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Religion, by its essence, is the enemy of joy and of the welfare of men. "Blessed are those who suffer!" Woe to those who have abundance and joy! These are the rare revelations which Christianity teaches! In what consists the saint of all religions?
When even the good Père Hyacinthe teaches, through the New York "Independent," that the husband is to direct the conscience of his wife, precisely as the father directs that of his child, what higher philosophy can you expect of any Frenchman than to maintain the claims of "le sexe noble"? We see the consequence, even among the most heterodox Frenchmen.
But we may complete the contrast by adding the more deplorable part of the picture which Friar Thomas Gage has drawn. "It seems," says he, "that religion teaches that all wickedness is allowable, so that the churches and clergy flourish.
The Public School system, at any rate, teaches its sons the art of framing very ingenious theories with which to defend their faults; a negative virtue, perhaps, but none the less an achievement. The last days of term were now drawing in. The House supper was only a few days off and the holidays very close.
She talked long with the girls, and gave them the counsel all eager young people need, yet are very slow to accept till experience teaches them its worth. As the friend of many successful literary people, Mrs. Spenser was constantly receiving the confidences of unfledged scribblers, each of whom was sure that he or she had something valuable to add to the world's literature.
Coterie succeeds coterie, equally smiling the explosions take place in his absence. Even a grand passion, which teaches a man more, perhaps, than anything else, is not very easily excited by the traveller. The women know that, sooner or later, he must disappear; and though this is the case with all lovers, they do not like to miss the possibility of delusion.
But Amos further teaches us that such seeking is not real nor able to find, unless it is accompanied with turning away from all sinful quests after vanities. We must give up seeking Bethel, Gilgal, or Beersheba, seats of the calf worship, if we are to seek God to purpose.
"The history of ascetics," says Martensen, "teaches us that by such overdone fasting the fancy is often excited to an amazing degree, and in its airy domain affords the very things that one thought to have buried, by means of mortification, a magical resurrection." In attempting to subdue the body, many necessary requirements of the physical organism were totally ignored.
It may be presumptuous to proffer counsel to such authorized expositors of religion, but one can hardly help insinuating the humble suggestion, that it would be as well, if they must give up the principles of liberty, not to throw Christianity in. We may be permitted to doubt the theory of Providence which teaches that a man never so much serves God as when he serves the Devil.
"Many who would listen to a poor woman because she plagued them?" "Well, it does not matter; what the story teaches is true, and that was what he wanted believed." "Just so. The truth in the parables is what they mean, not what they say; and so it is, I think, with Rob of the Angels' stories. He believes all that can be believed of them.
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