That Eurasian

by Aleph Bey

I was struck with the extreme courtesy and kindness of the French. Once in London I wished to ask the direction to some place and stepped into a counting-house and with all the politeness I possessed, made my request. The pompous little god of the establishment, with no more expression in his face than in that of a marble statue, looked at me as it seemed for some minutes and then blurted out, “Do you take this for an intelligence office?” I was so completely whipped that I had not a word to reply and got out of the door as quickly as possible. In France, whether from the blue blouses or the exquisites, I never received anything but the most delightful courtesy. They not only directed me, but more frequently offered to go and show me the way. Manners make the man, and as the men, so will the nation be.

While in Europe we went everywhere with our guides and guide books until we were weary and surfeited with sight-seeing. I am no artist, still I do not like to be considered quite a muff in regard to art works. Some artists are so conceited as to think that manufacturers of art alone are capable judges of it. A man can have an excellent idea of a well-fitting suit though he never touched a pair of scissors or a needle, why not of painting, though he never smelled paint or handled a brush?

I know this, however, that we saw enough of the old masters to last us for this world and the next, flaming daubs of color, plump madonnas, fat babies and gorgeous fleshy angels with wings. I never could understand why angels should be provided with wings, unless their excursions are confined to our atmosphere, and they never get beyond our earthly region. Christians attack materialists for their lack of the spiritual, but if there is anything more materialistic than is found in the Christian religious descriptions of heaven and heavenly beings, then I have been too much of a heathen to discover it. There is, however, this difference in the two kinds. The one is solid and real, based on facts, the other is fluorescent, fantastic, built of dreams.

Another thing we had enough of and that was church museums, and my wife begged of me not to mention church this, or church that, to her again. We were constantly asked, “Have you been to such a church, seen such a painting or piece of sculpture? Did you hear the music in such a church?” Not a word about the worship. Some ancient writer has said that the churches were first adorned so as to attract the heathen. That may be the case still, as probably many Christian heathen now go to them, but as I am only a Barbarian heathen I certainly was not attracted or pleased. Why the house of God, the place of prayer and spiritual worship, should be turned into a curiosity shop, art gallery, a museum for relics, or as a charnel house be profaned with dead men’s bones, is something I am too ignorant to explain. There seems to be a blasphemous incongruity in all this to my untrained mind. Religious worship seemed to be but a showy performance and the churches, places of amusement, all to please the senses. Frequently as we entered a church a priest would be having some service before an altar, paid to mumble by the hour, with a few old women or crippled men in front or rather at his back. These seemed to be the only people in church except on gala days. Our guide, also a priest, would take us from chapel to alcove and point out all the curious things, and passing within a few feet of the performer chatted as gaily as if he was chief showman expecting a pour boire, as he was. It all went on as a matter of business and reminded me of a Hindu temple where the priest is muttering prayers before an idol, while the people are chattering, buying and selling around him. The only difference, the one was in Europe and the other in India; the one more grand and beautiful than the other. The spirit and show of idolatry was the same. Is it any wonder that men become irreligious, infidels, when they see all this insincerity, hypocrisy, the heartless form and ceremonies in pretense of worshiping the Almighty? It is impossible for thinking men to be such fools as to suppose that God is pleased with all this parade and show.

A Frenchman summed up the matter thus: “The people, that is the masses, need some serious amusement and there is nothing so innocent and harmless as religion, so let them enjoy it.” An Italian said: “If you want to find real religious life in the Catholic church, Rome is the last place in which to seek for it. Religious faith has died out of the Italian mind.” The French as a people have thrown away their religious performance, not faith, as they probably never had any faith in it, and could not have done otherwise as thinking beings with the spurious article offered them, but the Italians are head over ears in their religious galas and carnivals as a pleasant pastime. There is not a more idolatrous, religiously frivolous nation on earth than the Italian.

They prove the truth of the statement that where religious ceremonials predominate there is an absence of morality and the highest spiritual life.

Newman in 1832 wrote: “Rome, the mightiest monster, has as yet escaped on easier terms than Babylon. Surely, it has not yet drunk out the Lord’s cup of fury nor expiated the curse. And then again this fearful Apocalypse occurs to my mind. Amid the obscurities of that Holy Book one doctrine is clear enough, the ungodliness of Rome, and further its destined destruction. That destruction has not yet overtaken it; therefore it is in store. I am approaching a doomed city.” Did he tell the truth, or did he afterward fall into error when he became a cardinal of that same Rome?

The Roman church is but a huge excrescence, an abnormal fungus, supported perhaps by an unseen slender stem of truth. Its greatness compels our wonder and astonishment. Strip this church of its grand architecture, its fine art, its beautiful music, its gorgeous ceremonies, and there would be little left of it, and that little, its creed and outrageous assumption, would command scant respect from a rational intelligence.

I could not help asking myself frequently: What would Jesus say if he were to visit these churches? If he drove the changers of money and the sellers of doves from the ancient temple, what would he not do in these modern places of luxury, show and tips?

He never built a church or gave a hint about one. He had nothing to do with reliquaries, feretories, calices, crosiers, crosses, pyxes, monstrances, chasubles, capes, embroidered stoles, altar antependiums or silk banners. As a philanthropist, a lover of men, he went about doing good among the poor and needy. What would he say to the vast expenditure of money on immense structures, receptacles for statues, idols, paintings, ornaments, relics, when the poor all around them are starving, not only for the bread of life but for crusts for the body? What about the high salaried church officials, from the Pope and archbishops down, when Jesus had not where to lay his head? Are all these followers of Jesus? They may be, but a long way behind.