Part 8

We have no objection to being taken care of by a heavenly father, or by any person or power that is wiser and kinder than man. But we do not want to put our trust in such a being or power and then, just when we needed most the help and counted on it, find that we had been deceived. We admit the good that is in Nature, the beautiful, the attractive, but we cannot put faith in the God of earthquakes. When we listen to a bird’s full-throated song, and surrender ourselves in delicious rapture to the spell of its wondrous melody, we are ready to acknowledge that a benignant power gave life to this sweet little charmer, that can start such a flood of joy in the human heart, but when in strolling among the meadow’s blossoms we are confronted with the repulsive head and ominous attitude of the rattlesnake, we ask: Who made you? We admire Nature in some forms, but detest it in others. We pick the rose with a blessing on its perfect beauty and perfumed breath, but we shun the white flower of the dogwood—the poisonous hypocrite. When the sky is fair and blue, and a smile is on the face of heaven, we feel that only kindness and love sit enthroned above us, but when the blue changes to black and the smile to a frown, which grows deeper and darker until the whole heavens threaten destruction to earth; when the heedless lightning, with brutal stroke, fells at our feet a form we love, we wonder where the kindness and love have gone that we saw only a few hours before. Nature does not keep one mood long. She has made things fair and things foul; she blesses, but she curses also; she wins us with some temptation of beauty, and then punishes us for yielding; she puts in our heart an angel of love, but she puts there, too, a devil of hate; she caresses us one minute and kicks us the next; she licks our hand, and then without warning she bites us.

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There is more power to-day in a drop of ink than in a ton of powder.

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A man may have respect for old age and not like to find gray hairs in his butter.

WORSHIP NOT NEEDED

The world will never throb with new life until the spell of worship is broken. Nothing holds mankind down so much as veneration for its idols. Shake off the lethargy that worship has brought upon the soul. Live like men, and you need not worship gods. When we live true to the soul we cease to ask for anything. Worship is denial of self. Let us have no disputes about divinity. Let God take care of himself. The light of the stars proves their existence. The universe needs no counsel of defence. That which is evident need not be explained.

The great question for us to answer is not what God wants, but what men need. Let us live to ourselves. Worship is interruption. Let our life satisfy. Worship is apology. If we are doing our best, what need to excuse our work? What good does it do to praise God? That is the true love which obeys, not that which adores. We want willing hands, not lifted ones. Worship is superfluous. It adds nothing to the soul. It increases our cares, not our virtues. The test of everything is, does it help man?

We challenge the church to prove its claim to man’s support. It throws a shadow upon the earth instead of letting more light upon it. The priest is in man’s way. Worship is a compliment to the deity that he does not need, and a burden upon man which he is not able to bear. Nature does not worship. She grows. Worship is opposition to reform. It palsies the world’s thought. It means stagnation. It is difficult to get advocated what will correct society, because mankind spends so much time in the church that it has no time to spend in the theatre of improvement. Worship is hypocrisy’s disguise. What a train of splendid deceit marches up the aisles of the church! What a mask is worship, but the world can see through it. When falsehood kneels in praise of truth; when extortion and cruelty call God father; when meanness and vice are the disciples of Jesus, and when crime and sin say, “Thy will be done,” the name of religion is a blush on the forehead of the world.

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We would not dethrone the world’s heroes. The more human beings we can get the world to honor and respect the better humanity will be, but when a man or woman has been for ages almost worshipped by the world; when time, with its forgiving hand, has erased deed after deed until naught else is left of the man or woman but a holy memory, an unreal soul, whose virtues are as ghostly as shadows cast by the moon, it behooves us to look with unprejudiced mind at this phantom of existence and to see with naked eye this object of adoration, for one may be certain that beneath the idol’s robes will be found a human form and with it all the peculiarities of human nature.

WAS JESUS A GOOD MAN

We denied in the presence of a Christian, who wished to have a religious talk with us, that Jesus was divine. This denial was somewhat anticipated, we imagine, as the gentleman who challenged our views was knowing to the fact that we did not pay pew rent anywhere. But he thought to secure assent from us by saying, “You will have to admit that Jesus was a good man.” What constitutes a good man? A good man is a man who is kind, loving, merciful, reasonable, and just. Would a just man pay the laborer who had worked but one hour as much as he paid him who had toiled all day? Would a reasonable man curse a fig tree because it did not have fruit on it out of season? Would a loving man say: He that hateth not father and mother is not worthy of me? Would a merciful man send those who did not agree with him into everlasting fire? Would a kind-hearted man bring a sword rather than peace on earth?

