the God he endeavors to describe, because he gives to
|
||
that God will, purpose, achievement, benevolence, love, and no form
|
||
-- no organization -- no wants. There's the trouble. No wants. And
|
||
let me say why that is a trouble. Man acts only because he wants.
|
||
You civilize man by increasing his wants, or, as his wants increase
|
||
he becomes civilized. You find a lazy savage who would not hunt an
|
||
elephant tusk to save your life. But let him have a few tastes of
|
||
whiskey and tobacco, and he will run his legs off for tusks. You
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
have given him another want and he is waling to work. And they
|
||
nearly all started on the road toward Unitarianism -- that is to
|
||
say, toward civilization -- in that way. You must increase their
|
||
wants.
|
||
|
||
The question arises: Can an infinite being want anything? If
|
||
he does and cannot get it, he is not happy. If he does not want
|
||
anything, I cannot help him. I am under no obligation to do
|
||
anything for anybody who does not need anything and who does not
|
||
want anything. Now, there is my trouble. I may be wrong, and I may
|
||
get paid for it some time, but that is my trouble.
|
||
|
||
I do not see -- admitting that all is true that has been said
|
||
about the existence of God -- I do not see what I can do for him;
|
||
and I do not see either what he can do for me, judging by what he
|
||
has done for others.
|
||
|
||
And then I come to the other point, that religion so-called,
|
||
explains our duties to this supposed being, when we do not even
|
||
know that he exists; and no human being has got imagination enough
|
||
to describe him, or to use such, words that you understand what he
|
||
is trying to say. I have listened with great pleasure to Judge
|
||
Wright this evening and I have heard a great many other beautiful
|
||
things on the same subject -- none better than his. But I never
|
||
understood them -- never.
|
||
|
||
Now, then, what is religion? I say, religion is all here in
|
||
this world -- right here -- and that all our duties are right here
|
||
to our fellow-men; that the man that builds a home; marries the
|
||
girl that he loves; takes good care of her; likes the family; stays
|
||
home nights, as a general thing; pays his debts; tries to find out
|
||
what he can; gets all the ideas and beautiful things that his mind
|
||
will hold; turns a part of his brain into a gallery of fine arts;
|
||
has a host of paintings and statues there; then has another niche
|
||
devoted to music -- a magnificent dome, filled with winged notes
|
||
that rise to glory -- now, the man who does that gets all he can
|
||
from the great ones dead; swaps all the thoughts he can with the
|
||
ones that are alive; true to the ideal that he has here in his
|
||
brain -- he is what I call a religious man, because he makes the
|
||
world better, happier; he puts the dimples of joy in the cheeks of
|
||
the ones he loves, and he lets the gods run heaven to suit
|
||
themselves. And I am not saying that he is right; I do not know.
|
||
|
||
This is all the religion that I have; to make somebody else
|
||
happier if I can.
|
||
|
||
I divide this world into two classes -- the cruel and the
|
||
kind; and I think a thousand times more of a kind man than I do of
|
||
an intelligent man. I think more of kindness than I do of genius,
|
||
I think more of real, good, human nature in that way -- of one who
|
||
is willing to lend a helping hand and who goes through the world
|
||
with a face that looks as if its owner were willing to answer a
|
||
decent question -- I think a thousand times more of that than I do
|
||
of being theologically right; because I do not care whether I am
|
||
theologically right or not. It is something that is not worth
|
||
talking about, because it is something that I never, never, never
|
||
shall understand; and every one of you will die and you won't
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
understand it either -- until after you die at any rate. I do not
|
||
know what will happen then.
|
||
|
||
I am not denying anything. There is another ideal, and it is
|
||
a beautiful ideal. It is the greatest dream that ever entered the
|
||
heart or brain of man -- the Dream of Immortality. It was born of
|
||
human affection. It did not come to us from heaven. It was born of
|
||
the human heart. -- And when he who loved, kissed the lips of her
|
||
who was dead, there came into his heart the dream: We may meet
|
||
again.
|
||
|
||
And, let me till you, that hope of immortality never came from
|
||
any religion. That hope of immortality has helped make religion. It
|
||
has been the great oak around which have climbed the poisonous
|
||
vines of superstition -- that hope of immortality is the great oak.
