It was Dean Swift who said, "We have just enough of religion to make us
hate, but not enough to make us love, one another." "Your business,"
said Hunt, "is to preach love to your neighbor, to kick him to bits, and
to thank God for the contradiction." "The falsehood that the tongue
commits," said Landor, "is slight in comparison with what is conceived
by the heart, and executed by the whole man, throughout life. If,
professing love and charity to the human race at large, I quarrel day
after day with my next neighbor; if, professing that the rich can never
see God, I spend in the luxuries of my household a talent monthly; if,
professing to place so much confidence in his word, that, in regard to
worldly weal, I need take no care for to-morrow, I accumulate stores
even beyond what would be necessary though I quite distrusted both his
providence and his veracity; if, professing that 'he who giveth to the
poor lendeth to the Lord,' I question the Lord's security, and haggle
with him about the amount of the loan; if, professing that I am their
steward, I keep ninety-nine parts in the hundred as the emolument of my
stewardship: how, when God hates liars, and punishes defrauders, shall
I, and other such thieves and hypocrites, fare hereafter?" In one of his
chapters on the Study of Sociology, Herbert Spencer remarks that "it
would clear up our ideas about many things, if we distinctly recognized
the truth that we have two religions." These two religions Mr. Spencer
designates as the "religion of amity" and the "religion of enmity." "Of
course," he says, "I don't mean that these are both called religions.
Here I am not speaking of names; I am speaking simply of things.
Nowadays men do not pay the same nominal homage to the religion of
enmity that they do to the religion of amity--the religion of amity
occupies the place of honor. But the real homage is paid in large
measure, if not in the larger measure, to the religion of enmity. The
religion of enmity nearly all men actually believe. The religion of
amity most of them merely believe they believe." "The Church of Rome,"
said F. W. Robertson, in his sermon on The Tongue, "hurls her thunders
against Protestants of every denomination; the Calvinist scarcely
recognizes the Arminian as a Christian; he who considers himself as the
true Anglican excludes from the church of Christ all but the adherents
of his own orthodoxy; every minister and congregation has its small
circle, beyond which all are heretics; nay, even among that sect which
is most lax as to the dogmatic forms of truth, we find the Unitarian of
the old school denouncing the spiritualism of the new and rising school.
Sisters of Charity refuse to permit an act of charity to be done by a
Samaritan; ministers of the gospel fling the thunder-bolts of the Lord;
ignorant hearers catch and exaggerate the spirit; boys, girls, and women
shudder as one goes by, perhaps more holy than themselves, who adores
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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