'.: ' - :-■ - Glass. Book. Cfje Gospel of Hope JBefag & jfle&sage from tfje flteeen $p tfie Hanb of tfie Unfenoton Mr ■3.J71 lVo_. Cfjicago, Minois, 1914 TTae \c -.3* By tr . n House jiuu^ 'ixrr'k V* G^JU^y^uLK.^ "i-"-**" /^^-^Aa^ soX^L-^ ^j^m 4^tL & o^ca^A C7fi^ 0 CHAPTER XXIII Now I speak to you as men. And I say to you as men who dare fight and as men who dare think and as men who dare do the things they think, I say I honor you for what you are and some day I expect to honor you far more for what you will become. For you and I are alike in this. We both hate and despise and abominate the hypocrit, the liar, the thief and the sneak. And we have no use for and no time for weaklings. For the first of all virtues is strength. Without strength re- ligion is a poor and a puerile thing. And without strength pa- triotism is a milk and water gruel, fit for babies. Without strength no good can come to anyone from anywhere. For not only is strength the basis of virtue, it is virtue. But strength to be permanent must be clean and self-contained and patient and with the fighting sinews of soul as well as of body. And there can be no real strength without mental and moral and spiritual strength. Physical strength is merely the foundation stones. The others are the framework and the adornment of human character. But as no house is more than just begun when the foundation stones are all in place, so the character of a man is just started toward real construction when he has at- tained to perfect physical strength. Physical strength is not the end but is merely the beginning of real strength. For without the fighting sinews of the Soul, the Body shall wither. It is the soul alone that lifts up and fills out and invigorates and vitalizes 64 the body into permanent vigor. And good women and good men are warm blooded and warm hearted and clean souled. They fear not love even though it be passionate love, but they fear only to have their love played with and mistreated by human beasts who know not the meaning of anything, much less of love. Therefore I say unto you I honor strength even as you do. And I recognize that strength in any form is good. When therefore, ye say to me, I have only the strength of a clean brute, I say you have the basis of all wisdom and all beauty and all grace. You need but to convert your strength of gross form into strength of fine forms and you will not be able to recognize your own self in your own mirror. For I say to you that all strength is good if it be strength and not bluff. The bluff that passes for strength is a silly and piteous farce which imposes on none but cowards. Therefore speaking to thee as men, I say: I know thee down to the core of thy hearts and to the bottom of thy shoes. And when thou shalt turn in thy fine manliness and say: Why, 'tis too late, pal, to do any- thing for me, I am only the dregs and the remnants of a man. I might have been decent once. Then I will answer thee and say, We will save the remnants. And in thy surprise thou shalt cry out and say: What! Me! Save me! And I will answer once more, looking thee straight in the eyes as men do who say that they mean: Yea! we will save the remnants, you and I. We will save the remnants. Then I will take thee quietly by the arm and we will go away by ourselves and talk the situa- tion over carefully in order to see what is best to be done and in what manner. For I say unto you that when you despair of yourselves, you men who dare fight and take your licking and 65 then rise to fight again, I say you know not what you do. For thy soul and the soul of every man on earth is worth the fighting for. The soul can never become so corrupted by the flesh or degraded by the physical senses but that it is worth fighting for. So hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, you and I, Brother, will start to fight this minute for the greatest thing ever created by the Living God for the glory and the honor of His world; and the greatest thing in the world is the soul of a real man. Therefore, my Brother, I will put my arms around you and tell you the plain and literal truth. I care not how often we fight and are whipped; I care not how often we fight and fall; I care not how long nor how hard the battle is, I say that in the end we will win. For the man who keeps fighting must win. There is no other possible end of any battle but that the man who fights the longest and never gives up must possess the battlefield. It is only yellow curs, who putting their tails between their legs dejectly creep away, — only such folks ever lose. But the man who stands erect and fights and keeps fight- ing to the end must win. For God loves a fighter. Therefore I say unto you, ye strong and vigorous men of the world: ye mariners, ye coal diggers, ye miners of gold and silver and copper and tin and coal and of all other metals and precious things that lie in the earth, ye lumbermen of the north- ern woods where the sunlight sifting down through the thick trees resembles twilight, I say I am with you and I want you to be with me in mind as thou art with me in soul. Yea ! Thou art with me though thou knowest it not. For I say unto you I know what you are and I am going to share what I have to share with you. I am not going to bore 66 you with pious prayers nor meekly beseech you to come unto the Lord without delay. I say unto thee come or not as it pleaseth thee; Curse or blaspheme as it suits thee. Thou mayst take the name of thy Lord in vain. Thou mayst do all manner of deviltry to prove that thou art boss of thy ranch, and the king-pin of thy alley and the whole thing in thy section of the country and when at last thou art through, I will quietly come and speak one word to thee, and thou wilt listen. Then I again will speak another word quietly and calmly in thy ear, looking thee meanwhile squarely in the eye. And again thou shalt listen. A third time will I speak and a third time wilt thou listen. And when I am through I will softly bless thee and go away. When I am gone thou shalt look around bewildered and astonished and raising thy strong right arm thou shalt gaze up into the face of the blue sky and thou shalt break into a rough and mighty oath, saying: By God, there is a man who has something to say and knows how to say it. He is onto his job. And from that minute, Brother, I say unto thee that the remnants are saved, — the remnants of the man whom God first made thee to be. For a man fights when he knows that one friend in the world believes in him, even unto the end. And I, brother, am the friend who believes in thee and in thy manhood and in thy honor, for I know that nothing in this universe is ever lost, not a star or a blade of grass, or a flower or any beast in the fields or any fish in the sea, much less the soul of a man like thee. 67 CHAPTER XXIV Now I say unto you that every man who would like to deserve the name of a man must honor women, and in order to honor them aright he must understand them and their needs. And the father must teach the boy to reverence little girls and not to take advantage of them at the critical period of their lives, when God is preparing them to be the mothers of a race. And I say that any man who looks at and who flirts with and who tries to have intercourse with another woman while his wife is bearing a child or about to bear a child or who has just borne a child is a devil incarnate and he shall be punished. And I say to him that he is trying to kill his own child before it is born. For no child can be well born who receives not the care of both father and mother. And the first care is to see that the mother's mind and heart and soul are at peace. But no woman's mind or heart or soul can be at peace so long as she has any cause — even the remotest and apparently the most innocent cause — to suspect or to doubt the fidelity and entire devotion of her husband, the father of her child. And if a woman's mind and heart and soul are not at peace her body cannot be at peace and therefore her child cannot be well born. And I say unto you that all children have the right to be well born. Being well born is the first and foremost right of every person. Therefore society and written law should enforce that right. Now a man should care for a woman judiciously, not 68 pet her foolishly or smother her with kisses she does not want, or attentions she does not need. Women are not dolls or play- things, but the God given mates of man, without whom men are merely brutes. Women must be given respect. That is their first right. And good women must be given honor. That is their second right. And all mothers — wedded or unwedded —must be given reverence and the unquestioning assistance that is due all Motherhood. For when a woman becomes a mother every living man whosoever he be is bound to honor, respect and assist her. Therefore if you respect yourself and would obey your God, honor every woman who is a mother. For such is the Law. I say unto you that I have lived as a man and I have sinned as a man and it was by sins that I have grown strong, — not by keeping them and coddling them but by fight- ing against them. For day by day and hour by hour and inch by inch night and day I have fought. Always I have fought. I have fought for the integrity of my own soul and to know the Truth, the exact truth concerning all things in this world. I have not always won my battles. Sometimes I have fallen, yet I have risen to my feet and fought. Often I have been de- feated and have gone down before the wiles or the blows of my opponents or have been tripped up by the snares with which my unwary feet were beset. But always I have risen to my feet to fight — to fight for the purity and honor and integrity of my own soul and for the souls of my f ellowmen. For I say unto thee except for the love of thy f ellowmen, the pure and pas- sionate and generous and exalted love of thy f ellowmen, there is no true love in this world. CJkaJt&r-JfrgZ — I say unto you also that the so-called love of husband and wife is too often mere carnal passion and not love at all. Even 69 mother love may be and often is defiled to the level of the beasts, for it may be and not infrequently is mingled with the selfish- ness that is not love. For love is something more than to give thyself to thy own family and thy own friends whom thou hast seen and who smile upon thee and who are kind to thee and who do many things for thee, and who speak thee pleasant words that warm the soul and keep the heart alive. Love is the giving of thyself to the Unseen and the Unknown. Love is the giving of thyself unselfishly and with faith unto the service of them that need thee. And their need and not thy wishes shall determine the extent of thy giving. Furthermore, I say unto thee that every-day love, or what people call, and in their shortsightedness think is love, is often not love at all, but a subtle and refined and rarified form of mere physical at- traction and a form of carnal selfishness. Thus it is natural for a mother to kiss her babe and to feel its warm, chubby arms about her neck. And she cries out and says, O how I love my baby! O God, is there any love that is as pure and holy and good as mother love ! And I answer and say unto thee, Woman, thy tender affection is a beautiful thing to see. Thy joy over thy child is a gracious and a sweet and a winsome sight for men or for God to contemplate, and yet I say unto thee, such love is not properly love at all, for does not the lioness, and the cow and the mare have the main spring and the essential im- pulses of such love in their hearts also? However, supposing that the child whom thou holdest in thy arms is not thy own child but a foundling. Supposing it has been given to thee to care for temporarily or while the mother is out at work, and supposing that knowing thou must soon give up the child and never seen it again nor know the 70 kiss of its dimpled mouth and the soft caress of its chubby arms, then if thy heart still goes out in leaping ecstacy and joyfulness to do for and to serve and to pet such a child — that I say is love. For love is not giving where we may now or where we may hereafter receive a gift; love is not the bestowal of thyself upon thy own and upon the known. For love is always pure and unselfish. And wherein and insofar as there is selfishness, there is no love. Call thy emotion whatever it please thee but do not defile by false claims and by false reasoning or by false imagina- tion or by sophistry, the divinity of the word love. For love is only one thing, — thy unselfish service to thy f ellowman. And before any man can love and serve God, he must love and serve his f ellowman. For I tell thee now and warn thee now that I will accept no service and no praise and no hymns and no adoration from any man who does not love his fellows. For if ye do not love thy f ellowmen ye shall not and cannot love me. And if thou triest to love me first and not thy fellows first, I will scorn and reject and spurn thy so-called love, for it will not be love but pride. And Love is the Law. There is and has been and shall be no other Law. 71 CHAPTER XXV Furthermore, I say unto you that I will convert your churches into playhouses and your temples into dance halls. For it is better to amuse innocent and frolicsome and even noisy pagans than to breed smooth-tongued and lying hypocrits. Ye have allowed your churches to become the breeding places of hypocrits, therefore I will not destroy them but I will convert them into places of usefulness and of joy that therefore in good time they shall again become the temples of the Living God, and the meeting places of a worshipping and prayerful people. For without worship and prayer, ye shall not know the peace and goodness of your own souk, let alone the peace and good- ness of the world. For all things were born to be good. The corruption of the world came from the corruption of the heart of man, whose foulest lust is his lust