Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays Part 16

Nature is a large word. It means about all there is. If there is a G.o.d, 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 Creeds are out of date.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 sh.e.l.l, 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; 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 G.o.d that is cruel, unjust and unkind, and in a heaven where the highest joy is found in laughing at those who are in h.e.l.l.

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 s.h.i.+NING

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 suns.h.i.+ne. 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 s.h.i.+ning.

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 d.a.m.ned," 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 n.o.blest 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 cla.s.s of people are for the purpose of producing servants for another cla.s.s of people, and that this servant-producing cla.s.s 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?

Such notions have no right on our democratic soil. In this country there must be no caste, no division of society into cla.s.ses.

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 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.