Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays Part 19

It is harder to live when those we love are dead.

The trouble with divine revelation is that we do not know who did the business.

A person has not much excuse for living who can make no better use of life than pa.s.sing it in a nunnery.

Men talk of alleviating the aching hearts and souls of the world, but if they would relieve the aching backs and arms of men and women by being kinder to those who toil, there would be fewer suffering hearts for their sympathy's consolation. It sounds vulgar, perhaps, to speak of backaching, but the pains of work are among the saddest facts of human life.

IS IT TRUE

There is a lot of sentiment going around the world strangely at variance with human action. No one lives as he professes to believe, as he says he thinks. Men declare a thing to be true but act as though they wished it false. It is frequently stated that:

"Honor and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honor lies."

Who believes it? Did Pope when he wrote it? Does a person that reads it? I doubt it.

It ought to be true, perhaps, that men should be respected, honored, and praised just as much for carrying a hod well as for writing a poem or acting Hamlet well, but it is not so regarded.

A man as a man may be just as worthy, just as honorable, just as much deserving the respect of his fellows who uses a pick and shovel on the highway, but it is a fact that the common laborer as such is not respected nor honored as much as the man who pays him for his labor. All the honor may lie in doing well whatever he has to do, but it is _what a man does_, not how he does it, that receives the honor of the world, just the same.

Probably thousands of women are acting well their part as washerwomen in Boston at this time, but are they honored as Sarah Bernhardt is for acting Cleopatra? Would wealthy women pay ten dollars to see a woman scrub a floor, even if she could scrub better than any woman who ever scrubbed before? We guess not. There is the point.

There is no such epitaph as this on the marble of the world: He acted well his part as a coal-heaver. It is true that Lincoln is pointed to as having been a rail-splitter when a young man, but had he never been anything else he would not have had a monument an inch above the ground. It is not Garfield the tow-boy, but Garfield the statesman, the President, that is honored.

It is a fact that merit is not always appreciated, but it is equally a fact that no merit is seen in the common occupations of life. A person might wear his fingers to bones in what is regarded as menial employment, and all his giant labor would not call forth a single word of praise. A dollar or two a day is all the reward the world gives for manual labor. No one sees heroism in farm work, in kitchen work. No one contributes money to erect a statue to the hod-carrier. Work is not honored. The man or woman who is obliged to work in order to live is regarded with pity or contempt by those who live upon the labor of others.

It is not true that all the honor lies in doing well whatever we have to do. Such a saying is as false as to say "Ask, and you shall receive."

Honor is not given gratuitously. It has to be earned. But it is a fact that we do not honor all labor, all virtue, equally.

KEEP THE CHILDREN AT HOME

Fathers and mothers want to see their children grow up into good, moral, respectable men and women. How to insure this desirable result is a serious problem. It is seen that the school is not sufficient to insure character, nor does the church exert sufficient influence to guide the feet in right paths.

We have the deepest faith in what the school is doing and trying to do, and would help it in every way to promote the instruction in those branches of knowledge which are deemed essential to a sound and useful education, but we cannot fail to see that the school, however much it may a.s.sist the child in the formation of good habits, is not of itself competent to build up character. The school cannot take the place of the home, nor can the teacher do the work of the parent. We believe that the best way to have good boys and girls, and therefore good men and women, is to have good homes for them to live in. If parents gave more attention to making their homes attractive to their children, they would not be so apt to seek amus.e.m.e.nt in other places. The more a child is kept at home, the more certain it will be to escape the evils of life. A good home is the first and most powerful factor in forming the character of children.

There is too much thought given by parents generally to the church and too little to the home. They s.h.i.+rk their duty and their responsibility, and pray G.o.d to look after what they neglect. With the father at work and the mother at ma.s.s, the children will be in the street. Those parents who put the home above the church are throwing around their children the best influences that earth affords. When children are left to the care of G.o.d they too often fall into the hands of the policeman. Let the path between the home and the school be well worn, but never mind if the gra.s.s grows in the road that leads to the church.

The child will usually love home if home is made lovely. If parents wish to drive their children into temptation, let them shut the suns.h.i.+ne of joy out of the house, forbid the playing of games, burn up the pack of cards that is found in one of the boy's rooms, call a ball-room the "devil's headquarters," and p.r.o.nounce a malediction upon all youthful sports. It is easy enough to drive a boy or girl out into the dark. Put out the lights at home. Those parents who know the evil influences of the world will make their homes bright and beautiful and then keep their children there as long as they can.

The doctrine of salvation by faith is a libel on justice and has done more to undermine the virtue of the world than vice itself.

TEACHER AND PREACHER

There is one great change which we hope to see brought about in the near future, because we think it ought to be brought about as a matter of justice. It is this: the elevation of teachers above preachers.

Civilization, and all that this word stands for today, depends more upon the school than upon the church. It is the teacher and not the preacher that trains the growing minds of our children, that builds the structure of character for future men and women, and gives to the young the sacred touch that keeps them in right paths. The world does not half appreciate the work done by the school teacher, while it exaggerates out of all proportion to its worth, the work done by the preacher. The church may fall, but if the school stands, liberty will remain; the paths of knowledge will be free; the brow of civilization will still s.h.i.+ne white against the skies of life, and the glorious cup of learning be pressed to the thirsting mouth of youth; but should the school fall, though the church might stand, all this would be reversed;-liberty would be driven from the earth, the highways of knowledge would be closed, civilization would fade into the night of the "dark ages," and the thirsting lips of life be fed with Bible sc.r.a.ps and the logic of dead creeds. The teacher is the mighty power in this republic, the truest friend of our nation's inst.i.tutions, the one person above all others that this country should honor and reward. One teacher is worth a thousand priests; one school, a thousand churches.

The person whose duty it is to direct the education of the young holds the sceptre of a nation's destiny, and the school teacher occupies the most important station to which one can be elected. We fear that the profession of teaching is not rightly prized by the American people, and we are sure it is not justly rewarded. No cla.s.s in the land are paid so poorly, according to the service they perform, as our school teachers, while no cla.s.s should be paid so well. Far more valuable to our government is the teacher than the preacher, and yet the salary of the latter exceeds the former in every city and town in the land. This should be changed.

Preaching a superst.i.tion is no benefit but an injury to a people, while training the mind to read, to think, to gather knowledge is the highest service which one can perform.

We have the greatest respect for the men and women who have prepared themselves for the high office of teacher, and we would see them rewarded for their labor as it deserves. The hope of a country is in the right education of its people, and the way to secure such education is to encourage the teacher by showing a just appreciation of his or her labors.

So we say, put the school above the church, the teacher above the preacher.

FEAR OF DOUBTS

We cannot help thinking that Goethe showed lack of courage when he said: "I will listen to any one's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself, I have plenty of my own!" It seems to us that only a coward is afraid of doubts. If our convictions are false is it not better to know it and correct them? Doubt is the way to truth. It is the att.i.tude of the mind that wants to know things just as they are. They who are unwilling to be deceived are the ones to doubt, to inquire. Let us hear all the doubts of the world, for they are knocks at the door of knowledge. To accept without question is to be the willing dupe of imposition.

The doubter is the safe man; the man who can be depended upon. He does not build upon a foundation of guesswork, and the structure he erects will stand. Let us not fear doubt, but rather fear to have falsehood pa.s.sed for truth.

There is no authority that can be quoted against a man but the authority of some other man.

Nine times out of ten the man who declares that G.o.d is tender to the sparrow that falls is not the man to buy a winter's coal for a poor widow.