The pathway of life

12. There are two proverbs: "Work will bend your back, but will not fill your pockets," and again: "Honest toil will earn you no mansions." These two proverbs are unjust, because it is better to have a bent back than be unjustly rich, and honest toil is to be preferred to mansions.

13. It is better to take a rope and go into the forest in search of a bundle of wood to be sold for food, than to beg food of people. If they refuse it, you are annoyed, if they give it, you are ashamed, which is worse.

Mohammed,

of a nobleman, the other lived by the labor of his hands. The rich brother said one day to the poor one: "Why don't you enter the service of my master? You would not know hardships or toil."

And the poor one replied: "Why don't you labor ? You would not know humiliation and servitude."

Philosophers say that it is better to eat in peace the bread earned by toil than to wear a golden girdle and be the servant of another. It is better to mix lime and clay with your hands than to fold them on your breast as a sign of servitude. Saadi,

15. The best life is not to stand at the door of the rich man speaking in a pleading voice. In order to have such life, have no fear of labor. Hindu wisdom,

16. If you will not labor, you must either crawl before others or use force upon them.

17. Alms are a good work only if they are given from the proceeds of your own labor.

The proverb says: the dry hand is tight, the sweating hand is generous. And so we read in the "Teachings of the 12 Apostles": "Let your alms come out of your hand covered with the sweat thereof."

18. The widow's mite is not only equal to the most precious gifts, but it is this mite alone which is a genuine work of mercy.

Only the toiling poor know the happiness of true compassion. Rich idlers are deprived of it.

19. A rich man had everything that people desire: millions in coin, a manigficent palace, a beautiful wife, hundreds of servants, sumptuous repasts, all sorts of dainties and wines, stables filled with a multitude of horses. And he tired of it all, he wearied of sitting all day vw Vvvs. \х«^яг

nificent mansion, he sighed and complained of his weariness. The only thing left for him in the way of joy was eating. When he awoke from sleep, he awaited his breakfast, after his breakfast he waited for dinner, and after dinner he looked forward to his supper. But even this joy did not last. He ate so much that he ruined his digestion and felt no appetite for food. He summoned his physicians. The physicians gave him some medicine and ordered him to walk two hours each day.

And as he was walking by the physician's orders his alloted two hours, ruminating upon his lack of desire for food, a beggar approached him:

"Alms," he pleaded, "alms, for the sake of Christ."

The rich man was engrossed with his own sorrow and did not hear the beggar. ,

"Pity me, master, for I have not eaten the whole day."

When the rich man heard him speak of food, he stopped.

"You desire to eat ?"

"Very much, master, very much, indeed."

"What a fortunate fellow," thought the rich man, and he envied the beggar.

Poor men envy the rich, and the rich envy the poor.

They are all alike. The poor are better off, for frequently they are not to blame for their poverty, but the rich have always themselves to blame for their wealth.

*Н1

COVETOUSNESS

•t

COVETOUSNESS

The sin of covetousness consists in the acquisition of ever increasing quantities of things or money, of which others stand in need, and in the retention of the same, in order to use at will the labor of others.

I.

Wherein is the Sin of Wealth?

1. In our society man cannot sleep without paying for his lodging. The air, the water, the light of the sun are his only on the great highway. His sole recognized right is to walk upon this highway until he reels from fatigue, because he cannot stop, but must keep on moving.

Grant Allen.

2. Ten good men can lie down and sleep in peace upon one mat, but two rich men cannot live in peace in ten rooms. A good man having a loaf of bread will share half with a hungry neighbor, but a conqueror may conquer a continent and will never rest until he conquers another.

3. A rich family may have fifteen rooms to accommodate three persons, yet there will be no room to shelter a beggar from the cold and to give him a night's lodging.

A peasant has a hut seven yards square for his flock of seven souls, yet he readily admits a wanderer, saying: God bids us share with others half and half.

4. The rich and the poor supplement one another. If there are rich, there must be poor also. If there is senseless luxury, that terrible need is likewise bound to exist which forces those that are poor to serve senseless luxury.

Christ loved the poor and avoided the rich.

And in the Kingdom of Truth which he preached there could be neither rich nor poor. Henry George.

5. The tramp is the inevitable complement to a millionaire.

6. The plealsures of the rich are obtained with the tears of the poor.

7. When rich men speak of public welfare I know that it is a mere conspiracy of the rich seeking their own profit . in the name and under the pretext of public welfare.

Thomas Moore,

8. Honest men are not usually rich. Rich men are not usually honest. Lao-Tse.

9. "Do not rob a poor man because he is poor," says Solomon. Yet this robbing of the poor man because he is poor is the most usual thing. The rich always utilize the need of the poor to make them work for the rich or to buy that which they sell at the lowest price.

The robbery of a rich man upon the highways, for the sake of his riches, is a much rarer occurrence, because it is^ dangerous to rob the rich, but a poor man may be robbed» ^ without any risk. John Ruskin. S

Л.

10. People of the working class frequently endeavorrj^.

to pass into the class of the wealthy who live by the laboi^ of others. This they call coming among better people. ВиЦ^ it would be more correct to say "leaving good people to go * among worse people."

11. Wealth is a great sin before God, poverty a great sin before people. Russian proverb. . ^

11.

Man and the Land

1. As I was bom for the land, the land has been also given me to take from it what I need for cultivation aiul planting, and I have the right to demand my share. Show me where it is. Emerson,

2. The earth is our common mother; it feeds us, shelters us, gladdens us and warms us with love; from the moment of our birth, and until we find rest in eternal sleep upon its maternal bosom, it constantly caresses us with its tender embraces.

Yet in spite of this, people talk of selling it, and as a matter of fact in our mercenary age earth is valued in a, market for selling purposes. But selling the earth that was made by the Heavenly Creator is a wild absurdity. The earth can belong only to God Omnipotent and all the children of men who labor upon it.

It is not the property of any one generation—but of all generations past, present and future. Carlyle.

3. Suppose we occupy an island and live by the labor of our hands, and a shipwrecked mariner is cast upon our shore. Has he the same basic natural right as we to occupy a portion of the land and to feed himself by the labor of his hands ? It seems that this right is indubitable. Yet how many men are born upon our planet to whom men living on it deny this very same right. ' Lavelais.

III.

Harmful Effects of Wealth

1. Men complain of poverty and use every means to attain wealth, yet poverty and need give man firmness and

strength, while on the contrary excesses and luxury lead to weakness and ruin.

It is foolish for poor men to seek to change their condition which is beneficial both to body and soul for riches which are harmful to both.

2. Necessity trains and teaches. Wealth confounds.

Russian proverb,

3. The poor man has his troubles, but the rich man has a double share.

4. The life of the rich man is bad both because he can never be at peace for fear that his wealth will take wings, and because as his wealth increases, so do his worries and duties increase. But principally because he can associate with few people only, who must be as rich as he. He cannot associate with poor people. If he were to foregather with the poor he would clearly realize his own sin, and he coutd not avoid being ashamed of himself.

5. Wealth has gold—poverty has joy.

Russian proverb.

6. Riches lead man to pride, cruelty, self satisfied ignorance and vice. Meunier.

7. Callous and indifferent to the woe of others is the man of wealth. Talmud.

8. The life of the rich, being immune from labor, which is a necessity of life, cannot be free from madness. Men who do not labor, that is who fail to fulfill one of the universal laws governing the life of all men, are bound to act like maniacs. They become like domestic animals, horses, dogs, and pigs. They romp and fight and rush from place to place without knowing why.

■u

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 163

9. Necessity sharpens the wit, wealth dulls it. Fat and laziness drive even a dog to madness. Russian proverb.

10. A merciful man is never rich. A rich man is surely not merciful. Manchu proverb.

11. Men seek wealth, but if they only knew how much of good people lose while acquiring wealth they would as zealously seek to get rid of it as they now seek to acquire it.

12. A time is coming, nor is it afar off, when people will cease to believe that riches give happiness, and will realize the simple truth that while acquiring and retaining riches, they do not improve but spoil their own life and the lives of others.

IV.

Riches are Not to Be Envied, But to Be Ashamed of

1. Rich men are not to be honored or envied, but to be avoided and pitied. The rich man need not boast of his wealth, but ought to feel ashamed of it.

2. It is well if the rich see the sinfulness of riches and do not censure the poor for their envy and jealousy. But it is bad when they judge the poor for their envy, yet fail to perceive their own sin. It is also good if the poor realize the sin of their envy and jealousy of the rich, nor censure the rich, but pity them instead. But it is bad if they censure the rich, but fail to perceive their own sin.

3. If the poor envy the rich, they are no better than the rich.

4. The self-content of the rich is bad, but no less evil is the envy of the poor. How many poor there are who judge the rich, yet act just as the rich towards those who are still poorer than tliemselves.

V.

Excuses for Wealth

1. If you receive an income without laboring for it, doubtless some one is laboring without receiving an income

f<^r it Memnonides,

2. Only a man convinced that he is not like others, but better than others, can with a calm conscience enjoy wealth while surrounded by poor. Only the thought that he is better than others can justify a man before the tribunal of his own heart if he has wealth, while others around him are poor. And the most curious thing of all is that possession of wealth, which should be a source of shame, is considered a proof of a man's superiority over his fellows. "I enjoy wealth, because I am better than others, and I am better than others, because I enjoy wealth,"— such is the attitude of a man of this type.

3. Nothing so clearly exposes the error of the religions which we confess as the fact that people considering themselves Christians not only enjoy wealth amid universal want, but are actually proud of it.

4. Men can feed themselves in three ways: by robbery, begging and labor. It is easy to distinguish those who earn their bread by labor; equally easy to tell those who live by alms.

5. One of the most current and the most grievous errors of judgment is to consider that as good which one likes. Men like wealth, yet although the evil of wealth is very apparent, they try to persuade themselves that wealth is good.

6. Rich men seemingly could not pretend either to themselves or to others that they do not know how hard the working people must toil,—some under ground, others

in the water, still others around furnaces, ten to fourteen hours at a stretch, many working nights in various factories,—and, they are engaged in such cruel work just because the rich give them a chance to live only in return for the performance of such tasks. Seemingly it would not be possible to deny something so patent. Yet the rich do not see it, just as the children who close their eyes to avoid seeing that which frightens them.

7. Can it be that God gave something to one man and denied it to another? Can it be that the conunon Father of all has excluded any one of his children? You, men, who claim the exclusive right to enjoy His gifts show us that will and testament whereby He should have deprived your other brothers of their heritage.

Lamenais.

8. It is true that wealth is an accumulation of labor. But usually one man labors, another accumulates. And this is what scientists call "division of labor."

From English Sources,

9. Pagans considered wealth a blessing and a glory, but to a true Christian wealth is an evil and a shame.

To say a "rich Christian" is like saying "warm ice."

10. It would seem that in the face of the agonizing poverty of the working people who are dying for want of necessaries and because of excessive toil (who can claim ignorance of these facts?) the rich men who enjoy the fruit of these labors bought with the lives of men could not be at peace for a single moment. Yet there are rich men who are liberal minded, humane and very sensitive to the sufferings of men and animals, who never cease to enjoy the fruits of these labors and who ever endeavor to increase their own wealth, that is to add to the fruit of

these labors enjoyed by them, and while engaged in this pursuit they are perfectly serene.

This is due to the new science of political economy, which explains things in a new way, showing that the division of labor and the enjoyment of the fruits thereof depend upon supply and demand, upon capital, income, wage, market values, profits, etc.

Upon this theme a multitude of books and pamphlets have been written in a very short time, a multitude of lectures have been delivered, and there is no end to such books and pamphlets and lectures.

The majority of people may not know the details of these soothing explanations of science, but they nevertheless know that such explanations exist, and that bright and learned men demonstrate right along that the present order of things is just as it should be, and that we may keep on living in peace without trying to change it.

This alone can account for the darkened state of mind of those kind people in our modem society who can sincerely pity dumb animals, yet calmly devour the life of their own brothers.

VI.

In Order to Be Blest, Man Should Pay Heed Not to the Increase of His Possessions» But of the Love

Within Himself

1. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal; For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

To lay up treasures in Heaven is to increase the love within you. And love is not in harmony with wealth, it is directly contrary to it. A man living the life of love cannot either accumulate wealth, or if he has it, he cannot retain it.

2. Earn such wealth that no one can take away from you, that will remain with you even after death, that will not decay. Such wealth is your soul.

Hindu proverb,

3. Men worry a thousand times more about increasing their wealth than about increasing their knowledge. And yet it is clear to any one that the happiness of man depends much more upon what is within man than upon what he possesses. Schopenhauer.

4. And he spake a parable unto them, saying. The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully;

And he thought within himself, saying. What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits ?

And he said; This will I do: I will pull down my bams, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

And I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry.

But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall be the things which thou hast provided?" Luke ХП, 16-20.

5. Why does a man wish to be wealthy? Why does he need expensive horses, fine raiment, beautiful apartments, the right to enter public places, amusements? Only because of a lack of spiritual life.

Give such a man an inner spiritual life and he will not require any of these things. Emerson.

6. As heavy raiment hinders the movements of the body, so the riches impede the progress of the soul.

Demophilos, VII.

Combating, the Sin of Covetousness

1. With what effort and sin riches are gathered and preserved! And yet there is but one joy to be had of accumulated riches. This joy consists in giving up the riches after realizing all the evil thereof.

2. If you crave the grace of God, show works. But there may be still some one who will say with a certain rich young man: "All these things have I kept from my youth up, I did not steal—slay, commit adultery." And Christ said that it was not all, that he still lacked something. What was it? '*Go, and sell that thou hast," He said, "and give to the poor, and come and follow me" (Matthew, xix, 21). To follow Him means to imitate His works. What works? Loving your neighbor. And if a young man living in such abundance could refrain from distributing his riches among the poor, how could he say that he loved his neighbor? If love is strong, it must not be shown in words alone, but in deeds. And a rich man can show his love with deeds by giving up his riches.

3. He who has less than he desires must know that he has more than he deserves, Lichtenberg,

4. There are two ways to escape poverty: one is to increase your possessions, the other to teach yourself to

be content with little. To increase your possessions is not always feasible and rarely can be done honestly. To diminish your wishes is always in your power and always good for your soul.

5. The meanest thief is not he who takes what he needs, but he who clings to that which he does not need and which may be needful to others, without giving to others.

6. "But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." j John, Hi, 17-18.

And if the rich man would love not in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth, let him give to him who asks,—said Christ. And if he gave to those who ask, no matter how much wealth a man might have, he would soon cease to be rich. And as soon as he ceases to be rich, he will be in the position of the rich young man to whom Christ spoke, there will then be nothing to hinder him from following Christ.

7. Wise men of China said: "Though it be wrong, still it is pardonable for a poor man to envy the rich, but it is unpardonable for a rich man to boast of his riches and to refuse to share them with the poor."

8. Mercy is only then genuine, when that which you give you have torn from yourself. Only then he who receives a material gift, receives also a spiritual gift.

But if the gift be no sacrifice, merely a superfluity, it only irritates the recipient.

9. Munificent rich ignore the fact that their benefac-

tions to the poor are merely things they have snaicned from the hands of still poorer people.

10. "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

You will either work for your earthly life, or for God.

"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall ptU on."

Is not your life worth move than -neat and raiment, and did not God give it to you ?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, and God feeds them. Man is not worse than a fowl. If God has given life to man, he will know how to feed him. And you know in your own heart that labor as you might, you can do nothing for yourselves. You cannot increase your time by one hour. And why take thought for raiment? The flowers of the fields do not toil or spin, yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like them. If God so clothe the grass, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cut down, will He not clothe you?

Therefore, take no thought of what ye shall eat and wear. All men need these things, and God knows your need. Neither take thought of the future. Live in the present. Take only thought how to do the will of your Father. Seek the one thing needful, the other things will come of themselves. Seek only to do the will of your Father. Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Thus taught Jesus, and the truth of these words every man can test for himself in his own life.

ANGER

ANGER I.

Wherein is the Sin of Uncharitableness

1. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time: Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." Matthew, v, 21-22.

2. If you feel a pain in your body, you know something is wrong. You have either done what you ought not to have done, or you have failed to do what you ought to have done. Even so in the spiritual life. If you feel gloomy or irritable, you may know that something is wrong; you either love that which you ought not to love or do not love that which you ought to love.

3. The sins of overeating, idleness, lust are evil in themselves. But the particular bad feature of these sins is that they lead to the worst sin—^uncharitableness, or hatred of others.

4. It is not the robberies, the murders, the executions that are terrible. What is a robbery ? Passing of property from one person to another. Such things have always been and always will be, and there is nothing dreadful in that. What are murders, executions? Passing from life to death. This has always been and always will be nor is there anything dreadful in that. The most dreadful thing is not in the robberies and murders themselves, but dreadful are the feelings of men who hate one another, dreadful is the hatred of men causing them to rob, slay and execute.

II. The Seaseleeeneee of Anger

1. Buddhists say that all sins come from folly. This is true of all sins, but particularly of uncharitableness. The fisherman or the fowler is angry with the fish or bird that escapes him, and I am angry because a man has done that which he finds needful for himself, and not what I want him to do. Is it not equally foolish ?

2. A man has done you an injury, and you become angry. The thing is past, but malice against this man has settled in your heart, and whenever you think of him, you are angry. It is as though the devil had been standing watch at the door of your heart, and taking advantage of the moment you let malice enter therein, had stolen into your heart and gained the mastery of it. Drive him out. And be careful in the future not to unlock the door that he might reenter.

