THE COMMON WELFARE. 69 wrong, if properly taught. No one is made better by "Thou shalt not;" only "I will not" is effective. Reformation must begin with the grown people. Evangelists are needed to preach to adults, to teach them to say "no." The thing to do by me and you ('tis so!) To duty true our long life through: say "no!" YE 41ST LESSON The Common Welfare. Society Solomon says, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." is composed of units. The individual is the unit. The object of education is to perfect the units, so that each may act aright. Right thinking will banish the saloon. No man would visit it. Self-respect coupled with patriotic devotion to one's country and love of humanity possessing each mind and heart is the end to be sought in the education of the youth. When self-respect is wanting there is nothing left but degeneracy. Who are bravest and most ready to enter a "forlorn hope?" The class of men who have the highest respect for themselves and possess the most cultured and largest minds, like young Hobson and his companions who sunk the Merrimac in the entrance of Santiago harbor. When one has reached the high ground occupied by all the martyrs from Jesus to John Brown, holding the common good above his own personal welfare and ready to give his life for the welfare of others, he is, it may be inferred, a post-graduate of the school of true manliness. Every one is an example to others. If we love our country and think aright we will never set so bad an example before the youth as to be seen entering the door of a drink hell or smoking a cigar or cigarette. Does some one say, "Almost all men do so?" Does that, I answer, make it right? All men once were savages eating human flesh, our remote progenitors among them. But this did not make the practice right. An ancient law-giver has said, "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." The stoics said, "It is better to lessen wants than to increase wealth." The cynics made the reduction of wants and renunciation of wealth obligatory. Diogenes lived in a tub, reserving of his riches only a drinking cup. This he threw away on seeing a boy drink out of the hollow of his hands placed together. We believe that in spirit-life We shall be rid of many of our present wants, being then "as the angels." Why in this life do we persist in supplementing our natural wants with artificial ones, hurtful, costly, filthy and degradingborrowed appetites"-unnatural desires? It is not wise. It is not right. It is only not sane. Pleasure is but pain relieved. Do we scald our hand for the pleasure we feel from cooling it in ice water? We do We drink ardent spirits, chew and smoke And this is the all But there follow alcoholism, delirium tremens, woe what is the same thing. tobacco, to relieve artificial cravings or burnings. of pleasure! begone mothers, heart-broken wives, ragged and starving children. the tobacco user sees placarded wherever decency dwells the And words, "No tobacco smoking or tobacco chewing allowed in here." To say nothing of the costliness of the tobacco habit and its injurious effects upon both body and mind, what a degrading and uncivilized practice it is! As secretary of a literary society of the university of which I was a member in 1857, it became my pleasing duty to notify Horace Mann of his election to an honorary membership of the so ciety. In his reply-a letter of thanks-he wished, he said, his name stricken from the list of members if the young men, or any of them, were addicted to tobacco. It was this letter that first set me profoundly thinking in regard to this great vice. Why are some persons devoted to humanity, as was Horace Mann, and others only to self? Why did John Howard visit prisons and give his life and fortune to the work of relieving the distress of the most miserable? Why did John Brown visit Harper's Ferry and die so willingly for other's good? The answer is that altruism belongs to man's higher nature. Is it possible for all to be actuated by such unselfish motives, thinking more of the common welfare than of their own? Concededly so when we see the thousands of young men who in the Japanese war gave their lives for their country and in our own civil war. It is the most powerful and most common motive of human nature. Selfishness is degeneracy and it is beastial-instinct predominating over reason. The founders of Christianity-yes, the higher purpose of Grecian philosophy, cut of which the ethic of Christianity grew -had in view the subordination of instinct to reason--the eliminating of selfishness from the human soul. YE 42D LESSON. Natural Wants and Ways. Socrates said, "The gods have no wants and the man who has fewest wants approximates most nearly to the gods." There is a fallacy in this. A saying of Henry Ward Beecher's illustrates it. An overinquisitive person once asked him if he was a Calvinist. "Yes," said Beecher, "if Calvin were living now I think that he would believe about as I do." And I say, if the super-human beings that the ancients called "gods" and that we call "spirits," "angels" and "archangels" were men, they would have about the same wants as men have. Human beings have three natural wants called "appetites" without which the race would not survive: The food appetite, the drink appetite, and the pro-creative appetite. These they have in common with all other animals. But the difference between man and the lower animals in respect of these is that the creatures below him are wholly under the dominion of instinct and hence they eat only wholesome food, take only wholesome drink and likewise keep to nature's law in respect of the other appetite named above. Man does not as well; and, if we may say of one, "he is beastly," it is, in fact, a compliment. If man was only like the other animals in gratifying