The truth is, we do not know _what_ kind of a man Jesus was. Good men have been killed by bad ones, and bad men killed by good ones. If Jesus was killed because he was a blasphemer the chances are that he was better than those who put him to death, but if he was killed because he sought to overturn the government and secure the throne for himself, he may have been a very bad man. But by the gospel-record we hold that Jesus was not a man for this age to honor or imitate.

HOW TO HELP MANKIND

There are various ways of helping the world, and all are to be commended. Perhaps the way that costs the least, and consequently helps the least, is the giving of good advice. This, we believe, is about the poorest thing that can be given to man. It is a gratuity on the giver’s part which is never received quite as it is bestowed. But it is usually born of good intentions, and so we have to be thankful for it, even if we do not use it. To those who are inclined, however, to render assistance to their fellow-beings, we would say: Give good advice last, or, at any rate, give something with it. There is no use telling a poor man where there is a good restaurant when he has no money in his purse.

Another way of helping the world is the material way—giving something that will relieve its wants, pay its debts, or add to its independence. The sympathy that takes the shape of dollars and cents always reaches the heart. The rarest virtue in this world of ours is generosity, and the rarest man is he who gives to the world asking for no dividends but in the happiness of his fellow-creatures. Money, when wisely bestowed, comes about as near the shape of an angel as any earthly thing can assume.

But there are other ways of assisting the world, and while we admit all the good that can be done with money, men and women need to-day to be helped with truth, helped with justice. Mankind are suffering from falsehoods, from wrongs as well as from ignorance, from want and poverty. Those who are unjust to their fellows should help them by dealing justly by them. Those who are keeping the world in darkness should help it by telling the truth. Truth and justice are every man’s right, and every man’s due. You can help the world by being just to it, by using your fellow-beings honestly, squarely, justly. You can help it by telling the truth and by concealing nothing that is true.

Man needs an education in unselfishness. He must learn to work for himself without working against others. The advantage which a man gains to-day is too often at the disadvantage of his brother or sister. It is a poor victory which inflicts suffering. The true measure of man’s success is the joy his life confers upon the world.

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The man who wants to be an angel is never in a hurry to begin.

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The man who gets on his knees has not learned the right use of his legs.

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Ignorance is all that saves some people: if they knew more they would do worse.

ON THE CROSS

Christianity teaches that Jesus was divine. To admit that he was not divine is to give up Christianity. In the light of this teaching let us look at Jesus on the cross. After a brief, but rather peaceful career, Jesus is arrested, tried and convicted as a blasphemer, and sentenced to be put to death. It is said that he died on a cross. How did he die? It is said by Christians “like a God.”

There have been brave deaths on the gallows and at the stake. Men have died sublimely whom society has condemned as criminals. In our day there has been as lofty heroism evinced in the face of the most terrible of deaths as ever martyr of old manifested when dying for his faith. We know that men have walked into the arms of an ignominious death without a tremor, and with magnificent courage shining in their faces.

Brave dying proves less than brave living. The sacrifice of a lifetime shows the courage that commands our deepest admiration. Some mother, some sister, or daughter who has offered herself for years upon the hidden altar of duty has performed a deed beside which a moment’s suffering is as naught. But the average mind fails to discern heroism, except where the suffering is apparent.

We will admit for the moment that Jesus died upon the cross. We will allow all the pain and agony of such a cruel and terrible death. We will let every picture of his suffering that has drawn tears from the eyes of women be accepted as true. We would not rob the manner of his death of a single pang. It was merciless, pitiless, devilish. Crucifixion is the essence of cruelty, the refinement of torture, the invention of brutality. We acknowledge all the horrors of the cross. We do not wonder that a man should shrink from being nailed to its arms, but we do wonder that a God should. We are not surprised that human weakness should cry out of its breaking heart for sympathy and help, but we cannot understand why divine strength should ask for pity or aid. If Jesus was God he should have died in divine silence. The record of the last hours of Jesus shows that he died disappointed. The cross proves that Jesus was human. When he cried out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," a keener anguish pierced his heart than when the cruel iron was driven through his flesh.

The dogma of the divinity of Jesus should have died on the cross, when the man of Nazareth gave up the ghost.

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The man who does no thinking before he acts does twice as much afterwards.