3. There was once a foolish little girl who had lost her eyesight through illness and could not realize that she was blind. She was ang^ because wherever she went things were in her way. She did not think that she stumbled against things, but imagined that the things pushed against her.

The same thing happens to people who become spiritually blind. They imagine that whatever happens to them is done against them with evil intent, and they are angry with people, failing to realize, even as the foolish child, that their woes are not due to other people, but due to their spiritual blindness and their living for their body.

4. The higher a man's opinion of himself, the more easily he is annoyed with people. The humbler a man, the more kindly he is and less prone to anger.

. - -I iiiTt T 1 Ti I '^^шаь— ■d^r^^^^^jaaaa»^

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 175

5. Do not think that virtue is in courage or strength; if you can rise above anger, if you can forgive and learn to love him who has injured you, you are doing the highest thing that a man can aspire to. Persian wisdom,

6. You may be unable to refrain from anger when offended or insulted; but you can always refrain from showing what is in your heart in word or deed.

7. Malice is always the child of impotence.

8. If a man scold or insult thee, do not give in to him, refuse to enter the path whereon he would have thee stray, do not do as he is doing. Marcus Aurelius.

III.

Anger Against Fellow Men is Irrational Because the

Same God Dwells in All Men

1. "Take heed if you would strike at the devil in man lest you hit God." This saying means that when you censure a man, you must remember that the spirit of God dwells within him.

2. Watch yourself from early morning and say to yourself: I may have dealings with some insolent, insincere, tiresome or malicious men. We frequently come across such people. They do not know what is good and what is evil. But if I know well what is good and what is evil, if I realize that only that is evil to me which I commit myself, no evil man can harm me. No one can compel me to do evil. And if I remember that every man, if not in flesh and blood, then at least in Spirit is my neighbor, and that in all of us dwells the same spirit of God, I am unable to be angry with a creature so close to me, for I know that we have been created one for another, just as one hand for the other or one foot for its mate, just as the eyes and the teeth help one

another and the entire body. How then can I turn away from my neighbor, if contrary to his true nature, he commits evil against me? Marcus Aurelius.

3. If you are angry with a man, it is a sign that you live the life of the body and not the life of God. If you lived the life of God, no one could harm you, because God cannot be harmed, and God,—the God within you,—cannot be angry.

7. In order to live in harmony with people, remember when you meet people that not what you need is of importance, nor what he needs with whom you have come in contact, but that only which God who dwells in both of us requires from both.

Just remember this when a feeling of unkindness towards another rises within you, and you will be immediately delivered from this feeling.

8. Do not despise, do not beyond measure honor any man. If you despise a man, you fail to value right the good that is in him. If you honor a man beyond measure you require too much of him. In order to keep from error, think lightly of that in man (as in your own self) which is of the body, and esteem him as a spiritual creature in whom dwells the spirit of God.

IV.

The Less Man Thinks of Himself, the Kinder He Is

1. It is said that a good man can not help being angry with evil men, but if this were so then the better a man is in comparison with others, the angrier he would be. But the contrary is true; the better a man is, the gentler and kindlier he is to all people. This is because a good man remembers that he himself has done sinful things, and if he should be

angry with others for being bad, he would have.to be first of all angry with himself. Seneca,

2. A rational man cannot be angry with mean and irrational people.

" But how to keep from anger if they are thieves and rogues ? "

And what is a thief and a rogue ? A man gone astray. Such a man is to be pitied and not to be angry with. If you can, persuade him that it is not well for him to live as he is living, and he will cease from evil. And if he does not yet realize this it is small wonder that he leads an evil life.

But you might say that such men ought to be punished.

If a man's eyes are diseased and he loses his sight, you will not say that he must be punished for it. Then why would you punish a man who is deprived of what is more precious than his eye-sight, deprived of the greatest blessing,—of the knowledge how to live in accord with reason? Such men яге not to be treated with anger, but with pity.

Pity such unfortunates and see that their delusions do not arouse your anger. Remember how often you have erred yourself and committed sin, and rather be ang^y with yourself because there is so much unkindness and malice in your soul. Eptctetus.

3. You say that evil men are all around you. If you think so it is a sure sign that you are very bad yourself.

4. Frequently men endeavor to show themselves off by noting the faults of others. They only show off their own weakness.

The more intelligent and kindly a man is, the more

i

good he sees in others—^and the more foolfeh and unkind he is, the more defects he finds in others.

5. It is true that it is difficult to be kind to corrupt

men and to liars, particularly if they insult us, but these are just the people with whom we should be very kind, both for their sake and for our own.

6. When you are angry with some one, you generally seek to justify your heart and try to see only that which is evil in him who is the object of your anger. This only increases your uncharitableness. But just the contrary is needful; the angrier you are, the more carefully you must search for that which is good in him who is the object of your anger, and if you find any good in him and learn to love him, you will not only relieve your heart but experience a peculiar joy.

7. We pity a man who is ill clad, cold and starving, but how much more is a man to be pitied if he is a deceiver, a drunkard, a thief, a robber, a murderer? The first man is suffering in his body, but the other in that which is the most precious possession in the world—^his soul.

It is well to pity the poor and help them, but it is still better not to judge the vicious, but to pity and help them also.

8. If you would reproach a man for unreasonable actions do not call his acts or words stupid, do not think or say that what he has done or said is senseless. On the contrary, always assume that what he had meant to do or say was reasonable and endeavor to find it so. It is well to discover those erroneous ideas which have deceived the man and demonstrate them to him so that he may decide by the exercise of his own reason that he was in error. It is only by reason that we can convince a man. And equally so we can convince a man of the immorality of his conduct by an

appeal to his sense of morality. Do not assume that the most immoral man could not become a free and moral being.

Kant.

9. If you are angry with a man because he did that which you consider evil, try and learn why this man did that which you consider evil. And as soon as you understand this, you will find yourself unable to be ang^ with the man, just as one can not be angry with a stone for falling to the ground instead of upwards.

V.

The Need of Love for Association with People

1. In order that association with men be not painful to them and to yourself, do not seek to associate with them if you feel no love towards them.

2. Only inanimate objects can be treated without love; one can hew down trees, make brick, and forge iron without love, but men cannot be handled without love, any more than bees can be handled without caution. The nature of the bees is such that if you treat them without caution you injure both the bees and yourself. It is the same with people.

If you feel no love towards people, sit still, busy yourself with inanimate things, but leave people alone. If you treat people without love, before long you will be acting like a beast and not like a human being, and you will harm both yourself and the people.

3. If you have been offended by a man, you may either retaliate like a dog, or a cow or a horse; that is you may run away, if the offender be stronger than you, or growl and kick; or you may act like a rational human being and say to yourself: ** This man has ойезайлД. \хл^ ^^сах^^

с

Г*4«Ъ

180 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

his business, but my business is to do that which I consider good, to do unto him as I would have him do unto me."

4. When you see people dissatisfied with everything, and condemning everything, you feel like saying: "It is not the purpose of your life to realize all the absurdity of life, to condemn it, to be angry for a while and then die. That cannot be. Think a little. Your business is not to be angry, nor to condemn, but to labor in order to correct the evil that you see. But the evil that you see cannot be removed by your irritation, but only by the exercise of that good will to all men which dwells in you, and which you will feel the moment you refrain from drowning its voice."

5. Acquire the habit of being dissatisfied with others only in the same way as you are dissatisfied with yourself. When you are dissatisfied with yourself, you are dissatisfied with your actions, not with your soul. The same way with your fellow man, judge his actions, but love him.

6. In order not to do any evil to your fellow man, in order to love him, train yourself never to say anything bad either to him or of him, and in order to train yourself to do this, train yourself not to think anything evil of htm, not to let a feeling of uncharitableness even enter your thoughts.

7. Can you be angry with a man for having cankering sores? It is not his fault that the sight of his sores annoys you. Even so act towards the faults of other people.

But you might say that a man has his reason which should help him to recognize his faults and to correct them. This is true. But you also are endowed with reason and you can form the judgment that you must not be angry with a man because of his faults, but rather endeavor by rational and kindly treatment, without anger, impatience or haughtiness, to awaken his conscience.

ways busy with something and always pleased with an opportunity to disconcert and to insult anyone who addresses them. Such men are apt to be very disagreeable. But you must remember that they are very unfortunate, strangers to the joy of a good disposition, and they should not be censured, but pitied.

9. Nothing can soften wrath, even justified wrath, as quickly as to remark to the angry person about the object of his anger: "He is so unfortunate." Even as the rain puts out the flames, so compassion acts upon wrath.

10. If a man who means to do harm to his enemy only attempted to imagine vividly that he had already done as he desired, and saw his enemy suffering in his body or in his spirit from wounds, illness, humiliation or poverty; if a man only attempted to imagine this and realized that all this evil was the work of his hands, the meanest man would cease from wrath after such vivid realization of his enemy's sufferings. Schopenhauer,

11. God guard you from pretending to love and to have compassion if you feel no love or compassion. This is worse than hatred. But may God preserve you from failing to catch and to keep alive the spark of compassion and divine love to your enemy when God sends it to you. There is nothing more precious than that.

VI.

Combating the Sin of Uncharitableness

1. When I am condemned, it is disagreeable and painful to me. How to be relieved of this feeling? First of all by humility: If you know your weakness you will not be angry when others point it out. It is unkind of them, but

they are right. Then by the exercise of reason; inasmuch as in the end you remain just as you were, only if you had too high an opinion of yourself, you may have to change it. But principally by forgiveness. There is only one way to keep from hating those who injure us,—it is by doing good to them; though you may not be able to change them, you can curb yourself. Amiel.

2. If you are a little angry, count up to ten before you do or say anything. If you are very angry count up to one hundred. If you think of this when you are angry, you will not need to count at all.

3. The best beverage in the world is when you have an angry word on your very tongue, not to say it, but to gulp it down. Mohammed.

4. The more a man lives for his soul, the less annoyance he has in all his dealings, and the less occasion for wrath.

5. Think well and comprehend that every man acts as It seems best to him. If you will always think of this, you will never be angry with anyone, you will never reproach or scold anyone, for if it be better for another man to do that which displeases you, he is right and cannot do otherwise. But if he is in error and does that which is worse for himself, he may be pitied, but you should not be angry with h™. Epicieius.

6. A deep river will not be muddied if you fling a stone into it. Even so with man. If a man is stirred up over insults he is not a river, but a puddle.

7. Let us remember that we shall all return to the soil, and let us be meek and gentle. Saadi,

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VII.

Uncharitableness Harms Most of All Him Who

Harbors It

1. No matter how much harm anger causes to others, it is most harmful to him who harbors it. And anger is always more harmful than that which has provoked it.

2. There are people who love to be angry, and rage and injure others without cause. We can understand why a miser injures other people. He desires to possess himself of that which belongs to others, in order to enrich himself. He injures people for his own material benefit. But a mean man injures others without any profit for himself. What madness! Socrates,

3. To do no harm even to enemies—herein is great virtue.

He must certainly perish who encompasses the ruin of another. Do no evil. Poverty is no justification for evil. If you commit evil, you will be still more impoverished.

Men may escape the effects of the malice of their enemies, but can never escape the consequences of their own sins. This shadow will haunt their footsteps until it ruins them.

He who would not live in grief and sorrows, let him do no harm to others.

If a man loves himself, let him do no evil no matter how slight it be. Hindu wisdom.

4. To be virtuous is to be free in spirit. Men always angry with others, always fearing something and yielding to passions cannot be free in spirit. He who is not free in spirit, having eyes cannot see, having ears cannot hear, eating cannot taste. Confucius.

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5. You think that the object of your wrath is your enemy, yet your own wrath which has entered your heart is your principal enemy. Therefore make peace with your enemy as quickly as possible, and put out of your heart that painful sentiment.

6. Drop by drop a pail is filled; even so man is filled with malice though he accumulate it little by little, if he permits himself to be angry with others. Evil returns to him who launches it even as dust thrown against the wind.

Neither in Heaven nor in the sea, neither in the bowels of the mountains nor anywhere in the world is there a spot where a man can rid himself of the malice that is in his heart. Remember this. JamapadQ.

7. In the Hindu law it is said: as surely as it is cold in the winter time and warm in the summer season, even as surely it is evil with the evil man, and good with the good man. Let no one engage in a quarrel, though he be offended and suffer, let no one give offense in word, deed or thought. All these things rob a man of his happiness.

8. If I know that anger robs me of true happiness, 1 can no longer consciously engage in enmities with others as I was wont to do, or glory in my anger, boast of it, puff it up, and find excuses for it, count myself important and others insignificant, lost or mad; I cannot—^at the first intimation of rising anger—do otherwise but feel that I alone am to blame or refrain from seeking peace with those who are estranged from me.

But this is not sufficient. If I know now that anger is evil for my soul, I also know that which misleads me into this evil. And that is my forgetting that the same spirit dwells in others as it does in me. I see now that this sepa-rateness from people, this recognition of self as being above others is one of the principal causes of human enmity. Re-

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membering my past life I see that I never permitted my anger to rise against those who I considered to be above myself, and that I never offended such people. But the slightest act of a man whom I believed to be beneath me, if it displeased me, aroused my anger and evoked an insult on my part, and the higher I felt myself above him, the more lightly I insulted him; sometimes the mere thought of a man's inferior position led me to insult him.

9. One winter time Francis of Assisi accompanied by his brother Leo, journeyed from Perugia to Porcionculo; it was very cold and they were shivering. Francis called to Leo who was walking ahead of him and said: "Brother Leo, God grant that our brothers might throughout the earth set the exemple of holy life; but make a note that perfect joy is not yet in that."

And a little while further Francis called again to Leo and said:

"Also make note, brother Leo, that if our brothers heal the sick, drive out devils, give sight to the blind or bring back to life men four days in the grave, make note that neither therein is yet perfect joy."

And still a little distance further Francis again called to Leo and said: "And make note once more, brother Leo, lamb of God, that if we learned to speak with the tongues of angels, if we comprehended the course of the stars, and if the treasures of the earth were revealed to us and we had opened to us all the mysteries of the life of birds, fishes, of all animals, people, trees, rocks and waters, make note that even therein would not be perfect joy."

PRIDE

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PRIDE

What makes it so difficult to find deliverance from sins is mainly the fact that they find support in errors. Pride is one of such errors.

I..

The Senseless Folly of Pride

1. Proud people are so busy teaching others that they have no time to give thought to themselves, and why should they? They are good as they are, anyway, and therefore the more they teach others, the lower they sink themselves.

2. Even as man cannot lift himself up, neither can man exalt himself.

3. The meanness of pride is in the fact that people are proud of the things of which they should be ashamed; riches, glory and honors.

4. If you are stronger, wealthier, more learned than others, strive to serve others with the over-abundance you have as compared with them. If you are stronger, aid the weak; if you are more learned, help the ignorant; if you are wealthier, help the poor. But proud people have different ideas. They think that if they have what others lack, they need not share it with them, but only parade it before them.

5. It IS bad if a man is angry with his brothers instead of loving them. But it is much worse if a man makes himself believe that he is not the same kind of a man as other men, but superior to other people, and can therefore treat them otherwise than he would have them treat him.

6. It is foolish for people to be proud of their face or of their body, but it is still greater folly to be proud of their

parents, ancestors and friends, of their estate and of their race.

The major portion of evil on earth is due to this foolish price. It is the cause of quarrels between men and men, families and families, and the cause of wars between nations.

7. A man should not count himself wiser, nobler or better than other people, if for no other reason than because no man can properly gauge his own mind or his virtues, and still less the true value of the mind and of the virtues of other people.

8. Proud people consider themselves alone to be better and higher than others. But other proud people differ with them and count themselves still better. Still this fails to disconcert the proud; they are convinced that all those who count themselves above them are in error, and that they alone are correct.

9. It is amusing to see two proud men meet, each believing himself to be superior to everybody else on earth.

It is amusing to an outsider, but the two proud men are not amused; they hate one another and are much perturbed.

10. Folly may exist apart from pride, but pride never apart from folly.

11. Learn from water in the depths of the sea and in mountain gorges; noisy are the shallow brooks, but the shoreless sea is silent and barely moves.

Buddhist wisdom.

12. The lighter and less dense a substance the more space it occupies. Even so with pride.

13. A bad wheel makes more noise, an empty ear of corn is taller. Even so a bad and shallow man.

14. The more self-satisfied a man, the less ground is there in him for satisfaction.

15. A proud man is as though covered with a coating of ice. No good sentiment can break through this coating.

16. It is easier to enlighten the most ignorant man than a proud man.

17. If the proud could only know what other people who make use of their pride for personal gain think of them they would cease to be proud.

18. The prouder a man, the more foolish is he thought by those who make use of his pride, nor are they mistaken, because though they most flagrantly deceive him, he fails to see through it. Pride is invariably foolish.

II.

National Pride

1. To count oneself better than everybody else is wrong and foolish. We all know this. To count one's family better than all others is still more wrong and foolish, though we frequently fail to recognize this, and see even some special merit in it. But to count one's nation better than all others, is the greatest possible folly. Yet not only do the people fail to consider this wrong, but on the contrary, it is considered a great virtue.

