Love, Life & Work: Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One's Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others — John Shaqi
Love, Life & Work: Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One's Self with the Least Possible Harm to OthersHubbard, Elbert
Religion
Love, Life & Work: Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One's Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others
Hubbard, Elbert
Conduct of life; Happiness
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 Chaeffer 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, Chaeffer, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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