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FEAR OF DOUBTS
We cannot help thinking that Goethe showed lack of courage when he said: “I will listen to any one’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself, I have plenty of my own!” It seems to us that only a coward is afraid of doubts. If our convictions are false is it not better to know it and correct them? Doubt is the way to truth. It is the attitude of the mind that wants to know things just as they are. They who are unwilling to be deceived are the ones to doubt, to inquire. Let us hear all the doubts of the world, for they are knocks at the door of knowledge. To accept without question is to be the willing dupe of imposition.
The doubter is the safe man; the man who can be depended upon. He does not build upon a foundation of guesswork, and the structure he erects will stand. Let us not fear doubt, but rather fear to have falsehood passed for truth.
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There is no authority that can be quoted against a man but the authority of some other man.
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Nine times out of ten the man who declares that God is tender to the sparrow that falls is not the man to buy a winter’s coal for a poor widow.
BIBLE-BACKING
There is less backing one’s thoughts with the Bible than formerly. The world is getting weaned from this book. The idea is gaining ground that, if anything is true, it can support itself. When a man leans on God he is so much less a man. Mental uprightness disdains the Bible’s support. Honest thought can defend itself without appealing to divine authority.
Once a man hardly dared speak unless he quoted from the Scriptures a line or verse that ran parallel with his speech.
To-day men say what they think, without caring whether Moses, or David, or John, agree with them or not. We have reached a healthy independence. We have commenced to trust our convictions. Such a stage of intellectual development is not favorable to the divinity of one’s thoughts. The report of one mind is no more divine than that of another, and no more to be trusted, only as it is more accurate. There is a higher standard than the word of God for this age—that is, the word of truth. Whosoever speaks truth can face the world alone.
When a man needs to go to the Bible to sustain his argument he has a weak argument. When a dogma does not commend itself to human intelligence it is useless to declare it infallible. It will die, even though it be professed a thousand years. It can be accepted only by ignorance and avowed only by hypocrisy.
Any man who will quote a Bible-text to defend his opinion in the sense that such text proves his opinion true, proves himself a dolt. A Bible-text is only a human opinion, and as humanity surpasses it in the evolution of experience, it loses its authority and force. We have learned that human reason does not need to be backed by the Bible, and we have learned also that the Bible does need to be backed by human reason, or it has no value.
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The heart that can deride misfortune confesses its own deformity.
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When we are satisfied with the present we do not think of the future.
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The more mystery is encouraged, the more deceit can impose upon the human mind.
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If wisdom and diamonds grew on the same tree we could soon tell how much men loved wisdom.
BEGGARS
We have come to look upon the poor beggar as a nuisance; upon the man who comes to our doors for food or clothes as one who has no claim upon our charity. The common beggar is, as a rule, a worthless character, but let us be fair to him. He asks for but little; seldom for more than a bite, or for a few pennies. The poor beggar has only himself to enforce his appeal, and often he is an injury to his own cause. A dirty, ragged, vice-stained wreck of humanity is a poor argument to offer for sympathy or help. The man who begs in the name of man, and with that name rubbed in the dirt besides, gets little for his asking.
We do not like any beggars, but we need to understand that it is not the man in rags, who asks for a piece of bread or meat, that is the only beggar in the world. There is another and more dangerous beggar that we open our doors to, and treat with politeness and respect, and whose appeals we honor; it is the well-dressed beggar who asks for the money which the arm of labor has coined from its strength, who takes not pennies where he can get dollars, and who enforces his appeal with the name of God; it is the ecclesiastical beggar, whose hand is stretched out to take the earnings of toil, or the profits of trade; whose hand would as soon take little from poverty as plenty from affluence.
The rich beggar is a worse enemy to society and to the nation than the poor beggar. It is the priest, and not the tramp, whose begging we need to scorn. The man who asks for food in the name of hunger, for help in the name of want, makes, at least, an honest appeal to our generosity, but the man who begs in the name of God is an impostor. The tramp’s appeal is the truth—the priest’s is a lie. God never yet commissioned a human being to beg for him, and the person who uses the divine name to enforce his demand is little better than a thief.
