Our Attitude Towards Nature
The idea that Nature is to be worshipped, either as God, the unknown, or the incomprehensible, is being seriously questioned. We wish first to know what good such worship does. It cannot be of any benefit to Nature. Is it of any benefit to man? This is the only question to be answered.
Almost everybody is ready to say that man should not worship the sun, the moon, the stars, or any earthly thing; but a great many still think that man should worship the mysterious something of which everything is a manifestation. We have outgrown the worship of objects. We look upon the person who sees a God in any natural object as an idolater; as one whose mental vision is unillumined by any true idea of the universe. But there is a demand that man shall worship God, or the unknown force or power in Nature that is the source of all things.
We admit the unknown quantity of the universe; but we do not see the necessity of worshiping it. We do not see any good in praying to it, or in singing to it. Nature is all a mystery and all the mystery there is, but why do we need to keep saying so in prayer and praise when the silent fact is ever before our eyes? We do not need to go down on our knees to every mysterious thing, and stay there. Let us freely and frankly confess that Nature is incomprehensible, and then go about our business like men, and try to learn what will help ourselves and our fellow-beings.
Reverence For Motherhood
An author of some note, in an article published in a Protestant journal, while admitting that the “holy Catholic church” had been about as unholy an institution as could well exist, claimed that Romanism had its good points. Among them he instanced “its reverence for motherhood.” For proof of his assertion he pointed to the homage paid to the image of Mary and her child by the average Roman Catholic.
We admit the homage, but deny the reverence. To begin with, where is the reverence for motherhood among the Roman Catholic priests? Why, these men have not respect enough for woman to elevate her to the dignity and honor of motherhood. These men are married to the church, to Christ and not to women. Their sacred office would be lowered by taking a wife.
The holy vows of these priests are not half as holy as the marriage vow. A priest never had half as pure a thought as is born in the heart of a father. He never performed a rite half as consecrating as dancing a laughing child on his knee. These holy old bachelors have done all their religion would allow them to dishonor motherhood.
The pretence that woman as woman, as mother, as wife, as sister, or daughter, is particularly respected by Roman Catholics is simply absurd. To prove this we point to the homes of the Roman Catholics. We confess that the Romish church encourages [pg 125] motherhood, that Roman Catholics are urged to help increase the church membership, but we claim that nowhere is there less reverence of woman as woman, as mother, as wife, as sister, as daughter, than among the Roman Catholics.
Because a Catholic crosses himself before a wooden Madonna, or a plaster-paris image of the mother of Jesus, it is no proof of his reverence for motherhood. Not a bit. The Catholic reverences Mary as the mother of God; he pays her homage as a divine person; worships her, not as a mother, but as a superior being.
The man that has reverence for motherhood is the man who loves and tenderly cares for his own mother and the mother of his children, but the man who prostrates his mind before a carved figure of the “Virgin Mary” and pounds his wife and kicks his daughter into the street has reverence for nothing.
Adam might have obeyed God, but he could not resist Eve.
It looks easy to break off a bad habit that somebody else has got.
The God Of The Bible
The blind, foolish faith in the Bible is the cause of intellectual dishonesty, moral hypocrisy, and religious tergiversations without number. This faith makes the twentieth century kneel to a God that it would be ashamed to introduce among civilized beings.
We would no sooner go to Moses to learn about deity than we would go to Noah to learn how to build a steamship. We do not believe in getting divinity through a straw three thousand years long. If we must have a God, let us have one that has had the advantages of civilization. We might possibly give this Lord God of the Bible a quarter of mutton, as did Abel, or a peck of potatoes, as did Cain, if we were convinced that he was living anywhere in the universe, just to keep on the right side of him, but we would not care to be on an out-of-the-way road with him after dark unless we had a revolver with us. We know of no more villainous character in all literature; and for men and women, who pretend to love what is pure and good, who pretend to honor what is upright and just and who pretend to revere what is noble and true, to worship this God of Christianity, this God of Moses, this God of the Bible, is a sad commentary on human intelligence and human integrity.
We know that all theological discussions have been wretchedly barren of results; we know that theology has made no contribution to actual knowledge; we know that no one knows anything [pg 127] about any such being as God, and we also know that every God worshipped to-day by men and women is only an imaginary person or thing. No one knows what God is or where he is, and yet ministers speak about him just as though they had been to his house and taken tea with him.