for power, and whose greatest sin is his greed for gold. Therefore I say unto thee, unless ye fling away the lust for power and trample it under thy feet, and unless thou cease thy greedy grabbing and learn to know the Law of Love, thou shalt be confounded and utterly destroyed. That is, thy soul shall be destroyed. And what is a body without a soul? Even as an empty house which the in- habitants have deserted, the lights all out, the fire all ashes, the warmth and welcome gone, such is the human body without the soul. Now into the churches shall come modest music and mirth- ful but seemly dancing, and thy temples shall resound with the 72 blithesome laughter of innocent children. And I will show thee that joy is divine and mirth is divine and laughter is divine, and all wholesome and generous and real human sociability is divine. Ye shall cease to worship me with long and solemn faces for such have become the faces of hypocrits and the Phari- sees and such are the faces of those who hate and envy or de- spise their neighbors. Therefore, I say, leave solemnity and mourning and weeping and wailing unto the hypocrits who have earned and deserved such rewards. But I say unto you, henceforth the mark of the true Christian shall be as it always has been, the cheerfulness of a smiling face, and the laughter of a merry eye, and the rosy cheeks that come from a happy heart and a healthy soul. By these marks shall ye know them! For these cannot be imitated. But solemnity and seriousness and a low meekness and a quiet mildness and even a modesty of demeanor — all these may be imitated and therefore may be false and hypocritical. For doth not the wine-bibber and the reveller and the debaucher of woman arise in the morning wear- ing a most solemn and serious and pensive air? And if you miss the look of his bleary and bloodshot eye, — nay! even his eye may remain clear until he has grown old in the ways of sin ^ — you will in gazing upon such a man be very apt to say: — What a nice and quiet fellow. How serious and sober and sensi- ble he looks ! Therefore I say unto you that a reveller and the worst of sinners may assume virtues which they have not, under the cloak of seriousnes and soberness and quiet modesty. Nay! there be men suffering from the stomachache or from the tooth- ache who will look most pious and prayerful though they be cursing under their breath. So I say that whereas some good and proper things may be imitated, some other things — the 73 divinest things — no man can imitate. Thus true joy and the light and airy step of healthy youth and the genial smile of an innocent soul and the hearty laughter of a pure heart — these things cannot be imitated. Therefore I say unto you I will make them the marks of a true Christian. And I say unto you, Be not afraid of unseemly levity. Joy knoweth its own. For joy is kind and joy is modest and joy is clean and joy is blithesome and joy alone knoweth the meaning of the word moderation. Only the natural impulses that have been suppressed by Ascetic- ism and false living — these alone ye need to fear. But the fierce outburst of long imprisoned flesh and blood shall have and does have no relation and no resemblance to clean and pure and innocent joy. 74 CHAPTER XXVI Therefore, I say unto ye, beware of Aceticism for it is the parent of all unnatural vices, of all dictatorial and tyrannic authority, of pride and of all mental and moral brutality and brutal ambition and of all secret licentiousness and sin; of all the hypocrisy and humbug and greed that has been in the world from the beginning. Asceticism is the greatest enemy of man- kind. Therefore, I say unto you that all nuns of the Catholic Church shall leave their nunneries and go forth to become nor- mal and healthy and wholesome women. They shall marry and take husbands and bear children. If they have babies they shall marry the fathers of their children. And if they have a sweet- heart or lover, they shall marry their sweetheart or lover and shall live decently according to the Law. And the priests of the Catholic Church shall leave their confessionals which are against my Law and in defiance of my Word. For the con- fessional was established by shrewd men to perpetuate their power and not to spread my Word, the Word of the Lord, thy God. Therefore I say unto you that the confessional as part of the practice of the Catholic Church shall be abolished for it is against my Law, — the Law of the Living God. And the priests also shall marry as they did in the early days, before theology came to corrupt religion and before my Word, which is of the Spirit, was denied by the materialism which is of the flesh. For all the splendor of fine churches and costly orna- ments and golden crucifixes and swinging lights — all this is 75 materialism and gross and therefore an abomination to the eyes of the Lord. Therefore these things shall be abolished. And the pretended and insolent power of the so-called Pope, that also shall be abolished. For I say unto you that I, the Living God, never delegated my power to anyone. But I send one man there and he goeth. I call another man here and he cometh. But my power and authority I have never given or delegated to anyone. And whosoever says that 1, the Liv- ing God, who created the Heavens and the earth and who breathed the breath of life into every living thing, have ever delegated my authority to any mortal man or to any set of mortal men or that I shall hereafter delegate my authority to any man or to any set of men is a liar and a falsifier and a thrower of dust into the eyes of the people. And I say to you that the higher the sinner, the greater the fall and the greater the deception, the deeper the damnation. For I say again that I am the Living God who knoweth and seeth and under- standeth the hearts of his children and that I will not be gain- said. I will not have my laws juggled with or my decrees tampered with or my commands violated or changed even unto the smallest essential point thereof. Therefore I say unto you, all pretenders must go. But let them go in peace. Harm them not for they were foolish and did not understand. But the day cometh when all pretense shall be as chaff before an hurricane. For pretense is one of the foundation stones for injustice and cowardice and tyranny and wrong. And pretense can only maintain itself by constantly increasing injustice and by fouler wrongs, by secret murders, by assas- sinations and midnight crimes. CrW,kT& & JfkTi What now are pretenses and what are meant thereby? 76 A pretense is a claim to do or to be what thou canst not do and canst not be, or in other words, a pretense is a full and complete promise which is given to cover a partial perform- ance. For instance, a scholar, who cannot arise in a public assembly and make a clear statement of the gist of what he thinks and knows about the world in which he lives is no true scholar but only part of a scholar, the other part being a pre- tender. For knowledge to be real and useful must be alive and capable of explicit statement in clear terms so that men may comprehend. Now I say that long explanations are abom- inations and that most of the big and bulky commentaries are mere intellectual lumber that ought to be put into the bonfire and burned up. Men were not created by God to be placid indexes to dull books, but virile, vigorous and live men, keen and active to know and to maintain the Truth as they see it. There is only one proper place to study, — and that is under the open sky with God's world around and God's eye upon you. No man gets into crotchets or hobbies or half truths who touches the good soil with his feet and breathes the good air with his lungs. For sanity of mind and poise of soul and sym- pathy of heart come from knowing and seeing and daily wor- shipping the great universe which God made beautiful. With- out the interfusing and interpenetrating sense of beauty all knowledge is and must be incomplete. And no man can get a sense of beauty unless he goes where beauty is; that is, under the open sky and beneath the glow of the over-arching heavens. Now I say that parents often corrupt the minds of their own children. To talk of money and worldly ambition and low shrewdness before growing children is worse than as if 77 the parents sent their boy to a den of robbers to learn morals and their daughter to a house of ill-fame to study modesty. In a million richly appointed and beautiful homes today the demoralization and corruption of the minds of children goeth on by parents, who having eyes, see not. I say unto you that the defilement of the minds of children must cease. They are born with high ideals and clean minds, and all thy worldly scheming talk is worse than poisoned mud thereon. Now mud is known as mud and therefore will in time be cleaned away. But evil and worldly minded and materialistic talk is taken as parental wisdom by innocent children, who, looking up in rev- erence to their parents, naturally suppose that they know. Therefore I say, Suffer the little children to come unto me that I may keep their minds pure. Grown up people need one thing more than all other things, and that is to study idealism and the beautiful thoughts of little children. While parents are teaching mere technical details to their children, they should seek to learn wisdom from their children. But they need not praise or flatter their darlings nor tell their neighbors how clever their children are. That also is an evil which will lead to greater evils. But children being fresh from God have a wisdom that is fresh from God. The children know it not, but the parents should know and study it. Children know what is right and wrong often far better than their parents. For instance, a boy who takes an apple out into the playground and begins to eat it without offering his playmates and school- mates a bite, and just as big a bite as he takes is called mean and stingy and his comrades will no longer play with him. But many a grown man doing practically the same thing, be- comes a prominent and rising citizen, whose money saves him 78 from criticism. And herein is shown one of the few evil re- sults that come from man's association with women. Many a man becomes stingy or harsh or ungenerous to his fellows through the serpent-like suggestion of his wife, who selfishly thinks she will get less if a man's comrades get more. Her maternal care for her children often makes her over-cautious and over-prudent, and even when a woman's children no longer require her care, a woman often continues to dwarf the soul of a man, by pretending that she needs luxuries which only defile her and take away her womanhood. So that in the end a man makes a doll out of his wife and a nurse maid out of himself in caring for the doll. All this is done in the name of and under the pretense of Love. Therefore again I say unto you: Beware of how ye corrupt the meaning of the word love. The married woman who under cover of the marriage bond teases or coaxes her husband into licentiousness and into vices is no better, nay! not so good as a street walker. For the street walker is known for what she is. But the married woman pretends to be virtuous. The little hypocrit! I say unto you that the man who has intercourse with his wife when she is about to bear a child or has just borne a child is a brute, and that he corrupts his unborn child and injures the mind and body of his offspring. O this earth could be like to Heaven if no vice were ever practiced under the so-called holy estate of matrimony! Again ye see how good and true things may be corrupted by hypocrisy and the pretense of virtue in thy daily life. To have clean-minded children, the father and mother must be clean-minded. Ye cannot gather figs from thistles. Therefore I say, be clean of mind that ye may be vir- tuous of body. 79 THE SONG OF PATIENCE He sealed my lips; he shut my mouth; My Lord and God, the Living. I looked to North; I looked to South,' — O for a task of giving. 