Lemuel Kelley Washburn - Is The Bible Worth Reading, and Other Essays

We learn everything by living. The truth is not revealed to us: we must discover it. It is seen when we climb high enough to see it, or live wise enough to feel it, or act true enough to utter it. When we hear the truth, we hear only the echo of the universe. The last thing that we have to fear is the truth and the consequences of knowing it. Let us not fear to speak it or to hear it. And let us go with it whenever found. They who are keeping the world from the knowledge of good and evil, who are trying to discourage the preaching of truth, are the enemies of mankind.

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If man had no knowledge except what he has got out of the Bible he would not know enough to make a shoe.

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The great work of man has ever been to rescue the present from the past; to turn the mind from what it has left behind to the opportunities and duties which are around it. For this has genius toiled down the ages, sung its song of love, carved its dream of beauty and whispered to the world’s dull ear its bright message of hope.

Everybody has heard of what is called the “Christian sabbath,” and nearly everybody has a tolerably clear idea of what is meant by a “continental sabbath.” A “continental sabbath” may be described as a sort of week-day Sunday, that is, as a religious holiday with more secular, than pious, features. A Christian sabbath is so near dead in this country as a religious fact that a definition of it cannot be had from real life. We find the ideal sabbath of the Christians in the history of early New England. For two centuries the people have been gradually outgrowing the austere religion which made Sunday a day to be dreaded all the week. The attempt has been frequently made by a small puritan contingent, which has survived all these years, to resuscitate this dead sabbath and inflict it upon the world again. But so far the effort has only met with deserved failure.

Resurrections have never been successful. When the inhabitants of graves have come out of their abodes it has been only to walk the streets for a brief period, and then to return again to silence and rest. The stories of ghosts, when true, are always short. These visitants never stop long or do anything that is of any worth to the world. When the grave is once made over the dead it is best to let it alone. There is nothing in cemeteries to aid progress or civilization.

We do not need the revival of old customs or of old faiths. To endeavor to rehabilitate the sabbath of our forefathers is as foolish as to try to make people go back into log houses and cook over a fire-place. Some persons can never realize that the world grows; that what was a help to one age becomes a hindrance to another; that time corrects the mistakes of men and that respect and reverence for our ancestors do not necessarily require us to adopt their clothes or their habits.

Men and women are made fossils by their religion. The people who are trying to-day to resurrect the puritan sabbath are people who have got religion, but not much of anything else. A man who allows religion to dominate all his thoughts, all his efforts, all his acts, usually is a nuisance, if nothing worse.

A day of rest once a week is a good thing in itself, but it is a bad thing when controlled by religion. We are in favor of Sunday as a day when man can lay aside his business, his care, his tools, and enjoy himself, but we want everybody to take their hands off of it. Sunday is not a day for religion alone. If certain people wish to go to church on Sunday, let them go; but when these people, who go to church on Sunday, wish to compel everyone else to do the same, they need to be informed that liberty on Sunday is just as much a human right as liberty on Monday . There are better things that man has found than religion. Liberty is better, truth is better, happiness is better. We would like to see an American Sunday on this continent, a Sunday in harmony with the principles upon which our government was founded, a Sunday which was not run by religion, a Sunday for man and not for the church. Such a day would not be a sabbath, but it would be a free day, a happy day. The notion of Sunday as a holy day is too absurd, too ridiculous to deserve respectful attention. No man can have fifty-two holy days in a year.

The minister must take his pious grasp off of the throat of Sunday.

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A true man is not troubled by anything but his own acts.

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The true man walks the earth as the stars walk the heavens, grandly obedient to those laws which are implanted in his nature.

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A great many people are afraid of knowledge, but we have seen hundreds of people that we thought would be improved if they knew more, but we have never seen one that we thought would be better if he knew less.

The Christian is fond of referring to Jesus as his lord and master. We wonder why, for it is evident that not a Christian of this century takes Jesus for his lord and master. The fact is, that there is nothing that a man objects to more strongly than a master. Man wants to be independent. He does not want anybody to be lord over him. The struggle of the race for ages has been to get rid of lords and masters, to be free from tyrants. Religion is after all only dead politics. The church makes sacred what the state casts off. What sense is there in fighting for long centuries to liberate the body, and voluntarily accepting slavery for the mind? Jesus is the ghost of a dead king. But why should the world prostrate itself before his invisible throne when it refuses to acknowledge by its obedience that he is fit to rule the kingdom of conduct?

What hypocrites Christians are! What a farce it is for men and women to call Jesus lord and master! They do not obey his slightest command, and they ignore his teachings as undeserving their regard. There is not a precept, that the Christian church teaches came from the lips of Jesus, that Christians honor by practice, not one. Never did a lord receive so little honest respect from his vassals; never a master so little true obedience from his servants.

Men and women are not sincere when they profess to accept Jesus as their lord and master. They doubtless feel grateful to him for saving them from the fires of hell hereafter, but they look upon him as a mighty poor example for them to follow here. As everybody knows, the church does not require that its members shall practice the precepts given by Jesus. If she did demand this of men and women her membership would speedily be reduced to zero. We do not regard a man as honest, or worthy of respect, who calls Jesus his lord and master and turns his back in contempt upon the precepts he gave his disciples to practice.

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You cannot stuff your minds with the lives of saints and grow good on the stuffing.

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Some persons are remembered solely for their virtues and others solely for their faults. This is why we have a Jesus and a Judas.

Future generations will regard the men who accept the Christian superstitions either as simple or dishonest.