Theology has received attention out of proportion to its achievements. It has done the cackling while science has laid the egg.
We do not like to hear men say: “God did this” and “God said this,” when he has never opened his lips to speak to man and never lifted his hand to help him. We call such language dishonest, and the time will come when the men who have made such use of the divine name will be condemned as impostors.
What this generation should do is to take the Lord God of the Israelites, that lies dead on the banks of time and bury him from human sight forever. Not another human being born on this earth should be allowed to read of his cruel deeds, and if Christian ministers were honest, and had the courage of their honesty, they would tell the world that the being called God in the Bible was no God, only an idol of a rude and barbarous age.
A theologian is a person who uses the word “God” to hide his ignorance.
The Measure Of Suffering
The little boy who asked his mother “if hell was worse than the toothache?” imagined that the limits of suffering were reached in his agony. Many of us have doubtless experienced pain that we thought marked the utmost of endurance. In the Christian dream of future punishment man is represented as burning eternally. Fire probably inflicts the intensest pain that the human body has ever suffered. Hell is fitly represented by fire.
Suffering takes various shapes. Pain comes in a thousand forms. But there is a limit to the endurance of pain. Unconsciousness comes to the relief of the mind when agony can no longer be borne. Hell, such as has been taught by Christianity, is not a logical conclusion. All suffering that we know anything about ends itself. The victim is released by exhaustion. Hell is impossible.
The finer suffering which is called remorse, which follows wrong-doing, gradually wears out. Its lash loses its sting. The sinner becomes callous to his act or finds a balm for his regret in the lapse of years. The finger of time erases the memory of every wrong, and soothes with its touch every pang. We can escape the fate of wrong-doing by doing better. Reform opens the door of every hell invented for man's punishment. The man who does right, wherever he is, will have the reward of right-doing, the fate of right-doing.
It is this fact which makes the idea of endless pain [pg 129] for man's deeds done on earth illogical. Man can turn around on the road of evil as well as on the road of good, and hence he can change his fate whenever he changes his life. The measure of human suffering makes it impossible for man to endure pain forever. He must either perish utterly as a sentient being or be driven by his punishment to better behavior.
No man ever yet tore down his altar and found a God behind it.
Trying to find God is a good deal like looking for money one has lost in a dream.
We could believe in God if he shortened the road for the lame, led the blind or fed the starving.
We are told that “all things are possible with God,” and yet God cannot boil an egg in cold water.
Nature
Some people are afraid of the word Nature. They cross themselves when they hear it pronounced. It has a sound like “Old Nick” in their ears. To these pious souls the word Nature banishes God from the universe. This is looked upon by many as the highest offence of language. It has been the custom for several centuries to abuse Nature, to call it bad names, and associate it with depravity and everything evil. Theology has condemned the word, and the pulpit has touched it only with the tips of its fingers. To speak of Nature as anything good is regarded as throwing dirt in the eyes of God.
Nothing clings to the world like a superstition. Start a fear in the human breast, and it will make every heart quake before it can be driven out. Let a bad habit become fixed, and it will be as hard to dislodge it as it is to plant a good habit.
But men are getting over their fright somewhat. The natural is found to be the true, not the false; the right, not the wrong; the good, not the bad. Nature has been slandered, lied about. It was once thought necessary to assassinate this word in order to preserve the Orthodox religion. The necessity still remains, but orthodoxy is dying.
Nature is a large word. It means about all there is. If there is a God, he is natural.
Creeds
This is the age of revision. Churches are all hurrying to catch up with the world. There is a desire to square ideas with facts, and shape beliefs with knowledge. Religion must suffer in this process. Something will be lost, but only what is bad, false and wrong. Creeds are out of date. They are behind the times. They are the dead leaves from the tree of knowledge, the dead branches on the tree of life. The world's faith is in the living; in the bud, the blossom, the promise of things—not in the husk, the shell, in dead and useless things.
New creeds are to take the place of old ones. What people believe now, not what people believed hundreds or thousands of years ago, must be put into a profession of faith. For a man to profess what his father and mother believed is to make birth useless and existence valueless. We are to live to add to life, not to repeat it. Is theology the only thing that people put their trust in? A theological creed has to be accepted with the eyes shut. We want a creed of the heart, of the head, of the senses, of the whole man. There is no theology worth believing in. The creed of the church is a gravestone.
