What a spectacle that man presents to the world who is struggling for perfection through religious beliefs and exercises. He never gets exactly there, but confidently and complacently thinks himself there or thereabouts. His next great work is to call upon others in life’s highway to follow in his footsteps. He gets some followers who join with him in thanking God that they are not as other men are. Their self-righteousness becomes intense, and they become filled with the spirit of the Lord and preach believe (as we do) or be damned. Then begins persecution and torture. It is always your “dead-in-earnest” man that gets up persecutions. He is trying to gain perfection, and the natural ripe fruit of religious perfection is bigotry, intolerance, and despotism. Beware, oh! reader, of him who is seeking perfection, for you are nothing better than a worm under his heel, and if he does not crush you, it is because he is better than his God. God will crush you in the next world for not agonizing for perfection in this.
Everybody’s Sunday.
I quote the following from “The Sabbath Question,” a very able pamphlet by my esteemed friend, Alfred E. Giles:
We prize Sunday as a Sabbath or rest day. But it is a physiological fact that the cessation from action that refreshes or rests some persons on that day, does not so operate on everybody. We would that Sunday should be a joy, a delight to all the people; that every man, woman, and child should anticipate its approach with pleasure. On that day, if on no other, let the edifices of the church be open free to all who love its praises, prayers, and instructions. Let the tables and alcoves of the public library be accessible to such persons as feel that they can find suitable mental and spiritual food. If the social science association, now active in promoting good fellowship and liberal feeling, desire to, let it also add its proportion of good things to the feast of the day. Let the art museums, halls of science, academies of music, public parks, and galleries of paintings disclose their treasures on Sundays freely to visitors. Let all persons be unmolested on that day to seek the enjoyment and kind of rest they may respectively need, they alone being judges thereof, always provided that no one shall infringe on the equal liberty of any other person.
“Rest is not quitting
The busy career—
Rest is the fitting
Of self to its sphere;
’Tis loving and serving