In this view, what are professing Christians—the churches—doing for the general good to-day? What good can come from preaching without practice, since, though people may be able to say, “All of these have I kept from my youth up,” Christ, when he shall come, will reply to them: “Go sell all thou hath and give to the poor, and come and follow me.” What clergyman in this city dare stand in his pulpit Sunday after Sunday and insist upon such practice? or what one dare to insist that his church should have all things in common? or what one dare to eat with publicans and sinners, or say to the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee.” Or which one of the people dare go to her poor, enslaved and suffering sisters and take them to her heart and home? or be the good Samaritan? I tell you, my friends, beware lest those whom you scorn to know be before you with Christ, who knows the heart. It is not what you pretend that shall make you Christian, but what you do, and if you do right, though the world curse you, yet shall you lay up treasures in Heaven thereby. Therefore, I say that the Christianity of to-day is a failure. It is not the following of Christ, nor the practice of his precepts. True religion will not shut itself up in any church away from humanity; it will not stand idly by and see the people suffer from any misery whatever. It is its sphere to cure all ills, whether moral, social or political. There are no distinctions in humanity. Everything to be truly good and grand, whether it be in politics, society or religion, must be truly moral, and to be truly moral is to live the Golden Rule.
Therefore, it is foolish for the Christian to say, “I have nothing to do with politics, as a Christian.” It is the bounden duty of every Christian to support that political party which bases itself upon Human Rights; and if there is no such party existing, then to go about to construct one. It is too late in the century for a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to be a political thief and trickster as a politician, while he issues a call asking that the people inject God into the Constitution. Such consummate hypocrisy is an outrage upon the intelligence of the nineteenth century; and it will meet its just reward.
If they would take the precepts of Christ and build a new Constitution upon them, nobody would object; but to be asked to recognize a God whom these people have themselves fashioned and set up, who hath not even human sense of justice, is quite a different thing, and one to which this people will not submit. I could point out to you why this attempt is made just at this time, but I rather prefer to point out how this and all other attempts to put fetters upon the people must be avoided, and how to break the fetters by which they are already galled.
Permit me to ask what practical good arises from the people’s coming together and merely passing a set of resolutions. You may pass resolutions with whereases and therefores a mile long, and what will be the result unless they are made practical use of. What would you say to a person who should come before you with a resolution setting forth that whereas, thus and thus, are so and so, therefore some new invention ought to be made to meet the conditions. Why you would at once say to him, “Give us the invention; then we shall be able to judge whether your therefore bears any relation to your whereas.” Now precisely in that way should you judge of resolutions for political reform. We have had resolutions long enough. We now need a working model which will secure freedom, equality and justice to the smallest of our brothers and sisters. Anything less than this is no longer worthy to be considered political reform; and that is not only political reform, but it is also the best application possible of the precepts of Jesus Christ, and therefore the best Christianity, the best religion, since to its creed every human being who is not supremely selfish can subscribe.
In conclusion, therefore, let me urge every soul who desires to be truly Christian to no longer separate Christianity from politics, but to make it the base upon which to build the future political structure. Instead of an amendment to the Constitution, which these hypocrites desire, recognizing a God who is simply the Father of themselves, and a Christ of whom they are the self-appointed representatives, give us a new Constitution, recognizing the human rights of the people to govern themselves, of which they cannot be robbed under any pretext whatever, and my word for it, humanity will not be slow to render due homage to their God. Let that Constitution give a place to every branch of reform, while it shall not so much as militate against the rights of a single individual in the whole world—and we are large enough to begin to say the whole world—and to think of and prepare the way for the time when all nations, kindred and tongues shall be united in a universal government, and the Constitution of the United States of the World be the
SUPREME LAW.
Around this as a New Departure let all reformers rally, and, with a grand impulse and a generous enthusiasm, join in a common effort for the great political revolution, after the accomplishment of which the nations shall have cause to learn war no more.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- P. [4], corrected “God loves from whole to part. But human soul must from individual to the whole.” to “God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole.” This is to match the original quote by Alexander Pope.
- P. [20], changed “ought that looks like justice” to “aught that looks like justice”.
- Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.