If we were to make a creed for the world of men to accept we would make it out of human hearts. We would go where a man had helped another; where a woman had sat beside the sick and suffering; where man had been crucified for being true; [pg 132] where he had been burned for being honest; where he had stood against the world protesting against its wrongs and proclaiming the right, and where he had fallen with a martyr's crown upon his forehead; and we would write these into a creed, and have men say: I believe in men and women who have lived good lives, who have taken the unfortunate by the hand and lifted up the fallen, who have pardoned a woman's fault, who have shown their love of truth by being true, and who have done right even when they were wronged for so doing.
The grandest life is the grandest creed; and, if man's faith was faith in what has made the world better and brighter and happier, he would be better off than by believing in a God that is cruel, unjust and unkind, and in a heaven where the highest joy is found in laughing at those who are in hell.
It has been discovered that the man who was lost in thought was not a church member.
We do not say that another world is not worth a single thought, but rather that this world is worth all our thoughts, and needs them.
Don't Try To Stop The Sun Shining
If there is one person on earth who is to be envied it is the happy, cheerful man or woman who always sees the bright side of life, the good side of a fellow-being, and the warm, sunny side of what belongs to earth. If there is a person to be pitied, it is the sour, gloomy man or woman, who sees only the dark side of life, the bad side of a fellow-being, and the cold, cloudy side of what belongs to earth. Everything bright, beautiful, fair, sweet, and good grows in the sunshine. We would not have a flower without the sun. Cheerfulness is to the human heart what the sunbeam is to the earth—the source of gladness.
We ought to cultivate happiness. We ought to have the home filled with what is beautiful. We ought to let the sun shine into our lives. People who are sour and moody look upon the smiling, happy person as foolish, and wonder what there is in life that one can find to enjoy. They want to tear the flower to pieces, stop the bird singing, trample upon the joy of the child, and hush the laugh of mirth. If you cannot enjoy life, don't try to prevent others from doing so. Don't throw a shadow on the human heart. Don't try to stop the sun shining.
Laying up treasures in heaven never kept a man out of the poor-house.
Follow Me
Jesus said: “Follow me.” But we decline; we had rather not. We do not wish to follow a person until we know where he is going.
If by following Jesus is meant living as he lived, doing as he did, believing as he believed, teaching as he taught and dying as he died, we are not in it. We shall have to say: Thank you, we guess not. We prefer to go some other way.
We do not see any necessity of following anybody very far, if at all. This following business is played out. Those who profess to follow Jesus don't do it in the daytime.
But we can go a little farther and say that we do not think Jesus was a man that a self-respecting person would like to follow. He does not inspire us with any particular admiration. The man who could let his lips forget to speak kindly of his mother cannot have our admiration. The man who came not to bring peace, but a sword, to the world cannot have our admiration. The man who said: “believe and be saved, believe not and be damned,” cannot have our admiration.
If we follow anybody, it is going to be a person that commands our respect, whose greatness and goodness compel our admiration, and who did not try to win men by tricks. We regard Jesus, as he is painted in the four gospels, as a character below the ideal of this age, a character that, to imitate, would dwarf the noblest man. If Jesus were alive it would be his duty to-day to follow others, rather than to command others to follow him.
Can We Never Get Along Without Servants?
We recently overheard a remark which made us query if we cannot get along without servants? A lady was commenting on the character of the “help,” which one was obliged to employ to-day, and expressed the opinion that, if our public schools continued to fill the heads of children with the notion that one person was as good as another, it would not be long before it would be impossible to get help at all.
There seems to be an idea abroad in this land as well as in others, that a certain class of people are for the purpose of producing servants for another class of people, and that this servant-producing class has no right to give their children an education that is calculated to elevate them above the position of their parents. We are not in sympathy with this idea. If there is one person on this earth that is of less account than another it is the person who is helpless, who is dependent upon others for everything that makes life possible or endurable. We must confess that there are too many people in this country who are of this kind, who must have someone to do for them what they ought to do for themselves.
Why should one person be expected to wait upon another? Why should a man or woman look upon a fellow-being as fit only to be a servant? Is one born to serve and the other to be waited upon?
[pg 136]Such notions have no right on our democratic soil. In this country there must be no caste, no division of society into classes.