2. The beginning of pride is in loving self alone. Pride is unrestrained self-love.

3. Men are an enmity one with another, though they know that it is wrong. And in order to deceive themselves and to drown the voice of their conscience they invent excuses for their hostility. One of such excuses is that I am better than others and that the others are unable to understand this, and for this reason I have the right to be at odds with them ; another excuse is that my family is better than

theirs: the third is that my class is better than other classes; and the fourth that my nation is better than all other nations.

Nothing divides people so much as pride—^personal pride, family pride, class pride and national pride.

4. Proud people are not content to count their own persons superior to all others, they even count their nation superior to other nations; as the Germans count the German nation, the Russians the Russian nation, the Poles the Polish nation, the Jews the Jewish nation. And harmful as is the pride of an individual, national pride is far more harmful. Millions upon millions of men perished from it in the past and are still perishing.

III.

Man Has No Rational Grounds for Exalting Himself

Above Others, as the Same Spirit of God

Dwells in All People

1. Man counts himself better than other people only if he lives the life of the body. One body may be stronger, larger, better than another, but if a man lives the" life of the spirit, he cannot count himself better than others, for the same soul dwells in all men.

2. People have titles: Some "Your Excellency,'* others "Your Serene Highness," still others "Esquire," "Sir," "Your Worship," but there is only one title appropriate to all and giving no offense. This title is: Brother, sister.

And this title is good for the reason that it reminds us of the one Father in whom we are all brothers and sisters.

3. Men consider some people superior to themselves, others beneath themselves. One need only remember that the same spirit dwells in all men to see how unjust this is.

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4. A man is correct in thinking that there is no one in the world above him; but he is wrong to think that there is even one man beneath him.

5. It IS well for man to respect himself because the spirit of God dwells in him. But woe to a man if he is proud of that which is merely human in him: his mind, his learning, honor, wealth or good deeds.

6. A man IS good if he holds high his divine spiritual I. But if he seeks to exalt his animal, vain, ambitious individual I above all others, he is abominable.

7. If a man is proud of external distinctions he merely shows that he does not appreciate his inner worth compared with which all outward distinctions are as candles compared with the sun.

8. One man cannot exalt himself above others. He cannot do so because the most valuable thing in man is his soul, and no one knows the value of the soul but God.

9. Pride is something entirely different from a consciousness of human dignity. Pride increases with false honors and false popular adulations, but the consciousness of human dignity increases on the contrary with undeserved humiliation and condemnation.

IV.

Effects of the Error of Pride

1. Pride defends not only itself but all the other sins of man. In exalting himself man loses sight of his sin, and his sins become a part of him.

2. As the tall weeds that grow in the wheat field draw all the moisture and all the juices from the soil and shut off the grain from the sun, even so pride monopolizes all the strength of man and shuts him off from the light of truth.

3. The consciousness of sin is often more useful to man than good deeds; the consciousness of sin makes man hiunble, while a good deed frequently puffs up his pride.

Baxter,

4. Many are the penalties of pride, but the principal and the hardest is the fact that in spite of all their merits and in spite of all their endeavors, people do not love those that are proud.

5. No sooner have I exulted over myself, saying how good am I, lo! I am in the ditch.

6. If a man is proud he holds himself aloof from others and thus deprives himself of the greatest pleasure in life, a free and joyful association with all people.

7. A proud man fears all criticism. And his fear is due to the fact that his grandeur is unstable, because it holds only until a tiny hole is pricked in his bubble.

8. Pride would be intelligible if it pleased people and attracted them. But there is no more repulsive characteristic than pride. And yet people continue to cultivate pride.

9. Self-assurance at first puzzles people. And for a time they ascribe to a self-assured man the importance which he attributes to himself. But they do not stay puzzled for any length of time. They are soon disenchanted, and repay with scorn for their disappointing experience.

10. Man knows that he lives an evil life, but instead of changing it for the better, he endeavors to convince himself that he is not the same kind of a man as other people, but is something superior to all others, and for this reason he must live exactly as he is living. Thus it comes that if men live an evil life they are apt to be proud as well.

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V.

Combating the Error of Pride

1. There would be much less evil in the world but for pride. How can we deliver ourselves from this cause of evil ? To deliver ourselves from this evil we have but one method—for each to labor with his own self. The errors of pride will be destroyed only when we destroy within ourselves this deep root of evil. While it lives in our heart, how can we hope that it will die in the hearts of others? Therefore one thing which we can do for our own happiness and that of others is to destroy in our hearts this source of evil from which the world suffers. No improvement is possible until each one of us commences to improve himself.

Lamenais.

2. It is very difficult to destroy human pride; you have hardly patched up one hole when you find it peering out of another, and when you close that, it comes out of a fresh one, and so on. Lichtenbcrg.

3. The sin of pride may be destroyed only by the recognition of the oneness of the spirit that dwells in all men. Having realized this, a man can no longer count either himself or his family or even his nation as better and higher than all others.

4. It is only then easy to live with a man when you neither regard him as better or higher than yourself nor yourself as better or higher than he.

5. The main purpose of life is to improve your soul. But the proud man always considers himself perfectly good. This is what makes pride so harmful. It hinders man from attending to the principal purpose of life, namely making ourself better.

6. Living for the soul is different from the worldly life in that he who lives for the soul cannot be satisfied with himself no matter how much good he accomplishes; he believes that he has only done his duty, and that far from completely, and therefore can only criticise himself, but by no means be proud or be self-satisfied.

7. "But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant; for whosoever shall exalt himself, shall be abashed and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."

Matthew, xxiii, 11-12.

He who exalts himself in the opinion of men will be abased, because he that is accounted good, wise and kind, will not strive to be better, wiser and kindlier.

But he who humbles himself shall be exalted, because he who accounts himself bad, will strive to be better, kindlier, more reasonable.

Proud people are as pedestrians walking on stilts instead of walking on foot. They are higher and the mud does not reach up to them and they take larger steps, but the trouble is that you cannot go very far on stilts and the chances are you will fall into mud and people will laugh at you.

Even so it is with proud people. They are left behind by people who use no stilts to make themselves artificially taller, and they frequently fall into the mire and become an object of pppular ridicule.

INEQUALITY

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INEQUALITY

The basis of human life is the spirit of God that dwells in man, which is one and the same in all people. Therefore men can not be otherwise than all equal among themselves.

I.

The Substance of the Error of Inequality

1. In olden times people believed that men were bora of various races, black and white, having descended from Ham and Japhet, and that some were meant to be masters and others to be slaves. People acknowledge this division of the human race into masters and slaves because they believed that this division was instituted by God. This crude and ruinous superstition still persists though in another form.

2. We need only glance at the life of Christian nations divided into people who pass their lives in stupefying, murderous, unnecessary toil, and others who are steeped in idleness and all sorts of pleasures, to be amazed at the degree of inequality attained by the people professing the Christian faith, and particularly at the deceitful preaching of equality, while we maintain an order of life which is striking in its cruel and manifest inequality.

3. One of the oldest and most profound of all faiths is the faith of the Hindus. The reason that it has never become universal faith and has failed to yield such fruit in the life of men as it should have yielded, is due to the fact that its teachers acknowledged men to be unequal and divided them into castes. People acknowledging themselves unequal cannot have a true religion..

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4. One can understand people considering themselves unequal because one has a stronger body than another or is more alert, or knows more, or is kindlier than another. But these are not the usual reasons why some men are accounted higher than others. They are accounted unequal because one is named a count and another a peasant, because one wears expensive clothes and the other sandals.

5. Men of our time realize already that the inequality of people is a superstition and in their hearts they condemn it. But those who profit by this inequality cannot make up their minds to give it up, while those who suffer by it do not know how to destroy it.

6. Men have fallen into the habit of dividing people in their minds into distinguished and obscure, noble and common, educated and uneducated, and they have pown so accustomed to this division that they really believe that some people are superior to others, that some people are to be more esteemed than others because they are classed by people in one group, while other people are classed in another group.

7. The mere custom among rich men of addressing some people with familiarity and others with respect, of saluting some with a handshake and withholding their hand from others, of inviting some into their reception room and receiving others in the anteroom, shows how far they are from a recognition of the equality of all people.

8. But for the superstition of inequality men could never commit all those misdeeds which they have been in the habit of committing and still unceasingly commit simply because they will not admit all men to be equal.

II. Excuses for Inequali^

1. Nothing lends such a degree of assurance in the commission of evil acts as association, that is the combining of a few people who have separated themselves from the rest into a social group.

2. The blame for the inequality of people rests not so much on those who aggrandize themselves as upon those who admit their own inferiority before men who aggrandize themselves.

3. We marve! at the remoteness of what is now termed Christianity from the preaching of Jesus, and at the remoteness of our life from Christianity, Could it be otherwise with a doctrine teaching people true equality, teaching that all men are the sons of God, that all men are brethren, that the life of al! is equally sacred,—teaching this in the midst of people who believe that God divides men into masters and slaves, believers and unbelievers, rich and poor. Men accepting the teaching of Christ under these conditions could do only one of two things: either change their entire order of life completely, or corrupt the doctrine. They have chosen the latter.

III. All Men are Brethren

1. It is foolish for one man to count himself better than others; it is still more foolish for a whole nation to count itself better than others. Yet every nation, the majority of people in every nation, lives in this dreadful, absurd and harmful superstition.

2. A Jew, a Greek, a Roman might well defend the independence of his own nation by killing, and seek by

killing also to subjugate other nations, firmly convinced, as each of them was, that his was the one true, good, God-loved nation, while the others were Philistines or barbarians. The people in the Middle Ages could hold similar beliefs, or even recently, at the end of the last century. But we can no longer believe it.

3. The man who understands the meaning and the purpose of life can not but feel his equality and brotherhood with men not only of his own, but of all nations.

4. Every man, before he is an Austrian, a Serb, a Turk or a Chinaman, is a man, that is a rational loving being, whose calling is to fulfill his purpose as man in the short span of time allotted to him in this World. And this purpose is one and г very definite one; to love all people.

5. A child meets another child, irrespective of class, faith and nationality, with the same friendly smile expressive of gladness. But an adult, who ought to be more sensible than a child, before meeting a man wonders to what class, faith or nationality he belongs, and adjusts his attitude towards him in accordance with his class, faith or nationality. No wonder Christ said: "be ye even as little children."

6. Christ revealed to people that the division between your own and foreign nations is a delusion and an evil. And realizing this a Christian cannot harbor feelings of ill will towards foreign nations, nor can he as formerly, excuse cruel acts against foreign nations with the plea tli^t other nations are worse than his. The Christian can not help knowing that this distinction between his and other nations is an evil, that this distinction is an error, and therefore he can no longer, as formerly, consciously serve this error.

The Christian can not but know that his happiness

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is interwoven not only with the happiness of his own nation, but with that of all the people in the world. He knows that his union with all the people in the world cannot be interrupted by frontier lines or proclamations about belonging to this or that nation. He knows that all people everywhere are brothers and therefore equal.

IV.

All Men are Equal

1. Equality is the recognition that all the people in the world have the equal right to enjoy all the natural blessings of the world, equal right to the blessings proceeding from social life, and equal right to the respect of their human personality.

2. The law of the equality of men embraces all moral laws; it is the point which no laws can reach, but which all of them strive to approach. E. Carpenter,

3. The real "I" of a man is spiritual. And this *T' is the same in all. How then can men be unequal ?

4. "Then came to him his Mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press.

And it was told him by certain, which said. Thy Mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee.

And he answered and said unto them, My Mother and my brethren are these which hear the world of God and do it." The words of Jesus mean that a rational man, realizing his calling, can not make distinctions between people nor recognize the superiority of any set of people to other people.

5. The sons of Zebedee sought to be as wise as Jesus Christ. He said to them: Why do you need this? You can live and be born again of the Spirit even as I; there-

fore if you seek to be as I am, you do so to become greater than others. But according to my teaching there are no great or small, no important or unimportant. Rulers who have dominion over people, require to be greater and more important than other people, but you have no need of this, because according to my teaching it is better for man to be less than others, rather than greater than others. According to my teaching he who is least is the greatest. According to my teaching, you must be the servant of all.

6. No one as well as the children carries out in life the true idea of equality. And how criminally wicked are their elders when they violate this sacred feeling of childhood, teaching them that there are on the one hand prominent men, wealthy men and celebrities who must be treated with deference, and on the other, servants, laborers and beggars who must be treated patronizingly. "He who shall offend one of these little ones. ..."

7. We are occasionally dissatisfied with life because we do not seek blessings there where they are granted us.

Therein is the cause of all errors. We have been granted the peerless gift of life with all its joys. And we say: the joys are too few. We are given the supreme joy of life—association with the people of the whole world, and we say: I want a peculiar blessing all to myself, to my family, to my nation.

8. Be a man of our day ever so well educated or learned, or be he a common laborer, be he a philosopher, a scientist, or be he an ignoramus, and be he rich or poor—every man in this present age knows that all people have an equal right to life and to the blessings of the world, that one set of people is no worse and no better than another, that all men are equal. Yet every man lives as though he did not know this.

So powerful is the delusion of the inequality of men which still persists in the world.

V. Why are АП Men Equal?

1. No matter what the people are, no matter what their fathers and grandfathers were, they are al! alike as two drops of water, because in them all dwells the spirit of God.

2. Only he who does not know that G6d dwells in him can count some men more important than others.

3. When a man loves some people above others, he loves with a human love. Before the love of God all men are equal.

4. The identical feeling of adoration which we experience at the sight of a human creature either newly born or passed into the Beyond, irrespective of the class to which it belongs, demonstrates to us our innate consciousness of the equality of men.

5. "Be careful in attempting to strike at the devil in man, lest you hit God within him." This means that while we criticize a man we must not forget that the spirit of God dwells within him.

6. To count all men equal to yourself does not mean that you are as strong, as skillful, as alert, as wise, as well educated, as good as others, but it means that there dwells in you something which is more important than anything else, and that this same thing dwells also in all other people, and it is the spirit of God.

7. To say that men are unequal is like saying that the fire in a stove, in a conflagration or in a candle is not the same fire. la every man dwells the spirit of God.

How can we make a distinction between those who carry in them the same spirit of God?

One fire is blazing, another is just beginning to glow, but it is the same fire, and we must handle all fires alike.

VI.

The Recognition of the Equality of All Men is Practicable» and Humanity Gradually Approaches

this Goal

1. People labor to establish equality of all men before their laws, but ignore the equality which is established by the eternal law and which is violated by human laws.

2. Should we not strive towards such an order of life where elevation by the way of a social ladder would not fascinate people, but terrify them, because each elevation deprives man of one of life's greatest blessings—equal attitude towards all people. Ruskin,

3. Some say that equality is impossible. We must, however, assert that on the contrary it is inequality which is impossible among Christians.

We cannot make a tall man equal to a short one, a strong man to a weakling, a quick witted man to a dullard, an ardent man to one who is cold, but we can and must equally esteem and love the small and the great, the strong and the weak, the wise and the foolish.

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4. It is said that some men will always be stronger, others weaker, some wiser, others more foolish. For this very reason that some are stronger and wiser than others, says Lichtenberg, do we particularly need equal rights for all people. If in addition to inequalities of mind and strength there existed also inequalities of rights, the oppres-

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sion of the weak by the powerful would be still more rampant.

5. Do not believe it if you are told that equality is impossible, unless in some remote future period.

Learn of the children. Equality is now possible with all men. In your own life you can introduce equality among all men with whom you come in contact.

Only withhold undue reverence from those who count themselves great and mighty, and show in particular the same measure of respect to those who are considered unimportant and inferior as you do to other people.

VII.

He Who Lives the Life of the Spirit Counts

All Men Equal

1. Only those who live the life that is merely of the body can consider some men superior, others inferior and all unequal one to another. If a man lives the life of the spirit, inequality cannot exist for him.

2. Christ revealed to men, what they always had known, that men are equal among themselves, equal because the same spirit dwells in them. But since the earliest times men have divided themselves into classes—on the one hand men of position and wealth and on the other the toilers and the poor. And although they know that they are all equal, they live as though they did not know it, and assert that all men can not be equal. Do not believe it. Go learn of the little ones.

The infant esteems the most important man in the land the same as an ordinary person. Do thou likewise. Meet all people with love and kindliness, but all equally. If men exalt themselves, do not esteem them more highly

than others. If others are humbled by men try to respect these humbled ones particularly as equal to all other men. Remember that in them all equally dwells the spirit of God, than which we know nothing higher.

3. Love to a Christian is a sentiment which craves blessings for all men. But with many people the word "love" signifies a feeling entirely contrary to this.

In the minds of many people who acknowledge life in the animal personality only, love is that feeling by virtue of which a mother for the good of her own child, hires a wet nurse and deprives another child of its mother's milk; the same feeling, by virtue of which a father robs starving people of the last piece of bread, in order to satisfy his own children; that feeling by virtue of which he who loves a woman suffers from that love and compels her likewise to suffer, and then entices her into sin or ruins both her and himself out of jealousy; the same feeling, by virtue of which men associated in one group do injury to people foreign or hostile to that group; that feeling by virtue of which a man toils painfully at some business he pretends to "love" and by it causes woe and suffering to the people around; that feeling by virtue of which men resent an insult to the land wherein they live and cover blood-reeking battlefields with the bodies of slain and maimed men, both of their own and of hostile allegiance.

These feelings are not love, because the men harboring them do not acknowledge all men as equals. And without acknowledging all men as equals there can be no true love towards people.

