"If Nature, with her interminable fecundity, pours forth millions of human beings for whom there is no place on earth, and no means of subsistence, what affair is that of ours, my brethren? We did not make them; we did not ask Nature to make them. And it is Nature's business to feed them, not yours or mine. Are we better than Nature? Are we wiser? Shall we rebuke the Great Mother by caring for those whom she has abandoned? If she intended that all men should be happy, why did she not make them so? She is omnipotent. She permits evil to exist, when with a breath of her mouth she could sweep it away forever. But it is part of her scheme of life. She is indifferent to the cries of distress which rise up to her, in one undying wail, from the face of the universe. With stony eyes the thousand-handed goddess sits, serene and merciless, in the midst of her worshipers, like a Hindoo idol. Her skirts are wet with blood; her creation is based on destruction; her lives live only by murder. The cruel images of the pagan are truer delineations of Nature than the figures which typify the impotent charity of Christendom--an exotic in the midst of an alien world.
"Let the abyss groan. Why should we trouble ourselves. Let us close our ears to the cries of distress we are not able to relieve. It was said of old time, 'Many are called, but few chosen.' Our ancestors placed a mythical interpretation on this text; but we know that it means:--many are called to the sorrows of life, but few are chosen to inherit the delights of wealth and happiness. Buddha told us, 'Poverty is the curse of Brahma'; Mahomet declared that 'God smote the wicked with misery'; and Christ said, 'The poor ye have always with you.' Why, then, should we concern ourselves about the poor? They are part of the everlasting economy of human society. Let us leave them in the hands of Nature. She who made them can care for them.
"Let us rejoice that out of the misery of the universe we are reserved for happiness. For us are music, painting, sculpture, the interweaving glories of the dance, the splendors of poetry and oratory, the perfume of flowers, all delicate and dainty viands and sparkling wines and nectars; and above all Love! Love! Entrancing, enrapturing Love! With its glowing cheeks--its burning eyes--its hot lips--its wreathing arms--its showering kisses--its palpitating bosoms--its intertwining symmetry of beauty and of loveliness."
Here the young lady with the song book drew up closer to me, and looked up into my eyes with a gaze which no son of Adam could misunderstand. I thought of Estella, like a true knight, and turned my face to the preacher. While his doctrines were, to me, utterly heartless and abominable, there was about him such an ecstasy of voluptuousness, associated with considerable intellectual force and passionate oratory, that I was quite interested in him as a psychological study. I could not help but think by what slow stages, through many generations, a people calling themselves Christians could have been brought to this curious commingling of intellectuality and bestiality; and all upon the basis of indifference to the sorrows and sufferings of their fellow-creatures.
"On with the dance!" shouted the preacher, "though we dance above graves. Let the very calamities of the world accentuate our pleasures, even as the warm and sheltered fireside seems more delightful when we hear without the roar of the tempest. The ancient Egyptians brought into their banquets the mummied bodies of the dead, to remind them of mortality. It was a foolish custom. Men are made to feast and made to die; and the one is as natural as the other. Let us, on the other hand, when we rejoice together, throw open our windows, that we may behold the swarming, starving multitudes who stream past our doors. Their pinched and ashy faces and hungry eyes, properly considered, will add a flavor to our viands. We will rejoice to think that if, in this ill-governed universe, all cannot be blest, we at least rise above the universal wretchedness and are reserved for happiness.
"Rejoice, therefore, my children, in your wealth, in your health, in your strength, in your bodies, and in your loves. Ye are the flower and perfection of mankind. Let no plea shorten, by one instant, your pleasures. Death is the end of all things--of consciousness; of sensation; of happiness. Immortality is the dream of dotards. When ye can no longer enjoy, make ready for the grave; for the end of Love is death.
"And what is Love? Love is the drawing together of two beings, in that nature-enforced affinity and commingling, when out of the very impact and identity of two spirits, life, triumphant life, springs into the universe.
"What a powerful impulse is this Love? It is nature-wide. The rushing together of the chemical elements; the attraction of suns and planets--all are Love. See how even the plant casts its pollen abroad on the winds, that it may somewhere reach and rest upon the loving bosom of a sister-flower; and there, amid perfume and sweetness and the breath of zephyrs, the great mystery of life is re-enacted. The plant is without intellect, but it is sensible to Love.
"And who shall doubt, when he contemplates the complicated mechanism by which, everywhere, this God-Nature--blind as to pain and sin and death, but tender and solicitous as to birth and life--makes Love possible, imperative, soulful, overwhelming, that the purposed end and aim of life is Love. And how pitiful and barren seem to us the lives of the superstitious and ascetic hermits of the ancient world, who fled to desert places, to escape from Love, and believed that they were overcoming the foul fiend by prayers and fastings and scourgings. But outraged Nature, mighty amid the ruins of their blasted hearts, reasserted herself, and visited them even in dreams; and the white arms and loving lips of woman overwhelmed them with hot and passionate caresses, in visions against which they strove in vain.
"Oh, my brethren, every nerve, fiber, muscle, and 'petty artery of the body,' participates in Love. Love is the conqueror of death, because Love alone perpetuates life. Love is life! Love is religion! Love is the universe! Love is God!" And with this climax he sat down amid great applause, as in a theater.