We rejoice that such a criticism of the character of the “help” employed in the houses of the rich as we overheard, is true, for it reveals a condition of things that may lead to what is much needed to-day, viz.: a simpler mode of living on the part of a great many of our American people. Is it necessary to live in such a way that a dozen or more servants are required in a home to keep it in order?
We believe the community in which all are independent and none are servants is the ideal one. Why should not this be the ambition of the race, to live in a manner that will leave others their independence and encourage in them the desire for a home? Our children all ought to be taught to work, and be made to work, and not be brought up with the notion that they have the right to expect others to wait upon them.
We do not wish to imply that one individual should not consider it his or her duty to help another or to work for another. What we desire to convey is this, that if people did more of their own work, and waited upon their own wants more, they would not only be doing what is best for themselves, but also what is best for the community in general. For men or women to be dependent upon servants and almost helpless without them, is not a condition to be proud of, but to be ashamed of. The man who cannot harness or drive his horse; the [pg 137] woman who cannot buy and cook a dinner for her family, has not been properly educated.
The home in which there are the fewest servants is the happiest home. The father that brings up his sons to work, to know how to earn a living; the mother who teaches her daughters to cook, to sew, to do housework, is doing them good, not harm. There are too many know-nothings and do-nothings in the world. It is honorable to be useful in this world, and it ought to be dishonorable to be useless. Let us work for the day when we can get along without servants; when life shall be so simple that each family can do its own work. The servant system is but little different from the slave system, and it ought to be abolished.
The money man gives to get him into heaven is what he ought to use to improve the earth.
The Unitarian walks with a cane, the Congregationalist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist go with crutches, the Episcopalian has to be pushed about in an invalid's chair, while the Roman Catholic crawls on his hands and knees and is led around with a ring in his nose by a priest.
A Heavenly Father
It may pay some persons to talk about a heavenly father who cares for his earthly children, but we prefer to get money in a more honorable business. Honor bright, now, gentlemen of the pulpit, did you ever see anything that convinced you that there is a power in the universe outside of the human body, that cared a snap for men, that showed any more love for a child than for a crocodile? Tell the truth, and let us see how far apart we are on this question.
We have no objection to being taken care of by a heavenly father, or by any person or power that is wiser and kinder than man. But we do not want to put our trust in such a being or power and then, just when we needed most the help and counted on it, find that we had been deceived. We admit the good that is in Nature, the beautiful, the attractive, but we cannot put faith in the God of earthquakes. When we listen to a bird's full-throated song, and surrender ourselves in delicious rapture to the spell of its wondrous melody, we are ready to acknowledge that a benignant power gave life to this sweet little charmer, that can start such a flood of joy in the human heart, but when in strolling among the meadow's blossoms we are confronted with the repulsive head and ominous attitude of the rattlesnake, we ask: Who made you? We admire Nature in some forms, but detest it in others. We pick the rose with a blessing on its perfect beauty [pg 139] and perfumed breath, but we shun the white flower of the dogwood—the poisonous hypocrite. When the sky is fair and blue, and a smile is on the face of heaven, we feel that only kindness and love sit enthroned above us, but when the blue changes to black and the smile to a frown, which grows deeper and darker until the whole heavens threaten destruction to earth; when the heedless lightning, with brutal stroke, fells at our feet a form we love, we wonder where the kindness and love have gone that we saw only a few hours before. Nature does not keep one mood long. She has made things fair and things foul; she blesses, but she curses also; she wins us with some temptation of beauty, and then punishes us for yielding; she puts in our heart an angel of love, but she puts there, too, a devil of hate; she caresses us one minute and kicks us the next; she licks our hand, and then without warning she bites us.
There is more power to-day in a drop of ink than in a ton of powder.
A man may have respect for old age and not like to find gray hairs in his butter.
Worship Not Needed
The world will never throb with new life until the spell of worship is broken. Nothing holds mankind down so much as veneration for its idols. Shake off the lethargy that worship has brought upon the soul. Live like men, and you need not worship gods. When we live true to the soul we cease to ask for anything. Worship is denial of self. Let us have no disputes about divinity. Let God take care of himself. The light of the stars proves their existence. The universe needs no counsel of defence. That which is evident need not be explained.