|
||
|
||
And yet the moment a man expresses a doubt about the truth of
|
||
Joshua or Jonah or the other three fellows in a furnace, up hops
|
||
some poor little wretch and says, "Why, he doesn't want to live any
|
||
more; he wants to die and go down like a dog, and that is the end
|
||
of him and his wife and children." They really seem to think that
|
||
the moment a man is what they call an Infidel he has no affections,
|
||
no heart, no feeling, no hope -- nothing -- nothing. just anxious
|
||
to be annihilated! But, if the orthodox creed be true, I make my
|
||
choice to-night. I take hell. And if it is between hell and
|
||
annihilation, I take annihilation.
|
||
|
||
I will tell you why I take hell in making the first choice. We
|
||
have heard from both of those places -- heaven and hell. According
|
||
to the New Testament there was a rich, man in hell, and a poor man,
|
||
Lazarus, in heaven. And there was another gentleman by the name of
|
||
Abraham. The rich man in hell was in flames, and he called for
|
||
water, and they told him they couldn't give him any. No bridge! But
|
||
they did not express the slightest regret that they could not give
|
||
him any water. Mr. Abraham was not decent enough to say he would if
|
||
he could; no, sir; nothing. It did not make any difference to him.
|
||
But this rich man in hell -- in torment -- his heart was all right,
|
||
for he remembered his brothers; and he said to this Abraham, "If
|
||
you cannot go, why, send a man to my five brethren, so that they
|
||
will not come to this Place!" Good fellow, to think of his five
|
||
brothers when he was burning up. Good fellow. Best fellow we ever
|
||
heard from on the other side -- in either world.
|
||
|
||
So, I say, there is my place. And, incidentally, Abraham at
|
||
that time gave his judgment as to the value of miracles. He said,
|
||
"Though one should arise from the dead he wouldn't help your five
|
||
brethren!" "There are Moses and the prophets." No need of raising
|
||
people from the dead.
|
||
|
||
That is my idea, in a general way, about religion; and I want
|
||
the imagination to go to work upon it, taking the perfections of
|
||
one church, of one school, of one system, and putting them
|
||
together, just as the sculptor makes a great statue by taking the
|
||
eyes from one, the nose from another, the limbs from another, and
|
||
so on; just as they make a great painting from a landscape by
|
||
putting a river in this place, instead of over there, changing the
|
||
location of a tree and improving on what they call nature -- that
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
is to say, simply by adding to, taking from; that is all we can do.
|
||
But let us go on doing that until there shall be a church in
|
||
sympathy with the best human heart and in harmony with the best
|
||
human brain.
|
||
|
||
And, what is more, let us have that religion for the world we
|
||
live in. Right here! Let us have that religion until it cannot be
|
||
said that they who do the most work have the least to eat. Let us
|
||
have that religion here until hundreds and thousands of women are
|
||
not compelled to make a living with the needle that has been called
|
||
"the asp for the breast of the poor," and to live in tenements, in
|
||
filth, where modesty is impossible.
|
||
|
||
I say, let us preach that religion here until men will be
|
||
ashamed to have forty or fifty millions, or any more than they
|
||
need, while their brethren lack bread -- while their sisters die
|
||
from want. Let us preach that religion here until man will have
|
||
more ambition to become wise and good than to become rich and
|
||
powerful. Let us preach that religion here among ourselves until
|
||
there are no abused and beaten wives. Let us preach that religion
|
||
until children are no longer afraid of their own parents and until
|
||
there is no back of a child bearing the scars of a father's lash.
|
||
Let us preach it, I say, until we understand and know that every
|
||
man does as he must, and that, if we want better men and women, we
|
||
must have better conditions.
|
||
|
||
Let us preach this grand religion until everywhere, the world
|
||
over, men are just and kind to each other. And then, if there be
|
||
another world, we shall be prepared for it. And if I come into the
|
||
presence of an infinite, good, and wise being, he will say, "Well,
|
||
you did the best you could. You did very well, indeed. There is
|
||
plenty of work for you to do here. Try and get a little higher than
|
||
you were before." Let us preach that one drop of restitution is
|
||
worth an ocean of repentance.
|
||
|
||
And if there is a life of eternal progress before us, I shall
|
||
be as glad as any other angel to find that out.
|
||
|
||
But I will not sacrifice the world I have for one I know not
|
||
of. I will not live here in fear, when I do not know that that
|
||
which I fear lives.
|
||
|
||
I am going to live a perfectly free man. I am going to reap
|
||
the harvest of my mind, no matter how poor it is, whether it is
|
||
wheat or corn or worthless weeds. And I am going to scatter it.
|
||
Some may "fall on stony ground." But I think I have struck good
|
||
soil to-night.
