For an explanation of the action of those poor, irrational creatures who are so accustomed to privation and prayer that when relief comes they only continue to pray, failing to recognize that their prayers are answered, we can only point to the last poor inmates of the French bastile. The most prominent and intellectual citizens of France, they had been torn from their homes without a trial, thrown into dungeons containing not a single ray of light, fed there on bread and water from year to year until lonely and in torture their hair turned prematurely white and their bodies withered. When, at the first stroke of that most glorious of revolutions, the bastile doors were opened, and the soldiers of the people broke down the huge iron gates and doors, crying aloud in the name of liberty, "You are free, you are free, come out long imprisoned brothers," the populace were astounded to find that many of the poor, white-haired, white-bearded, pale-faced prisoners, instead of walking out into the long-wished for sunlight, clutched the walls of their cells, clung to their prison floors and cried in fear. They had to be torn from their gloomy haunts by main force by their rescuers. Their years of trouble, of darkness and gloom had destroyed their power to enjoy the light of freedom. Many of the brightest intellects of France had thus been dimmed. Their souls, once afire for freedom, had burned out in despair. They had become maniacs.
So now there are devotees of religion, so inured to the gloomy slavery of poverty and injustice, so in the habit of praying for relief, that when the bold servants of God strike down with their ready hammers the prison walls, and freedom's air and sunlight stream in, these poor souls are horrified, paralyzed by the very light and atmosphere for which they have been praying. "Go away," they say, and, crying, they clutch their cell walls refusing to be free. They, too, have become maniacs. But the majority of the human race will not refuse freedom's balmy breeze or the sunshine of liberty. At the call of the New Democracy they will throw down their broken chains of poverty, leap through their open prison doors, and cheer with might and main as the majority of the prisoners of the bastile cheered a century ago when they were given freedom's light.
THE COMMANDMENTS GROWN WITH THE WORLD.
If men claim that we are to be forever satisfied with the commands, "Thou shalt not steal," and "Thou shalt not kill," we will answer that these commands have grown, and that under the banner of the New Democracy we shall declare in thunder tones to all the world, "thou shalt not be killed," "thou shalt not be robbed," and not only this but also, "thou shalt not allow thy brethren to be killed," and, "thou shalt not allow thy brethren to be robbed." These commands have developed still further, so that the cry shall go up from sea to sea that our present and past systems of thievery, robbery and murder shall be swept away, that the teaching of the churches against thievery, robbery and murder, through all the centuries, has borne fruit, and that now, not only shall the poor, dependent teachers of abstract truth proclaim between hymns and prayers, "thou shalt not steal," and "thou shalt not kill," but that the whole people shall Join in one mighty chorus, and declare that public thievery, robbery and murder must cease from off the earth and that our social and political systems shall be made to conform to the teachings of our religion.
To those who oppose us in the name of religion, let our answer be, "We do not fight the church; without the church and its teachings for nineteen centuries, the New Democracy would have been impossible." The New Democracy is an outgrowth of all religions. Religion has protected and kept alive, through the barbarous past, the great moral truths that we are now applying to actual life. Even if the church or any part of the church or priesthood or ministry attempts to oppose us, we will simply laugh with God at every futile effort to stem the flood, the source of which is their own teaching through nineteen centuries. For the church, or any part of it, to oppose or belittle or criticise the New Democracy, is for the tree to disclaim its own fruit, for the rivers to disown the sea, for the fountain to dry up its stream, for the mother to cast aside her child.
The founders and prophets of all the great religions taught the principles of justice and brotherly love. The New Democracy makes possible their realization.
What nobler work can any man engage in on Sunday than the proclaiming in open air or behind closed doors these eternal truths, or tell of the new impulse that is fast taking hold of men to weave these truths into the texture of our social institutions.