The great question for us to answer is not what God wants, but what men need. Let us live to ourselves. Worship is interruption. Let our life satisfy. Worship is apology. If we are doing our best, what need to excuse our work? What good does it do to praise God? That is the true love which obeys, not that which adores. We want willing hands, not lifted ones. Worship is superfluous. It adds nothing to the soul. It increases our cares, not our virtues. The test of everything is, does it help man?
We challenge the church to prove its claim to man's support. It throws a shadow upon the earth instead of letting more light upon it. The priest is in man's way. Worship is a compliment to the deity that he does not need, and a burden upon man which he is not able to bear. Nature does not worship. [pg 141] She grows. Worship is opposition to reform. It palsies the world's thought. It means stagnation. It is difficult to get advocated what will correct society, because mankind spends so much time in the church that it has no time to spend in the theatre of improvement. Worship is hypocrisy's disguise. What a train of splendid deceit marches up the aisles of the church! What a mask is worship, but the world can see through it. When falsehood kneels in praise of truth; when extortion and cruelty call God father; when meanness and vice are the disciples of Jesus, and when crime and sin say, “Thy will be done,” the name of religion is a blush on the forehead of the world.
We would not dethrone the world's heroes. The more human beings we can get the world to honor and respect the better humanity will be, but when a man or woman has been for ages almost worshipped by the world; when time, with its forgiving hand, has erased deed after deed until naught else is left of the man or woman but a holy memory, an unreal soul, whose virtues are as ghostly as shadows cast by the moon, it behooves us to look with unprejudiced mind at this phantom of existence and to see with naked eye this object of adoration, for one may be certain that beneath the idol's robes will be found a human form and with it all the peculiarities of human nature.
Was Jesus A Good Man
We denied in the presence of a Christian, who wished to have a religious talk with us, that Jesus was divine. This denial was somewhat anticipated, we imagine, as the gentleman who challenged our views was knowing to the fact that we did not pay pew rent anywhere. But he thought to secure assent from us by saying, “You will have to admit that Jesus was a good man.” What constitutes a good man? A good man is a man who is kind, loving, merciful, reasonable, and just. Would a just man pay the laborer who had worked but one hour as much as he paid him who had toiled all day? Would a reasonable man curse a fig tree because it did not have fruit on it out of season? Would a loving man say: He that hateth not father and mother is not worthy of me? Would a merciful man send those who did not agree with him into everlasting fire? Would a kind-hearted man bring a sword rather than peace on earth?
The truth is, we do not know what kind of a man Jesus was. Good men have been killed by bad ones, and bad men killed by good ones. If Jesus was killed because he was a blasphemer the chances are that he was better than those who put him to death, but if he was killed because he sought to overturn the government and secure the throne for himself, he may have been a very bad man. But by the gospel-record we hold that Jesus was not a man for this age to honor or imitate.
How To Help Mankind
There are various ways of helping the world, and all are to be commended. Perhaps the way that costs the least, and consequently helps the least, is the giving of good advice. This, we believe, is about the poorest thing that can be given to man. It is a gratuity on the giver's part which is never received quite as it is bestowed. But it is usually born of good intentions, and so we have to be thankful for it, even if we do not use it. To those who are inclined, however, to render assistance to their fellow-beings, we would say: Give good advice last, or, at any rate, give something with it. There is no use telling a poor man where there is a good restaurant when he has no money in his purse.
Another way of helping the world is the material way—giving something that will relieve its wants, pay its debts, or add to its independence. The sympathy that takes the shape of dollars and cents always reaches the heart. The rarest virtue in this world of ours is generosity, and the rarest man is he who gives to the world asking for no dividends but in the happiness of his fellow-creatures. Money, when wisely bestowed, comes about as near the shape of an angel as any earthly thing can assume.
But there are other ways of assisting the world, and while we admit all the good that can be done with money, men and women need to-day to be helped with truth, helped with justice. Mankind are suffering from falsehoods, from wrongs as well [pg 144] as from ignorance, from want and poverty. Those who are unjust to their fellows should help them by dealing justly by them. Those who are keeping the world in darkness should help it by telling the truth. Truth and justice are every man's right, and every man's due. You can help the world by being just to it, by using your fellow-beings honestly, squarely, justly. You can help it by telling the truth and by concealing nothing that is true.