'Twas thus I cried unto the Night Upon my heart there lay a blight; I could not work; I could not write; Then from the left; then from the right, A voice replied of Love, not Hate, — Thy task, Beloved, is to wait, To wait! wait! wait! Thy task, Beloved, is to wait! 2. How long, O Lord, must this endure? How can I know and thus be sure, My task may all unbidden lie, And I sink down unknown and die. How shall I know the hour and day, When thou shalt come to me and say,— With words I long to feel and see: — Arise, my son, and follow me? Then unto me all soft and low, There came this answer: You will know: I cannot tell, but trust in me, 80 The hour will come and you shall see; You will know; I will be there, And arm thy soul to do and dare. But now behind thy quiet gate Thy task, Beloved, is to wait! To wait! wait! wait! Thy task, Beloved, is to wait. 81 CHAPTER XXVII I say unto you that modern advertising is a moral crime, and that all advertising men are sinners both in the sight of God and of their own conscience. For advertising tends to be- come a fake and a handmaid of Fakers and hence an associate of wrong and an upholder of Injustice and Tyranny. That is why in the business world of the Nineteenth Century adver- tising so flourished — because the thieves and robbers and ras- cals found they could use it to their advantage. I say to you that if one good man has been made rich through advertising, twenty rascals have been made richer. Look at the patent medicine manufacturers and the dishonest mining promoters! Advertising stands in the way of merit and good deserving. Whatever is worthy and meritorious will commend itself with- out words, both to the eyes of the Lord and to the eyes of all men — provided it is given a fair chance. But no man has a chance to be heard in the market place while the noisy haran- gues of the hypocrit and the smooth-tongued wooings of the liar and the specious pleadings of the gentle and foxy faker arise on every hand. Because good men think and believe in adver- tising and because it seems that every business man is forced to use that method to keep up with his competitors, still that does not make the wrong right. I ask every man to ask his soul whether if he doeth a good deed he desireth to advertise it? If therefore it is wrong or immodest to advertise the best things about thee, is it therefore right to advertise lesser and 82 worse things? If a man wishes to hire a carpenter or a stone- mason and he go to the public square and at sight of him and his apparent need of help, a hundred men rush forward clam- oring with loud cries: We can do thy work! We are skilled workmen, then the hundred and first man who may be more skilled and more fit for the place than any of the others shall not have a fair chance to secure the work to which he is en- titled because of his superior skill if he stand with quiet dignity in his place, because he will not be seen. But I say that real ability confers real dignity upon any man who possesses it and furthermore, the mere possession of ability entitles its posses- sor to consideration on the part of all men. For the master workman has the right to abide in his place with dignity and serenity of countenance. But when the clamorous crowd of second rate workmen rushed forth the man who needs a skilled man shall be forced to choose from among the crowd of boast- ers, while all the time the man who is wanted may stand just out of sight, alone and unheard. And he is unheard because the noisy crowd have obscured him from view. He has simply abided in his place at the post of duty to which God has ap- pointed him. I say unto you that each man of merit has a right to stand at his post of duty and of service with dignity, and in silence abiding his time. For the voices of the noisy and the clamorous and of the fakers cannot shut him out from the eyes of God nor from the eyes of any man who is persistent to have his work done by men who know. For knowledge seeks knowledge and ignorance herds with ignorance. And the tragedy of life comes when ignorance shall temporarily obscure by its clamorous pretenses the merit that abides pa- tiently at its post of duty. 83 CHAPTER XXVIII I say unto you that no teacher and no preacher; no prophet and no revealer of the truth; no leader who would lead and no guide who would show the way shall ever be able to do his work and the work of God, the Father, who requires his service except that he knows men. For without accurate and definite and intimate knowledge nothing can be accomplished. There- fore I say to all who aspire to be or think they are leaders or prophets or guides or teachers unto their fellow-men, ye must know. And your knowledge must be full and accurate. But the most difficult and the most intricate of all learning is to learn to know the inner part of man. Yet unless ye possess such knowledge, ye shall only harm and not help your fellow. For of all vain pretenses, the most vain is to pretend to know what thou dost not know. The only way to attain is to seek and to keep seeking after knowledge which is the mental and moral and spiritual light of the world. Without light the world lies in darkness. Now to have knowledge of men ye must eat with them and drink with them and make merry with them. You must help bury their dead and help receive their babies into the society of thy kind. Thou must rejoice in the marriage of their daughters and give prayers for the right mat- ing of their sons. Thou must fight side by side and shoulder to shoulder with them and thou must, if need be, revel with them, or if not thou must watch their revellings with sympathy and 84 pity, not with contempt or disdain. For without sympathy there is and can be no knowledge. Without sympathy the mother shall not know the heart of her own daughter nor the daughter know the heart of her mother. Without sympathy the father shall fail to see and to appreciate the nature of and the abilities of his own son. Without sympathy the son shall not be able to perceive or to appreciate the nobleness or fine- ness of character that lies beneath the plain and perhaps homely exterior of his own father. Therefore I say ye must have and must use sympathy in all thy dealings with thy fellow-men. Else shalt thou be hard and cruel and unjust and scornful and hypocritical and tyrannical. For Sympathy holds the key both to Justice and to Mercy. Without sympathy the virtuous wife shall let her husband perish of neglect because she did not understand. Without sympathy even the chaste man may let his beautiful young wife starve and fade away for the want of company and of right human companionship. Therefore I say unto you: — Be sympathetic. Try to see life from another point of view be- sides thy habitual point of view. Sympathize but do not be weepy or tearful or solemn or sad. Sympathy must be fine and keen and high and clear and swift to perceive and silent in order to cultivate its perceptions aright. For I say to you that sympathy is the basis of all the Justice and Joy and Happiness of human life. H5 CHAPTER XXIX First of all I say unto you, Ye must be honest. Yet no man can be made honest or kept honest by rules. Only the conscience within shall ever be able to make or keep any man honest. Therefore has it come to pass that wherever the con- sciences of men are dulled they have become dishonest and dishonorable — a piteous sight in the eyes of God, and a loath- some sight unto their own eyes. For I say unto you that in order to be honest, ye must render service according to thy ability and whoso does not render service according to his ability but only according to some barren rules is a dishonest man. I say unto thee that in so far as in thee lies thou shalt work, not with thy muscles alone but with thy heart and thy soul and thy mind, for thy heart and thy soul and thy mind are more important than thy muscles. Therefore in thy daily labor if thou lea vest out the most important things needed for real labor how canst thou call thyself honest? I speak unto thy Conscience, for thy Conscience knoweth the Law. When I gave unto thee a Conscience I gave unto thee a knowledge of the Law. Again I say unto thee, thou must use the faculties and abilities given to thee, for without use all things are in danger of rust and decay. Now I say unto thee that thy heart and mind and soul working in harmony and with enthusiasm to promote thy work are all necessary for the production of the good will that is needed in all labor. For without good will, nothing can be rightly done on the earth or in the heavens. 86 Therefore I say unto thee that unless a man put good will into his work he is not an honest man. For no man can be honest who goes about his daily labor leaving out the best that is in him. Wherefore, to be called honest, thou must work not only diligently but with good will and enthusiasm over thy daily task. For without good will and enthusiasm no true service can be rendered. I say furthermore that thou shalt stick to the task that is set to thee and do thy level best so long as thou shalt labor at all. The laborer shall not stop and lean on his shovel the minute he thinks the boss is not looking. The clerk shall not drop his pen or shove it jauntily over his ear and turn to flirt with the pretty typewriter girl the minute his employer steps out of the office. The typewriter girl shall not stop and write a note on her machine to some gentleman friend when- ever she thinks that no eye is watching her. But I say unto her that the eye of God is upon her always. The maid servant shall not drop her work to gossip or to flirt with or to kiss on the sly the butcher boy or the ice man or the messenger boy who comes to deliver a bundle. For whoso wastes time for which he is paid is dishonest and he must amend. I speak to thy conscience for it knows the Law. I say further that this applies to all other men in all other walks of life who do not render the service for which they are paid. I say that any ruler such as the President of the United States of America who runs about the country campaigning while he is in office, and who is out doors fixing up his political fences while he should be indoors doing the work which the people pay him to do is not an honest man nor a proper ruler. Furthermore I say unto you that any such President who runs about the coun- try talking and speechifying and banqueting when he should 87 be in Washington at work is a dishonest man, whose dishon- esty corrupts the entire life of the nation. The vicious exam- ple of one such man shall serve to sway from the right path thousands of young men. Then woe unto the leaders in high places who are not only dishonest themselves but bad exam- ples to all their followers! Again I say unto you that any Senator or Representative of the people who is not strictly honest is a curse and menace to his country. The bad example of dishonest leaders in high places shall be a curse and a blight unto any nation. The leader who conscientiously swerves one inch from the path which his conscience points out to him shall not only be accursed of God but he shall in time lose his influence and his power and shall fade away from the sight and remembrance of his fellows, unhonored and unknown. For the penalty of dishonesty is and shall be mental and moral and spiritual death. Such is the Law. So it has been from the beginning and so it shall be to the end. Look into the eye and the face of a dishonest man and see what ravages the inner corruption makes upon the outer features. A dishonest man hateth himself and therefore does his face grow hard and seamed and gross and flabby. For many are the outward rav- ages and markings made by our wronged consciences, but all the markings made by any vice are ugly. What I have said of a few types of men applies to all men. It is not necessary to make the applications. That will be done by the conscience of each individual man who reads these words. For the con- science of each man knows the Law. And since each man knows the Law he must obey the Law or he will receive his own condemnation, which is the most severe judgment that any man can receive. For I say unto you that the condemna- 88 tion of the most severe Judge is never equal in harsh and merciless severity to the judgment which each man passes upon himself the minute he doeth wrong. Therefore I say unto all men, Obey your consciences if ye would be honest or happy. For thou knowest the Law, and knowing thou must obey. 89 CHAPTER XXX The laws of God are few and simple* The words of God are swift and brief. Words hinder action. Words confuse thoughts. Words bungle. And most explanations do not explain. A man wading through a long discourse resembles a traveler trying to follow a narrow trail through a jungle. He is more apt to be lost than to be found. And least of all shall he be able to find himself. Therefore be careful of entering into any jungle of words lest thou be confused and thy thoughts be lost. When men are children they must be given childish directions and explanations. And all directions and explana- tions require words. But to the trained mind of the trained soldier at any post of duty in the domain of human life, the general in command says go! and he goeth. Come! and he cometh. Do! and he doeth. Therefore wisdom and action need few words. The early sacred writings of China and India and of the Jews were lengthy, because explanations to races who had not as yet outgrown their childhood, were needed. But the greatest reason of their length is that men bungled and added to what God said. Even in the New Testament Christ's words are not infrequently added to and bungled up in the adding. Moreover, there are chapters and parts of chapters that are put in as padding, just as the modern newspaper writer having a good story spoils the vigor of it by padding it out to fill up the required space. 90 CHAPTER XXXI But I say unto you that the time for bungling is past. Men are now at a period in which they may cast away the superstitions and the bungled words and the corrupted inven- tions of their fairy tale age and receive the truth straight from the shoulder and clear to the heart. The day has passed when the leaders shall do the thinking for the people. The people must think for themselves. And in order to think for them- selves men and women must not be bowed down and must not reel staggering under a load of work that others may be lazy. Therefore I give you the greatest Commandment of the com- ing centuries, viz: No man and no woman and no child shall labor for more than six hours a day for six days in the week. Bankers keep their hours from 10 o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon. And are not the bankers the most prosperous part of every community? As bankers have learned how to live in ease and comfort by handling the peo- ple's money, I say unto you that the People must learn how to increase their comfort by using the knowledge of and the shrewdness of the bankers. If five hours of daily labor is enough for the prosperous banker, why may it not be sufficient also to insure the prosperity of the People? Better for use than good money is a good idea, for good ideas make good money. Why then, throw away the good idea of anyone, even of a banker? He does not refuse to handle at a profit thy good money. Why shouldst thou refuse to or omit to profit by his 91 good ideas which are more valuable than money? For one good idea can make a million dollars, but no million dollars has ever or shall ever succeed in making one idea. Therefore I say unto you, do not neglect to observe and watch the ways of bankers. And be not so foolish as to neglect Wisdom, no matter whence it cometh. 