4. It is impossible to harmonize inequality with love. Love is only then love when like the rays of the sun it falls equally upon all within the reach of its radiance.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

2fy)

But when it falls upon some and excludes others, it is no longer love but merely something that resembles it.

5. It is difficult to love all people alike, but just because it is different it need not deter us from striving after it. All that is good is difficult.

6. The less equal are men according to their qualities, the more we must strive to treat them equally.

7. In you, in me and in everyone dwells the God of life. You are wrong to be angry with me, to resent my advances; know that we are all equal. Mahmud Hasha,

FORCE

One of the main causes of human misery is the erroneous idea that some men may by force order or improve the life of others.

Coercing Others

1. The delusion that scene men may by force order the hfe of other men who are like them is not due to some one having specially invented it, but to men, who yielding themselves up to their passions, first began to coerce people and then endeavored to invent some excuse for their violence.

2. Men see that there is something wrong with their life and endeavor in some way to improve it. But there is only one thing that is in their power which they may improve, namely, their own self. But to improve oneself, one must first admit that one lacks goodness, and this is annoying. And they turn all their attention away from that which is always in their power—self, to those external conditions that are not in their power, and a change in which has as little chance to improve the state of man, as shaking the wine and pouring it into another vessel can improve the quality of the wine. Thus originates that activity which is futile, to start with, and moreover, harmful, conceited (think of correcting others), malicious (people hindering the common good may be murdered) and finally vicious.

3. Some mean by the use of force to compel others to live a good life. And they are the first to set an evil example in the use of violence. Living in filth themselves, instead of endeavoring to emerge from it, they instruct others how not to he soiled.

4. The delusion of bringing about order among people by use of force is injurious because it passes from genera-

tion to generation. People who have been raised under the order of violence, do not ask themselves whether it is necessary or proper to coerce others, hut are firmly convinced that people cannot live without the use of force.

5. To order the life of other people is easy for the reason that if you fail to order it aright, others, and not yourself, will be the sufferers.

6. Some think that one can order the life of others only by force, yet force brings no order into human life, but only disorder.

7. Only he who does not believe in God can believe that men, who are of his own kind, may order his life so as to make it better.

8. The delusion that man can order the life of others is all the more dreadful because under this belief the less moral a man is the more highly he is esteemed.

9. The existing order is sustained not by force, but by public opinion. Force violates public opinion. Therefore, force weakens and undermines that which it would sustain.

10. When men say that all should live in peace, that no one should be injured, yet use force to compel people to live according to their will, it is as though they said: do as we say, but not as we do. Such men may be feared, but they cannot be trusted.

11. As long as men are unable to withstand the temptations of fear, intoxication, covetousness, ambition and vanity, which enslaves some and deprave others, they will always form a society of deceivers and users of force on the one hand, and of victims of deceit and force on the other. To avoid this, moral effort is required on the part of every man. Men realize this in the depth of their own hearts, but they seek to attain without a moral effort that which can be attained only through a moral effort.

To determine by you own effort your attitude to the world, and to maintain it, to establish your attitude to man on the basis of the eternal principle of doing unto others as you would that others do unto you, to subjugate those evil passions within that enslave us to other people, to be no man's master, no man's slave, not to pretend, not to lie, not to recede for fear of favor from the demands of the highest law of your conscience—all this requires effort. But if you imagine that the establishment of some kind of order will in some mysterious manner lead all men, including myself, to attain justice and all sorts of virtues, and, if in order to attain them, you repeat—without mental effort—what the men of some one party choose to say, if you hustle, argue, lie, dissemble, quarrel, fight—^all these things come of their own accord and require no effort. And now comes the doctrine of bettering our social life by means of a change of external orders. According to this doctrine men can attain without effort the fruits of effort. This doctrine has been and is responsible for terrible misery and more than anything else holds back the true progress of mankind towards perfection.

The Use of Force in Combating Evil is Inadmissible, Because the Conception of Evil Varies with

Different People

1. It would seem to be clear beyond a doubt that since every one has a different conception of evil, to fight what various people consider evil with another evil, would serve to increase evil rather than to diminish it. If John considers that which is done by Peter as evil, and he thinks it right to do evil to Peter, Peter may with the same right do evil to John, and thus evil can be only increased.

It is marvelous that m«n should understand the relations between stars and fail to understand this simple truth. Why is it so ? Because men believe in the beneficial effect of force.

2. If I may by the use of force compel one man to do that which I believe to be good, even so can another man by force compel me to do that which he thinks is good, although our ideas of what is good may be entirely contrary to one another.

3. The doctrine that man may not and must not use force for the sake of that which he considers good, is fair if alone for the reastm that the ideas of good and evil differ with all men. That which one man considers evil may be an imaginary evil (some people may consider it good); but the force used for the sake of destroying this evil—chastisement, maiming, deprivation of liberty, death, is an evil beyond any doubt.

4. The question how to settle the constantly current disputes of people аз to what constitutes good and evil is answered by the teaching of Christ: since man cannot indisputably establish what is evil, he must not by the use of force, which is an evil, overcome that which he believes to be evil.

5. The principal harm of the fallacy of ordering the lives of others by the use of force lies in the fact that the moment you admit the propriety of using force upon one man for the bendit of many there are no limits to the evil that may be wrought for the sake of the same proposition. Upon this very principle were based the torture, inquisition, and slavery of olden times, and are now based the present day wars from which millions are perisbJi^.

III.

The Inefficiency of Force

1. To compel people by force to refrain from doing evil is like damming a river and feeling pleased with the shallow place below the dam. In due course the river will overflow the dam and will run as of yore, and evil doers will not cease from evil, but merely await their opportunity.

2. He who forces us deprives us of our rights and we hate him. We love those who know how to persuade us and count them our benefactors. It is not the wise man, but the brutal and unenlightened man who takes recourse to force. In order to use force, many accessories are required. To persuade, we need none. He who feels enough power within himself to dominate minds needs not take recourse to force. Only those take recourse to force who feel their impotence to persuade people of their necessity.

Socrates,

3. To compel people by force to that which seems to me good is the best means to create in them a repugnance against that which seems to me good.

4. Every man knows in his heart how hard it is so to change one's life as to become such as one would be. But in the case of others it seems to us as though all we have to do is to command and to terrify, and others will become such as we would have them be.

5. Force is the instrument by which ignorance compels its followers to do things against the inclination of their nature; and like the attempt to force water above its level, the moment the instrument ceases to act, its effects cease as well. There are only two ways of directing human activities : one is to gain the inclination and to convince the reasoning, and the other to compel a man to act against his inclina-

tions and against his reasoning. The first method is proved by experience and is always crowned by success, and the other is employed by ignorance and always results in disappointment. When a baby is crying for its rattle, it means to get it by force. When the parents spank their children it is to force them to be good. When a drunken husband beats his wife, his idea is to correct her by force. When people punish others, it is to make the world better by the employment of force. When one man goes to law with another, it is done to obtain justice by the use of force. When the preacher speaks of the terror of the tortures of hell, his purpose is to attain the desired condition of soul by force. And it is a marvel that ignorance should persist in guiding mankind on the same path of violence which is bound to lead to disappointment. Combes.

6. Every man knows that all force is evil, and yet, to prevent people from using force, we cannot invent anything better, while demanding the highest respect for ourselves, than to adopt the most terrible forms of violence.

7. The fact that it is possible to make men amenable to justice by the use of force, does not yet prove that it is just to subject people to force. Pascal.

IV. The Delusion of an Order of Life Based on Force

1. How strange is the delusion that men may force others to do that which they consider good for them, and not that which these latter consider good for themselves, and yet all the misfortunes of life are based upon this delusion. One set of people compels the others to pretend that they enjoy doing the things prescribed for them, and threatens them with all sorts of violence should they discontinue this pre-

tense, and they are thoroughly convinced that they are doing something useful and worthy of praise by all men, even by those whom they force to do their will.

2. So many victims have been sacrificed upon the altar of the god of force that twenty planets as lai^e as the earth might be peopled with these victims, and has the most insignificant part of the purpose been ever attained thereby?

Nothing has been attained, excepting that the condition of the people has steadily grown worse. And still force remains the deity of the mob. Before its blood-reeking altar mankind seems to have resolved to kneel to the sound of the drum, to the cannonading of guns and the moaning of bleeding humanity. ^. Baltou.

3. "Self preservation is the first law of nature"— maintain the opponents of the law of non-resistance.

"Agreed, what do you infer from it?" I inquire.

"I infer that self defense against everything which threatens with destruction becomes a law of nature. And from this must be deduced that struggle, and as the result of every stru^le, the ruin of the weakest, is a law of nature, and this law beyond doubt justifies war, violence and retribution; so that the direct deduction from and the consequence of the law of self preservation is that self-defense is lawful, and therefore the doctrine of non-employment of force is erroneous, being contrary to natui^ and inapplicable to the conditions of life upon earth."

I agree that self preservation is the first law of nature, and that it leads to self-defense. I admit that following the example of the lower fonns of life human beings fight with one another, injure and even slay one another under the pretence of self-defense and retribution. But I see therein only that human beir.gs, the majority of them unfortunately.

in spite of the fact that the law of their higher human nature is open to them, still continue to live according to the law of animal nature and thus deprive themselves of the most effective means of self-defense which they could use if they only chose to follow the human law of love, instead of the animal law of force,—namely, returning good for evil. A. Balhu.

4. It is clear that violence and murder arouse the wrath of a man, and his first impulse is naturally to oppose violence and murder to violence and murder. Such actions, although akin to animal nature and unreasonable, are not absurd or self-contradictory. It is different, however, with attempts to find excuses for these actions. The moment those who have the ordering of our lives attempt to justify these actions by basing them upon reason, they are compelled to build up a series of cunning and involved fictions in order to hide the senselessness of such attempts.

The principal example of such an excuse is that of an imaginary robber who tortures and slays innocent persons in your presence.

"You mig^t sacrifice your own self for the sake of your belief in the unlawfulness of force, but here you sacrifice the life of another"—so say the defenders of force.

But, in the first instance, such a robber is an exceptional circumstance. Many people may live to be a hundred years old without meeting a robber engaged in slaying innocent people before their very eyes. Why should I base my rule of life on such a fiction? Discussing real life and not fictions, we see something entirely different. We see that other people, and we ourselves, commit the most cruel deeds, not singly like the imaginary robber, but always in league with others, and not because we are criminals, like the rob-

ber, but because we are subject to the superstition of the lawfulness of force. Then again we see that the most creel actions do not proceed from the imaginary robber, but from people who base their rule of life on the supposition of the said robber. A man considering the problems of life cannot help seeing that the cause of evil among men is not in this imaginary robber, but in the human errors, one of the most crael of which is that we may do actual evil in the name of imaginary evil. A man who realizes this and addresses himself to the cause of evil, to the task of eradicating error in himself and in others, will see unfolding before his eyes so vast and fruitful a field that he will never comprehend why he should need the fiction o£ the imaginary robber for his activities.

Ruinous Effects of the Superstition of Force

1. That evil which men think to ward off with force is incomparably less than the harm they do to themselves when defending themselves by force.

2. Not Christ alone, but all the sages of the world. Brahmins, Buddhists, Greeks, taught that rational men should not repay evil with evil, but with good. But men who live by force say that this cannot be done, that this would make life worse instead of better. And they are right, as far as they are concerned, but not as far as those who suffer from force are concerned. In the worldly sense it would be worse for the former, but it would be better for all.

3. The entire teaching of Christ is to love others. To love others means to treat them as you would that others treat you. Since no one wishes to be forcibly dealt with, then treating others as you would be treated by them, you

can under no circumstances use force upon them. To say then, as confessing and practicing the teachings of Qirist, that we Christians may use force on people is like inserting a key into the lock above its proper turning place and claiming that you use the key in accordance with its purpose. Without admitting that under no circumstances man may use force on others, all the teachings of Christ are empty words.

With this conception of his teachings, you can torture, rob, slay millions ill wars, as is now being done by people calling themselves Christians, but you cannot say that you are a Christian.

4. It is hard to follow the doctrine of non-resistance, but is it easy to follow the teaching of struggle and retribution.

To answer this question open the pages of the history of any nation, and read the description of any one of a hundred thousand battles which men have fought in the name of the law of combat. Several thousand million men have been killed in these battles, so that more lives have been lost, more pain has been suffered in any one of these battles than might have been lost in the aggregate in ages of non-resistance to evil. ^ Ballou.

5. The employment of force arouses the resentment of people, and he who uses force for self-defence, not only fails, as a rule, to protect himself, but even exposes himself to greater dangers, so that to use force for self-protection is unreasonable and ineffective.

6. Each act of force merely irritates man, instead of subjugating him. So that it is clear that you cannot correct people by force.

7. If it were asked how man could strip himself en-

tirely of moral responsibility and commit the most evil deeds without a feeling of guilt, a more effective means could not be devised than the superstition that force can promote the well-being of people,

8. The error that some men may by force order the life of others is particularly harmful because men falling into this delusion cease to distinguish good from evil.

9. Force creates only a semblance of justice, but removes man from the possibility of living justly, without violence.

10. Why is Christianity so degraded? Why has morality fallen so low? There is but one cause: belief in the rule of force.

11. We fail to see all of the wickedness of force, because we submit to it.

Force, by its very nature, inevitably leads to murder.

If one man says to another: "Do this, and if you refuse, I will force you to do my will," it can only mean that if you fail to do exactly as I say, I shall in the end kill you.

12. Nothing so delays the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, as the determination of people to establish it by means of deeds contrary to its spirit: namely, by force.

VI.

Only Through Non-Resistance to Evil Will Hiunanity Be Led to Substitute the Law of Love for

the Law of Force

1. The meaning of the words: "You have heard it said. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you: do not resist evil. And if a man strike. . . . /' is perfectly clear and requires no explanation or interpretation. You cannot understand it otherwise but that Christ

rejected the former law of force: eye for eye, tooth ior tooth, and thereby rejected the entire world order based on that law, that he substituted a new law of love of all people without distinction, instituting thereby a new order of the world, based not upon force, but upon the law of love for all men without distinction. And some men having grasped the true significance of this teaching, foreseeing that an application of this teaching of life would destroy all the benefits and advantages enjoyed by them, crucified Christ, and still are crucifying His disciples. Other men, however, likewise having grasped the true meaning of His teaching, were content in times past and are content to this day to mount the Cross, thereby hastening the time when the world will be ruled by the law of love,

2. The teaching of not opposing force to evil is not some new law, but merely points people to an unjustifiable transgression of the law of love, merely demonstrates to people that the admission of any act of violence against one's neighbor, either for the purpose of retribution, or to save oneself or one's neighbor from evil is incompatible with love.

3. Nothing so hinders the improvement in the life of people as the desire to improve it by acts of force. And force used by one set of men upon others more than anything else turns the people from the one thing that could improve their life, namely, the desire to become better.

4. Only those men who find it profitable to order the life of others can believe that force can improve the life of others. But people who have fallen into this delusion ought to see clearly that human life can change for the better only as the result of an inner spiritual change, and never as the result of force employed upon them by others.

5. The less a man is satisfied with himself or with his

inner life, the more he manifests himself in the external, in the public life.

In order not to fall into tliis error, man should understand and remember that he has as little call or right to order the life of others, as others have to order his, and that he and all people are called only to strive after their inner perfection, all men have the right to this one thing and qnly by this alone can they influence the life of others.

6. Frequently men lead an evil life merely because they attend to ordering the life of others instead of their own. They seem to think that their life is only an individual one, and therefore, less important than the life of many, of all. But they forget that while they Have the power of ordering their own life, they cannot order the life of others.

7. If the time and energy spent by people now upon ordering the life of others were spent upon combating their own sins, that which they strive for, namely, the attainment of the best possible order of life, would come about very speedily.

8. Man has power only over himself. He can order only his own life as he finds good and proper. And yet almost everybody is busy ordering the life of others, and because of that very anxiety to order the life of others, they in turn submit to lite as ordered for them by others.

9. Ordering the common life of men by means of acts supported by force, without regard to their inner perfecting, is like reconstructing a fallen building with rough hewn stones and without the use of cement. No matter how you pile them up, you achieve nothing, and the structure must fall.

10. When Socrates, the philosopher, was asked where he was born, he replied: "On earth." When he was asked what country he came from, he replied: "The Universe."

We must remember that before God we are all the residents of one and the same earth, and that we are all under the supreme law of God.

The law of God is always the same for all people.

11. No man can be either an instrument or a purpose. Therein is his worth. And as he cannot dispose of himself at any price (which would be against his dignity), neither has he the right to dispose of the life of others; in other words, he is bound to acknowledge the dignity of the human calling in every man, and therefore must express his respect to every man. Kant,

12. For what have men reason, if you cannot influence them, excepting by the use of force ?

13. Men are rational beings, and therefore can live by the guidance of reason and eventually are bound to substitute free agreement for the use of force. But each act of force postpones this time.

14. How strange. Man is embittered by evil proceeding from without, from others, evil which he cannot prevent, yet does not fight against the evil within himself, although this is subject to his power. Marcus Aurelius.

15. Men can be taught by the exposition of truth and by good example, but not by being forced to do that which they do not wish to do.

16. If men only sought to save themselves, instead of saving the world; to free themselves instead of freeing humanity; how much could they accomplish for the salvation of the world and for the freedom of humanity.