|
||
|
||
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you a thousand times for
|
||
your attention. I beg that you will forgive the time that I have
|
||
taken, and allow me to say, once more, that this event marks an
|
||
epoch in Religious Liberty in the United States.
|
||
|
||
END
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
New York, December 13, 1886.
|
||
|
||
TOAST.
|
||
The Superstitions of Public Men.
|
||
|
||
MR. CHIEF RULER AND GENTLEMEN: I suppose that the superstition
|
||
most prevalent with public men, is the idea that they are of great
|
||
importance to the public. As a matter of fact, public men, -- that
|
||
is to say, men in office, -- reflect the average intelligence of
|
||
the people, and no more. A public man, to be successful, must not
|
||
assert anything unless it is exceedingly popular. And he need not
|
||
deny anything unless everybody is against it. Usually he has to be
|
||
like the center of the earth, -- draw all things his way, without
|
||
weighing anything himself.
|
||
|
||
One of the difficulties, or rather, one of the objections, to
|
||
a government republican in form, is this: Everybody imagines that
|
||
he is everybody's master. And the result has been to make most of
|
||
our public men exceedingly conservative in the expression of their
|
||
real opinions. A man, wishing to be elected to an office, generally
|
||
agrees with most everybody he meets. If he meets a Prohibitionist,
|
||
he says: "Of course I am a temperance man. I am opposed to all
|
||
excesses, my dear friend, and no one knows better than myself the
|
||
evils that have been caused by intemperance." The next man happens
|
||
to keep a saloon, and happens to be quite influential in that part
|
||
of the district, and the candidate immediately says to him -- "The
|
||
idea that these Prohibitionists can take away the personal liberty
|
||
of the citizen is simply monstrous!" In a moment after, he is
|
||
greeted by a Methodist, and he hastens to say, that while he does
|
||
not belong to that church himself, his wife does; that he would
|
||
gladly be a member, but does not feel that he is good enough. He
|
||
tells a Presbyterian that his grandfather was of that faith, and
|
||
that he was a most excellent man, and laments from the bottom of
|
||
his heart that he himself is not within that fold. A few moments
|
||
after, on meeting a skeptic, he declares, with the greatest fervor,
|
||
that reason is the only guide, and that he looks forward to the
|
||
time when superstition will be dethroned. In other words, the
|
||
greatest superstition now entertained by public men is that
|
||
hypocrisy is the royal road to success.
|
||
|
||
Of course, there are many other superstitions, and one is,
|
||
that the Democratic party has not outlived its usefulness. Another
|
||
is, that the Republican party should have power for what it has
|
||
done, instead of what it proposes to do,
|
||
|
||
In my judgment, these statesmen are mistaken. The people of
|
||
the United States, after all, admire intellectual honesty and have
|
||
respect for moral courage. The time has come for the old ideas and
|
||
superstitions in politics to be thrown away -- not in phrase, not
|
||
in pretence, but in fact; and the time has come when a man can
|
||
safely rely on the intelligence and courage of the American people.
|
||
|
||
The most significant fact in this world to-day, is, that in
|
||
nearly every village under the American flag the school-house is
|
||
larger than the church. People are beginning to have a little
|
||
confidence in intelligence and in facts. Every public man and every
|
||
private man, who is actuated in his life by a belief in something
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
that no one can prove, -- that no one can demonstrate, -- is, to
|
||
that extent, a superstitious man.
|
||
|
||
It may be that I go further than most of you, because if I
|
||
have any superstition, it is a superstition against superstition.
|
||
It seems to me that the first things for every man, whether in or
|
||
out of office, to believe in, -- the first things to rely on, are
|
||
demonstrated facts. These are the corner stones, -- these are the
|
||
columns that nothing can move, -- these are the stars that no
|
||
darkness can hide, -- these are the true and only foundations of
|
||
belief.
|
||
|
||
Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon
|
||
of the Probable, and in the world of the Probable every man has the
|
||
right to guess for himself. Beyond the region of the Probable is
|
||
the Possible, and beyond the Possible is the Impossible, and beyond
|
||
the Impossible are the religions of this world. My idea is this:
|
||
Any man who acts in view of the improbable or of the Impossible -
|
||
that is to say, of the Supernatural -- is a superstitious man. Any
|
||
man who believes that he can add to the happiness of the Infinite,
|
||
by depriving himself of innocent pleasure, is superstitions. Any
|
||
man who imagines that he can make some God happy, by making himself
|
||
miserable, is superstitious, Any one who thinks he can gain
|
||
happiness in another world, by raising hell with his fellow-men in
|
||
this, is simply superstitious. Any man who believes in a Being of
|
||
infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet believes that that Being has
|
||
peopled a world with failures, is superstitious. Any man who
|
||
believes that an infinitely wise and good God would take pains to
|
||
make a man, intending at the time that the man should be eternally
|
||
damned, is absurdly superstitious. In other words, he who believes
|
||
that there is, or that there can be, any other religious duty than
|
||
to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now and here,
|
||
is superstitious.
