The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays: 1909Bierce, Ambrose
Philosophy
The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays: 1909
Bierce, Ambrose
Essays
It is only where the missionaries have made themselves hated that there
is any molestation of Europeans engaged in the affairs of this world.
Chinese antipathy to Caucasians in China is neither a racial animosity
nor a religious; it is an instinctive dislike of persons who will not
mind their own business. China has been infested with missionaries from
the earliest centuries of our era, and they have rarely been molested
when they have taken the trouble to behave themselves. In the time of
the Emperor Justinian the fact that the Christian religion was openly
preached throughout China enabled that sovereign to wrest from the
Chinese the jealously-guarded secret of silk-making. He sent two monks
to Pekin, who alternately preached seriousness and studied sericulture,
and who brought away silkworms' eggs concealed in sticks.
In religious matters the Chinese are more tolerant than we. They let the
religions of others alone, but naturally and rightly demand that others
shall let theirs alone. In China, as in other Oriental countries
where the color line is not drawn and where slavery itself is a light
affliction, the mental attitude of the zealot who finds gratification
in "spreading the light" of which he deems himself custodian, is not
understood. Like most things not understood, it is felt to be bad, and
is indubitably offensive.
V.
At a church club meeting a paper was read by a minister entitled, "Why
the Masses Do not Attend the Churches." This good and pious man was not
ashamed to account for it by the fact that there is no Sunday law,
and "the masses" can find recreation elsewhere, even in the drinking
saloons. It is frank of him to admit that he and his professional
brethren have not brains enough to make religious services more
attractive than shaking dice for cigars or playing cards for drink; but
if it is a fact he must not expect the local government to assist in
spreading the gospel by rounding-up the people and corralling them in
the churches. The truth is, and this gentleman suspects it, that "the
masses" stay out of hearing of his pulpit because he talks nonsense
of the most fatiguing kind; they would rather do any one of a thousand
other things than go to hear it. These parsons are like a scolding wife
who grieves because her husband will not pass his evenings with her. The
more she grieves, the more she scolds and the more diligently he keeps
away from her. I don't think Jack Satan is conspicuously wise, but he
is in the main a good entertainer, with a right pretty knack at making
people come again; but the really reprehensible part of his performance
is not the part that attracts them. The parsons might study his methods
with great advantage to religion and morality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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