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Adam may not have been so perfect after the “fall,” but he was not so big a fool.

EQUAL MORAL STANDARDS

Why are girls brought up with more care as to their personal habits than boys? And why do women have fewer vices than men? It is an undeniable fact that what is looked upon with indifference in a man would be regarded with disgust, if not horror, in a woman. Boys do things that would not be tolerated in girls. Why are there two standards of behavior? Why is one sex held to stricter moral account than the other? Why is a man allowed to do what is condemned in a woman?

The average daughter is better behaved, has better personal habits, than the average son. The average mother has fewer vices than the average father. The average woman is less vicious than the average man. Whose fault is it that this is so? It is somebody’s. Whose is it? It is time to find out. Have men fixed the standard for women, and women for men? It is approximately true that either sex is what the other demands of it. Women are too indulgent towards the other sex. We believe it lies with them more than with men to elevate the moral standard of the world.

A father would not take his daughter to places where he takes his son, would not condone in her habits which he overlooks, if not encourages, in his boy. Picture a father going to a saloon with his daughter, and there treating her to a “Tom and Jerry,” or a “beer,” and then calling for cigars for two, and sitting there smoking together for half an hour or so! A man will do this with his boy but not with his girl. Why not? If it is right and harmless for one, why not for the other? Is it true or not that what is right for men is wrong for women?

We ought to have only one moral standard. The sexes should be held to like behavior. Men can have just as good habits as women. We do not believe in forgiving in one what we condemn in another, in allowing a young man to do with impunity what we will not tolerate in a young woman.

If we are to have one standard of morals, which shall it be? Shall it be the highest or lowest? Shall it be the standard for man or for woman? Shall we permit women to do as men do, or shall we insist that men shall be equally pure in personal habits with women? The divided standard of conduct which now exists should be done away with. Let us demand equal behavior of the sexes, and let that behavior be fashioned after the highest moral demand of society. We do not wish to educate boys to be girls, but we can educate boys to have as good habits as girls have, which would be a great gain to the world.

We must hold women largely responsible for the vices of men. There is not a vicious habit which a man would not lay at the feet of woman did she demand it. Not a man would tolerate in a woman what a woman tolerates in a man. Let us have one moral standard for men and women, for both sexes, and mete out to each the same punishment for violation of its restrictions.

AUTHORITY

The man that does what his reason says is right is the man that should be honored by men. There can be no higher authority for doing a thing than that it is right. It is not whether a thing has ever been done before, but, _Is it right_? If there is no precedent, then it is a duty to establish one.

How many accept the opinions of others because they fear to question their authority! This regard for what other people think and say is well enough only when it does not destroy independence of thought and speech in ourselves. Another’s opinion is not to be respected when it is a fetter to our freedom.

We need not rehearse the evils which the world has borne on account of its fear to do right _alone_. Man must have someone to share the danger, to share the blame, but a dozen cowards are not worth so much as one brave man, and right is no _more_ right because ten say it instead of one. A thousand felt what Luther said; a thousand believed what Parker did. The best man in us is often the one that does not speak. The truest belief of the heart is the one never confessed. Man seldom comes to the surface. He rarely has a call to be himself, but to be somebody that will please the world. Man is obliged to make himself into a theological likeness; into a political representation. It will be centuries before men can assert themselves fearlessly without injury.

It is no easy matter for a man to set himself against popular opinion and maintain his position. Every power is brought to bear upon him that falsehood can invent and malice employ. A person who refuses to acknowledge the authority of the hour asserts a higher. When a man slaps the world in the face he should have truth on his side and courage to meet the stake and the cross. The majority never forgives him who denies its judgment. The individual that challenges the majority must prove his right of defiance. When a man is greater or better than men he must pay the penalty. The world cannot yet forgive anyone for excelling it. Authority when it debases man should be disputed; when it denies man his rights should be rejected.

It is plain to be seen, without illustration or example, that man’s authority is not found in his own mind. He has no history that reaches beyond custom. Man begins with man so far as facts prove. Society rests upon hearsay and religion upon tradition. A claim has only to be made upon ignorance to be granted. This good-natured world of ours would believe anything, or make-believe believe it, to save its soul. It takes either a very shrewd man or a moderately mean one to dodge every duty of life and remain respectable. It is dangerous to go outside the beaten path, not only on account of the persecution of the present but on account of the folly of the future. The world can easily twist an action into a law or a man into a God if profit hang on the end of its deed. The authority of half man’s actions to-day depends upon some accident or fraud of the past. Man wants a little of the fabulous yet in his meat and drink. He loves to think that Jesus is present when he drinks his wine and eats his bit of bread, although it is a mystery.