Hert2en.

17. By fulfilling his inner purpose and by living for his soul, man unconsciously and most effectively works for the betterment of public life.

18. In their youth men believe that it is the calling of mankind to strive constantly after perfection, and that it is possible, even easy, to correct all mankind, to destroy all vices and misery. These dreams are not ridiculous, on the contrary, they contain more truth than the ideas of old men, who are steeped in error, when these men, after living a life contrary to man's nature, undertake to advise others to wish for nothing, to strive for nothing, and to live like animals.

The mistake of these youthful dreams is only in the proneness at youth to relegate the striving after perfection of self and soul to others.

Attend to your business in life, perfecting and improving your soul, and be convinced that only thus will you most fruitfully assist the improvement in the common life.

19. If you see that the social order is evil, and you desire to correct it, remember that there is only one way: that is for all people to become better; but to make all people better you have only one means: become better yourself,

20. In every case where force is used, apply reasonable suasion, and you will seldom suffer loss in the worldly sense, and will be far ahead spiritually.

21. Our life would be beautiful if we only could see that which violates our happiness. But our happiness is mostly violated by the superstition that force can give happiness.

22. The security and the happiness of the society is assured only by the morality of its members. But morality has for its foundation love, which excludes force.

23. The imminent change of the order of life tor the people living in our Christian world consists in the substitution of the law of love for that of force, and in the rwogni-

tion of the fact that the blessedness of life based not upon force and the fear of it, but upon love, is possible and can be easily attained, and such change can never come by force. 24. One can live according to Christ, and one can live according to 'Satan. Living according to Christ is living like human beings, loving people, doing good and repaying good for evil. Living according to Satan is living like beasts, loving self alone, and repaying evil with evil. The more we try to live according to Christ, the more love and happiness will reign among men. The more we live according to Satan, the more miserable will be our life.

The commandment of love shows two paths: on the one hand, the path of truth, the path of Christ, which is the path of life and good,—and on the other, the path of delusion, the path of hypocrisy, the path of death; and though it may appear terrible to relinquish the use of force in self-defence, we know that in this yielding is the way of salvation.

To relinquish the use of force does not mean to give up the custody of your life, of your labors and those of your neighbors, but merely to guard them in a way not contrary to reason and love. Guard the life and the labors of self and of others by endeavoring to awaken sentiments of kindliness in the attacking wretch. To be able to do this, man must be good and reasonable himself. If I see, for instance, that one man intends to kill another, the best thing that I can do is to place myself in the place of him who is threatened, to protect him, to shield him with my person, and if possible, to rescue him, drag him away to safety to conceal him, just as though rescuing a man from the flames of a conflagration or from drowning; either perish yourself or rescue him. And if I cannot do so because I am myself

an erring sinner, it does not mean that I should be a beast and while doing evil, seek excuses for my course of action.

Russian Sectarian Wisdom.

VII.

The Corruption of Christ's Commandment Regarding Non-Resistance to Evil by the Use of Force

1. The foundation of law and order among the heathens was retribution and force. It could not have been anything else. The foundation of our society it seems should inevitably be love and denial of force. And yet force still reigns. Why? Because that which is preached as the doctrine of Christ is not His doctrine.

2. It is remarkable that men who do not understand the teachings of Christ particularly resent the mention of non-resistance to evil by force. This mention displeases them because it disturbs their accustomed order of life. And therefore, people who do not care to change their accustomed order of life take exception to this basic condition of love, terming it a special commandment, independent of the law of love, and either amend it in divers ways or simply deny it.

3. Shall we understand the words of Christ admonishing us to love those that hate us, our enemies, and forbidding force of any description, just as they were spoken and expressed, or as the teaching of meekness, humility and love, or as something still different? If as something different, it must be stated as what? But no one is willing to do so. What does it mean ? It means that all these people who call themselves Christians desire to conceal from themselves and from others the true meaning of the teachings of Christ, for if it were understood as it should be, it would upset the

order of their life. And this order of life is profitable to them.

4. Men who call themselves Christians simply do not recognize the commandment of non-resistance as binding, they teach that it is not binding, and that there are cases when it must be transgressed, and yet they dare not say that they deny this simple and clear commandment, which is inseparably bound up with the entire teaching of Christ, the doctrine of meekness, humility, the obedient bearing of the cross, self-denial and love of the enemy, a commandment without which the entire teaching of Christ becomes empty words.

To this, and to this alone, is due the remarkable fact that while such Christian teachers have been preaching Christianity for over 1900 years, the world still continues to lead a pagan life.

5. Every man of the world reading the gospel knows in his heart that this doctrine forbids to do evil to your neighbor under any pretext, whether for retribution, or for protection, or for the sake of saving another, so that if he wishes to remain a Christian, he must do one of the two things: either change his entire life which is built on force, that is, on the doing of evil to his neighbor, or somehow conceal from himself that which the teaching of Christ demands. And for this reason men easily accept false teachings which substitute their diverse inventions for the substance of Christianity.

6. Strange, is it not, that people accepting the doctrine of Christ should rage against the rule forbidding the use of force under all circumstances.

A man, accepting the principle that the meaning and the true activity of life are found in love, rages because a sure and indubitable way to that activity is pointed out to

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

231

him, as well as are those most dangerous errors which might draw him away from this path. As well might a navigator rage because mid shoals and submerged rocks a safe channel is pointed out to him for his course: "Why these restrictions?" "I might find it necessary to run aground." Just so speak the people who rage because under no circumstances is it right to use force and to repay evil with evil.

PUNISHMENT

PUNISHMENT

In the animal world evil calls for evtl, and the animal, unable to restrain the evil provoked in it, endeavors to repay evil with evil, not realizing that evil inevitably augments evil. But man, being endowed with reason, cannot help seeing that evil augments evil, and should therefore refrain from repaying evil with evil, but frequently man's animal nature gains the upper hand over his rational nature, and he uses the very reason that should restrain him from rendering evil for evil, in order to find an excuse for the evil committed by him, and calls this evil retributive punishment.

Punishment Never Achieves Its Object

1. Some say that evil may be rendered for evil in order to correct people. This is untrue. They deceive themselves. Men render evil for evil, not to correct others, but for vengeance's sake. Evil caimot be corrected by the commission of evil.

2. Russians use the word "to instruct" euphoniously in the sense of punishing. You can teach only by good words and a good example. Rendering evil for evil is not teaching, but corrupting.

3. The superstitious belief that evil may be destroyed through punishment is particularly harmful, because people doing evil in the name of this superstition, consider it not only permissible, but even beneficial.

4. Punishments and threats of punishments may restrain a man for a season from the commission of evil deeds, but cannot reform him.

fact that sinful men have usurped the prerogative of punishment. "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay."

6. One of the most lurid proofs that the name of "science" is a cover not only for the most trifling, but even for the most repulsive things, is found in the existence of a science of punishment, which is the most ignoble of all functions, fit only for the lowest stage of hiunan development— a child, or a savage.

II.

The Superstitious Belief in the Reasonableness

of Punishment

1. Just as there are superstitions regarding false gods, predictions, external methods of appeasing God and saving one's soul, there also exists a very common superstition among men, that some people can compel by the use of force other people to lead a good life. The superstitions of false gods, prophecies of mysterious means of saving the soul are beginning to be dissipated and are almost destroyed. But the superstitious order of things, permitting the punishment of the bad, in order to make others happy, is still adhered to by all, and the greatest crimes are committed in its name.

2. Only men altogether intoxicated with the lust of power can seriously believe that punishment can better the life of people. You have only to give up the superstition that punishment reforms people, in order to realize that a change in the life of a man can only be the result of an inner, spiritual change in the individual concerned, and never of the evil that some men commit upon others.

3. "And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

"They say unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

"Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned, but what sayest Thou?"

"This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not.

"So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said unto them: He that is without sin among you, let him 6rst cast a stone at her.

"And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

"And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning with his eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left atone, and tlie woman standing in the midst.

"When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman. He said unto her; Woman, where are those, thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?"

'She said. No man. Lord. And Jesus said unto her: Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more."

John, via, 3-16.

4. Men invent cunning arguments as to why and for what purpose they impose punishment. But in reality they always punish because they think it profitable for themselves.

5. Because of their own meanness, because of the desire to avenge an injury, because of a mistaken idea of self-protection, men commit evil, and then, for the sake of self-justification, they try to assure themselves and others that they only did so in order to correct him who had done evil,

6. The superstitious belief in the reasonableness of punishment finds much support in the fact that the fear of

punishment restrains people for a season from the commission of evil deeds. But forbidding under pain of penalty does not lessen, nay, it increases the craving for evil, just as a dam does not lessen, but increases the pressure of the river.

7. A semblance of order exists in the human society today not because there are penalties against the disturbance of the order, but because in spite of the injurious effect of these penalties, people pity and love one another.

8. It is impossible for one set of people to improve the life of the others. Each man can only make his own life better.

9. Punishment is injurious not only because it exasperates those who are punished, but also because it corrupts those who impose punishment.

III.

Retribution in Personal Relations of People

1. To punish a man because his deeds are evil is like heating a fire. Every man who has committed evil is already punished by being deprived of peace and by suffering pangs of conscience. And if his conscience does not trouble him, no punishment that may be imposed upon him will reform him. It will merely exasperate hinL

2. The real punishment for every evil deed is that which is suffered in the soul of the evil doer, and consists in the decrease of his capacity of enjoying the blessings of life.

3. A man has done wrong. And lo! another man, or set of men, can find nothing better to do than to commit another wrong which they call punishment.

4. When a baby slaps the floor against which it fell,

the action is futile, but intelligible, just as it is intelligible why a man might hop about after stubbing his toe. It is also intelligible when a man who has been struck in the first moment of attack strikes back at his assailant. But deliberately to do wrong to another, because he had done wrong previously, and to believe that it is the right thing to do, is to depart from reason entirely.

5. In some places they practice the following method of slaying bears: over a trough with honey a heavy weight is hung on a rope. The bear pushes the weight out of his way in order to get at the honey, but the weight rebounds and strikes him. The bear is angered and pushes the weight with more force, and it strikes back all the harder. And this is continued until the weight slays the bear. This is just what happens to people who render evil for evil. Cannot men have more reason than bears ?

6. Men are creatures endowed with reason, and therefore, should realize that vengeance cannot destroy evil, that deliverance from evil is only in that which is contrary to evil—^namely love, and not in punishment, whatever name may be given it. But people do not realize this, they believe in retribution.

7. If we only had not learned from childhood that we may render evil for evil, that we may force people to do what we would have them do, we should marvel at people deliberately corrupting others by training them to believe that punishment or any kind of force may be beneficial. We punish a child to teach it not to do wrong, and yet by the very act of punishing it, we inculcate in its mind the idea that punishment may be just and beneficial.

And yet hardly any of the evil traits for which we punish the child can be as harmful as the evil trait which we inculcate in its mind when punishing it. "I am being pun-

ished, therefore punishment must be good," so the child thinks, and at the first opporunity it will act accordingly.

IV.

Retribution in Social Relations

1. The doctrine of the propriety of punishment is not, nor has it ever been of any help in the education of children, nor is it of any help in the improvement of the social order or of the morality of all those who believe in retribution beyond the grave; on the contrary, it is, and has always been responsible for incalculable misery; it brutalizes the children, it weakens the bonds of the people in the community and corrupts the people by threats of a hell, robbing virtue of its main foundation.

2. The reason that men do not believe in rendering good for evil, instead of evil for evil, is that they had been taught from childhood that without this rendering evil for evil our entire social fabric would be disrupted.

3. If it is true that all good people desire the discontinuance of crimes, robberies, poverty and murders which darken the life of mankind, they must understand that that end cannot be attained by force and retribution. Everything brings forth after its own kind, and until we oppose the wrongs and assaults of evil doers with deeds of a contrary nature, we shall be doing just the same as they, and shall thus only arouse, encourage and develop in them that evil to eradicate which we claim to be so anxious. Otherwise, we shall only change the form of evil, but it will remain the same. Ballou.

4. Decades, centuries perhaps will pa'Ss, and our descendants will marvel at our punishments, just as we marvel now at the practice of burning at the stake and at tortures.

"How could they be so blind to the senselessness, cruelty and harm fulness of what they practised?" our descendants will inquire.

V.

Brotherly Love and Non-Resistance to Evil Must Be

Substituted for Retribution in the Personal

Relations Between Men

1. It is said in the New Testament that when a man strike thee upon thy right cheek, thou shalt turn to him the other also.

This is the law of God for the Christian. It does not matter who has used force, nor for what purpose, force is an evil, just as evil as the evil of murder, the evil of adultery. It does not matter who commits it, or for what purpose, whether one man or millions of men, all evil is evil, and before God all men are equal. The commandments of God are always obligatory upon all people. Therefore, the commandment of love must always be obeyed by all Christians— it is always better to suffer from force than to use force. It is better for the Christian, taking an extreme case, to be slain than to slay. If I am hurt by others, as a Christian I must reason like this: I also was in the habit of hurting people, and therefore it is good that God should send me a trial for my own good and for my redemption from sins. And if I am injured without any guilt on my part, it is all the better for me, for this has happened to all holy men, and if I act like them, I am going to be like them. It is impossible to save your soul with evil, it is impossible to attain good by the path of evil, just as it is impossible to return home by going away from home. Satan does not drive away Satan, evil is not conquered with evil, but evil is merely added to evil and g^ows stronger thereby. Evil is only conquered by righteousness and goodness. Only with ^od-

ness, with goodness, patience and long suffering can evil be extinguished. Russian Sectarian Teaching,

2. Know and remember that the desire for punishment is the desire for vengeance, and is not proper to a rational creature, such as man is. This desire is only natural to the animal in man. And therefore man must endeavor to deliver himself of this desire, and not to find excuses for it.

3. What must you do when a man is angry with you and would harm you? Many things can be done, but one thing surely you must not do: you must not do evil, that is, you must not do as the other man would do unto you.

4. Do not say that if people are good to you, you will be good to them also, and if men will oppress you, you will oppress them also. But if men do good unto you, do good unto them likewise, and if men oppress you, do not oppress them in turn. Mohammed.

5. The doctrine of love which admitting no violence, is important not only because it is good for man, for the soul of man, to suffer evil, and to render good for evil, but also because good alone can stop evil, can extinguish it, and keep it from going further. The true teaching of love finds its strength in that it extinguishes evil, not permitting it to blaze up.

6. Many years ago people began to appreciate the lack of harmony between punishment and the highest qualities of the human soul, and started to invent all sorts of theories whereby this low animal tendency might be justified. Some say that punishment is necessary as a deterrent, others that it is necessary for correction, still others that it is required so that justice might prevail, as though God could not establish justice in the world without man to impose punishments.

But all these theories arc empty phrases, because at their root are evil sentiments: revenge, fear, selflove, hatred. Many theories are being invented, but no one decides to do the one thing needful, namely, to do nothing at all, leaving him who has sinned to repent or not to repent, to reform or not to reform, while they who invent all these theories, and who apply them in practice, might leave the others alone and merely see that they themselves lead a righteous life.

7. Render good for evil, and you destroy in the evildoer all the pleasure he sees in evil.

8. If you think that someone is guilty before you, forget it and forgive. And you will learn the happiness of forgiving.

9. Nothing rejoices people as much as to have their evil deeds forgiven, and to be paid good for evil, nor is anything as blessed to him who does so.

10. Goodness overcomes all things, but is itself invincible.

11. You can withstand all things but goodness.

Rousseau.

12. Render good for evil, forgive all men. Only then will evil pass from this world, when every man obeys this injunction. Know that this is the one thing to be desired, the one thing to strive for, for it is the one thing that will deliver us from the evils from which we suffer.

13. He has the highest honor before God who forgives those that injure him, for their offences, particularly when they are in his power. Mohammed,

14. Then came Peter to Him, and said. Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him, till seven times?

Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven.

Matthew, xviii, 21,22.

To forgive, means not to do vengeance, not to render evil for evil, it means to love. If man believe this, then the thing is not what the brother has done, but what you ought to do. If you would correct your neighbor in his error, tell him meekly that he has done wrong. If he fail to hear you, do not blame him, but blame yourself for not knowing how to tell him suitably.

To ask how often we may forgive a brother, is like asking a man who knows that to drink wine is wrong, and has resolved not to drink any more wine, how often he ought to reject wine when it is offered him. Once I have resolved not to drink, I shall not drink, no matter how often wine is offered to me. The same is true of forgiveness.

15. To forgive is not merely to say "I forgive," but to take out of your heart all malice, all unkindly feeling towards him who has injured you. And in order to be able to do this, remember your own sins, for if you do, you are bound to remember worse deeds of your own than those that have evoked your anger.

16. The doctrine of non-resistance to evil by the use of force is not some new law, but merely points out the transgression of the law of love which people wrongfully sanction, it merely points out that the sanction of the use of force against your neighbor, whether in the name of retribution, or in the name of the alleged deliverance of yourself or others from evil, is incompatible with love.

17. The doctrine that if you love, you cannot seek vengeance, is so clear that it follows from the sense of the

teaching as a matter of course.

If, therefore, there had not been a word said in the Christian teaching to the effect that a Christian must render good for evil, and must love his enemies and those that hate him, any man understanding the teaching could deduce from it this commandment of love for himself.