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In the paths of our life may be seen the footprints of our ancestors.
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If you are poor, be thankful that you have the power of bettering your circumstances by bettering yourself; if you are rich, do not forget that you have the means of doing good, a luxury that is too seldom indulged.
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Men need nothing so much to-day as self-reliance; courage to stand up manfully for the right, all alone, without prop or pay, daring everything for an idea, counting not the cost, but seeing only the grand result which would follow its triumph and working for that with single purpose and courageous fidelity.
HABITS
Habit makes the man, but man makes the habit. It is here where we want to get in a word. A habit seems a little thing in itself, but it is the most terrible tyrant that rules the world. And it does rule it, say what we will. Now, it is essential in this life of ours to start right if we are going to come out right. And the best thing to start with is a good habit. It is just as easy when a young man is forming his habits to form good ones as bad ones. Good habits are not expensive. A virtue does not cost a quarter as much to support as does a vice.
We sometimes wonder how it is that a being with brains, with intelligence, with reason, could ever become a slave to habit. It does not seem possible that a MAN cannot order his conduct. But we must recognize facts. Men are victims of habits. They do not perceive that they are bound until they try to be free, and then the strong power of habit asserts itself. How does this terrible despot conquer the mind, the will, the man? What is this invisible force that drives the strongest and the brightest with a whip of iron? It is only an act repeated again and again, but it has become a second nature, a part of the man, and it has conquered by the power of reinforcement by repetition.
The only way to be superior to bad habits is never to acquire them. Do not do the first bad act. Stop before you begin to go wrong. The time when a man is saved is when he is young. The time to plant or sow is in the Spring. The harvest depends upon the seed. We cannot pick figs from thistles. A bad habit will end in a bad life. Watch the feet of the boy and the man’s will not need watching. We must begin with the young, and see that right habits are acquired in early life.
It is only a foot from a good habit to a bad one, but it is a mile back again. We may lose in an hour all we have made in a year. We can undo in a day what we have done in a lifetime. A habit is a plant of which an act is the seed. It will bear fruit if it be a good act, but ashes if it be a bad act. It is the first step that starts the race. To start right is the best way to go right and to end right. Never let a bad habit fasten to your life.
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It takes the shingles from the widow’s cottage to put paint on the house of God.
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Many persons who claim that they are “clothed with righteousness” do not seem to have got very good fits.
CAN POVERTY BE ABOLISHED
Is poverty a malady of the individual or of society? To answer this question is to determine how to treat the disease. If the individual is alone responsible for being poor, then he alone is to apply the remedy; but if society is to blame for poverty, then must society take the steps to effect a cure. Poverty is an evil. A human being who is starved physically is starved mentally and morally. Civilization begins when man has risen above want. Man is only a brute when all of his energies are absorbed in the effort to get bread.
In the present state of society we have dependence and independence; a few have escaped from the burdens of toil, but the many are still slaves to physical wants. But the few enjoy their independence at the expense of those beneath them, and oftentimes by inflicting wrong and injustice upon their fellows. Such a condition ought not to be allowed. Prosperity is the accumulated efforts of mankind. No man has created all the benefits he enjoys; no one has sowed all that he reaps. The rich man to-day is rich because he has, by advantageous circumstances, obtained possession of more than his share of the world’s wealth, or because he has inherited what others have obtained in the same way, or because by thrift and economy and good luck he has succeeded in getting money and keeping it.
But what makes the poor man? Not one thing, or one condition. He is the victim sometimes of his own follies, vices or laziness, although he is often not to be blamed for his poverty. There are individual cases where doubtless destitution is the child of misfortune, but the general poverty of the world, and of this country in particular, cannot be charged to any such account.