92 CHAPTER XXXII Now I say unto you that God hates a lie and a liar. For lies poison the air and carry contagion and death and disease and sorrow and shame and humiliation to the ends of the earth. Thou shalt not lie! Lay down thy book now and reflect for five minutes on the meaning of those four little words, Thou shalt not lie. A lie is living poison and foul contagion. Thou dost not believe what I say now, but thou shalt believe. Wait and listen. I have said unto you that all the holy books of the past have been tampered with by designing priests and so- called ministers of God for their own selfish purposes, in order that they might maintain their authority over the people. They have fixed up stories that are not fit for the understanding of a twelve-year-old child, and yet they boldly and brazenly ask that such stories be believed because they are in the Holy Book, and men must believe in the Holy Scriptures. Thus they have asked and demanded and compelled decent men and women and truth-seeking children to believe false- hoods because such falsehoods would serve, they thought, better than the truth to bolster up and to foster and to maintain ecclesiastical authority and the influence of the so-called ministers of God. But I say unto you that God, the Living God, hates all liars, but he hates most of aU theological liars who have helped for fifty thousand years to keep in the slavery of ignorance the souk of men. I say unto you that men — all men — were born to be free and that they shall 93 be free. For such is the Law. And in order that the souls of men shall he free, all theological humbug and lying and falsehood must go. Throw it into the ash heaps of the world for dogs to sniff at. Ye need not do it even rev- erendly, for there is no reverence to be given to the lies that have been bred in high places, and what place is higher than the Temple of God. When humbug goes even the thieves and robbers and so-called rascals of the world shall raise their heads like men and say: There is a chance. We will be good. It is worth while trying to be good when things are on the square. Now perhaps the most odious and the most vicious lie ever re- corded for the credence of men occurs in the New Testament, the most beautiful and most truthful and the wisest of all the books ever written, because it contains the words and teachings of Jesus; albeit those words and teachings have been bungled and in some places perverted. Now in all of the holy writings before the coming of Jesus, in all countries there had been tampering and fixing-up by priests and so-called ministers. It was an ancient custom that had grown from earlier and more savage times. The witch doctor of the wandering tribes shook his rattle and made up his stories as he pleased, speaking one true word and then two false ones. Seeing how easily the cre- dulity of unthinking people could be imposed on, the custom on the part of the priests continued when the people began to be less credulous. The custom of theological humbug is perhaps the most ancient of all surviving customs. It survived because it was so carefully protected by both priests and people. When customs are so long and so firmly established, it is hard to break them. Any man who tries to break up a long established religious custom in any nation at any time signs his own death 94 warrant. And no man likes to sign his own death warrant, it being hard enough to have somebody else sign it. Thus evil customs survive and flourish. And the longer they survive and the longer they flourish, the more evil they become. That is why it was possible for the men coming after and spreading the teachings of Jesus, the Truth-speaker, to foist upon the world an odious lie in regard to His birth and parentage. Now all that is said about the poverty of the childhood of Christ is true. And all that is said about the boyhood of Christ and of his disputing with the learned men in the temple is true. Though his arguments were merely considered as the clever effort of a precocious boy. The wisdom of what Jesus then said practically made no impression because he was a boy. Wisdom must be duly tagged and labeled before men will receive it. But the story of the Magi coming to greet the newly born babe is not true. For if it had been true it would not have taken thirty years of the life of Christ for him to get started on His real mission. The mission of Christ lasted four years, and He did not start until He was thirty years old, because it took practically a lifetime for him to win over even a handful of people to believe in Him. For people were just as unbeliev- ing then as they are today. People are unbelieving because they do not understand the meaning of what is true. They do not think. They bow to the authority of so-called thinkers. Intellectual men are very apt to be shrewd men who would like to keep up the fiction that only a few men are fit to think for and lead their fellows. Now Christ came into the world obscure, lived a lowly and obscure life, and although He had a few friends who saw that there was something about Him 95 which was different from other young men, what that some- thing was they could not tell. For the poor son of an obscure carpenter would have had at no time the proper recognition for the wisdom he possessed. For wisdom coming from a beggar does not sound the same as the identical wisdom would sound if uttered in a fine cathedral by a grey-haired and reverend looking priest clad in flowing robes. Nay! wisdom uttered by a beggar might land him in the town jail as being a dangerous citizen, while the same words uttered in the same spirit from a pulpit might double the priest's salary as a testimonial to the uplifting and inspiring influence of a pure and pious heart. So Jesus wandered obscure and lonely for almost a life- time, more obscure and more lonely than any Christian today dreams of. 96 CHAPTER XXXIII Now the birth of Christ was not a miracle as men con- sider such things. Yet it was a greater wonder for the sight of men and more instructive to the souls of men than any miracle that had been performed up to that time. But it was a different kind of event, a more wonderful and more spiritual fact than the dull brains of the brightest priests of those days could conceive of, and even if they had tried to imagine it, they would not have been able to fully understand it. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not a virgin when he was born. She was a virgin when He was conceived and the conception was as natural as that of any other child. Mary was a sweet and trusting and confiding and emotional and dreamy girl, and like other such girls she knew not the meaning of sin. She loved and was loved by a young priest of the temple where she went to worship, and who when he found that she would become a mother said to her in agony and contrition of Spirit, Mary, we are one in the sight of God. Then come and marry me and proclaim me as thy wife before all men, said Mary, the in- nocent and unworldly minded maiden, who like other innocent maidens give all to the man they love. But the young priest shrank back, saying, "It is against the rules of our religious order to marry; how can I?" But Mary answered him and said, "What mean such rules to us who love? They were not made for lovers." Then the young priest sadly bowed his head and in the agony of his soul, for he loved Mary, answered 97 her, — "Nay, but if I married thee, I would not only lose my position here in the temple, but they would put me to death." With a cry of horror Mary flung herself into his arms, cry- ing, "To death?" "Yea," answered the young priest, his fine face writhing in agony, "they will put me to death. Though I fear not death, they will put me to death just the same, and we shall be separated." Mary wiped away her tears, and smil- ing, said, "I could not live now if thou wert dead." Then the young priest said, "We have sinned through ignorance. I never would have taken vows if I had known that human hearts could hold such love as now and always I feel for thee. I must give thee up and thou must marry another man." "Aye, that is true. We must give each other up. But thou wilt keep me in thy heart and soul and mind, and thou wilt pray for me?" cried Mary eagerly. "Aye, night and day I will pray for our souls." Then falling on his knees he asked for her forgiveness in the sight of God. Placing her hand softly on his head that shook with sobs, Mary kissed him on the brow and went away. Joseph soon after sought her hand in marriage, for Mary was fair to look upon, a modest and a seemly girl. After much hard thinking and much wondering about the cruel laws that kill and smother up the souls and hearts of living men, Mary told Joseph all. And Joseph, out of his deep love for Mary, forgave her, and they were married. When some months had come and gone, then Jesus came, the Child of Love, for Mary wondering and from gratitude at Joseph's forgiveness and at the kindness of God to spare her the unspeakable defilement of the Jewish laws bore to the world a perfect child, a child conceived in love and reared in love and trained in love by the 98 grateful soul of one pure Mother. And Jesus so born and so conceived became the Light and Saviour of the World, because all those around Him tried to live the Law of Love. If any Law was broken there in Palestine, and surely the young priest broke the law, — the Law of Love, which is God's first and foremost law, that law was all fulfilled at least by Mary and by Joseph. And out of sin grew greater strength. For that also is the Law. 99 CHAPTER XXXIV Now, hark unto me all men, that I may let thee see and clearly see what may come from a lie; what blight may fall upon the earth unto the end of time as the result of a single falsehood. And remember that the great sin of the young priest was not to have loved a young girl with a pure and manly love that filled her soul and body and mind and heart, but his sin was having denied her the fulfillment of that love by a plighting of faith and a marriage before and in sight of all men. He should have resigned his position in the temple and have gone away to some far country where he and Mary could live in safety. Women know what is the fulfillment of the Law of Love, and men must heed woman's knowledge. What- soever law on earth stands in the way of and is an obstacle to the fulfillment of the Law of Love must go. For God is love, and without love, ye shall never know who or what God is. Therefore I say unto you that all celibacy and all priesthoods that omit or frown on or avoid the holy sacrament of marriage either for themselves or others, such a priesthood is false, and the members of such a priesthood are sinners and the abet- tors of sin. And I say that all sins must be abolished. I say unto you further that God's law demands sunshine and air and the open sky. The so-called love that lurks and hides and lingers and giggles and blushes and simpers in dark corners and in shady nooks and in dusky lanes, and beneath the shadows of trees and bushes is not love at all, but the symptoms 100 of mere physical passion such as belongs to all beasts of the fields. Now whenever ye think that physical passion and love are identical, ye are as the blind leading the blind, and the Light and Knowledge of the Law is as yet hidden from you. There- fore I say unto you that all true love is open and free and beau- tiful and joyous and noble and clean. Whatsoever is not so is not love. For love is light and love is sunshine and love is joy. And God is love. Therefore seek ye to know and to honor love. Lie not about love nor falsify nor dare to dishonor it. Now it must be remembered that between the birth of Jesus and his setting out upon his mission thirty years elapsed. In a small community and among primitive people even gossip will go to sleep after thirty years, provided that nothing great occurs meanwhile to keep it awake. Now the country gossip over Mary and her misfortunes in not being able to marry the man she loved died down long before Jesus became known. Yet enough people were alive who knew the truth about Christ's parentage to let the knowledge go abroad. Thus the truth was known and talked over. It was finally put aside as being too dangerous to publish, because it was feared it might lead to greater laxity of morals among the people if such a human fact received a divine sanction. Also, it was thought it might pre- vent the spread of Christ's noble doctrines in case the people found out that their Lord and Saviour was not only of humble, but of what would seem to their ignorance and misunderstand- ing, as of dubious origin. Thus the apostles who were record- ing the sayings of Jesus decided to invent the story of the miraculous conception and of the Virgin Mary, leaving out all mention of the young priest's part, because the publishing of such a fact might put such a clear and definite case of priestly 101 weakness and the dangers of asceticism before the people, that priests thenceforth would have been obliged to have taken just as good care of their own morals as they are supposed to take of the morals of other people. Thus the fiction was started and a vicious falsehood set in motion. We may say that it was done with the best of intentions. Well, Hell is paved with good intentions, as you may have read. Now what happened? The immediate result was just as shrewd men had foreseen. The people were at first mystified and then delighted with their mysticism. They gulped down the story with the eagerness of a small boy who is in such a hurry to run out to play after school that he does not take time to masticate his piece of bread and butter, but swallows it whole, knowing he hath a sturdy digestion. The people thus took the story at one gulp, because mysticism rests the minds of lazy or tired or unthink- ing or overworked people. Mental twilight is soothing to the minds of some people even as a dark room is quieting to the nerves of babes and little children — they sleep better out of the glare. The blazing light of truth is too strong for eyes and for minds that need sleep. It is too stimulating. But all men need sleep