18. In order to understand the teaching of Christ about rendering good for evil, it must be understood correctly, and not as now interpreted, with excisions and additions. The entire teaching of Christ is in this: man lives not for his body, but for his soul, to fulfill the will of God. But the will of God is that men should love one another, should love all men. How then can man love all men and do evil to others? He who believes in the teachings of Christ, no matter what is done to him, will not do that which is contrary to love, will not do evil to others.

19. Without the prohibition of rendering evil for evil, the whole Christian doctrine is empty words.

20. Then came Peter, to Him, and said. Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times ?

Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven.

Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.

"And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.

But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

Then the lord of tbat servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him and forgave him the debt.

But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence; and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat saying, Pay me that thou owest.

And his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying. Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

And he would not, but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.

So when his fellow-servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told imto their lord all that was done.

Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, О thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me:

Shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?

And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. Matthew, xviii, 21-35.

VI.

Non-Resistance to Evil by Force is as Essential in Social

as in Personal Relations

1. People insist on remaining as evil as they were, yet they desire that life nevertheless should improve.

2. We do not know, we cannot know wherein consists personal happiness, but we firmly know that the attainment of this universal happiness is possible only with the fulfillment of that eternal law of goodness which is revealed to

every man both in the treasures of human wisdom and in his own heart.

3. It is said that it is impossible not to render evil for evil, for otherwise the evil would dominate over the good. I believe just the opposite; only then will the evil dominate over the good, when the people will think that it is permitted to render evil for evil, just as is now being done among Christian nations. The evil have now dominion over the good, because it is inculcated in all that it is not only permitted, but even directly beneficial to do evil to others.

4. It is said that when we cease to threaten the evil with punishment, the present order of things will be disrupted, and everything will perish. One might as well say, when the river ice melts, everything will be ruined. Nothing of the kind. Boats will come, and the real life will commence.

5. Speaking of the Christian doctrine, learned writers generally assume that Christianity, in its true meaning, is not adapted to life, and regard this as a definitely settled question.

"Why dwell in dreams? We must attend to practical affairs. We must change the relations between capital and labor, we must organize labor and land ownership, open up markets, found colonies for the distribution of surplus population, we must define the relations between state and Church, we must form alliances and secure the safety of our dominions, etc.

"We must attend to serious matters, things which merit care and interest, and not to dreams of a world order where men turn the other cheek, when their right cheek is struck, yield a coat when robbed of a shirt, and live like the birds of the air,—all this is sheer nonsense;" thus argue many, for-

getting that the root of all these questions is in the veiy thing that they call sheer nonsense.

And the root of all these problems is for that reason in the very thing these people consider sheer nonsense, that all of these problems, from the problem of the struggle of capital and labor down to the problems of nationalities and of relations between the state and the Church, all turn on the point whether there are cases when man may and ought to do evil to his neighbor or whether there are no such cases nor indeed, can be for a rational human being.

So that, in reality, all of these supposedly essential problems are reduced to one: is it rational or irrational, therefore, necessary or unnecessary to render evil for evil ? There was a time when men did not, could not understand the meaning of this question, but the succession of terrible sufferings amid which the human race is living, has led men to realize the necessity of deciding this problem practically. Yet this problem was definitely settled by the teaching of Christ nineteen centuries ago. Therefore it is not meet that we pretend that we do not know this problem or its solution.

VII.

The True View of the Effects of the Doctrine of Non-

Resistance to Evil by Force is Beginning to

Sink into the Conscience of Humanity

1. Punishment is a theory which mankind is beginning to outgrow.

2. The spirit of Jesus which many endeavor to stifle is nevertheless ever more brightly manifested everywhere. Has not the spirit of the gospel penetrated into the conscience of nations ? Are they not beginning to see the light ? Have not the ideas of rights and obligations become clearer

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

249

to all ? Do we not hear from all sides a call for more equitable laws, for institutions to protect the weak, and based on the principles of justice and equality? Is not the old enmity between those who had been separated by force gradually dying out? Do not the nations feel themselves to be brothers?

This is all labor in embryo, and ready to develop, a labor of love which will lift the sin from the earth, which will open up a new path of life to the nations, the inner law of which will not be force but the love of one man for another.

Lamenais.

VANITY

VANITY

Nothing BO mars the life of man, nothing so surely robs him of true happiness, as the habit of living not in accordance with the precepts of the wise men of our world, not in accordance with one's conscience, but in accordance with that which is accepted as good and approved Ьу the people among whom one lives.

I.

Wherein Consiete the Error of Vanity

1. One of the principal causes of the evil life of men is in doing that which we do not for our body's sake, not for out soul's sake, but for the sake of receiving the approbation of man.

2. No temptation holds men so long in its thrall, nor removes them so far from the realization of the meaning of human life and its true happiness, as the desire for fame, and popular approbation, honors and praise.

Man can free himself from this temptation only by stubborn stru^Ie with self and constant challenge of his consciousness of oneness with God, leading him to seek the approval of God alone.

3. We are not content to live our true inner life, we crave to live another, a fictitious life in the thoughts of other people, and for that purpose we force ourselves to appear other than we really are. We unceasingly strive to adom this fictitious person, but take no care of the real creature which we actually are. If we are at peace in our soul, if we believe, if we love, we hurry to tell others about it so that these virtues should be not ours alone, but should be also attributed to the fictitious person in the minds of others.

lo order to make peopU йлйь u«.\ -«^Ча-чч, Ч\л>«а,-«*

are even ready to give them up. We are ready to be cowards, if only we gain reputation for bravery. Pascal.

4. One of the most dangerous and injurious catch phrases is: "Every one says so."

5. Much evil is done by men for the gratification of their carnal passions, but still more for the sake of gaining praise for human glory.

6. When it is difficult, nay almost impossible to account for human actions, be assured that the cause of these actions is the thirst for human glory.

7. A baby is rocked not to relieve it from that which causes it to cry, but to make it stop crying. We do the same with our conscience, when we stifle its voice in order to please people. We do not calm our conscience, but attain what we seek for: we no longer hear its voice.

8. Pay no heed to the number, but to the character of your admirers. It may be disagreeable to displease good people, but failure to please evil people is always good.

Seneca,

9. Our greatest expenditures are incurred by us to make ourselves like other people. We never spend as much on the mind or on the heart. Emerson.

10. In every good deed there is a particle of a desire for human approbation. But woe if we do things exclusively to obtain human glory.

11. One man asked another why he did things which he did not like.

'Because everybody is doing so," he answered.

1 would not say everybody. I, for instance, do not happen to do so, then there are quite a few others.*'

it'

*'If not everybody, still very many, the great majority of people."

"But tell me, are there more wise people, or foolish people in this world ?"

"Certainly there are more foolish people."

"Then you do what you do to imitate fools."

12. Man grows easily accustomed to the most wicked life, if only everybody around him leads a wicked life.

II.

The Fact that Many People are of One Opinion Does Not Prove that this Opinion is Correct

1. Evil is no less an evil because many people do evil, and even, as is frequently done, boast of it.

2. The more people hold to one belief, the more cautious must be our attitude to that belief, and the more carefully must we examine it.

3. When we are told, "Do as others do," it almost means, "Do wrong." La Bruyere.

4. Learn to do what "everybody" wants, and before long yovL will commit evil deeds and believe them to be good.

5. If we only knew the motive back of the praise bestowed upon us, or of the censure passed upon us, we should cease to value praise, and to fear censure.

6. Man has his own tribunal within himself, his conscience. Only its judgment should be cherished.

7. Search for the best man among those who are condemned by the world.

8. If the multitude hates someone it is well first to judge very carefully why it is so, before joining ia ocwr

demning him. If the multitude is partial to someone^ it 18 well to judge very carefully why it is so, before forming an opinion. Confucius.

9. Our life cannot be harmed so much by evil doers who would corrupt us, as by the unthinking multiude which drags us along like a maelstrom.

Ш.

Ruinous Effects of Vanity

1. Society says to the man: think as we think, believe as we believe; eat and drink as we eat and drink; dress as we dress. If any fail to comply with these demands, society will torment them with ridicule, gossip and abuse. It is hard not to submit, but if you submit, you are still worse off; submit, and you are no longer a free man; you are a slave.

Lucy Mattory.

2. It is meritorious to study for the sake of the soul, in order to be wiser and better. Such study is useful to people. But when people study for the sake of human glory, in order to be reputed as men of learning, such study is not only useless, but injurious, and renders them less wise and kindly than they had been before taking up these studies.

Chinese wisdom.

3. Do not praise yourself, even do not let others praise you. Praise ruins the soul, because it substitutes desire for human glory in place of caring for the soul.

4. We frequently see that a good, wise and just man, although he sees the wrong of warfare, meat eating, robbing human creatures of necessities, condemning people, and of many other evil deeds, yet calmly persists in following them.

Why is this so? Because he values the opinion of others more than the verdict of his own conscience,

5. Only care for the opinion of others can explain that most common and yet most strange human action: a lie. A man knows one thing but asserts another. Why ? The only explanation is that he fears not to receive praise if he told the truth, and believes that he will be praised, if he tells a falsehood.

6. Failing to respect tradition has not done one-thousandth part of the harm that is done through veneration of old customs.

Men have long since ceased to believe many old customs, but still submit to them, because they believe that the majority of рео[Ле will condemn them, should they cease to submit to customs in which they no longer have any faith.

IV. Combating ^e Error of Vanity

1. In the first period of his life, in his infancy, man lives mainly for his body; he eats, drinks, plays and is merry. This is the first step. The older he grows the more he begins to worry about the opinion of people among whom he lives, and for the sake of that opinion, he begins to forget the demands of his body: food, drink, play and amusements. This is the second stage. The third and final stage is when man submits more and more to the demands of his soul, and for the sake of his soul, neglects the body, amusements and human glory.

Vanity is the first and crudest remedy against animal passions. But later you must deliver yourself of the remedy. There is but one cure, to live for the soul.

2. It is difficult for one man to recede from accepted usage, and yet every step towards self-bettennent brings you face to face with accepted usage and subjects you to the cen-

sure of people. The man who has set the aim of his life in striving towards perfecting himself must be ready for this.

3. It is bad to annoy people by departing from their

accepted usage, but it is worse to depart from the demands of conscience and reason by humoring popular usage.

4. Now as always it is the practice to ridicule him who sits in silence; both he who talks a great deal and he who says little, are subject to ridicule; there is no man on earth that escapes criticism. While there has never been anyone, no one exists, or ever will exist, who would be always con-denmed in all things, neither is there any one who would be always praised for all things. Therefore it is not worth while to worry about human censure or human praise.

5. The most important thing for you to know is what you think of yourself, for on this depends your happiness or lack of happiness, but not on what others think of you. Therefore, do not worry about the judgment of people, but strive to preserve your spiritual life in vigor, nor allow it to weaken.

6. You fear that you will be scorned for your meekness, but just men cannot scorn you because of it, and others do not matter; therefore, pay no heed to their judgment Why should a good cabinet maker feel hurt if a man having no knowledge of cabinet making fails to approve his work ?

Men who scorn you because of your meekness have no knowledge of what is good for man. Why should you heed their judgment ? Epictetus.

7. It is time for man to know his worth. Is he then some illegitimately born creature? It is time for him to cease casting timid glances about him, to see whether he has succeeded in pleasing people or not. No, let my head rest solid and square on my shoulders. Life was given me not

for show, but for me to live by. I recognize my obligation to live for my soul. And I will pay heed not to what people think of me, but to my life, whether I am or am not fulfilling my destiny before Him who sent me into the world.

Emerson.

8. Every man who from his youth on has yielded himself to low animal passions persists in yielding to them, al-thought his conscience demands from him other things. He does so because others are doing the same. Others are doing it for the same reason as he. There is only one way out of this: every man must free himself from dependence on the opini(His of others.

9. An hermit had a vision. He saw an angel of God descending from Heaven with a shining crown in his hand and looking about to see on whom to impose it. And the heart of the hermit burned within him. And he said to the angel of God: "How can I merit this shining crown ? I will do everything to receive this reward."

And the angel said: "Look." And turning about the angel pointed with his finger to the lands of the North. And the hermit looked and saw a huge, black cloud, which covered half of the firmament and was descending to the earth. And the cloud parted, and there issued frtKn it a vast multitude of black Ethiopians advancing towards the hermit; but back of them all stood a terrible Ethiopian giant, who was so tall that while his immense feet touched the earth, his shag^ head, with its terrifying eyes, reached up to Heaven.

"Fi^t with these, conquer them, and I shall place the crown upon your head."

And the hermit was terrified, and said:

"I can and I shall fight with all of them, but this great Ethiopian, with his feet on the ground and his head in the

sky, it is beyond human strength to fight with him, I cannot overcome him."

"Madman," replied the angel of God, "all these small Ethiopians whom you will not fight because of the fear of the huge Ethiopian back of them, they are the sinful desires of man, and they can be overcome. But the Ethiopian giant is human glory, for the sake of which men live in sin. It is needless to fight him. He is hollow and empty. Overcome sin, and he will vanish from the earth of his own accord."

V.

Take Heed of Your Soul, and Not of Your Reputation

1. The quickest and surest means to be reputed virtuous is not to appear such before men, but to labor over self, in order to become virtuous. Socrates,

2. To compel people to consider us good is much harder than to become such as we would have people think us to be. Lichtenberg.

3. He who does not think by himself, subjects himself to the thoughts of others. To put one's mind in subjection to others is a more humiliating mode of slavery than the subjection of the body. Think with your own head, do not worry about what people will say about you.

4. If you care about the approbation of people, you will never decide upon anything, for some people approve one thing, others another. It is necessary to decide for yourself, and it is much simpler.

5. In order to show yourself oflF before men you either praise yourself or censure yourself before others. If you praise yourself, people will not believe you. If you censure yourself, people will think worse of you than your words warrant. It is best to say nothing about yourself, and to

care for the judgment of your own conscience and not for the judgment of the people.

6. No man shows such regard for virtue and such loyalty to it as he who willingly loses a good reputation in order to remain good in his heart. Seneca.

7. If a man has learned to live only for human glory, he thinks it a hardship to be thought stupid, ignorant or very wicked, because of failing to do what everybody else is doing. But all hard things require work. And in this instance work must be done from two points of view; you must learn to scorn the judgment of people, and again you must learn to live for deeds, which are good, although people condemn you for doing them.

8. I must act as I think is right, and not as others think. This rule holds true in 2very day life just as it does in the intellectual life. This is a hard rule, because you are apt to meet people everywhere who think that they know your duties better than you. It is easy to live in the world in accord with the world's opinion, but in solitude it is easy to follow your own; blessed is the man who in the midst of a multitude does what he, in solitude has determined is the right thing to do.

9. All people live and act, both in accord with their own thoughts and with those of others. The principal difference between people is in ^^:e extent to which they live according to their own thoughts and according to the thoughts of others.

10. It seems passing strange that people should live neither for their own happiness nor for that of others, but merely for the praise of other people. Yet how few men there are who do not value the approbation of their acts by strangers more highly than their own happiness and that of others.

11. Man will never be accorded the praise x>f all without exception. If he is good, evil men will find something evil in him, and will either ridicule him or criticise him. If he is bad, good men will not approve of him. In order to obtain the praise of everybody, man must pretend to be good before good people, and bad before bad people. But both the good and the bad will in time discover his hypocrisy and will despise him. There is only one remedy: be good, do not worry about the opinion of others, and do not seek the reward of your life in the opinion of the people, but in your own.

"No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse."

"Neither do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." Matthew ix, 16, 17.

This means that in order to begin to live a better life (and to make your life ever better, therein is all the life of man) you cannot stick to old habits, you must form new habits. You cannot follow what the ancients thought good, but you must form new habits of your own, without caring about what people consider good or evil.

12. It is hard to discern whether you serve the people for the sake of your soul or God, or for the sake of their praise. There is only one way to make sur*: if you perform a deed which you think is good, ask yourself would you still persist in it, if you knew in advance that it would remain unknown to all. If your answer is that you will do it anyhow, then surely that which you do is done for the sake of your soul, for God.

VI.

He Who Lives the True Life Does Not Require the

Praise of the People

1. Live alone, said a sage. This means, decide the problem of your life alone with your own self, with the God who lives within you, and not in accordance with the advice or the criticism of other people.

2. The advantage of serving God as compared with serving people is that before people you involuntarily seek to show yourself in the most favorable light and are annoyed if you are placed in an unfavorable light. There is nothing like that before God. He knows you as you are. No one can either over-praise you or slander you before Him, so that you need not seek to seem before him, but just to be good.

3. If you would have peace, try to please God. Different people crave different things: to-day they desire one thing, to-morrow another. You can never please the people. But God living within you always desires one thing, and you know what He desires.

4. Man must serve one of the two: either his soul or his body. If he would serve his soul, he must fight against sin. If he would serve his body, there is no need to fight against sin. He need only do that which is accepted by all.

5. There is only one way to have no faith in God whatever; it is always to think public opinion right, and to pay no attention to one's inner voice. Ruskin.

6. When we are seated upon a moving vessel and our eyes are fixed upon an object on the same vessel, we do not notice that we are moving. But if we look aside, upon something that is not moving along with us, for instance.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

upon the coast, we shall notice immediately that we are moving. It is the same with life. When the whole world lives a life that is not right, we fail to notice it, but should one only awake spiritually and live a godly life, the evil life of the others become immediately apparent. And the others always persecute those who do not live like the rest.

