I understand now that he alone is above others who is humble with others
and makes himself the servant of all. I understand now why those that
are great in the sight of men are an abomination to God, who has
declared woe upon the rich and mighty and invoked blessedness upon the
poor and humble. Now I understand this truth, I have faith in it, and
this faith has transformed my perception of what is right and important,
and what is wrong and despicable. Everything that once seemed to me
right and important, such as honors, glory, civilization, wealth, the
complications and refinements of existence, luxury, rich food, fine
clothing, etiquette, have become for me wrong and despicable. Everything
that formerly seemed to me wrong and despicable, such as rusticity,
obscurity, poverty, austerity, simplicity of surroundings, of food, of
clothing, of manners, all have now become right and important to me. And
so although I may at times give myself up to anger and abuse another, I
cannot deliberately yield to wrath and so deprive myself of the true
source of happiness,--fellowship and love; for it is possible that a man
should lay a snare for his own feet and so be lost. Now, I can no
longer give my support to anything that lifts me above or separates me
from others. I cannot, as I once did, recognize in myself or others
titles or ranks or qualities aside from the title and quality of
manhood. I can no longer seek for fame and glory; I can no longer
cultivate a system of instruction which separates me from men. I cannot
in my surroundings, my food, my clothing, my manners, strive for what
not only separates me from others but renders me a reproach to the
majority of mankind.
Jesus showed me another temptation destructive of happiness, that is,
debauchery, the desire to possess another woman than her to whom I am
united. I can no longer, as I did once, consider my sensuality as a
sublime trait of human nature. I can no longer justify it by my love for
the beautiful, or my amorousness, or the faults of my companion. At the
first inclination toward debauchery I cannot fail to recognize that I am
in a morbid and abnormal state, and to seek to rid myself of the
besetting sin.
Knowing that debauchery is an evil, I also know its cause, and can thus
evade it. I know now that the principal cause of this temptation is not
the necessity for the sexual relation, but the abandonment of wives by
their husbands, and of husbands by their wives. I know now that a man
who forsakes a woman, or a woman who forsakes a man, when the two have
once been united, is guilty of the divorce which Jesus forbade, because
men and women abandoned by their first companions are the original cause
of all the debauchery in the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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