|
||
|
||
I have known a great many private men who were not men of
|
||
genius. I have known some men of genius about whom it was kept
|
||
private, and I have known many public men, and my wonder increased
|
||
the better I knew them, that they occupied positions of trust and
|
||
honor.
|
||
|
||
But, after all, it is the people's fault. They who demand
|
||
hypocrisy must be satisfied with mediocrity. Our public men will be
|
||
better and greater and less superstitious, when the people become
|
||
greater and better and less superstitious. There is an old story,
|
||
that we have all heard, about Senator Nesmith. He was elected a
|
||
Senator from Oregon. When he had been in Washington a little while,
|
||
one of the other Senators said to him: "How did you feel when you
|
||
found yourself sitting here in the United States Senate?" He
|
||
replied: "For the first two months, I just sat and wondered how a
|
||
damned fool like me ever broke into the Senate. Since that, I have
|
||
done nothing but wonder how the other fools got here."
|
||
|
||
To-day the need of our civilization is public men who have the
|
||
courage to speak as they think. We need a man for President who
|
||
will not publicly thank God for earthquakes. We need somebody with
|
||
the courage to say that all that happens in nature happens without
|
||
design, and without reference to man; somebody who will say that
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER.
|
||
|
||
the men and women killed are not murdered by supernatural beings,
|
||
and that everything that happens in nature, happens without malice
|
||
and without mercy. We want somebody who will have courage enough
|
||
not to charge an infinitely good and wise Being with all the
|
||
cruelties and agonies and sufferings of this world. We want such
|
||
men in public places, -- men who will appeal to the reason of their
|
||
fellows, to the highest intelligence of the people; men who will
|
||
have courage enough, in this the nineteenth century, to agree with
|
||
the conclusions of science. We want some man who will not pretend
|
||
to believe, and who does not in fact believe, the stories that
|
||
Superstition has told to Credulity.
|
||
|
||
The most important thing in this word is the destruction of
|
||
superstition. Superstition interferes with the happiness of
|
||
mankind. Superstition is a terrible serpent, reaching in frightful
|
||
coils from heaven to earth and thrusting its poisoned fangs into
|
||
the hearts of men. While I live, I am going to do what little I can
|
||
for the destruction of this monster. Whatever may happen in another
|
||
world -- and I will take my chances there, -- I am opposed to
|
||
superstition in this. And if, when I reach that other world, it
|
||
needs reforming, I shall do what little I can there for the
|
||
destruction of the false.
|
||
|
||
Let me tell you one thing more, and I am done. The only way to
|
||
have brave, honest, intelligent, conscientious public men, men
|
||
without superstition, is to do what we can to make the average
|
||
citizen brave, conscientious and intelligent. If you wish to see
|
||
courage in the presidential chair, conscience upon the bench,
|
||
intelligence of the highest order in Congress; if you expect public
|
||
men to be great enough to reflect honor upon the Republic, private
|
||
citizens must have the courage and the intelligence to elect, and
|
||
to sustain, such men. I have said, and I say it again, that never
|
||
while I live will I vote for any man to be President of the United
|
||
States, no matter if he does belong to my party, who has not won
|
||
his spurs on some field of intellectual conflict. We have had
|
||
enough mediocrity, enough policy, enough superstition, enough
|
||
prejudice, enough provincialism, and the time has come for the
|
||
American citizen to say: "Hereafter I will be represented by men
|
||
who are worthy, not only of the great Republic, but of the
|
||
Nineteenth Century."
|
||
|
||
END
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
SPIRITUALITY.
|
||
|
||
|
||
IF there is an abused word in our language, it is
|
||
"spirituality."
|
||
|
||
It has been repeated over and over for several hundred years
|
||
by pious pretenders and snivelers as though it belonged exclusively
|
||
to them.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
SPIRITUALITY.
