From almost every pulpit was heard the denunciation of all that adds to the wealth, the joy and glory of life. It became the fashion for the "spiritual" to malign every hope and passion that tends to humanize and refine the heart. Man was denounced as totally depraved. Woman was declared to be a perpetual temptation—her beauty a snare and her touch pollution.
Even in our own time and country some of the ministers, no matter how radical they claim to be, retain the aroma, the odor, or the smell of the "spiritual."
They denounce some of the best and greatest—some of the benefactors of the race—for having lived on the low plane of usefulness—and for having had the pitiful ambition to make their fellows happy in this world.
Thomas Paine was a groveling wretch because he devoted his life to the preservation of the rights of man, and Voltaire lacked the "spiritual" because he abolished torture in France and attacked, with the enthusiasm of a divine madness, the monster that was endeavoring to drive the hope of liberty from the heart of man.
Humboldt was not "spiritual" enough to repeat with closed eyes the absurdities of superstition, but was so lost to all the "skyey influences" that he was satisfied to add to the intellectual wealth of the world.
Darwin lacked "spirituality," and in its place had nothing but sincerity, patience, intelligence, the spirit of investigation and the courage to give his honest conclusions to the world. He contented himself with giving to his fellow-men the greatest and the sublimest truths that man has spoken since lips have uttered speech.
But we are now told that these soldiers of science, these heroes of liberty, these sculptors and painters, these singers of songs, these composers of music, lack "spirituality" and after all were only common clay.
This word "spirituality" is the fortress, the breastwork, the rifle-pit of the Pharisee. It sustains the same relation to sincerity that Dutch metal does to pure gold.
There seems to be something about a pulpit that poisons the occupant—that changes his nature—that causes him to denounce what he really loves and to laud with the fervor of insanity a joy that he never felt—a rapture that never thrilled his soul. Hypnotized by his surroundings, he unconsciously brings to market that which he supposes the purchasers desire.
In every church, whether orthodox or radical, there are two parties—one conservative, looking backward, one radical, looking forward, and generally a minister "spiritual" enough to look both ways.