Pascal.

7. Train yourself to live so as not to think of public opinion, but to live only for the fulfillment of the law of your life, the will of God. Such solitary life, with God alone as companion, furnishes no incentive to good deeds in human glory, but it gives your soul a feeling of freedom and peace and stability and such an assured knowledge that your path is true, as he who lives for human glory can never know.

And every man can train himself to live so.

FALSE RELIGIONS

FALSE RELIGIONS

False religions are religions which people follow not because they have need of them for their souls' sake, but because they have faith in them who expound them.

I.

Wherein Consists the Delusion of False Religions?

1. People frequently imagine that they believe in the law of God, whereas they pin their faith merely to that in which all believe. All, however, believe not in the law of God, but call that the law of God which suits their life and does not interfere with it.

2. When people live in sin and error, they cannot be at peace. Their conscience accuses them. Therefore such people must do one of two things: either they must acknowledge their guilt before men and God and cease from sin, or continue their life of sin and their evil deeds and call such evil deeds good. It is for this class of people that the teachings of false religions are designed, since it is possible according to them to lead an evil life and to feel justified in doing so.

3. It is bad enough to lie to other people, but it is far worse to lie to oneself. It is harmful particularly for the reason that if you lie to others you may be exposed, but if you lie to yourself there is no one to expose you. Therefore take care not to lie to yourself, especially in the matters of faith.

4. "Believe or be damned." Herein is the main source of evil. If a man accepts without reasoning that which he should settle by the light of his reason, he loses in the end the capacity of reasoning, and not only falls into condemna-

tion himself, but leads his neighbors into sin as well. The salvation of people consists in everyone learning to think with his own mind. Emerson.

5. The harm done by false religions can neither be weighed nor measured.

Religion is the determination of the attitude of man towards God and the world, and the definition of his calling as derived from this attitude. What then can be a man's life if both this attitude and the definition of his calling derived from it are false?

6. There can be three kinds of false beliefs. The first is the belief in the possibility of learning by experience that which according to the laws of experience is impossible. The second is in the admission for our moral perfecting of things which cannot be conceived by our reason. The third is the belief in the possibility of summoning by supernatural means mysterious activities whereby the Deity may influence our morality. Kant

II.

False Religions Respond to the Lowest, Not to the Highest Needs of the Human Soul

1. The only true religion contains nothing but laws, that is those moral principles the absolute necessity of which we can recognize and study ourselves and which we can acknowledge by our reason. Kant.

2. Man can please God only by good living. Therefore all things outside of good, upright and clean living whereby a man thinks he can please God are a crude and a harmful delusion. Kant,

3. The penance of a man who chastises himself instead of taking advantage of the disposition of his spirit

in order to change his mode of Hfe is wasted labor; such penance has in addition the bad effect of making him think that by this act of penance he has wiped out his score of debts and he takes no further care to perfect himself, which is the only thing conscious when conscious of moral faults.

Kant.

4. It is bad enough when man does not know God, but it is worse when he acknowledges that as God which is not God. Lactantms,

5. It is said God created man in his image; one might rather say that man has created God in his own image.

Lichtenberg,

6. When some speak of heaven as of a place where the blessed abide they usually imagine it somewhere high up in the unfathomable cosmic spaces. But they forget that our own earth, viewed from those cosmic spaces appears like a celestial star and that the inhabitants of other worlds might with as much right point to our own earth and say: "Look at that star, the abode of eternal bliss, the heavenly refuge prepared for us where we shall enter some day." In the curious error of our mind the flight of our faith is alwa3rs associated with the idea of ascension, without realizing that no matter how high we might soar we should still have to descend somewhere in order to set foot firmly in some other world.

7. To ask God for material things, such as rain, recovery from illness or delivery from enemies, is wrong if for no reason than because people may ask God at one time for opposite things, but principally because in the material world we are given all that we need. We might pray God to help us live the life of the spirit, such a life that

therein no matter what occurred it would redound to our blessing. But a rogator]* prayer for material things is a self-deception.

8. True prayer is to withdraw from all that is of the world, from all that might distract our feelings (the Mohammedans have the right idea when upon entering a mosque or commencing to pray they cover their eyes and their ears with their fingers), and to summon the Divine principle within ourselvtes. But the best is to do as Christ taught: to enter your closet in secret and to shut your door, that is to pray in solitude whether in your closet, or in the woods, or in the field. True prayer is to withdraw from all that is worldly, f пж! all that is external, to examine your soul, your actions, your desires not in the light of the demands of outward conditions, but of that divine principle of which we are conscious in our soul.

Such prayer is help, strength, elevation of spirit, confession, examination of past acts and direction of acts to come.

III.

Outward Worship

1. Between a Shaman and a European prelate, or taking plain people for example, between a crude sensual heathen who in the morning places upon his head the paw of a bearskin and says: "Slay me not," and a cultured G)n-necticut Puritan, there may be a difference in methods, but there is no difference in the fundamentals of their faiths, for both belong to that class of people whose idea of serving God is not in becoming better men, but in religion or in the observing of certain arbitrary rules. Only those who believe that serving God is to strive towards a better life are different from these others, inasmuch as they acknowledge a different, a vastly superior basis for their faith that

unites all right-minded people into one invisible chtirch, which alone can be the universal church. Kant

2. The man who performs acts which have nothing ethical in themselves in order to incline to himself the good will of God, and thereby to attain the realization of his desires, is in error, because he means to attain supernatural results by natural means. Such attempts are called witchcraft, but since witchcraft is usually associated with the evil spirit, and these endeavors, though ignorant, are nevertheless based on good intentions, let us rather call them fetishism. Such supernatural activities on the part of man towards God are possible only in imagination and are irrational if for no other reason than because it cannot be known whether they are pleasing to God. And if a man, in addition to his immediate efforts to gain the goodwill of God, that is in addition to good conduct, endeavors to acquire further merit by means of certain formalties, or supernatural aids, and with that end in view means to render himself more receptive to a moral state of mind and to the attainment of his good inclinations by external observances which have no intrinsic value, then he relies on some supernatural agency for the correction of his natural weakness. Such a man, believing that acts having nothing moral or God-pleasing in themselves, may be a means or a condition of the attainment of his desires direct from God, is in error, because he imagines that he can without any physical or moral inclination, make use of supernatural means having nothing in common with good morals, in order to conjure this supernatural divine assistance by the observance of various outward practices. Kant.

3. ''And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. for they love to pray standing in the S)ma-

gpgue and in the comers of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their re* ward

"But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to the Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth secret shall reward thee openly." Matthew VI, 5-6.

4. "Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts:

"Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.''

Luke XX, 46-47.

Where there is false religion there will also always be scribes and they will always act just as the scribes of old against whom the Scripture warns us.

IV.

Multiplicity of Religious Teachings and the One

True Religion

1. The man who has given the subject of religion no thought imagines that the only true faith is the one in which he was bom. But just ask yourself what if you had been bom in some other faith? You a Christian—if you had been bom a Mohammedan? You a Buddhist, if you had been bom a Oiristian? You a Christian, if you had been bom a Brahmin ? Can it be that we alone are right in our faith, and all the others believe falsehood? Your faith will not become truth just because you assert to yourself and to others that it is the one tme faith.

V. Some Effecta of Profesung False Religions

1. In 1682 it happened in England that Dr. Leighton, a venerable man who had written a book against the Anglican episcopate, was tried in court and sentenced to the following punishment: he was cruelly lashed, then one of his ears was cut off, one of his nostrils slit open, and the characters S S were branded on his cheek. Seven days later he was lashed again, although the scars on his back had not yet healed, his other nostril was slit open, his other ear cut off, and his other cheek was branded. Alt this was done in the name of Christianity. Davidson.

2. In 1415, Johannes Huss was adjudged a heretic for attacking the Catholic religicm and the Pope; he was sentenced to death without the shedding of blood, that is to the stake.

He was executed outside the city gates between some gardens. When he was brought to the place of execution he knelt down and commenced to pray. When the executioner commanded him to ascend the stake, Huss arose and loudly said:

"Lord Jesus Christ, I go to my death for the preaching of thy word, I shall suffer obediently."

The executioners divested him of his clothing and bound his hands behind him to a post. The feet of the martyr rested upon a bench. Fagots and straw were piled about him. They reached up to his chin. Then the Emperor's representative approached him and said that if he recanted all that he had taught, he would be pardoned,

"No," replied Huss, "I am blameless."

Then the executioners set fire to the stake. Huss

chanted the prayer: "O Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me."

The fire blazed upwards and soon the voice of Huss was stilled

Thus did men who called themselves Qiristians proclaim their faith.

Is it not clear that this was no true faith, but the crudest of superstitions?

3. Of all the methods of pmpagating false religions the most brutal is the inculcation of false religions in the minds of the children. The child asks his elders, men who have lived before him and had the opportimity of acquiring the wisdom of those who had gone before, to tell him about the world and its life, and the relation between himself and others, and he is told not what his elders really think and believe, but what people thought and believed thousands of years ago, that is things which his elders do not and can not themselves believe. Instead of the spiritual food which the child craves, they tender him poison that ruins his spiritual welfare, poison of which he can rid himself only at the cost of much effort and suffering.

4. Men never commit evil deeds with greater confidence and assurance that they are right than when committing these deeds in the name of false religion.

Pascal.

VI. Wherein Consists the True Religion?

1. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.

And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. Matthew ХХ1П, 8-10.

Thus taught Christ. And he taught thus because he knew that just as there were teachers in his day who taught a false doctrine of God so there would be such in times to come. He knew it and taught his followers not to obey men who call themselves.teachers, because their teachings obscure the clear and simple doctrine which is manifest to all men and is implanted in the heart of every man.

This doctrine is to love God as the highest good and truth, and to love your neighbor as yourself and to do unto others as ye would that others do unto you.

2. Faith is not in knowing what has been and what will be, nor even in what is now, but only in knowing what each man ought to do.

3. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; Srst be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer Ay^ Matthew y.23'24.

Herein is true faith, but not in the rite, nor in the sacrifice, but in communion with people.

4. The Christian doctrine is so simple that infants understand it in its true sense. Only those fail to understand it who do not desire to lead a Christian life.

In order to understand true Chrisitianity, it is first of all needful to renounce the false.

5. True worship is free of superstition; when superstition enters it, worship itself is destroyed. Christ showed us wherein is true worship. He taught us that amidst alt the activities of our life only our love one for another is the light and the blessing of man. He taught that we can attain happiness only then when we serve others and not our ovm self.

6. If that which passes for the law of God does not call for love, it is hmnan fabrication and not the law of God. Scavoroda,

7. You will never know God if you believe all that is told you of God.

8. You cannot know God from what is told you about Him. You can know God only by obeying that law which is known to every human heart.

9. The substance of the teaching of Christ is in his manifestation of that divine perfection towards which men must strive throughout their life. But people who do not desire to follow the teaching of Christ, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unwittingly, understand the doctrine of Christ not as He taught it: as a constant striving after perfection, but as though He had demanded divine perfection of men. And taking this corrupt view of Christ's doctrine, men who do not desire to follow Him have two ways open to them: they very correctly claim that perfection is unattainable, and then reject the entire doctrine as an impractical dream (this is done by worldly people), or they adopt another method—^the most popular and the most harmful, the practice of the majority of people who call themselves Christians, namely admitting that perfection is unattainable, they correct, that is they corrupt the teaching, and in place of the true Christian teaching consisting of constant striving towards divine perfection, they observe certain so-called Christian rules, which for the most part are directly contrary to Christianity.

10. The idea of gatherings of Christians being gatherings of the elect, of superior beings, is a non-Christian, a proud and an erroneous idea. Who is better, and who is worse ? Peter was better until the cock crew. The robber

was worse until he reached the cross. Do we not know in our own self an angel and a devil taking part in our life, there being no creature that has banished the angel completely from his heart, nor one without a devil leering at times from behind the angel. How can we, contradictory beings as we are, compose gatherings of elect and of right-1 eous?

There is a light of truth, and there are people striving towards it from all sides, from as many sides as there are radial lines in a circle, that is in an infinite variety of ways. Let us strive with all our might towards the light of truth that unites us all, but how close we may be to it, how far advanced towards a union with it, it is not for us to judge.

VII.

True Religion Unites Men More and More

1. The corruption of Christianity has removed us from the realization of the Kingdom of God, but the truth of Christianity is like the flame of a camp fire; choked for a season by green branches, it gradually dries the damp twigs, sets them on fire and breaks through in a blaze here and there. The true meaning of Christianity is already manifest to all and its influence is stronger than the deceptions that have choked it.

2. Listen to that profound dissatisfaction with the present form of Christianity which has seized our society and is expressed in murmurs of bitter resentment and sorrow. All are thirsting for the coming of the Kingdom of God. And it is drawing nigh.

A purer Christianity slowly but surely replaces that which has been passing under that name. Channing.

3. From the days of Moses until the days of Jesus a

vast mental and religious development took place among individual people and nations. From the days of Jesus until our times this progress in individuals and nations has been still more significant. Old delusions have been cast aside and new truths have penetrated into the consciousness of mankind. One man cannot be as great as humanity. If a man be so far ahead of his fellows that they do not understand him, a time comes when they catch up with him, then overtake him and so far outdistance him as to become incomprehensible to those who remained where the great man had stood. Every religious genius sheds a brighter light upon religious truths and helps to bring men into a closer union. Parker.

4. Just as each man individually, so all humanity in the aggregate must change, pass from lower stages to higher development, without stopping its growth, the limit of which is in God. Each state of man is the result of his preceding state. Growth is attained without interruption and imperceptibly, like the development of an embryo, so that nothing breaks the chain of the consecutive stages of this uninterrupted growth. But if man and the entire human race are destined to be transformed, this change must be effected both in the case of the individual and of the entire human race in labor and sufferings.

Before attaining g^ndeur, before passing into light, we must move in darkness, must suffer persecutions, must yield up our body to save our soul; we must die, in order to be bom into a new life, more vigorous and more perfect. And after eighteen centuries, having completed one of the cycles of its development, mankind is again striving to transform itself. Old systems, old social orders, all that made up the world of olden days is being destroyed, and

the nations are living mid wreck and ruin in terror and sufferif^. Therefore we must not lose courage in view of these ruins, and of these scenes of death, either occurring or about to occur. On the contrary, we must take courage. The union of people is not afar off. Lamenais.

FALSE SCIENCE

FALSE SCIENCE

The superstition of science consists in the belief that the only true knowledge needed in the lives of all men is to be found exclusively in that body of information gathered hapha2ard out of the infinite domain of the knowable which has come under the observation of a certain clique of шш in a given period—a clique of men who have set themselves free from the obligation to labor, whereas labor is needful to life, and who therefore lead an immoral and an irrational life.

Wherein is the Supcrstitum of Science?

1. When men accept as indubitable truths that which is o£Fered to them as such by others, without stopping to examine it by the exercise of their reason, they fall into superstition. Such is our modem superstition of science, namely recognition as indubitable truths of what is passed as truth by professors, academicians and men calling themselves scientists in general.

2. Just as there is a false teaching of religion, even so there is a false teaching of science. The false doctrine of science is recognizing as the exclusively true science everything stated to be such by people who in a given period usurp the right of determining what is true science.

And since not that is reputed as science which is needful to all men—but that which has been determined by men who have in a given period usurped the right of determining what is science, such science 'S bound to be false. Even so it has happened in our worid.

same place which centuries ago was held by sacrificial priesthood.

The same recognized sacrificial priests—our professors, the same castes of sacrificial priesthood in our science, academies, universities, congresses.

The same confidence and absence of criticism on the part of the faithful, the same discords among the faithful— yet failing to perturb them. The same unintelligible words, the same self-reliant pride instead of thinking:

"What is the use of arguing with him, he denies revelation !" "What is the use of arguing with him, he denies science!"

4. The Egyptian did not look upon that which his priests presented to him under the guise of truth as mere belief (as we do now), but considered it the revelation of the highest knowledge attainable to man, in other words, as "science": even so the unsophisticated men of to-day who have no knowledge of science accept as undubitable truths all that is offered them by the modem priests of science—they believe it all.

5. Nothing is more subversive of true knowledge than the use of obscure ideas and phrases. Yet this is just the practice of the alleged scientists who make up obscure, fictitious invented words to bolster up obscure ideas.

6. False religion and false science always express their dogmas in high-sounding terms which appear mysterious and significant to the uninitiated. The discussions of scientists are frequently as unintelligible to themselves as they are to others, even as the discussions of professional teachers of religion. A pedantic scientist uses foreign words and made-up terms and transforms the simplest things into something which is hard to understand just as prayers in a foreign language are unintelligible to illiterate parishioners.

Mysteriousness is not a proof of wisdom. The more truly wise a man is, the simpler the langauge in which he expresses his thoughts.

II.

Science Serves as an Excuse of the Present

Social Order

1. It would seem that in order to prove the importance of cultivating that which is known as science we should have to demonstrate that this cultivation is useful. But men of science generally say that since they occupy themselves with certain tasks, these occupations are bound to prove useful.

2. The legitimate purpose of science is the recognition of truths serving to benefit mankind. The spurious purpose is to justify deceptions which introduce evil into the life of man. Such are the sciences of law and political economy, and most particularly philosophy and theology.