his appetites this would be to him a much more happy world. Beasts have instinct alone, man reason also. Instinct is the surer guide in respect to appetites. By observing the ways of beasts we may learn to eat and drink only what will make good blood and indulge the pro-creative appetite as only beasts do. If beasts could reason, they would pity us and establish missions to give us light. They would preach to us "Be natural." The Stoics took nature for their guide. They were right to eat only to satisfy natural hunger and drink only to quench natural thirst. Let strict sanitary rules be enforced, boards of health established and all harmful foods and drinks be inhibited. Why may not prescriptions for "prevention" be given the same obedient deference as for cure? But it is, perhaps, not to the financial interest of physicians to prevent disease; but boards of health ought to speak with no feeble voice. Why this rage of gluttony and swilling of liquid poisons? It pays to be temperate. It pays to follow nature. How beautiful the lives of birds; yea, of all the denizens of the wild woods and the prairies! ENVIRONMENTS AND BELIEFS. "Joy comes; grief goes; we know not how; Everything is upward striving; 'Tis easy now for the heart to be true; As for the grass to be green or skies to be blue; 'Tis the natural way of living." 71 Yes, the "natural way of living" is the right way and all creatures do keep to it but man alone. He is hard to teach. Mother Nature holds open wide her arms to embrace him, but he shans her embrace. Unhappy man! "The little bird sits at his door in the sun, His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide-world and she to her nest; In the ear of Nature which song is the best?” The birds are intent on fulfilling the office that Mother Nature has called them to fill. Man flies shy of this, hence his misery. YE 43D LESSON. Environments and Beliefs. As a rule, those born in a Mohammedan country are Mohammedans, born in India, are Buddhists, in China, Confucians, in Persia, Zoroastrians, in a Christian land, Christians. And, to come down nearer home and fireside, born of Methodist parents, Methodists, of Catholic parents, Catholics, of Presbyterian parents, Presbyterians, etc., etc., through the whole list of hundreds of sects-especially if the parents were careful to have their children attend only schools of the sects to which the parents specially held. Now where does Truth come in? If one say, "I shall impartially and without prejudice, fear or favor, search for truth, holding in the meantime all religions equally deserving, as we hold the prisoners at the bar innocent until proven guilty, weigh impartially the merits and demerits of each and by comparison settle the question of their worthiness or unworthiness respectively, would not the craftsmen of every religion cry, "Great is Diana!" in Now it would seem right to find out in what they do all agree, if anything; for in whatever thing all men do agree it is to be presumed truth hath, if anywhere, her dwelling place. All religions are one ethically. They are one also in respect to the doctrine of a future life. This being so, all are one essentially. And I am not aware that any religion holds that there is not a supreme God. As to the lesser gods of the ancient Greek and Roman mythology and of the ancient Egyptian, and of all other religions, in what respects do cannonized saints and arch-angels differ from them? In none but the names. therefore, in essentials all religions do agree. Only in non-essentials. So. In what do they differ? Why is there this oneness of religions? It is because they all had the same origin. Whether they all originated primarily in India or in Egypt is not known. It is most probable that India was first to become SO far civilized as to have a written language-the race that peopled Europe earlier than tradition reaches. Civilization has been traced back twenty thousand years in evidences found in mounds of dead Asiatic cities. And in those earlier days there were philosophers of deepest insight. At bottom, all religions are rational and free from superstition. I refer to Buddhism, Confucianism and Zoroasterism especially. The groundwork of these was ethics. The groundwork of Greek mythology was aesthetics. In Greece philosophy came in later, marking the period of the decadence of Greek mythology. The setting up of the Greek empire from India to Egypt spread the doctrines of the Greek philosophers the world over, wherever learning and civilization existed. The positive ideals grounded on the sublime thought of Egyptian, Persian and Babylonian sages, preserved in the Hebrew literature, profoundly impressed the minds of the Greek thinkers of Alexandria. The philosophers, there known as Neo-Platonists and that prior to the Christian era had translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek-the Septuagint-fused Greek philosophy with Semitism and so shaped and fashioned Christianity into a religion acceptable to Gentiles and not just a Judean sect-the Essenes, that many believe were the Judean Christians "Ebeonites" (poor men) having all things common. In how far is truth embodied in the various religions of Asiatic origin named above, including Christianity? They may be accepted as true to the extent that they all agree and are not contradicted by modern science. How far does this agreement extend, that science does not contradict? It extends, as said above, to all essentials-that is to say, to morality, an after-life and the existence of an universal intelligence- -God. Now whether God be the author of Nature or Nature herself a spontaniety, let science and philosophy settle. The doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man is the universal belief of civilized men--in Europe, Asia, Africa, America and on the