who stuff their stomachs with too much food. For digestion waits on sleep since sleep bringeth good digestion. Now the beautiful and mystical story that by its beauty and its wonder seemed to thoughtless and to over-shrewd minds to justify the falsity of it became the cause of much religious ecstacy and likewise of much religious hypocrisy and of much human cruelty and wrong. Had the world been taught the actual truth, what mercy and gentleness would have sprung up in the minds of men toward all women who had trusted to men and been deceived, even as Mary was deceived! What 102 scorn of moral cowardice would have resulted! What adora- tion of the might and mystery of love under the most adverse conditions and what pity for women who love not wisely but too well would have come into the world! On the other hand what did that one lie do during the nineteen hundred and eleven years of its foul and sinful life? That one falsehood has turned thousands of innocent girls from their father's house into the cold night and into the colder day. That one false- hood has put the red hot brand of shame upon a million women's brows and let a million rascals walk the highways and the byways of the world unscathed and unrebuked. That lie has dragged down and kept ten million women to the level of the men whom they might have lifted up into the light and grace of true knowledge. That lie has left thousands of babies nameless because their fathers were too cowardly and because society was too immoral to make them do what their souls bid. Therefore I say unto you if so-called ministers of God could start and keep alive for nineteen hundred and eleven years a vicious wrong and sinful lie and take away the greatest human glory and lesson from the birth and the coming of Christ into the world, what other wrongs and fierce brutalities are not done by well intentioned lies. I say again, Beware of lies. For God demands of you first and foremost that ye shall speak the truth. For Truth is light, and before love comes to you truth must come and take you by the hand and lead the way. Honor thou the truth. That is also the Law. 103 CHAPTER XXXV Now I say unto all the Jews throughout the world, I have come to thee to lead thee out of bondage. Ye have suffered and ye shall be made strong. Ye have been persecuted and ye shall be made free. Ye have been spit upon and outraged and sneered at and been shunned and scorned, and I say unto you I will restore thy power. Ye shall be the leaders of the world again. But ye shall no longer hate or be hated. Ye shall no longer despise or be despised. Ye shall no longer stand apart from thy fellows, but thou shalt teach unto men what the world needs to know. Thou shalt leave thy money getting and show once more to the world of men the meaning of the word Jew, humbly and modestly, yet with the quiet pride due to a great race which has had a glorious past. But thou shalt no longer live upon the memories of thy past. Thou shalt go con- fidently into the future, unto greater power and glory and majestic triumphs than even the days of Solomon and Moses ever knew. For only suffering and humility can make a man or a nation great. Thou hast suffered; thou hast drank to its lees the bitter cup of life, and I say unto thee, the hour of thy deliverance is nigh. Thy women shall be careful to mate only with the best and cleanest men of other races. Thus shalt thou insure a vigorous and a virile progeny. Thy mothers shall bear many and virile children and thou shalt not fear to let thy daughters marry men of other races. But they shall marry only picked men of undeniable mental and physical power, who 104 have been approved by the Rabbis in the Synagogue. The Daughters of Israel shall remember that as women they are responsible for the future of a race. They are to be the re- vivers and restorers of a great people. Therefore they must be careful not only to bear as many children as possible, but they must be careful to see that each child is well born. They shall teach unto their husbands the meaning of the word love, which is chastity and moderation and self-control and loyalty. As the mothers of a great race which is about to renew its glories, the Jewish women must put off pride and vanity of dress and put on the dignity that becomes the women of God's chosen people. Be careful I say to be humble, and remember the days of thy persecution only to profit by them. Thou shalt remember that hate is futile and tyranny is foolish and that persecution is crime. Therefore, in the hour of thy triumph be humble. Thou shalt not go back to Palestine, for I who am come to lead thee shalt not be there. I am here where Liberty and Freedom beckon to every man who loveth Freedom and Justice and Light. Therefore I say unto thee, Arise, ye Jews! look up into the sky. Look down into thy hearts. For I tell thee that the hour which thou hast awaited for five thousand years has come at last. Unto thee, also, I bring this Gospel of Hope. 105 CHAPTER XXXVI To the worldly and ecclesiastical organization known as the Holy Catholic Church, I say: I shall send a David with a pebble to fight against thee, a Goliath, on the open field of battle. And the pebble which he shall fling against thee is the word Freedom. And thou shalt be sorely wounded unto death, and thou shalt not know it. Nay! thou shalt laugh in thy pride and say, What! be hurt by a mere pebble? Not I. But the peb- ble shall hit thee in thy most vulnerable part, — thy want of the love of Truth. And having once hit thee, the little wound will bleed until thy life blood shall all flow from thee and thy power shall die. It shall take time, because ignorant men shall flock to thee to succor thee from fear, not knowing or dreaming of thy weakness. Some from fear and some perchance out of the traditional love of the days when thou wert pure of heart and clean of body, shall minister to thee in thy dying hours, seeing in thee only a splendid spiritual giant and not the mere remnant of something which has once been. For if thou hadst retained the strength which God gave thee, the pebble of David would never have been hurled against thee and therefore would never have harmed thee. But thou must die and thou wilt die, mourned by thousands and derided by millions. For everyone who sheds a tear over thy dead body, there shall be ten who will curse thee in their hearts. For thy later days were filled with greed and tyranny and hypocrisy and ill deeds and oppres- sions and deceptions. The memories of the virtuous deeds of 106 thy youth shall never be able to wipe away the record of thy brutal manhood and thy evil old age. Thou hast become a pre- tender. Woe unto all pretenders ! I say. Of all pretense theo- logical pretense is the worst, and God will damn such pretense with everlasting damnation. For whoever drags down the holy things and denies the high things of God is no common sinner. He is an arch devil and must be punished accordingly. Not the dupes whom ye have deceived but even thy own self, thou brutal and evil Goliath, the so-called Holy Roman Catholic Church, thou shalt go to Hell with all thy Popes. 107 CHAPTER XXXVII Now I say unto you that rich men are a menace to the community, and I say unto you also that poor men are a menace to the community. For rich men and poor men are both the product of one thing, Greed. The love of money is the root of all evil, I say those words again and I command you to repeat them until you understand them. The rich man having accumulated money tends to become brutal or tyran- nous or selfish. The poor man having failed to accumulate money tends to become envious or bitter or malignant. There- fore it is not good for any man to be too eager to possess much money. If the world was run aright, and if the hearts of men were right, there would be small need for money. Brotherly love and kindly feelings would freely render those services which now only money can buy. I say unto you that the man who will not work except he be paid in money, is no man at all, but only a human form of brute. For money represents only the animal that is the brute side of man's abilities. For cunning and shrewdness are both animal instincts, and all the qualities that go to make up the most successful merchants to- day are the refined forms of mere animalism, and because they are sugar-coated and dressed up, the instincts are not the less still there in all their primitive power and potency. I say to all the workers throughout the world, thou shalt render faithful and honest and loyal service. But no service is faithful and honest and loyal unless thy heart and thy mind and thy soul 108 are in it. Mechanical service is not properly true service at all, and if thou art asked or required to do such work thou shalt refuse, for God never made man to be a machine. Thou hast a heart and a soul and a mind as well as a body, and it is more important to care for thy heart and thy soul and mind than it is to care for thy body. It were better for thy body to die of starvation than that thy soul should die of starvation. There- fore I say unto you, be not a machine nor do thy work in a mechanical way. For thus shalt thou kill thy soul, and suicide is against the law and murder is against the law, for the law says, "Thou shalt not kill even thyself." 109 CHAPTER XXXVIII I say unto all the rich and powerful and so-called leaders of the world that the foremost right of every full grown man and woman in every civilized land today is the right of steady and uninterrupted employment, provided it can possibly be furnished. To furnish labor to the workers of the world spas- modically is to demoralize them. It is not good, especially for those who work with their muscles to be rushed to death one day and to languish in complete idleness the next day. More- over, it is not wise or right or just for society to demand the service of skilled carpenters or stone-masons or brick-layers, and then give them work only one-half or two-thirds of the year, thus obliging them to exhaust their savings and preventing them from laying up the needed nest-egg for their old age. Therefore I say that particular pains should be taken in north- ern climates to teach boys two trades whenever possible, one trade which would give them work in summer, and another trade for winter. All muscle workers need a change from one set of muscles to another. It is absolutely necessary to their health. More attention must be given by men employed at heavy labor to their own health and much more attention must henceforth be given by the employers of such labor. The great- est resource of any country lies in the physical health and mental alertness of its citizens. Furthermore I say unto you that whenever the labor is especially exhausting or performed under unhealthy conditions that the hours of labor in such oc- 110 cupations must be proportionately lessened in order to give the laborer sufficient time for recuperation before he shall be called upon for another day's work. Now with the thousand and one inventions of recent years production has been so vastly increased, that one man can in some fields produce more than ten men could have produced a century ago. But the workers of the world are not getting their proportionate share of benefit from the increase of race efficiency and from the efficient ap- plication of racial knowledge. Men may be two or three times better off than they were a hundred years ago. But they are not ten times as well off as they should be, for in many and many a trade they produce ten times as much as was formerly produced. Where does the difference go? Into the pockets of the rich. Hence the increase of luxuries of all sorts, which is threatening the very existence of civilization. For human life cannot endure where the material conditions which sur- round men are so widely different. Economic aristocracy means eventually and necessarily political and social aristo- cracy. A free people cannot exist where a majority are in practical servitude to a very small minority. Great are the social and business ills resulting from keeping the worker from properly sharing in the social and business advancement of the world. Now the knowledge which makes inventions possible is that common stock of knowledge which is the possession of humanity. Down through the ages men have toiled and starved and risked death in order to increase this common stock of knowledge. An invention is only a particular and shrewd special adaptation to local needs of a general idea or a series of general ideas and principles which perhaps were first discov- 111 ered centuries ago. It is therefore not just or right or fair for a man to he allowed to become enormously wealthy by this special adaptation of general racial knowledge to special and private ends. For suppose that these general principles had not been laboriously hammered out by the brains and toil during a thousand years of a thousand men, there would be no general principles from which to make particular applications. Sup- pose that Aristotle had never lived, where would the scientific knowledge of these later days be? Thus the first and foremost fund of knowledge is racial knowledge, and this racial knowl- edge is far more important than any special application of it. Therefore the individual who makes the special application is entitled to his own honor and to the reward that goes with any new addition to the common stock. But the individual must not take more, nor be allowed to take more than what is due him. Today he takes not only his own share, but that larger share which belongs to the race. For the race through the labors of a thousand men for thousands of years has laid the foundations for the success of each individual man belonging to that race. Therefore each individual must be made to re- member what he owes to the race. Under present laws the one man in his blind selfishness is allowed to forget what he owes to many men. As a