Man needs an education in unselfishness. He must learn to work for himself without working against others. The advantage which a man gains to-day is too often at the disadvantage of his brother or sister. It is a poor victory which inflicts suffering. The true measure of man's success is the joy his life confers upon the world.
The man who wants to be an angel is never in a hurry to begin.
The man who gets on his knees has not learned the right use of his legs.
Ignorance is all that saves some people: if they knew more they would do worse.
On The Cross
Christianity teaches that Jesus was divine. To admit that he was not divine is to give up Christianity. In the light of this teaching let us look at Jesus on the cross. After a brief, but rather peaceful career, Jesus is arrested, tried and convicted as a blasphemer, and sentenced to be put to death. It is said that he died on a cross. How did he die? It is said by Christians “like a God.”
There have been brave deaths on the gallows and at the stake. Men have died sublimely whom society has condemned as criminals. In our day there has been as lofty heroism evinced in the face of the most terrible of deaths as ever martyr of old manifested when dying for his faith. We know that men have walked into the arms of an ignominious death without a tremor, and with magnificent courage shining in their faces.
Brave dying proves less than brave living. The sacrifice of a lifetime shows the courage that commands our deepest admiration. Some mother, some sister, or daughter who has offered herself for years upon the hidden altar of duty has performed a deed beside which a moment's suffering is as naught. But the average mind fails to discern heroism, except where the suffering is apparent.
We will admit for the moment that Jesus died upon the cross. We will allow all the pain and agony of such a cruel and terrible death. We will let every picture of his suffering that has drawn tears [pg 146] from the eyes of women be accepted as true. We would not rob the manner of his death of a single pang. It was merciless, pitiless, devilish. Crucifixion is the essence of cruelty, the refinement of torture, the invention of brutality. We acknowledge all the horrors of the cross. We do not wonder that a man should shrink from being nailed to its arms, but we do wonder that a God should. We are not surprised that human weakness should cry out of its breaking heart for sympathy and help, but we cannot understand why divine strength should ask for pity or aid. If Jesus was God he should have died in divine silence. The record of the last hours of Jesus shows that he died disappointed. The cross proves that Jesus was human. When he cried out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," a keener anguish pierced his heart than when the cruel iron was driven through his flesh.
The dogma of the divinity of Jesus should have died on the cross, when the man of Nazareth gave up the ghost.
The man who does no thinking before he acts does twice as much afterwards.
Adam may not have been so perfect after the “fall,” but he was not so big a fool.
Equal Moral Standards
Why are girls brought up with more care as to their personal habits than boys? And why do women have fewer vices than men? It is an undeniable fact that what is looked upon with indifference in a man would be regarded with disgust, if not horror, in a woman. Boys do things that would not be tolerated in girls. Why are there two standards of behavior? Why is one sex held to stricter moral account than the other? Why is a man allowed to do what is condemned in a woman?
The average daughter is better behaved, has better personal habits, than the average son. The average mother has fewer vices than the average father. The average woman is less vicious than the average man. Whose fault is it that this is so? It is somebody's. Whose is it? It is time to find out. Have men fixed the standard for women, and women for men? It is approximately true that either sex is what the other demands of it. Women are too indulgent towards the other sex. We believe it lies with them more than with men to elevate the moral standard of the world.
A father would not take his daughter to places where he takes his son, would not condone in her habits which he overlooks, if not encourages, in his boy. Picture a father going to a saloon with his daughter, and there treating her to a “Tom and Jerry,” or a “beer,” and then calling for cigars for two, and sitting there smoking together for half an [pg 148] hour or so! A man will do this with his boy but not with his girl. Why not? If it is right and harmless for one, why not for the other? Is it true or not that what is right for men is wrong for women?
We ought to have only one moral standard. The sexes should be held to like behavior. Men can have just as good habits as women. We do not believe in forgiving in one what we condemn in another, in allowing a young man to do with impunity what we will not tolerate in a young woman.
If we are to have one standard of morals, which shall it be? Shall it be the highest or lowest? Shall it be the standard for man or for woman? Shall we permit women to do as men do, or shall we insist that men shall be equally pure in personal habits with women? The divided standard of conduct which now exists should be done away with. Let us demand equal behavior of the sexes, and let that behavior be fashioned after the highest moral demand of society. We do not wish to educate boys to be girls, but we can educate boys to have as good habits as girls have, which would be a great gain to the world.
