Vagrancy.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it encourages poverty and vagrancy.
Jesus Christ was the panegyrist of poverty and the promoter of vagrancy:
“Blessed be ye poor” (Luke vi, 20).
“But woe unto you that are rich” (Luke vi, 24).
“A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. xix, 23).
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Mark x, 25).
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” (Matt. vi, 19).
When the judicious use of wealth is promotive of human happiness, and when poverty is the source of so much misery and crime, such teachings are not only false, but pernicious.
“Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on.... Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns.... And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.... Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?... The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. vi, 25–34).
To-day our land is infested with an army of tramps. Their skirmishers are deployed along every highway; their points of attack are the kitchen and the haymow; their text-book on military science is the Sermon on the Mount. “They sow not, neither do they reap;” “They toil not, neither do they spin.” They beg and steal. These are Christ’s followers—the truest followers he has on earth to-day.
In the streets of our cities we see men clad in rags, idle, and drunken, and penniless. We see them arrested for vagrancy, thrust into prison, or made to labor for their bread. These are Christ’s martyrs.
Poor tramp and vagrant! How you are “persecuted for righteousness’ sake!” Men despise you; the farmer drives you from his door; the social economist racks his brain to devise a plan for your suppression; state governments legislate against you; everywhere you are treated as an outcast—and all because, taking the Bible for your guide, you endeavor faithfully to conform to its teachings.