consequence, the interests of the race suffer. But it must be plain that any race is vastly more important than any individual member of that race. Therefore above all, the interests of the race must be safeguarded, and no man henceforth shall be allowed to take and appropriate to his own exclusive use what comes from and belongs to the storehouse of the race. For from such injustice springs in- numerable social ills and wrongs. Inventions, therefore and 112 the benefits thereof, which really belong to and are rightfully the possessions of the human race must be used to mitigate and to ultimately remove the present load of human suffering. But no right deed can be the product of a wrong idea. And the widespread wrongs today are the result of wide spread ideas that are false. Now the first and natural benefit to be derived from all the modern inventions is the shortening of the hours of labor. The shorter the hours the greater the benefit to men and the less the mountain of trouble which wrong and injustice are breeding. Six hours a day men shall labor at their tasks and no more. Six hours of work is plenty, provided it be done cheerfully and it will be done cheerfully when adequate pay is given thereof. Whenever it is possible, and especially in all seasons except the winter months, the labor should be arranged to begin at six o'clock in the morning and to stop at the hour of noon. The result of this will be to cut out the late hours and unnatural dissipations that now go on under gas light and electric light. It will enable people to go to bed with the sun and get up with the sun as God intended. As people have gradually drifted away from what is right and normal and healthy, they must go back to what is natural and healthy. The future of all civ- ilized races depends upon one thing — to secure the sound and healthy sleep upon which all vigor depends. Without sound sleep any race is doomed to unnatural vices, monstrous dissipa- tions and the death that follows such. Men must have time to develop the brains which God gave them. For without the brain efficient work is impossible. Therefore I say unto you, ye merchants and manufacturers, that you are throwing away the efficiency which you require, when you make the hours of 113 labor so long that the laborer becomes exhausted or over- fatigued. For efficient labor should be done with the snap and energy and vigor of play. When you have put into your work- shops the joyous spirit of your playground ye will have efficient labor, and not before. Therefore, be not blind! And all greed is blind. No man can see in the dark, but every greedy man lives in the dark. 114 CHAPTER XXXIX Life changes, and as life changes, men change in customs and in manners and in the details of their daily living. There- fore, newer times demand newer oracles and newer laws. The old principles abide, but new explanations and applications thereof are necessary. Therefore, I say unto you, there are sins today that are not set down as such in any Bible or indexed in any library. I say the greatest sin of modern times is physi- cal laziness and the love of luxury attendant thereon. No man loves luxury who is strong. Nay! no strong man will tolerate luxury, for he knows the subtle dangers and degradations thereof. People may temporarily be mentally active but physi- cally inert and lazy. They may for a time live on the stored up physical energies of hardy ancestors, but in the long run, physi- cal and mental animation and ability are one. Therefore the mental worker who habitually forgoes or thinks he can do without physical exercise is not only foolish but a sinner, J And his folly and sin shall react upon him. Thus the fat and thick- necked merchant who sits in an office all day, when for his soul's sake and his body's sake he needs to saw a half a cord of wood more or less is a sinner, and his sin shall in due time find him out and expose him to all the world, including his own conscience, by leading him into the temptations of a licen- tious life. He shall look with lustful eyes on his pretty type- writer girl, and shall lead her into the way of temptation which she is fighting day by day to escape. He shall do this because he is only half a man, the other half being beast, but not even 115 a dean beast at that. For she too needs the physical labor and exercise which she has no time to take. But I say she must take time. The reason why the devil has such easy work to catch these high toned and respectable looking sinners is be- cause they will not do the work which they ought to do. Such work, forsooth, is menial, they say and only fit for servants. Is anything menial that will help to save a human soul from sin and damnation and degradation? As to being fit only for servants, ye hypocrits, I say unto you that the highest rank and the noblest medal of honor to be won on earth or in heaven consists in the words, — "He was a good servant." Jesus was a good servant, the best servant the world has ever seen. And it was because he was a good servant that he was the Saviour. To serve truly and faithfully and loyally thy fellowmen is the divinest attribute and the highest achieve- ment of any man. Thou mayest omit thy prayers and thy ad- dresses and thy supplications and thy singings of hymns to God. But see that thou forget not thy fellowmen. Human needs are the first and should be the foremost care of every human being who believes in God. Thou canst trick the eyes and ears and fancies and imaginations and pride of thy fellowmen by thy pretended piety. Thy fellowmen may in their weakness forgive. But God knows and sees and under- stands. All the psalm-singing and church going and pious airs from now until doomsday will not save the soul of any man or of any woman who neglects to serve to the uttermost their fellowmen. For without unselfish human service there can be no religion. Believe what ye please, but if ye do not do kind and generous and neighborly deeds, thou shalt be damned. Love is the Law. There is no other Law. For God is love. 116 CHAPTER XL I say unto you that the soul and body are one. Corrupt the one and you will corrupt the other. Degrade the one and you will degrade the other. Weaken the one and you will weaken the other. Strengthen the one and you will strengthen the other. That is the Law. I say furthermore unto you that there is no such thing as permanent damnation. There is no such thing as being lost in sin f orevermore. Such pernicious doctrines are interpolations and additions to the Bible, not the teachings of Jesus nor the words of Jesus. They were put into the sacred writings by shrewd priests who hoped thereby the more easily to maintain their authority over the people. For it is supposed now by some men, and it was believed in olden times almost universally, that men must be ruled by fear. But I repeat to you again, God's Law is the Law of Love. He has no other law. A man damns himself. God does not damn him. A man judges himself, God does not judge him. Now I say unto you that men must learn to be merciful and just to themselves. Men must learn to be patient with them- selves and to be respectful to themselves. For, I say there is always a chance. No man ever loses his chance to be what he might have been. He may wander far and roam wide, but the minute he resolves to return to the right path, that moment his chance comes back to him, and his chance of reaching the original goal for which he set out will remain just so long as his good resolution remains. A man must try to recall how 117 long and how far he has wandered from the path in order to know how long and how far he must travel in order to reach the path again. In brief, a good resolution is the restoration of a chance, not the attainment thereof. Work, oftentimes long and hard work must back up a good resolution, or the reso- lution fades into mere air. 'Tis not to resolve to do a deed, but the deed itself that counts. Therefore I say that to do thy good deed and to make thy good resolution afterwards is just as well, for then thy resolution cannot evaporate. And it is evaporated good resolutions that darken the sky and fill the world with sorrow. 118 CHAPTER XU The church of the future shall be in the hearts of men. They need not go to church. They shall carry their church with them. They shall not worship or pray on one day only, or call one day the holy Sabbath day. But they shall wor- ship and pray every single day, and therefore all days shall be holy and all places shall be holy and all deeds worthy of being done at all shall be holy deeds and they shall be done in reverence and with a worshipful spirit. But upon one day in each seven men shall rest from their labors as before and it is best to retain the Sabbath day as the rest day, be- cause confusion must be avoided in actions and thinking whenever and wherever possible. The curse of the world is mental confusion. Too many small purposes destroy any great purpose. Too many small ideas shut out and leave room for no great idea. Unity of purpose and unity of action always mean strength. And from strength comes in time efficiency. But until the hours of labor shall be reduced to six hours each day — and they will be reduced as soon as men take away the black mask of greed that at present covers the eyes of their souls, I say that all labor must cease at noon of each Saturday throughout the year. This is nec- essary in order that many people who do not now find time to go to church at all because they need the amusement of the theatre or of dancing once a week shall be able to be rested up by Sunday afternoon in order to see and appre- 119 ciate and feel some of the wonders and blessings and the miracles of life, and therefore to worship. And without wor- ship man can do nothing well. Every act of a real man is an act of worship. True action is praise to God. Indeed there is no other form of praise so acceptable to God as a deed rightly done. For I say unto you that lip service is no real service at all. Psalm singing and long preaching may be a bore and an insult and an abomination unto the Lord. For God never asked any man to advise him or give suggestions as to how the universe should be managed. And more than half of all the prayers offered up in modern churches consist of advice to the Lord. They sound very much as if men were instructing a small boy as to what he should do. Until men shall learn to mind their own business and leave the Universe to God, there is no hope for them. For conceit and egotism are at the bottom of all falsehoods. A man must understand where he is at before he can know what he can do and how he can do it. Reverence for what is thy superior in real skill or knowledge is the beginning of all wisdom. 120 CHAPTER XLII I say unto women, this is the Law: — No matter what it is thou lovest, thou must love something with all thy heart and soul and mind. But as for thy body, be careful and rev- erential of it, lest it trick thee and drag thee down. For love is truly a passion. Then keep it pure. Love is an emotion. Then keep it high. Love is a sensation, then keep it clean, and fine. For all coarseness degrades love. No love shall live that cannot rise and keep rising evermore into higher regions and breathing purer air. While thou art young and in the period of thy growth I say unto women, take proper exercise and so much fresh air as thou canst stand, and be as active as possible. For the temptations of life and the crises of life must be fought. By fighting, life becomes strong and vigorous. No woman who languishes in luxury and eats dainty food she does not need, and gives her plump body the rest it does not want can be virtuous. Such a woman, though she be a princess and live in a palace is pre- paring herself and her daughters and her granddaughters after her, to travel the straight road to Hell along the scarlet way of life. For I say that luxury is the handmaiden of vice. No matter how fair the various forms of luxury may be, and how innocent and inviting their outward faces may be, I say that the devil lurks behind the dainty forms of every luxury everywhere in the world. Women need to think. Women 121 need what men call cold facts. A few cold facts would save many a woman from a life time of misery and shame and sorrow. I say to women furthermore that they must work with their muscles and develop them and they must work with their mind and develop it. As for their emotions, they have too many already. Only muscle work and brain work can give relief to an over wrought nervous system. Many a rich woman is sick for the mere want of healthy work. If she took off her silk dress and arrayed herself in calico or in gingham and went into the kitchen and bade her maid serv- ant come and sit in the parlor, it would be a thousand times better both for her and for the maid servant. For the maid servant would have a chance to rest her mind as well as her body from the routine of daily drudgery and the mistress would regain her health. For God intended every woman to be a mother, and motherhood requires much preparation beforehand, much care and discretion at the period of bear- ing children, and much wisdom after the children are born. A woman's whole life is and must be a preparation and a fulfillment of her destined service to society and to God. And in her whole life, woman has really not an hour to spare over any kind of frivolity whatsoever, a second to waste on any kind of dissipation whatsoever. During the period of her growth from girlhood to womanhood, every woman needs pure joy and all that she can get of it, in order that her passions may be kept quiet and her emotions may be kept normal and in equilibrium. But for frivolity women have no need whatever and no time at all. Wherever and whenever a woman assumes an air of levity or of frivolity, 122 it is done solely to please some fool man whom she thinks it advantageous to please. When women cease to try to please fool men or licentious men, they will bear sons who will not force the next generation of girls to play the antic parts which their mothers and grandmothers have had to play. When the women cease to be good actresses, they will be better women and nobler mothers. For to fulfill God's purposes women must be free to act and live the life which they know is alone fit for them. Whenever woman is obliged to compromise on what she knows in her soul and body is right, that minute vice is born into the world. If all the vice that is introduced into life under cover of a marriage contract could be swept away, this earth would become a Paradise tomorrow. 