We must hold women largely responsible for the vices of men. There is not a vicious habit which a man would not lay at the feet of woman did she demand it. Not a man would tolerate in a woman what a woman tolerates in a man. Let us have one moral standard for men and women, for both sexes, and mete out to each the same punishment for violation of its restrictions.
Authority
The man that does what his reason says is right is the man that should be honored by men. There can be no higher authority for doing a thing than that it is right. It is not whether a thing has ever been done before, but, Is it right? If there is no precedent, then it is a duty to establish one.
How many accept the opinions of others because they fear to question their authority! This regard for what other people think and say is well enough only when it does not destroy independence of thought and speech in ourselves. Another's opinion is not to be respected when it is a fetter to our freedom.
We need not rehearse the evils which the world has borne on account of its fear to do right alone. Man must have someone to share the danger, to share the blame, but a dozen cowards are not worth so much as one brave man, and right is no more right because ten say it instead of one. A thousand felt what Luther said; a thousand believed what Parker did. The best man in us is often the one that does not speak. The truest belief of the heart is the one never confessed. Man seldom comes to the surface. He rarely has a call to be himself, but to be somebody that will please the world. Man is obliged to make himself into a theological likeness; into a political representation. It will be centuries before men can assert themselves fearlessly without injury.
[pg 150]It is no easy matter for a man to set himself against popular opinion and maintain his position. Every power is brought to bear upon him that falsehood can invent and malice employ. A person who refuses to acknowledge the authority of the hour asserts a higher. When a man slaps the world in the face he should have truth on his side and courage to meet the stake and the cross. The majority never forgives him who denies its judgment. The individual that challenges the majority must prove his right of defiance. When a man is greater or better than men he must pay the penalty. The world cannot yet forgive anyone for excelling it. Authority when it debases man should be disputed; when it denies man his rights should be rejected.
It is plain to be seen, without illustration or example, that man's authority is not found in his own mind. He has no history that reaches beyond custom. Man begins with man so far as facts prove. Society rests upon hearsay and religion upon tradition. A claim has only to be made upon ignorance to be granted. This good-natured world of ours would believe anything, or make-believe believe it, to save its soul. It takes either a very shrewd man or a moderately mean one to dodge every duty of life and remain respectable. It is dangerous to go outside the beaten path, not only on account of the persecution of the present but on account of the folly of the future. The world can easily twist an action into a law or a man into a God [pg 151] if profit hang on the end of its deed. The authority of half man's actions to-day depends upon some accident or fraud of the past. Man wants a little of the fabulous yet in his meat and drink. He loves to think that Jesus is present when he drinks his wine and eats his bit of bread, although it is a mystery.
Popular opinion is the authority of most words and actions. We speak to men as to children—to please them. We tell them some parable or fairy story instead of telling them their faults honestly and trying to make them better. Most men begin by bowing to public opinion and end by carrying it on their backs.
The authority of the world may be disputed without any of the stars being thrown out of their course or any of the processes of life being disturbed. The notion that all has been discovered that is essential to the welfare of man is a mistaken one. The other notion that the preservation of whatever is elevating and refining depends upon the religious opinions of mankind, is equally delusive. The authority of the Bible, of Jesus, of the church, has been quoted until the world is prepared for a better. We might lose the Bible and not lose our place in the ranks of civilization. Jesus might be forgotten and man would still strive for a higher life. The church might perish in a night and not a single particle of goodness be lost. If we speak honest words, do honest work and live honest lives, we need not ask for God's help or the help of anybody. We do not [pg 152] give to immorality the hours we redeem from superstition. We give to manhood and womanhood every hour which we make natural and free. It is not necessary for a man to go to church in order to be righteous. The world found assistance before Jesus was born. There has always been saints outside of a convent. We need no book holy that good counsel shall be valuable. The highest authority is the highest human enlightenment. It needs no priest back of opinion to give it force.
Why does a man enter the Christian ministry?
The reason that revelation is always made to the simple is that the wise could not be imposed upon.
There is no sadder grief than that which lies at the bottom of a life that has been wrecked through deception.
An organization that requires the suppression of facts and the discouragement of knowledge in order to maintain its supremacy, is the relic of a tyranny which our free age and our free thought are in duty bound to remove from the earth.