The Jewish “unco guid” crucified Christ. The Anglo-Saxon one would crucify Him again if He should return to earth and interfere with the prosperous business firms that make use of His name.
The “unco guid’s” Christianity consists in extolling his virtues and ignoring other people’s. He spends his time in “pulling motes out of people’s eyes,” but cannot see clearly to do it, “owing to the beams that are in his own.” He overwhelms you, he crushes you, with his virtue, and one of the greatest treats is to catch him tripping, a chance which you may occasionally have, especially when you meet him on the Continent of Europe.
The Anglo-Saxon “unco guid” calls himself a Christian, but the precepts of the Gospel are the very opposite of those he practices. The gentle, merciful, forgiving, Man-God of the Gospel has not for him the charms and attractions of the Jehovah who commanded the cowardly, ungrateful, and bloodthirsty people of his choice to treat their women as slaves, and to exterminate their enemies, sparing neither old men, women, nor children. This cruel, revengeful, implacable deity is far more to the Anglo-Saxon “unco guid’s” liking than the Saviour who bade His disciples love their enemies and put up their swords in the presence of his persecutors. The “unco guid” is not a Christian, he is a Jew in all but name. And I will say this much for him, that the Commandments given on Mount Sinai are much easier to follow than the Sermon on the Mount. It is easier not to commit murder than to hold out your right cheek after your left one has been slapped. It is easier not to steal than to run after the man who has robbed us, in order to offer him what he has not taken. It is easier to honor our parents than to love our enemies.
The teachings of the Gospel are trying to human nature. There is no religion more difficult to follow; and this is why, in spite of its beautiful, but too lofty, precepts, there is no religion in the world that can boast so many hypocrites—so many followers who pretend that they follow their religion, but who do not, and very probably cannot.
Being unable to love man, as he is bidden in the Gospel, the “unco guid” loves God, as he is bidden in the Old Testament. He loves God in the abstract. He tells Him so in endless prayers and litanies.
For him Christianity consists in discussing theological questions, whether a minister shall preach with or without a white surplice on, and in singing hymns more or less out of tune.
As if God could be loved to the exclusion of man! You love God, after all, as you love anybody else, not by professions of love, but by deeds.
When he prays, the “unco guid” buries his face in his hands or in his hat. He screws up his face, and the more fervent the prayer is (or the more people are looking at him), the more grimaces he makes. Heinrich Heine, on coming out of an English church, said that “a blaspheming Frenchman must be a more pleasing object in the sight of God than many a praying Englishman.” He had, no doubt, been looking at the “unco guid.”
If you do not hold the same religious views as he does, you are a wicked man, an atheist. He alone has the truth. Being engaged in a discussion with an “unco guid” one day, I told him that if God had given me hands to handle, surely He had given me a little brain to think. “You are right,” he quickly interrupted; “but, with the hands that God gave you you can commit a good action, and you can also commit murder.” Therefore, because I did not think as he did, I was the criminal, for, of course, he was the righteous man. For all those who, like myself, believe in a future life, there is, I believe, a great treat in store: the sight of the face he will make, when his place is assigned to him in the next world. Qui mourra, verra.
Anglo-Saxon land is governed by the “unco guid.” Good society cordially despises him; the aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon intelligence—philosophers, scientists, men of letters, artists—simply loathe him; but all have to bow to his rule, and submit their works to his most incompetent criticism, and all are afraid of him.