123 CHAPTER XLIII Now one of the silliest and also the most vicious things in the world is man's desire for mental consistency and order. It prevents thousands of human souls from breaking away from a dead and rotting past and stepping forth as free men to the light and warmth of a new day. When the Past is dead, bury it. And then cease thy crying and blub- bering and carrying on with thy selfish grief and hugging to thy heart old illusions and delusions. Go forward to thy work. But no one can go forward to his work who is for- ever looking backward. Men do not have proper insight and foresight, and they have entirely too much hindsight. The reason of so many of man's mental and moral and phy- sical blunderings is that men have small faith. They do not believe even in themselves. Yet without faith nothing is possible. When a man acquires faith he acquires insight into and a knowledge of the secrets of the entire Universe. For faith is the beginning of all mental and moral and phy- sical health and power. Henceforth I say unto you that Motherhood shall be honored and when Motherhood is rightly honored, women and womanhood shall be honored aright. The bearing of a healthy child, I say, is in itself a proof of virtue, and when any woman has born a healthy and winsome babe, that proof shall be enough. Law and custom shall honor her. Whoever else is wrong, the woman 124 who bears a normal child must be right, and her rights must be maintained against the customs and despite the ancient and damnable laws of any land. I say no child is illegiti- mate. As the word is and has been used, it is a foul and vicious and unmanly and inhuman lie. The father and mother who shall henceforth turn a daughter from the door who bears a child whose father is a liar, a rascal, and a coward, shall be damned by God and shunned by all good men and women. I say that Love is the Law. And when a girl trusting to that law shall be deceived by a man who is but half a man, the other half being a coward and a brute, she shall not lose either honor or respect. The women who shall be scorned by both good men and good women shall be those married women who refuse to bear children when they can, or who take secret means to rid themselves of children. Compared to these evil and degraded married females, the girl who carries in her arms a babe whose father deserted her shall be as an angel throned and crowned with laurel. Make no mistake in the meaning of these words. I say that marriage is the only honorable and normal state for men and women, and the man and woman who have once been parents shall cleave unto each other. If incompatible, they may abide in different parts of the same house, if necessary, but for the children's sake they must work and toil and save and do whatever lies in their power to give their children every fair chance in life. By working for and toiling for and loving their children, they may in time learn to adjust their differences and be at one. But these hasty divorces of modern times and hasty re-marriages 125 of parents are an abomination that makes even honest beasts to blush with shame. I say that virtue must be a deed and not merely a name; that respectability must be actual and vital and real, not fanciful and artificial and technical. Vir- tues are won by toil, not inherited. Honor is the guerdon of hard fought battles, not an empty name on a family es- cutcheon. And whoso thinks that he can inherit either a good name or a good position in society is mistaken. In the eyes of God the position and name of every man and woman is due to individual effort, not to ancestral effort. Therefore there is no such thing as honor or a good name except when won by the individual who achieves it by toil and self-sacrifice. Artificial laws and artificial judgments are the abominations and damnations of human society. Men must be natural and sensible and honest and fair deal- ing and straight spoken before they can be virtuous. There is no such thing as passive virtue. Virtue is the virile strength and right action of the soul, acquired by the doing of just deeds. 126 CHAPTER XLIV I say unto you that unnatural life shall breed unnat- ural crimes and that a false life shall breed a thousand un- guessed ills. Life must be wholesome if it be healthy. And to be healthy life must be what it was first intended to be, a joyous, vigorous, free and active battle of the soul against its enemies. And the enemies of the soul are many. The subtle allurement of the senses is an enemy to the soul. All forms of pride and vanity are enemies to the soul. The de- sire of a pretty woman to wear a pretty bonnet down the center aisle of a church may be an enemy to the soul. Or the same action may be as innocent as a child's laughter, provided the soul lays no stress on nor pays especial heed to the bonnet. Many a pretty woman would be brave enough to wear a faded and out-of-date bonnet to church upon Easter morning if she really thought that it was the Lord's will that she should do so. But most women could not be con- vinced that it was the Lord's will until Easter Day was passed and a pretty bonnet had been worn. The majority, even after they were convinced would declare that they were no heroes, — that heroism was a coarse and masculine virtue unsuited to women. The power and usefulness of conven- tionality is great. Most virtue is conventional virtue. It must be while people are still unthinking creatures. Espe- cially as in the case of women who live upon emotion, they 127 have no time to think. For they must decide at once what is right and wrong and act upon the decision. Therefore the fear of violating convention and propriety is a great force in keeping people up to the moral law. Yet the time does come and must come when each individual thinks, and when each man and woman decides they must go to a higher guide than convention, and that guide is conscience. Now in groping their way upward from the conventional life to the higher life, people must keep their minds on wholesome things if they would keep healthy. All things are good if they are used properly and in moderation. Inventions were intended to aid man. But when in- stead of men using an invention, the invention begins to use men, beware of it! Nature is still the mother and guide to all men and women. When, therefore, men and women become so fond of the things they make instead of the things God has made for them, let them beware. Beware, I say, of becoming so fond of clothes that thou art afraid of thy naked body or of the naked body of anybody else. Beware of having an unclean mind. When the sight of thy own beautiful body or of the beautiful body of a member of the opposite sex, suggests to thee improper or vicious thoughts, then know that thy mind is not clean. And the dirtiest and foulest and most contagious thing in the universe is an un- clean mind. It will breed more malaria than a swamp. It will foster more disease than tons of rotting vegetables. It is more poisonous than arsenic. The evil that can be bred up in one unclean mind is beyond calculation. Therefore, I say, keep the mind clean if thou wouldst live clean and 128 wholesome and healthy lives. For the first need of every man and woman is not that their body be clean, but that their mind be clean. Without a clean mind, there can be neither morality nor religion. For the mind is the temple of the soul. 129 CHAPTER XLV Discord is death. Where discords reign nothing can be well Mental discord is the parent of all diseases and of all weaknesses and of all sorrows and of all ills. Har- mony is the first great law of life. For what is love but harmony in action? Love is the music of the soul that goes forth to bless and to gather into the fold of God the wan- dering sheep that hear the tinkle of the bell. And when- ever men really hear aright, all discord flees abashed. For naught can harm the soul that understands. Now I say unto you that the time is coming when diseases shall again be treated as they were among the Greeks. For smart as people think themselves in these latter days, they have not yet learned to treat disease with music. Most ailments that come from misused emotions and which discord has intro- duced into the body of man by lack of understanding and because the man was out of harmony with his surroundings shall be banished or nullified by music. Many diseases of women could be cured by music. Most cases of incipient insanity and some cases of apparently incurable insanity can be cured by music. The music must be carefully se- lected, however, with a view to each individual need. To people suffering from bodily starvation or insufficient nutri- tion, music that is too strong or too loud may be detrimental, because a body run down or ill nurtured or tired out assimi- 130 tates its food best when absolutely quiescent. Common sense and shrewd observation and the finest skill must be brought to bear on these questions. To prevent disease, takes a higher order of skill than to cure disease. The posi- tive is always higher than the negative. The cure of disease by means of music shall be one of the marvellous moral and spiritual and intellectual triumphs of man. The prin- ciple has been long known, but the limit of its developed possibilities have never been reached. In the coming years that limit shall at least be approached. And what would now seem miracles shall be wrought by men who study the mind as men now study the body. They shall then find that all physical perfection and strength is absolutely de- pendent on and correlated to mental perfection. A Christian is one who does as Christ teaches; who follows where Christ leads; who heeds the words that Christ spoke. And Christ's words are two words, Justice and Love. Now I say unto you that Pride is a Pagan quality, and Van- ity and Greed and Envy and even worldly ambitions — all these are pagan characteristics and utterly opposed to and in defiance of thy Lord Jesus. So then look down into thy soul and say unto thyself, Am I really a Christian? Judge thyself. I will not judge thee. Yet thy judgment shall be my judgment, only try to make it a little merciful, for no man is quite so bad as he seems to be to his own conscience. The consciences of men — especially the consciences of men who have sinned — are apt to be very severe and sweeping in their condemnations. Therefore try to be a little bit merciful for thou still hast a chance to be saved if thou wilt 131 see clearly and act promptly upon what thou knowest to be right. Every right action is a rung on the ladder that leads to Heaven. 132 CHAPTER XLVI I say unto you that this world must be a world of Jus- tice before it can be a world of Love and Kindness and Mercy. For Justice is the foundation stone of all things. And without the right foundation, ye can build no house where love may abide amid the light and flowers and music of real life and where Mercy, Love's beautiful handmaiden, may spread her gracious gifts around and waft her precious influence over the hearts and souls and minds of men. There is and can be no substitute for Justice. Even Love and Mercy cannot do the deeds that belong to Justice. There- fore I say to ye, Be just and render justice to all men and all women and all children. Think not that thy generous deed or thy loving deed which thou doest can take the place of the just deed which thou leaves! undone. It has well been written, Be just before you are generous. Why, say- est thou, must I be just, when generosity is so much more beautiful a thing? Because if thou doest thy so called deed of generosity first, it may prove to be no deed of generosity at all but only hypocritic injustice masking as such. For instance, throughout our so called and fondly named Chris- tian world today many great merchants who are at the head of these business institutions called Department Stores, will often pay a thousand dollars per week less to their employees than the workers are justly entitled to, considering the serv- 133 ices rendered. Thus they will pay cash girls and boys three or three dollars and a half per week instead of four or four dollars and a half; they will pay clerks five dollars a week who should receive six dollars; and they will pay many other clerks seven dollars who shall receive eight or nine dollars per week; they will pay experienced and loyal and devoted clerks fifteen dollars per week who are justly entitled to twenty dollars per week. To a few others they pay twenty dollars per week who really earn and are entitled to receive forty, fifty or even a hundred dollars per week, and would receive such amounts if they were paid according to the rules of Justice, instead of according to the laws of Greed. Now at Christmas time many an employer who by scaling down wages saves one thousand dollars per week or fifty- two thousand dollars per year from wages justly and rightly due his employees, will give them generous gifts of turkeys or baskets of choice fruits, or five, ten or twenty dollar gold pieces, thus with apparent generosity spending five or ten thousand dollars while he is still saving for himself forty thousand dollars out of money justly due for services ren- dered, but which his employees dare not demand, lest they lose their employment altogether. Such is a sample of one kind of generosity to be seen