Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great ReformersHubbard, Elbert
History
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers
Hubbard, Elbert
Reformers
If the Puritans won, no one knew the result--would power be safe in
their hands? Men at the last were but men. In the hands of royalty,
money flowed free. There had been thousands of pensioners, parasites,
ladies of fashion and gentlemen of leisure, parties who worked an hour
every other Thursday, and whose duties were limited largely to signing
their vouchers--royalty and relatives of royalty, all feeding at the
public trough. These people "spent their money like kings"--which
means that they wasted their substance in riotous living. And the
average mind--jumping at conclusions--reasons that liberal spenders
benefit society. In the South our colored brothers are much happier
when getting ten cents at a time, ten times a day, than if receiving a
monthly stipend of fifty dollars. Even yet there be those who argue
that rich people who spend money freely on folly benefit the race,
forgetful that anything which calls for human energy is a waste to the
world of human life, unless it is a producer of wealth and happiness
as well as a distributor. Waste must always be paid for, and usually
it is paid for in blood and tears; but beggars who live on tips never
know it. A tramp who is given a quarter feels a deal more lucky than
if he gets a chance to earn a dollar.
All wealth comes through labor: the people earn the money, and the
parasites get a part of it; and in the Seventeenth Century, they got
most of it. Then when these parasites wasted the money the people had
earned, the many thought they were being blessed. The English people
in the Seventeenth Century were about where the colored brother is
now, and I apologize to all Afro-Americans when I say it. However, out
of the mass of ignorance, innocence, brutality, bestiality,
fanaticism, superstition, arose here and there at long intervals a man
equal to any we can now produce. But they were fugitive stars,
unsupported, and they had to supply their own atmosphere.
Cromwell was an accident, a providential accident, sent by Deity in
pleasantry, to give a glimpse of what a man might really be.
* * * * *
William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was to Charles the First what
Richelieu was to Louis the Thirteenth of France. Laud came so near
being a Catholic that the Pope, perceiving his fitness, offered to
make him a cardinal. In fact, but a few years before, all of the
clergy in England were Catholics and when their monarch changed
religions they changed theirs. Laud was of the opinion that vows,
responses, intonings, genuflexions and ringing of bells constituted
religion.
Cromwell said that religion was the dwelling of the spirit of God in
the heart of man. Laud brought about much kneeling and candle-
snuffing. He was Pope of the English Church, and played the part
according to the traditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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