islands of the Pacific-yea, the belief of all thinking men. There is but one thing that stands in the way of the brotherhood or sisterhood of all religions of their all being recognized by all men as one and the same religion. What is that? The making of shrines and the support of caste, the priesthood of the various nations, sects and cults-private interests. Craft is endangered by God's coming down from Heaven to dwell with men to be their God and they his people. There is but one road out of this dilemma-the road of democracy. "Ye are priests, ye are kings," said Jesus. Let every man believe in and live up to this philosophy, this sublime estimate of the dignity of his own nature, and act out this belief in his daily life, allowing no man to order him about, but ruling his own soul, think for himself independently. Then will true civilization come in. YE 44TH LESSON. The Home and the Church. I name the home first because it is first in the order of time and first in the order of merit. The church is auxiliary to the home. Whatever is destructive of the home is destructive of the human race. Whatever influence tends to the "restriction of offspring," whether it be disease or wealth, is accursed. Science is minimizing the evil of disease; that of wealth will be got rid of, for it is the greaterthe giant destroyer of the home. No very rich man ever had or ever will or can have an ideal home. Now, whether they be directly "Godinspired" words that have come down the centuries as the "words of Jesus," or whether they define opinions from conclusions inductively reached by observation and the exercise of reason, his denunciations of the rich and advice to "sell all and give to the poor," and the example of him who is said to have spoken "as never man spake," his contempt of riches, his choice of a life of poverty and his advice to "take no thought of the morrow" and leave all and follow him, em TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. 73 brace in their meaning profound philosophy. There is nothing so harmful to society as great private fortunes. The one essential truth is, there should be equality and no one better off than another. The home is an institution established by nature; the church an institution established by convention. But the two have stood together, like companions in marriage, for nearly two thousand years. Ought they now be divorced? Church and state have been divorced in the more enlightened states of christendom and will be in all states. Not so the church and the home. Let them never be parted. But many homes stand aloof from the church. By whose fault? By that of the clergy. Too many preachers have come to have more regard for salary than for souls-have caught the commercial disease, worse than smallpox, cholera or the black plague. If the clergy "went about doing good," as Jesus did and in the same unselfish spirit as was his, there would be no departure of the home from the church and no decadence of the home or the church and the common people would hear the clergy gladly as they heard Jesus. I protest against the Protestant clergy's disloyalty to the home and I commend the Catholic priesthood's loyalty (traditional at least). I think the Catholic holds too closely to creed and catechism, and is too blind to the tobacco vice, but the Protestant is as blind to this great sin as is the Catholic, and he, too, is creed bound. The truth is, both are paralyzed, the former by tradition and the latter by fear of the pews. But the clergy are not altogether to blame for this. The Parthenon was not built of straw, but of marble. The people (the marble out of which the temple of society is built) are yet in a primitive state, unpolished and advanced little beyond savagery. "Great is Diana," they cry. Their craft of tobacco raising and selling and the production and distribution of poisonous liquids and opium must not be interfered with while the craze of money-getting is on; and that craze is at its maximum just now, and it has made of officials of state and corporations, grafters, defrauders, forgers, salary-boodlers and downright thieves. The The church is an heritage of good and cannot be given up. It is every patriots duty to uphold the church and every clergyman's duty to let down the mediaeval bars and bring in the sheep. The church must become, as it was in the beginning, a family and be made inclusive and not as it has been for many centuries, exclusive. membership must be "doers of the word" and not "hearers only," "blessed in their deed," visiting the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions, and "no man seeking his own, but every man another's weal." And this last is the especial duty of the clergy and yet not less the duty of the laity. The church, with all its grand edifices, cannot be removed from our European order of civilization, and it ought not to be. It is in a transition stage just now and will shortly Come to hold the place it ought to hold, and that it did once hold, that of headlight of the oncoming locomotive of progress. Why so? Because it alone lights the pathway-the steel-railed track and brings into view the dangers that confront the millions journeying through life. The press is run for money; the church (unperverted) is altruistic. This is shown most positively in the Salvation Army movement-most like a true "imitation of Christ" of any existing order of Christian endeavor. But I see that all the different names of the oneness ("that ye be as one as I and the Father are one," the Saviour's prayer soon to be answered) are about to step upon the platform of the disinterestedness of the Salvation Army. God speed the hour! YE 45TH LESSON. Truth and righteousness are never disunited. The lover of truth is a man of righteousness. An unrighteous man is not a truth-lover. |