The Profits of Religion, Fifth EditionSinclair, Upton
Religion
The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition
Sinclair, Upton
Christianity -- Controversial literature
Then Jesus mounted upon a soap-box, and began a speech,
saying, The doctors of divinity and Episcopalians fill the
Fifth Avenue churches; and it would be all right if you were
to listen to what they preach, and do that; but don't follow
their actions, for they never practice what they preach.
They load the backs of the working-classes with crushing
burdens, but they themselves never move a finger to carry a
burden, and everything they do is for show. They wear
frock-coats and silk hats on Sundays, and they sit at the
speakers' table at the banquets of the Civic Federation, and
they occupy the best pews in the churches, and their doings
are reported in all the papers; they are called leading
citizens and pillars of the church. But don't you be called
leading citizens, for the only useful man is the man who
produces. (Applause). And whoever exalts himself shall be
abased, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Catholics, hypocrites!
for you shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men; you don't
go in yourself and you don't let others go in. Woe unto you,
doctors of divinity and Presbyterians, hypocrites! for you
foreclose mortgages on widows' houses, and for a pretense
you make long prayers. For this you will receive the greater
damnation! Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Methodists,
hypocrites! for you send missionaries to Africa to make one
convert, and when you have made him, he is twice as much a
child of hell as yourselves. (Applause). Woe unto you, blind
guides, with your subtleties of doctrine, your
transubstantiation and consubstantiation and all the rest of
it; you fools and blind! Woe unto you, doctors of divinity
and Episcopalians, hypocrites! for you drop your checks into
the collection-plate and you pay no heed to the really
important things in the Bible, which are justice and mercy
and faith in goodness. You blind guides, who strain at a
gnat and swallow a camel! (Laughter). Woe unto you, doctors
of divinity and Anglicans, hypocrites! for you bathe
yourselves and dress in immaculate clothing but within you
are full of extortion and excess. You blind high churchmen,
clean first your hearts, so that the clothes you wear may
represent you. Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and
Baptists, hypocrites! for you are like marble tombs which
appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead
men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you appear
righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity. (Applause). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and
Unitarians, hypocrites! because you erect statues to dead
reformers, and put wreathes upon the tombs of old-time
martyrs. You say, if we had been alive in those days, we
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