In our land there is a balance every year to the credit of wealth, but is it not true that this balance finds its way to the pockets already filled, rather than to those that are empty? What diverts the products of labor from the hands of labor? Find out that, and then we will begin to give labor its due. There is enough produced every year to make every person in the land better off at the end of the year. Why are so few richer, and so many poorer, or, at least, no better off? There is one thing sure,—labor, thrift, economy, virtue and good habits are to be commended and encouraged, while idleness, vice, profligacy and bad habits are to be condemned and discouraged. We do not look to any external change in society for a remedy for poverty, but rather to an internal change in man. It is not social revolution that will help the world, but humanity—the willingness to do what is right.
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“It rains on the just and the unjust,” but rarely just enough on either.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC GOD
Cicero said that “men, having exhausted all the mad extravagancies they are capable of, have yet never entertained the idea of eating the God whom they adore.” The extravagance which was beyond the contemplation of the Pagan mind, is an every day affair with a large part of the Christian world. The Roman Catholic eats his God every week, and Catholics have been guilty of this religious cannibalism for centuries.
In the celebration of the eucharist, which is a service commemorative of the death of Jesus, bread and wine are used in Protestant churches as emblems of the body and blood of the crucified one. But in Roman Catholic churches the real presence of Jesus is seen in the “host,” which, in itself, is a little wafer of baked flour and water, but when consecrated by the priest and offered as a sacrifice, during mass, becomes the actual body of God. According to Roman Catholic doctrine, dough is changed to Deity by the mumbling of a few Latin words over it by a priest. When the priest swallows the consecrated wafer he really swallows this God he adores.
There is an absurdity which the doctrine of transubstantiation is accountable for, which cannot be paralleled among all the religions of heathenism. Not only does this doctrine make it possible for one God to be eaten by one priest, but for thousands of gods to be thus devoured. The Roman Catholic religion teaches that God is manufactured out of flour and water by a pastry cook. Every time a wafer is turned into a “host,” a God is made.
Were there a tribe in Asia or Africa guilty of such ridiculous practices as are witnessed in the Roman Catholic church, missionaries would be sent out to them. It seems to us, that if people know no better than to believe that when the priest swallows a little lump of bread he is actually swallowing the body of a person who lived eighteen hundred years ago, whom they look upon as God, they are not intelligent enough to be ranked in the army of progress and civilization.
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No one is to blame for what no one knows.
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It is singular that people want to live another life when it is so hard to live this.
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A church that sets up a religious faith as more essential than purity, than kindness, charity or goodness, is a dangerous institution.
HUMAN CRUELTY
The mosquito inflicts his sting upon the place whence he draws his life. Not unlike this venomed insect is the person who, through malice, wounds the feelings of a human being. There seems to be in certain organizations the poison of hatred, and woe betide those on whom it falls. The heart that can take delight in saying cruel things, in raising unkind doubts or starting unpleasant thoughts, ought never to have had a human face to hide behind. Such an individual ought to crawl in its native shape that it might be crushed under the heel of scorn.
The only way to treat a human viper is to keep away from it, ignore its presence, and to shut the ears to its venomed hiss. We know of no more cruel occupation than wounding human hearts and human feelings.
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A great many men believe in providence until they get caught in a railroad accident.
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Treasures well used on earth will help the world more than treasures laid up in heaven.
INFIDELITY
When the minister wants to frighten his congregation he draws a picture of infidelity. The infidel has been used for years to scare weak-minded persons into accepting Christianity. Outwardly the infidel is painted like a man, but the world is warned not to trust to appearances, for the infidel is not what he looks to be; he is “a fiend in human shape;” he is “a moral monster,” and a mirror in which everything bad and vicious can see its face.
We do not wonder that a minister paints the infidel in black. He has hurt the minister’s business, and so must suffer for what he has done. But we do wonder that so large a part of the world is frightened at the word “infidelity.”
It is a fact that an infidel would never be known if he himself did not disclose his character. To conceal his infidelity he has only to keep still, to hide behind silence.
Infidelity is nothing more or less than intellectual fidelity, and an infidel is a man too honest to disguise his real thoughts and convictions. Had the infidel not been honest he would still be in the church, a hypocrite, to be sure, but this could not affect his religious status at all. Intellectual and moral uprightness is the distinguishing characteristic of modern infidelity. The modern infidel trusts his brain and his heart; he accepts as true what appeals to his reason, and makes known his convictions as though to conceal them were a vice or a crime.