3. There is as much fraud in science as in religion, and it springs from the same beginning, namely the desire to justify one's own weakness, and therefore scientific fraud is as harmful as religious fraud. People err and lead an evil life. The proper thing would be for men to realize that their life is evil, to try and change their mode of life and to live better. But here come all sorts of sciences: the science of the state, of finances, theology, criminology, science of police administration, political economy and history, and that most modern of all sciences—sociology—showing the laws by which men live and ought to live, and they prove that the evil life of men is not due to their own self, but to laws, and that it is not the duty of men to cease from evil and to change their life from an evil one to a good one, but to keep on living as they have been, in evil and weakness, but to ascribe these evils not to their own self, but to

the laws as discovered and formulated by the scientists. This fraud is so unreasonable, so contrary to conscience that people would have never adopted it but for the reason that it encourages them in their evil life.

4. We have ordered our life contrary to the moral and physical nature of man, and are fully convinced—^just because everybody thinks so—^that it is the one true mode of life. We dimly feel that what we call our social order, our religion, our culture, our sciences and arts, somehow fails to deliver us from our wretchedness, and even increases it. But we cannot resolve to submit it all to an examination by our reason, because we think that mankind having always believed in the necessity of compulsory social order, religion and science, cannot exist without them.

If the chick within the egg were gifted with human reason and were as little capable of using it as the people of the present age, he would never break through the shell of his egg and he would never know life.

5. Science has become a distributor of licenses to live on the labors of others.

6. The methodical gabble of our higher institutions of learning is merely a conspiracy to avoid the solution of difhcult problems by giving a dubious meaning to words, because the convenient and frequently rational phrase "I don't know" is unwelcome in our academies.

Kant

7. No two things are more divergent than science and profit, knowledge and money. If money is needed in order to become more learned, if learning is bought and sold for money, both the buyer and the seller deceive themselves. Qirist drove the traders out of the temple. So should the traders be driven out of the temple of science*

8. Do not look upon science as a crown to be admired, nor as a cow to be milked.

9. One of the most convincing proofs of the use of the word "science" to describe the niost trifling and repulsive ideas is the existence of a science of punishment, which is the most ignorant of human activities, proper only to the lowest phase of human development— infancy or savagery.

m.

Harmful Effects of the Si^erstition of Science

1. No clique of men has more confused ideas of reli-g^n, morals and life than the men of science: and even more striking is the fact that although science has achieved really ccmsiderable success in the domain of the material world, it has proved either useless or directly harmful in the lives of men.

2. Harmful is the spread of the belief among men that our life is the product of material forces and depends upon these forces. But when this belief assumes the name of science and passes for the sacred wisdom of mankind, the harm caused by such a belief is terrible.

3. The development of science does not go hand in hand with an improvement in morals. In all nations whose history we know the development of science led directly to a corruptiwi of morals. Our belief to the contrary is due to our confusing our banal and illusive science with the true supreme knowledge. Science in the abstract, science as such, demands respect, but modern science, that is what madmen call science, is worthy only of ridicule and con-**"Pt Rousseau.

4. The true explanation of the insane life of the people in the present age—so contrary to the thought of the

best men of all times—^is in the fact that our youth is taught a multitude of the most abstruse things: such as the state of celestial bodies, the condition of the globe for millions of years, the origin of the organism, but they are not taught the one thing needful to all and at all times: what is the meaning of human life, how to live, what the wisest men of all ages thought about it and how they solved the problem of life. The young generation is not taught all this, but is taught instead, under the name of science, the most arrant nonsense which even the teachers do not believe themselves. Instead of solid rock, the structure of our life rests on air-filled bubbles. How shall this structure escape a fall ?

5. All that we call science is merely an invention of rich men to occupy their idle time.

6. We live in an age of philosophy, science and reason. It seems as though all sciences had combined to illumine our path in the maze of human life. Immense libraries are open to all: colleges, schools, universities give us an opportunity to make use of the wisdom of men accumulated in the course of thousands of years. It seems as though everything worked together to develop our mind and to strengthen our reason. Have we become better or wiser from it all ? Do we know better what our duties are, and what is most important, wherein lies the blessedness of life? What have we acquired from all this futile knowledge, besides enmity, hatred, uncertainty and doubts? Every religious teaching and sect proves that it alone has found the truth. Every writer demonstrates that he alone knows wherein consists our happiness. One proves to us that there IS no body. Another that there is no soul. A third one that there is no connection between ЬоЙу and soul Again another that man is an animal. And still anothe that God is merely a mirror. Rousseau,

7. The principal evil of modern science is in the fact that unable as it is to study everything, not knowing—without the aid of faith—what it ought to study, it delves only into things that please the men of science who lead a life of error.

The most pleasant thing for men of science is the existing social order, which is profitable to them, and the satisfaction of an idle curiosity which does not call for much mental effort

IV.

There is no Limit to the Number of Studies, But Man's Capacity of Comprehension is Limited

1. A Persian philosopher said: "When I was young, I said to myself I will fathom all science. And I acquired almost all the knowledge given to man. But when I became old and I reviewed all I had learned, I discovered that my life was over, but that I knew nothing."

2. The observations and calculations of astronomers have taught us much that is marvelous. But the most important result of these researches is that they have revealed to us the abyss of our ignorance. Without these studies man could never grasp the immensity of this abyss. Meditation on this subject should work a great transformation in the determining of the ultimate aims of the activity of our reason. Kant

3. "There are plants on earth: we see them, but they are invisible from the moon. In these plants there are fibres, in these fibres there are tiny living organisms, but beyond that there is nothing more." What cocksureness!

"G>mplex bodies are composed of elements, and elements are indissoluble." What cocksureness I

Pascal.

4. We lack knowledge even to understand the life of the human body. Consider what we require to know for it: the body requires space, time, motion, heat, light, food, water, air and many other things. In nature all these things are so closely associated that we cannot apprehend one of them without studying the others. We cannot know a part without knowing the whole. We shall know the life of our body only when we have learned all that it needs, and for this we must study the entire universe. But the universe is infinite, and its knowledge is unattainable to man. Therefore we cannot even fully fathom even the life of our body.

Pascal.

5. Experimental sciences, if pursued for their own sake without a guiding philosophical thought, are like a countenance without the eyes. They offer a form of occupation for men of average ability, but not gifted with supreme genius which would only be in the way in petty investigations. Men of such limited abilities concentrate all their powers and their knowledge upon a single well-defined scientific field where they can attain a fairly perfect knowledge while remaining entirely ignorant in every other direction. They may be compared with workmen in clock factories where some make only wheels, while others make springs and still others chains. Schopenhai$er.

6. Not the mass, but the quality of knowledge is of importance. It is possible to know many things, without knowing the essential things.

7. The study of natural history in Germany has reached the phase of madness. Although to God man and insect may be of equal value, it is different as far as our reason is concerned. How many things are there which man must first put in order before he can take up birds and

moths. Study your soul, train your mind to be cautious in judgment, instil mercy in your soul. Learn to know man and arm yourself with courage to speak the truth for the good of your fellow man. Sharpen your mind with mathematics if you can find no other means to attain the same end. But beware of classifying gnats, the superficial knowledge of which is utterly useless, and an exact knowledge of which would take you into infinity.

"But God is as infinite in insects as he is in the sun," you might say. I willingly admit this. He is immeasurable also in the sands of the sea, the varieties of which you have never undertaken to systematize. If you feel no particular calling to seek pearls in the lands where this sand is to be found, stay at home and cultivate your field: it will need all your industry; and do not forget that the capacity of your brain is finite. There where you preserve the history of some butterfly, space might be found for thoughts of wise men that may be an inspiration to you.

Lichtenberg.

8. Socrates lacked that common weakness of discussing in his arguments all sorts of existing things, speculating on the origin of what the sophists call nature, and progress-ii^ to the basic principles of the origin of celestial bodies. "Do men really imagine," he said, "that they have attained the knowledge of all things that are essential to them thit they engage in speculating on things that so little concern them?"

He marveled especially at the blindness of those alleged scientists who failed to realize that the human mind is incapable of fathoming these mysteries. "This is why," he said, "all these men daring to discuss these mysteries fail to agree on basic principles, and as you listen to them when they meet together you seem to be near a gathering of mad-

men. And what indeed are the distinguishing characteristics of the unfortunates possessed by lunacy? They fear the things wherein there is nothing terrifying, and boldly face those that are dangerous indeed." Xenophon,

9. Wisdom is a great and extensive subject. It demands all the leisure that may be dedicated to it No matter how many problems you succeed in solving, there will be many more requiring investigation and solution over which you will have to toil. These problems are so vast, so numerous that they require the elimination from your consciousness of all extraneous matters so as to leave full scope for the labor of your mind. Should I waste my life on mere words? Yet it frequently happens that learned men think more of discussions than they do of life. Observe how great an evil is caused by excessive hairsplitting and how harmful it may be to truth. Seneca.

10. Science is food for the mind. And this food may be as harmful to the mind as physical food to the body, if it be impure or over-sweetened or absorbed in excessive quantities. It is possible to over-eat mentally and to be made sick thereby.

In order to avoid this it is necessary to take mental food just as physical food, only when hung^, when feeling a desire for knowledge, and only then when knowledge is requisite for the soul.

V.

Of Varieties of Knowledlge there is no End. The Business of True Science is to Select the Most Important and Necessary Among Them

1. Not to know is neither shameful nor injurious— one cannot know ever)rthing, brt it is both shameful and injurious to pretend to know tbat which one does not know.

2. The capacity of the mind to absorb knowledge has its limits. Therefore you must not think that the more you know the better it is for you. The knowledge of a great mass of trifles is an insuperable obstacle to the knowledge of that which is truly needful.

3. The mind is strengthened by the study of that which is needful and important to man and is weakened by the study of that which is useless and trifling just as surely as the body is strengthened by fresh air and food, and weakened by foul air and food Ruskin.

4. In modern times a vast body of knowledge worthy of study has been accumulated. Soon our faculties will be too weak and our life too brief to assimilate even the most useful portion of this knowledge. A vast abundance of treasure is at our service, but having absorbed it we must reject much as needless rubbish. It is better then not to burden oneself with it. Kant.

5. There is no end to knowledge. Therefore it cannot be said of him who knows much that he knows mpre than he who knows very little.

6. One of the commonest phenomena of our times is to see men who consider themselves learned, educated and enlightened, knowing a vast mass of useless things, yet remaining steeped in crassest ignorance, not alone failing to perceive the true meaning of hfe, hut even glorying in their ignorance. And on the contrary it is just as common to find amcHig uneducated and illiterate men, who know nothing of chemical agents, parallax or properties of radium, truly enlightened persons knowing the meaning of life and yet without any pride whatsover.

7. People cannot know or understand everything that is going on in the world, wherefore thirii уаЛ^стх^. ^аа.-тса»>1

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:Г /\'7d• OF LIFE

4.V Л1С two kinds of lack of knowl-

.^anal lack of knowledge, the state

. .11. The other may be termed the

. \ wiso. When a man exhausts all the

. 1.1 iluit men know or have ever known,

.1 ill 14 knowledge massed together is so

.11 11 lot enable him to comprehend the

. . iikl he will come to the conclusion that

л 1м%к;1Пу know as little as the ordinary un-

. . !i'. Hut there are superficial men who have

■ Лу: here and a little there, who have familiarized

\. . \wih surface knowledge of various sciences and

чч'мк" 44»nceited. They departed from the natural

.... l»iit have not yet attained the true wisdom of

. \л11кч1 men who have grasped the imperfection and

n:ilii\ i>f all human knowledge. These are the people,

, !i ihiMr own estimation, who bring confusion into the

\\. They judge all things confidently and rashly, and

II ally I'uough they err constantly. They know how to

i.i'w ilust in the eyes of the people, and are frequently

u III4141, but the common people despise them, being aware

л ihoir worthlessness. And they in turn despise the com-

iiK»u people, considering them ignorant. Pascal,

8. People frequently think that the more one knows ihc better it is. This is not so. The main thing is not to know much, but to know the most needful out of the mass of knowable.

9. Do not fear lack of knowledge, but fear excess of knowledge, particularly if this excessive knowledge be for profit or praise. It is better to know less than one might than more than one ought. Excessive knowledge makes men self-satisfied and self-assured, and therefore more fool-jsh than they would be if they knew nothing.

10. Wise men are not as a rule learned, learned men are not as a rule wise. Lao-Tse.

11. Owls see in the dark, but sunlight blinds them. Even so it is with learned people. They know much superfluous scientific dap-trap, but neither know nor can know the most needful thing in life: how a man ought to live in the world.

12. Socrates the philosopher said that stupidity is not to know little, but failing to know oneself and thinking that you know what you do not know. This he called stupidity plus ignorance.

13. If a man knew all sciences and spake all languages but did not know what he is and what he ought to do, he would be less enlightened than the old woman who believes in a Saviour, that is in a God whose will she recognizes in her life and who knows that God demands righteousness of her. She is more enlightened than the scientist because she has found an answer to the most important question: what is her life and how she must live. Yet the scientist having the cleverest answers for the most complex, but essentially trifling questions, has no answer to the most important question of each rational being: why do I live, and what ought I to do?

14. People who think that the most important thing in life is knowledge are like moths that fly against the candle: they perish themselves and obscure the light.

VI.

Wherein is the Substance and the Aim of True Science?

1. People either term that as science which is the most important science in the world, according to which man may learn how he ought to live in the world, or all that

which it flatters a man to know and which may or may not do him any good. The first kind of knowledge is truly a great thing, but the second is for the most part a futile pursuit.

2. There are two unmistakable marks of true science: first an inner mark, in that the servant of science fulfills his calling not for gain, but in self-denial, and the second an outward mark in that his work is intelligible to all men.

3. The life of the people in our present day is so organized that nine hundred ninety-nine thousandths of the people are constantly occupied with physical.toil and have neither time nor possibility to take up science or art. But one thousandth of the people, having exempted itself of physical toil, has ccnnposed science and arts to suit itself. The question is what sort of science and arts can there be under such conditions ?

4. The life task of each man is to become increasingly better. Therefore only those sciences are good which help him in this task.

5. A learned man is a man who knows very many things out of all sorts of books. An educated man is he who knows what is now currently accepted among people. An enlightened man is he who knows why he lives and what he ought to do. Do not try to be either learned or educated, but strive to become enlightened.

6. If in real life illusion mars reality but for a moment—in the domain of the abstract illusion can rule for thousands of years and impose its iron yoke upon entire nations, choking the noblest impulses of mankind, and with the help of the slaves deceived by it, shackle those whom it cannot deceive. It is the enemy with whom the wisest minds of all ages engaged in unequal combat, and what they won from it in conquest is the noblest heritage of mankind.

If it IS said that we must seek truth even where no profit can be foreseen from it, because gain may be found where it is least expected, we may also add that we must as zealously seek out and eradicate every delusion where no harm from it can be foreseen, for harm may appear and be manifested where least expected, as every delusion contains a poison. There are no harmless delusions, and certainly no venerable or sacred delusions. It may be boldly stated, in consolation of those who devote their lives to the noble and arduous war against delusions of any kind, that error may do its work at night like owls and bats until the light of truth appears, but there is more likelihood of the owls and bats frightening the sun and driving it back whence it came than of old delusions forcing out a realized truth, fully and clearly expressed—^and of taking unhindered the place vacated by it. Such is the power of truth: it gains victory with difficulty and with trouble, but once the victory is gained it cannot be turned back. Schopenhauer,

7. Since men have lived in the world there have been wise men among all nations who taught them that which is most needful for man to know: that wherein is the calling and therefore the true blessedness of every man and of all ре(ф1е. Only he who knows this can judge of the importance of all other kinds of knowledge.

There is no end to scientific subjects, and without knowledge of what constitutes the calling and the blessedness of all people, there is no possibility of choice in this infinite range of subjects, and for that reason without such knowledge all other kinds of knowledge become an idle and harmful amusement—even as they have become among us.

8. If men turn to modem science not for the satisfaction of idle curiosity, nor in order to play a role in the world of science, to write, to argue, to teach; nor yet in order to

make a living by science, but turn to it with direct and simple questions of life, they find that science will answer thousands of involved and intricate questions, but never the one question to which every rational being seeks an answer; the question—^what am I, and how ought I to live ?

9. To study all sciences that are unnecessary to spiritual life, such as astronomy, mathematics, physics, etc., even as to indulge in all kinds of amusements, games, carriage riding, promenading is permissible when any of these occupations do not keep you from doing that which you ought to do, but it is wrong to engage in superfluous sciences, or indulge in empty amusements, when they hinder the true tasks of life.

10. Socrates pointed out to his disciples that in rationally arranged education each science has certain bounds which should be reached, but which should not be overstepped. Of geometry, he said, know enough to be able to measure correctly a plot of land which you buy or sell, or to divide an inheritance, or to divide a task among laborers. "This is so easy," he said, "that with a little effort гю measurements would give you any trouble, though you had to measure the entire earth." But he did not approve of being enticed by difficult problems in this science, and although he personally knew them all, he said that they could fill the life of man and distract him from other useful sciences, without being of any use themselves. Of astronomy he found desirable to know enough to tell from simple indications the hour of the night, the day of the month, the season of the year, to find one's direction, to steer by at sea and to relieve watchmen. "This science is so easy," he added, "that it is accessible to any hunter or mariner or to anyone who cares to give it a little study." But to proceed so far with it as to study the course of the various celestial bodies.