in almost every city in every Christian country in the entire world today. Is it any won- der that hypocrisy and injustice are rife in the land when men return in generosity one out of every five dollars of which they have deprived their fellows through the robber rules of Greed? Therefore I say unto you, Be just first. If after being just thou canst also find time and hast the good will 134 to be generous, well and good. But think not to cover up thy foul deeds of Injustice and wrong and oppression by thy petty and pretty and fair seeming deeds of mercy and gen- erosity. It cannot be done. Thy conscience knows what thou art, thou Hypocrit. And God sees and judges thee for the dust which thou shalt remain until thy soul shall be cleansed and thou doest what thou knowest to be right. Take not the easy road, for it will prove to be the hard road. Seek not the fairest and sunniest path when thou settest out on thy journey in the morning, for it may lead thee into bram- bles and thickets and foul swamps before night. But go straight along the way where Duty callest thee, and trust in God. 135 CHAPTER XLVH The greatest injustice and oppressions of the world are today the direct outcome of War. Except when fought to establish or maintain freedom, not only is war wrong but it is silly and foolish. War is fit for green boys, not for grown men. As a matter of fact, it is green boys who com- pose a large part of the armies of the world. Thus the fate of a nation is often decided by the unthinking portions of it. The real battles of the world are moral and mental and spiritual battles. Physical contention never settles any question permanently. For the battle of Life is the battle of ideas. No Idea dies until it has been clearly proved to be false. Now the world is filled with antiquated and thread- bare and outworn notions. Many of these old and silly and childish ideas are part of the history of the race. Conse- quently they are dear, as all reminiscences of childhood are dear, even when foolish. They go down from age to age as intellectual lumber which ought to be discarded, but which, like the toys of childhood, are kept by men and women as reminders of their youthful days. But war must go. It is advocated in great part by designing or unthink- ing or foolish or ignorant or brutal men. No matter who or what the man is, whoever advocates war is either a fool or a villain. If the man who advocates war objects to being called a fool in consequence thereof, he may take the second 136 adjective wherewith to decorate himself. But there is no third one. Too long have foolish men and women with the instincts of villains continued to impose this monstrous bur- den of the equipment and preparation for war upon the human race. Any race had better die at once or be put into the position of being swept off the face of the earth rather than to die by inches. And war taxes are killing practi- cally every nation in the world today, by inches. War is the greatest foe Democracy has to fear. War is the great- est friend that tyrants and robbers know. For it is war which gives tyrants and robbers the opportunities of their lives. War puts a premium upon all the base and brutal and cruel and inhuman and foolish passions of men. While base things go to the front, good things go to the rear. With every so-called victory that an army wins, its home land suffers a thousand defeats. Every victorious huzza smothers a thousand unheard humiliations. No war has any justifica- tion except a war for freedom. 137 CHAPTER XLVIII Think straight, see clear, and then go forward to thy object without deviation or turning. Compromise is the curse of the world. God knows not the word. Sunshine is sunshine, light is light; darkness is darkness; right is right, and wrong is wrong. Polite and tactful compromise is the bane of society. To make a world in which compromise is not necessary; to create a society in which white lying and black lying is not needed, this should be the object of each man and woman. The beauty and the glory and the rhythm and the music of the world comes from truth. For truth is the handmaiden of Love. And what canst thou find in any worthy art or literature or poetry or sculpture except an attempt to express the meaning of love? Love gives the poet music. Love gives the artist imagination. Love flings the sense of beauty broadcast over the world and from the farthest corners of earth, love brings all good fairies to wait upon and serve the man or woman who dares to live the truth. The laughter in the voices of little children, the red blood in their cheeks, the flashing light written in their eyes, the light and airy motions of their dancing — all these come from love. True love is gentle and self-controlled and modest and forbearing and strong. I say unto you there is no physical or moral or mental or spiritual strength with- out love. The senses of man are given to use, not to abuse* 138 Rightly used all physical sense is part of the divine order of the world and therefore innocent. Tis the misuse of anything that is sin. Men have used and developed their bodies at the expense of their minds. Hence cometh sick- ness and sorrow. For the minds and souls of men are their most precious possessions, and therefore should be their chief care. Life is filled with beauty and music and joy when men learn to perceive and to understand the right relation of all things. Therefore I say unto you, think straight and see clear and then go forth to thy object with- out deviation or turning. 139 CHAPTER XLIX Thou shalt still be followers and disciples of Christ, but thou shalt worship Him and admire Him and love Him near by as a man, not far off as a God. Therefore thou shalt do His works and put into practice His teachings and thou shalt in many ways live His life. Thou shalt not fear pov- erty or obscurity or lack of social position nor scantiness of opportunity. Thou shalt cultivate the riches of thy heart and soul, and then thou shalt understand. When thou hast understood, wealth will be seen for what it is, — a two-edged sword that must be handled very carefully. When the soul is developed, the body shall be filled with courage and thou shalt laugh at the fear of death, even from starvation. I say thou shalt laugh at Death. For with the grace of God within thee and the love of God around thee, mortal terrors shall be unknown, and physical fear shall be unfelt. With- out fear thy weaknesses and ills and sorrows shall fall away from thee, and thou shalt arise strong and eager, virile and alert as a runner trained for a great race. For Life is a great race, and he wins who doth not fear, and who con- sequently meets the woes of life with Laughter, — not un- seemly guffaws, but with a quiet enjoyment that feels the mental sunshine and sees the spiritual light that envelopes the world. Thus, I say, I send unto you this Gospel of Hope. Despise it or love it, but do not dispute about it. For of 140 all folly in the world, religious arguments are the most foolish. No religion ever came from or was seriously af- fected by argument. For religion consists of the reverential perception by the entire nature of a man of the deep things of life, and to attain to this perception requires quiet contem- plation; long observations and much study alone and in peace. Noisy clamor as of a modern revival stabs religion to death. And dragging people or attempting to drag people to salva- tion by the nape of their neck is folly. Any self-respecting person has a right to refuse to allow the deepest and holiest things in his nature to be made a public spectacle. Such in reality is the revival method of saving souls. I say unto you that a man need not say one word about what he be- lieves, provided that he does right and just deeds. They will speak for him. Lip service and psalm singing have become an offense and an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, because they are being used as a sort of spiritual oint- ment wherewith hypocrits are salving their consciences, thus hoping to save their souls. But I say unto you there is no salvation for the hypocrit until he throws off the wolf clothing of hypocrisy. Again I say unto you, believe or not believe in words, but if thy deeds are right and just and holy that is all the belief that God asks of thee. And no other kind will do. Thou shalt go to church or not as thy feelings dictate. But one thing and one thing alone thou must do, — be just! Be truthful! Be loving. For the law of life is Love. There is no other law. 141 CHAPTER L Again, and for the last time I repeat. Love is the Law. Thou shalt have and thou shalt obey no other law. All men are thy brothers. All lands are thy lands. All homes shall be thy home. For unto the ends of the earth discord and suspicion and envy and hate and enmity shall disappear when this law is fully understood, not as theology or as re- ligion but as the practical everyday business rule of life. Religion has no place so sacred as in the homes and counting houses and factories and iron mills and fields of laboring men. Sunday is truly a day of rest and meditation. But the time for worship is every hour of every working day and every minute of thy waking hours. Every stroke of daily toil shall be an act of worship. Everything honestly done by every honest workman in the world is a prayer. Each blow of useful and humble service is a prayer. Ever moment's honest labor is the sweetest song of praise that earth can send to heaven for the ears of angels to hear. The day is approaching when such a religion as I tell thee of and such a law as I have prophesied will be the law of all men in all lands under the sun. State but do not debate the law. Truth needs no ad- vocate. A simple statement is enough. Therefore if anyone wishes to cling to his own creeds and to his old beliefs and to his ancient manner of worship, do not disturb him. Let him sleep or dream in peace. But when he awakes he will 142 come to thee and say: What is this new Gospel of Hope that I hear about? And thou shalt give him or help him to procure a copy of the Book, and then shalt send him away with thy blessing. For love being the law, how canst thou do less, and Love being the law, why need thou do more? Now God be with thee and farewell! In the sunshine of this Holy Christmas morning these last words of the new Message are written down for the sake of men everywhere throughout the world. I send you love and fair greeting and this, my new Message which shall be called, — The Gospel of Hope. Dec. 25th, 1911. 143 $ta£tdcript The acceptance of this message need not and will not involve any upheaval or disorder, civic or religious. Each man who reads will first be puzzled, but even amid his be- wilderment, he will begin to understand and long before he has finished he will perceive clearly what his mind never quite grasped before, that is, the deadly foes which hypocrisy and humbug and lying and injustice and hate and discord are and have been to the progress of the human race. Every- where and among all races underneath the sun where these words are translated from the English language into other tongues, men and women will lift their heads, and with a newer and greater faith than ever felt before, they will raise their eyes to the full light of day and quietly and firmly they will say, I understand at last! Now I too will work and labor and toil for the coming of the New Day, for I see a hope that my efforts shall not be in vain. Thus shall men say everywhere, gaining in their souls new understanding of the words, The Brotherhood of Man. Thus is this Message called The Gospel of Hope. No other name was appro- priate. For this Message shall bring new hope to all men everywhere. Only the tyrants and the rulers who are unjust shall cry out against it. And by the loudness of their cries can the people learn how true the Message is. By the loud- ness and bitterness and vehemence of clerical denunciation 144 shall the people he able to clearly see how vital and true this Message is. For the trained minds of worldly and am- bitious ecclesiastics are doing more to keep alive and uphold established tyranny than all other causes put together, in- cluding the armies and navies of the world. I say unto you that there is no hope for churches or for church going Christianity until the spirit of I-Am-Holier-Than-Thou is ex- pelled therefrom. And it never will be expelled until every follower of Christ shall feel and understand that the rum seller and the scarlet woman and the blasphemer are also God's children, and insomuch as their need is greater, the greater shall thy service to them be to meet that need. I say further: Thou art thy brother's keeper, and woe unto thee if thou neglect thy charge. It were good to dump all the psalm books and prayer books and hymn books out by the roadside and then to dump the misguided Christians with them. Then beneath God's blue sky and beneath the might and marvels and wonders of His holy world, thou mayst learn humility for thyself and charity for other people. For without breadth of view there can be no real sympathy. Without clearness of insight, there can be no efficient action. Without purity of heart, there can be no religion. God does not and will not countenance Vanity or Pride or Uncharity, or Envy or any form of Hate or Disdain in those who pre- tend to serve Him and to do His work. Therefore, first of all, cleanse thy heart and mind of impurity with the same zeal with which thou puttest soap upon thy body. For only a clean mind and a pure heart shall be worthy of serving God. — The End — 145 This Book "^e Gospel of ^w H (not including Foreword and Postscript) contains 50 chapters and 35,383 words. Printed this 12th of January, 1914 . This 2nd edition consists of 135 copies, printed from same type, February 12, 1914, Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: April 2005 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 088 239 2