|
||
|
||
In the early days of Christianity, the "spiritual" renounced
|
||
the world with all its duties and obligations. They deserted their
|
||
wives and children. They became hermits and dwelt in caves. They
|
||
spent their useless years in praying for their shriveled and
|
||
worthless souls. They were too "spiritual" to love women, to build
|
||
homes and to labor for children. They were too "spiritual" to earn
|
||
their bread, so they became beggars and stood by the highways of
|
||
Life and held out their hands and asked alms of Industry and
|
||
Courage. They were too "spiritual" to be merciful. They preached
|
||
the dogma of eternal pain and gloried in "the wrath to come." They
|
||
were too "spiritual" to be civilized, so they persecuted their
|
||
fellow-men for expressing their honest thoughts. They were so
|
||
"spiritual" that they invented instruments of torture, founded the
|
||
Inquisition, appealed to the whip, the rack, the sword and the
|
||
fagot. They tore the flesh of their fellow-men with hooks of iron,
|
||
buried their neighbors alive, cut off their eyelids, dashed out the
|
||
brains of babes and cut off the breasts of mothers. These
|
||
"spiritual" wretches spent day and night on their knees, praying
|
||
for their own salvation and asking God to curse the best and
|
||
noblest of the world.
|
||
|
||
John Calvin was intensely "spiritual" when he warmed his
|
||
fleshless hands at the flames that consumed Servetus.
|
||
|
||
John Knox was constrained by his "spirituality" to utter low
|
||
and loathsome calumnies against all women. All the witch-burners
|
||
and Quaker-maimers and mutilators were so "spiritual" that they
|
||
constantly looked heavenward and longed for the skies.
|
||
|
||
These lovers of God -- these haters of men -- looked upon the
|
||
Greek marbles as unclean, and denounced the glories of Art as the
|
||
snares and pitfalls of perdition.
|
||
|
||
These "spiritual" mendicants hated laughter and smiles and
|
||
dimples, and exhausted their diseased and polluted imaginations in
|
||
the effort to make love loathsome.
|
||
|
||
From almost every pulpit was heard the denunciation of all
|
||
that adds to the wealth, the joy and glory of life. It became the
|
||
fashion for the "spiritual" to malign every hope and passion that
|
||
tends to humanize and refine the heart. Man was denounced as
|
||
totally depraved. Woman was declared to be a perpetual temptation
|
||
-- her beauty a snare and her touch pollution.
|
||
|
||
Even in our own time and country some of the ministers, no
|
||
matter how radical they claim to be, retain the aroma, the odor, or
|
||
the smell of the "spiritual."
|
||
|
||
They denounce some of the best and greatest -- some of the
|
||
benefactors of the race -- for having lived on the low plane of
|
||
usefulness -- and for having had the pitiful ambition to make their
|
||
fellows happy in this world.
|
||
|
||
Thomas Paine was a groveling wretch because he devoted his
|
||
life to the preservation of the rights of man, and Voltaire lacked
|
||
the "spiritual" because he abolished torture in France and
|
||
attacked, with the enthusiasm of a divine madness, the monster that
|
||
was endeavoring to drive the hope of liberty from the heart of man.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
SPIRITUALITY.
|
||
|
||
Humboldt was not "spiritual" enough to repeat with closed eyes
|
||
the absurdities of superstition, but was so lost to all the "skyey
|
||
influences" that he was satisfied to add to the intellectual wealth
|
||
of the world.
|
||
|
||
Darwin lacked "spirituality," and in its place had nothing but
|
||
sincerity, patience, intelligence, the spirit of investigation and
|
||
the courage to give his honest conclusions to the world. He
|
||
contented himself with giving to his fellow-men the greatest and
|
||
the sublime truths that man has spoken since lips have uttered
|
||
speech.
|
||
|
||
But we are now told that these soldiers of science, these
|
||
heroes of liberty, these sculptors and painters, these singers of
|
||
songs, these composers of music, lack "spirituality" and after all
|
||
were only common clay.
|
||
|
||
This word "spirituality" is the fortress, the breastwork, the
|
||
rifle-pit of the Pharisee. It sustains the same relation to
|
||
sincerity that Dutch metal does to pure gold.
|
||
|
||
There seems to be something about a pulpit that poisons the
|
||
occupant -- that changes his nature -- that causes him to denounce
|
||
what he really loves and to laud with the fervor of insanity a joy
|
||
that he never felt -- a rapture that never thrilled his soul.
|
||
Hypnotised by his surroundings, he unconsciously brings to market
|
||
that which he supposes the purchasers desire.
