Page images
PDF
EPUB

ourselves that the devil at last was dead, and that the tears of pity had put out the fires of hell, but the serpent of superstition was only slightly scotched, not killed.

The intent of the religious revival is dual: first, the claim is that conversion makes men lead better lives; second, it saves their souls from endless death or everlasting hell.

To make men lead beautiful lives is excellent, but the Reverend Doctor Chapman, nor any of his colleagues, nor the denominations that they represent, will for an instant admit that the fact of a man living a beautiful life will save his soul alive In fact, Doctor Chapman, Doctor Torrey and Doctor Sunday, backed by the Reverend Doctor McIntyre, repeatedly warn their hearers of the danger of a morality that is not accompanied by a belief in the "blood of Jesus."

So the beautiful life they talk of is the bait that covers the hook for gudgeons. You have to accept the superstition, or your beautiful life to them is a byword and a hissing.

Hence, to them, superstition, and not conduct, is the vital thing.

If such a belief is not fanaticism then have I

read Webster's Unabridged Dictionary in vain. ¶ Belief in superstition makes no man kinder, gentler, more useful to himself or society. He can have all the virtues without the fetich, and he may have the fetich and all the vices beside. Morality is really not controlled at all by religion-if statistics of reform schools and prisons are to be believed.

Fay Mills, according to Reverend Doctor McIntyre has all the virtues-he is forgiving, kind, gentle, modest, helpful. But Fay has abandoned the fetich-hence McIntyre and Chapman call upon the public to pray for Fay Mills. Mills had the virtues when he believed in the fetich-and now that he has disavowed the fetich, he still has the virtues, and in a degree he never before had. Even those who oppose him admit this, but still they declare that he is forever "lost."

Reverend Doctor Chæffer says there are two kinds of habits-good and bad.

There are also two kinds of religion, good and bad The religion of kindness, good cheer, helpfulness and useful effort is good. And on this point there is no dispute-it is admitted everywhere by every grade of intellect. But

any form of religion that incorporates a belief in miracles and other barbaric superstitions, as a necessity to salvation, is not only bad, but very bad And all men, if left alone long enough to think, know that salvation depends upon redemption from a belief in miracles.

But the intent of Doctor Chapman and his theological rough riders is to stampede the herd and set it a milling. To rope the mavericks and place upon them the McIntyre brand is then quite easy.

As for the reaction and the cleaning up after the carnival, our revivalists are not concerned. The confetti, collapsed balloons and peanut shucks are the net assets of the revival-and these are left for the local managers.

Revivals are for the revivalists, and some fine morning these revival towns will arise, rub their sleepy eyes, and Chapman will be but a bad taste in the mouth, and Sunday, Chæffer, Torrey, Biederwolf and Company, a troubled dream To preach hagiology to civilized people is a lapse that Nemesis will not overlook. ¶ America stands for the Twentieth Century, and if in a moment of weakness she slips back to the exuberant folly of the frenzied piety of

the Sixteenth, she must pay the penalty. Two things man will have to do-get free from the bondage of other men; and second, liberate himself from the phantoms of his own mind. On neither of these points does the revivalist help or aid in any way. Effervescence is not character and every debauch must be paid for in vitality and self-respect.

All formal organized religions through which the promoters and managers thrive are bad, but some are worse than others The more superstition a religion has, the worse it is. Usually religions are made up of morality and superstition. Pure superstition alone would be revolting—in our day it would attract nobody -so the idea is introduced that morality and religion are inseparable. I am against the men who pretend to believe that ethics without a fetich is vain and useless.

The preachers who preach the beauty of truth, honesty and a useful, helpful life, I am with, head, heart and hand.

The preachers who declare that there can be no such thing as a beautiful life unless it will accept superstition, I am against, tooth, claw, club, tongue and pen. Down with the Infamy!

I prophesy a day when business and education will be synonymous-when commerce and college will join hands-when the preparation for life will be to go to work.

As long as trade was trickery, business barter, commerce finesse, government exploitation, slaughter honorable, and murder a fine art; when religion was ignorant superstition, piety the worship of a fetich and education a clutch for honors, there was small hope for the race. Under these conditions everything tended towards division, dissipation, disintegration, separation-darkness, death.

But with the supremacy gained by science, the introduction of the one-price system in business, and the gradually growing conviction that honesty is man's most valuable asset, we behold light at the end of the tunnel.

It only remains now for the laity to drive conviction home upon the clergy, and prove to them that pretence has its penalty, and to bring to the mourners' bench that trinity of offenders, somewhat ironically designated as the Three Learned Professions, and mankind will be well out upon the broad highway, the towering domes of the Ideal City in sight.

« PreviousContinue »