The infidel gains nothing by avowing his convictions; on the contrary, he is condemned for making them known. The Christian presumes upon the right to damn infidels here and to teach that God will damn them hereafter. It is in the face of a fate, in many instances cruel, that a man acknowledges that his honest thoughts, his honest convictions place him in antagonism to the popular faith, and yet he is denounced, rather than praised, for his brave action.
Infidelity is the proof of an honest man. Hypocrisy cannot hide in its shadow. Every man in the Christian church may be a hypocrite, a knave, a pretender professing its faith, while laughing inwardly at its foolish superstitions, but every man who espouses infidelity must reveal his true character, must show exactly what he is.
A dishonest or hypocritical infidel is an impossibility. There is nothing to be gained, but much to be lost, by confessing one’s disbelief of the Christian dogmas. It is the man who prizes self-respect above the world’s approval who takes the fate of infidelity—be it what it may.
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Don’t put too much faith in the man who wants to know the distance to the nearest church before he has written his name in the hotel register.
ATHEISM
What is called atheism is not a light, flippant assertion, but a calm, thoughtful conclusion. It is a conviction which human experience and human reflection have generated. Atheism is not the irresponsible opinion of moral debauchery; it is the outcome of an intelligent consideration of Nature and life. The atheist has been honest with himself and with the world. He has made a careful survey of the universe, as far as he is able, and has canvassed the facts of life which have come within the range of his observation, and he has candidly declared the result of his study and freely related the reasons for his conclusions.
Atheism is the universe as science finds it and as interpreted by human understanding. It is an attempt to state the simple truth, to give a fair likeness of things, to photograph facts. Atheism is denial of nothing true, of nothing good, of nothing that can be proved. We see no good reason for abusing the atheist. His opinions don’t make him a bad citizen or a bad man. He is as moral as his Christian neighbor, and is as ready to help a fellow-being.
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In countries where atheism is a crime, hypocrisy is more honored than integrity.
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A great many who expect to hear the angels sing always get near the stage at a comic opera.
CHRISTIAN HAPPINESS
Christians are constantly telling “how happy their religion makes them,” how happy they feel “since they found Jesus.” We will take them at their word and believe that they are just as happy as they say they are. What has their religion done for them, what has Jesus done for them, that they should be so happy? They will answer that they have been saved, that their souls have been rescued from destruction. Without going into the question whether they need to be saved or whether their souls are in any danger of destruction, let us see what kind of happiness the Christian enjoys. The great song of Christians is: My soul is saved. The Christian is happy on his own account alone; he rejoices in his own good fortune; he is pleased to think that he is out of it. The Christian’s happiness is a purely selfish feeling. In his exultation is no thought of another’s condition, of another’s lot.
If some are saved, others are lost, for all do not accept the Christian faith, all do not find Jesus. The Christian can be happy while others are miserable; he can rejoice while knowing that others are in peril; he can exult over his own salvation while seeing others going to destruction. This is a fiendish happiness, a devilish joy. For one to be happy while knowing that a brother or sister is lost shows a hard, selfish, cruel heart.
Think of the Christian mother being happy for having been rescued from her burning home in whose fatal flames her children all perished! Think of the Christian father filled with joy at his escape from the sinking ship in which his wife and babe sailed to the port of death! Think of a Christian man or woman exulting over their good fortune in not having a disease which took away those who were nearest and dearest! Such joy, such happiness, as this is not human, it is brutish.
The Christian is welcome to all the happiness his heartless religion affords him. I want none of it. Such a religion would drive me mad.
The loving heart is happiest in the joy of those it loves; it is happy in seeing others happy, but there could be no joy for it to be saved while those it loved were lost. Christianity is a heartless religion, a cruel faith, a selfish scheme, and it is for those who care more about being saved than saving others.
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The highest freedom is the freedom to say what we believe to be right.
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It was a childless woman who said: The happiest woman is she whose bosom pillows the sweet head of a child.