Popular opinion is the authority of most words and actions. We speak to men as to children—to please them. We tell them some parable or fairy story instead of telling them their faults honestly and trying to make them better. Most men begin by bowing to public opinion and end by carrying it on their backs.

The authority of the world may be disputed without any of the stars being thrown out of their course or any of the processes of life being disturbed. The notion that all has been discovered that is essential to the welfare of man is a mistaken one. The other notion that the preservation of whatever is elevating and refining depends upon the religious opinions of mankind, is equally delusive. The authority of the Bible, of Jesus, of the church, has been quoted until the world is prepared for a better. We might lose the Bible and not lose our place in the ranks of civilization. Jesus might be forgotten and man would still strive for a higher life. The church might perish in a night and not a single particle of goodness be lost. If we speak honest words, do honest work and live honest lives, we need not ask for God’s help or the help of anybody. We do not give to immorality the hours we redeem from superstition. We give to manhood and womanhood every hour which we make natural and free. It is not necessary for a man to go to church in order to be righteous. The world found assistance before Jesus was born. There has always been saints outside of a convent. We need no book holy that good counsel shall be valuable. The highest authority is the highest human enlightenment. It needs no priest back of opinion to give it force.

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Why does a man enter the Christian ministry?

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The reason that revelation is always made to the simple is that the wise could not be imposed upon.

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There is no sadder grief than that which lies at the bottom of a life that has been wrecked through deception.

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An organization that requires the suppression of facts and the discouragement of knowledge in order to maintain its supremacy, is the relic of a tyranny which our free age and our free thought are in duty bound to remove from the earth.

A CLEAN SABBATH

In a discussion with a lady, recently, upon the Sunday question, after the various pros and cons had been set up and bowled down, she exclaimed: “For mercy’s sake, don’t say any more against the sabbath. Why, if it were not for Sunday, most people would never wash themselves nor change their clothes.” Sunday, then, is to be established for the sake of cleanliness. The command for keeping the sabbath should therefore read: Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh day wash thyself and change thy clothes. If people will not keep clean without a divine command, we are in favor of cleanliness. We do not know of any better use to put God’s name to. Sunday is certainly the cleanest day of the week. If people will make themselves clean and neat only for God’s sake, we are willing to endure a little superstition for the blessing of cleanliness. But is there any ground for the assertion of the lady? As everyone knows, religion has produced the filthiest specimens of humanity that ever offended the senses of man. Dirt, and not cleanliness, was deemed next to godliness by the saints of old. The filthier a human being became, the holier he grew. It was regarded in the middle ages, that is, in the ages when everything was sacrificed to religion, as almost a sin to keep clean. It was waste of time to care for the body. It was taught that it was holier to worship than to wash. Nor did these dirty old saints of old go nasty entirely on their own authority. They were nasty for Christ’s sake. They went unclean because Jesus had encouraged nastiness. He believed more in clean hearts than in clean hands. He taught his disciples that “to eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man.” Dirty Christians are still plenty, but civilization prevails over superstition and the reign of dirt is doomed. The follower of Jesus quotes his master to defend his filthy condition in vain to-day. The gospel of decency has been preached, and what is manly and womanly is honored more than what is godly and pious. Clean infidelity is preferable in good society to nasty piety. There may be honor in rags, but there is none in dirt. Soap and water cost less than religion, but are worth a thousand times as much to the world. If Romanism required its devotees to take a bath instead of going to mass, it would confer a greater boon upon the world.

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No man gets estimated for exactly what he is, and it is lucky he doesn’t.

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A great many men and women are remembered for what somebody has said about them.

HUMAN INTEGRITY

It is hard for a man to be a man. It is easier to be almost anything else. We do not find the reason for what we do in ourselves, but seek it in someone else, or somewhere else. Manhood is not our standard of action. Human integrity is generally looked upon as an eccentricity. We almost despise a person who is more upright than the conventional man. Throughout society there runs a stream of circumstance upon which lives float like chips. The man who turns against this stream, and seeks to stem it, is looked upon as a madman or a fool. Everybody admits that the world is hardly going right, but everybody goes with it. The current of human life can be turned into a larger channel by a larger man. Mind follows mind.