|
||
|
||
In every church, whether orthodox or radical, there are two
|
||
parties -- one conservative, looking backward, one radical, looking
|
||
forward, and generally a minister "spiritual" enough to look both
|
||
ways.
|
||
|
||
A minister who seems to be a philosopher on the street, or in
|
||
the home of a sensible man, cannot withstand the atmosphere of the
|
||
pulpit. The moment he stands behind the Bible cushion, like Bottom,
|
||
he is "translated" and the Titania of superstition "kisses his
|
||
large, fair ears."
|
||
|
||
Nothing is more amusing than to hear a clergyman denounce
|
||
worldliness -- ask his hearers what it will profit them to build
|
||
railways and palaces and lose their own souls -- inquire of the
|
||
common folks before him why they waste their precious years in
|
||
following trades and professions, in gathering treasures that moths
|
||
corrupt and rust devours, giving their days to the vulgar business
|
||
of making money, -- and then see him take up a collection, knowing
|
||
perfectly well that only the worldly, the very people he has
|
||
denounced, can by any possibility give a dollar.
|
||
|
||
"Spirituality" for the most part is a mask worn by idleness,
|
||
arrogance and greed.
|
||
|
||
Some people imagine that they are "spiritual" when they are
|
||
sickly.
|
||
|
||
It may be well enough to ask: What is it to be really
|
||
spiritual?
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
SPIRITUALITY.
|
||
|
||
The spiritual man lives to his ideal. He endeavors to make
|
||
others happy. He does not despise the passions that have filled the
|
||
world with art and glory. He loves his wife and children -- home
|
||
and fireside. He cultivates the amenities and refinements of life.
|
||
He is the friend and champion of the oppressed. His sympathies are
|
||
with the poor and the suffering. He attacks what he believes to be
|
||
wrong, though defended by the many, and he is willing to stand for
|
||
the right against the world. He enjoys the beautiful. In the
|
||
presence of the highest creations of Art his eyes are suffused with
|
||
tears. When he listens to the great melodies, the divine harmonies,
|
||
he feels the sorrows and the raptures of death and love. He is
|
||
intensely human. He carries in his heart the burdens of the world.
|
||
He searches for the deeper meanings. He appreciates the harmonies
|
||
of conduct, the melody of a perfect life.
|
||
|
||
He loves his wife and children better than any god. He cares
|
||
more for the world he lives in than for any other. He tries to
|
||
discharge the duties of this life, to help those that he can reach.
|
||
He believes in being useful -- in making money to feed and clothe
|
||
and educate the ones he loves -- to assist the deserving and to
|
||
support himself. He does not wish to be a burden on others. He is
|
||
just, generous and sincere,
|
||
|
||
Spirituality is all of this world. It is a child of this
|
||
earth, born and cradled here. It comes from no heaven, but it makes
|
||
a heaven where it is.
|
||
|
||
There is no possible connection between superstition and the
|
||
spiritual, or between theology and the spiritual.
|
||
|
||
The spiritually-minded man is a poet. If he does not write
|
||
poetry, he lives it. He is an artist. If he does not paint pictures
|
||
or chisel statues, he feels them, and their beauty softens his
|
||
heart. He fills the temple of his soul with all that is beautiful,
|
||
and he worships at the shrine of the Ideal.
|
||
|
||
In all the relations of life he is faithful and true. He asks
|
||
for nothing that he does not earn. He does not wish to be happy in
|
||
heaven if he must receive happiness as alms. He does not rely on
|
||
the goodness of another. He is not ambitious to become a winged
|
||
pauper.
|
||
|
||
Spirituality is the perfect health of the soul. It is noble,
|
||
manly, generous, brave, free-spoken, natural, superb.
|
||
|
||
Nothing is more sickening than the "spiritual" whine -- the
|
||
pretence that crawls at first and talks about humility and then
|
||
suddenly becomes arrogant and says: "I am 'spiritual.' I hold in
|
||
contempt the vulgar joys of this life. You work and toil and build
|
||
homes and sing songs and weave your delicate robes, You love women
|
||
and children and adorn yourselves. You subdue the earth and dig for
|
||
gold, You have your theaters, your operas and all the luxuries of
|
||
life; but I, beggar that I am, Pharisee that I am, am your superior
|
||
because I am 'spiritual.'"
|
||
|
||
Above all things, let us be sincere. --
|
||
|
||
The Conservator, Philadelphia 1891.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|