Evil also is the teaching that repentance is higher than purity: "joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance" (Luke xv. 7, 10). The fatted calf is slain for the prodigal son, who returns home after he has wasted all his substance; and to the laborious elder son, during the many years of his service, the father never gave even a kid that he might make merry with his friends (Ibid, 29). What is all this but putting a premium upon immorality, and instructing people that the more they sin, the more joyous will be their welcome whenever they may choose to reform, and, like the prodigal, think to mend their broken fortunes by repentance?
Thoroughly immoral is the teaching contained in the two parables in Luke xvi. In the one, a steward who has wasted his master's goods, is commended because he went and bribed his employer's debtors to assist him, by suggesting to them that they should cheat his master by altering the amount of the bills they owed him. In the other, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the evil moral is taught that riches are in themselves deserving of punishment, and poverty of reward. The rich man is in hell simply because he was rich, and the poor man in Abraham's bosom simply because he was poor; it can scarcely add, one may remark, to the pleasure of heaven for the Lazaruses all to look at the Diveses, and be unable to reach them, even to give them a single drop of water.
Thus whether we see that the nobler part of the Christian morality is pre-Christian, and is neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Hindu, nor Buddhist, but is simply human, and belongs to the race and not to one creed. Whether we note the omissions in its code, making it insufficient for human guidance; whether we mark its errors, mistakes, and injurious teachings; whichever point of view we take from which to consider it, we find in it nothing to distinguish it above other moral codes, or to prevent it from being classed among other moralities, as being a mixture of good and bad, and, therefore, not to be taken as an, unerring guide, being like them, all FALLIBLE.
INDEX TO SECTION III. OF PART II.
INDEX OF BOOKS USED.
Bhagavat Gita, in Anthology...[406]Bradlaugh, The Bible: what it is...[397] " What Did Jesus Teach?...[414]Buddha, in Anthology...[403], [405] " Wheel of the Law...[408]
Cahen, Lévitique...[398]Colenso, Pentateuch and Book of Joshua...[396]Confucius, in Anthology...[403], [404], [408]
Dante, Inferno...[403]Dhammapada, in Anthology...[403]
Gouldburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion...[411]
Kalisch, Leviticus...[399], [400], [401]Katha-Chari, in Anthology...[407]Kwan-yin, in Anthology...[407]
Lao-Tsze, in Anthology...[403], [404]
Mahabharata, in Muir...[410]Manu, in Anthology...[404], [405], [406], [419]Mencius, in Anthology...[407]
Prayer Book, Art. vi. vii....[395]
Ramayana, in Anthology...[407]
Sabaean Book of the Law, in Anthology...[404], [405]Shelley, Queen Mab...[402]She-King, in Anthology...[407]Statutes, 9 and 10 William III. cap. 32...[395]
Talmud, quoted by Besant...[405]