Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and ConductCorelli, Marie
Religion
Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct
Corelli, Marie
English essays -- 20th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 20th century
The greater majority of persons have no force of will and no decided
opinions, but only an under-sense of coward fear or vexation at the
possible unsuccessful or damaging result of their own ill-doings. Hence
the power of the Roman Catholic dogma. It is not Christianity; it has
not the delicate subtlety of Greek mythology; it is simply pagan Rome
engrafted on the conversion and repentance of the Jew, Peter, who, in
the time of trial, “knew not the Man.” Curiously enough, it is just the
“Man,” the real typical Christ, the pure, strong God-in-humanity who
is still “not known” in the Roman Catholic ritual. There are prayers
to the “Sacred Heart” and to other physical attributes of Jesus,--just
as in old Rome there were prayers to the physical attributes of
the various deities, but of the perfect “Man,” as seen in Christ’s
dauntless love of truth and exposure of shams, His scourging of the
thieves out of the holy temple, His grand indifference to the world’s
malice and hatred, and His conquest over death and the grave,--of
these things we are given no clear or helpful image. Nevertheless, it
is the “Man” we most need,--the “Man” who came to us to teach us how
to live;--the brother, the friend, the close sympathizer,--the great
Creator of all life mingling Himself with His human creation in a
beautiful, tender, loving, wise and all-pitiful Spirit, wherein is no
hate, no revenge, and no intolerance! This is the Christ;--this is His
Christianity. Romanism, on the contrary, allows plenty of space for
those who want to hate as well as to love, and it is as helpful or as
useless as any of the thousand and one dogmas built up around Christ,
dogmas which include bad passions as well as divine aspirations. The
danger of such a creed gaining too much ground in England, the land
where our forefathers fought against it and trampled it out with
their own blood and tears, is not because it is a particular form of
religious Faith, but because it is an intolerant system of secret
Government. This has been proved over and over again throughout
history. Its leaders have not shown themselves as gentle pagans by any
means, either now or in the past;--and intolerance in any form, from
any sect, is no part of the Constitution of a free country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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