The pupil interrupted: "This seems to be the case with the pietists."
"Not with all. There are among them penitents, or those who really prepare for death. Leave the pietists in peace, and don't try to sever the wheat from the chaff.... Religion should not merely be a Sunday suit, but a gentle accompaniment to mitigate the ponderous tones of everyday life. But one must not be cowardly or indifferent, as so many modern Christians are. When they hear the big words 'Development,' 'Modern Thought,' 'Science,' they think at once that Christianity is a thing of the past. If they read in the papers that the Lice-King has overcome the Christians, they believe at once that God has forsaken His own. They forget that the Egyptian bondage was an education for Canaan, and that the Philistines were employed as goads to spur on the lazy.
"Unbelief, superstition, deliberate falsehood, error—all serve the Truth, for all things serve. And to him who loves God, all things turn out for good."
Yeast and Bread.—"The neo-pagans who have now rushed forward on the stage, and believe they are the lords of the world because they serve the Prince of the World, seem to be a sediment of savage races which by marriage and immigration have penetrated the old nations of Europe like yeast. Yeast fulfils its function in the warmth of the oven, but is itself changed into gases and disappears, leaving bubbles and holes behind. The dough remains, changed into mellow, low, crisp, white, fragrant, warm bread. Yeast is a kind of mould produced by corruption, yet it must be present in order to make white bread.
"Everything serves! But mould by itself can make no bread. One ought therefore not to be angry with the pagans, for they know no better. To enlighten them is difficult; one can locate a grey star, but not a black one. One ought not to fear them, for then they bite. But they must have their day. 'I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil; but I passed by, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.'"
The Man of Development.—The pupil asked: "Can the pagans really not be enlightened?"
"Experience has shown that it is almost impossible. For a blockhead cannot understand the simplest things; he cannot see the self-evident nature of an axiom. If he is systematically followed by misfortune, he calls it 'bad-luck'; if he is prostrated with illness, he rises as stupid as he was before; if he gets into prison, he sits there and meditates new tricks; if he lies on the rack, he thinks he is suffering for his faith, although he has not got any; from warnings and trials he emerges as great a calf as he was before, for he has no intelligence. All the denizens of the dunghill praise his firmness of character, his strength of soul, his strong belief in his cause. He is sixty years old, and he has worked for 'development,' but he has not been able to develop himself. He hawks about the same rubbish as he did forty years ago, when he discovered what he called 'the truth' in the books of his teachers; he has never produced an original thought, nor obtained a new view of an old subject. He has stood still, but the world has gone forward; he believed he was leading the van, when he was bringing up the rear. Christianity beckoned, but crab-like he went backward to paganism. Such is the man of 'development.' Do you know him?"
"I have known him, but renounced his acquaintance."
Sins of Thought.—The teacher said: "According to Luther, man is a child till his fortieth year. I was a child till my fiftieth, i.e. unintelligent, conceited. I believed that I was inaccessible and irresponsible as regards my thoughts. But I was obliged to change my opinion when I began to observe myself. I discovered, that is, that when I had sinned, hated, killed, stolen, though only in thought, and then came into the company of friends, they treated me ruthlessly, as though I were a murderer or a thief. I could not explain, but finally believed that my evil thoughts were legible in my face. And when I observed that my friends began to touch on precisely the same unpleasant subject which had occupied my secret thoughts, I saw that so-called thought-reading is daily and hourly practised in social life.
"When subsequently I read Maeterlinck's fine book, The Treasure of the Humble, my belief in this was strengthened, for he made the same observation. When I finally took in hand my own spiritual education, I found that this was the principal point, and by watching my thoughts I prevented them breaking out into action. Now for the first time I understood why I had so often in my life thought myself unjustly accused and punished for offences which I had not committed. I confess now that I had committed them in thought. But how did men know that? Assuredly there is a hidden justice which punishes sins of thought, and when men make each other accountable for suspicions, ugly looks or feelings, they are right. That is a hard saying, but it is so."