FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89  
90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   >>   >|  
od, but asks for more of the same thing, more respect for personality, more reverence for womanhood, more stability for the home, more truthfulness, more peacefulness, more love. Thus he combined continuity with progress, conservatism with radicalism. II The platform for ethical progress laid down in the Sermon on the Mount is a great platform. When Tolstoi first realized the social significance of these simple sentences, it acted as a revelation which changed his life. Even men who reject the supernatural claims of Christianity uncover before the Sermon on the Mount. Yet its fate is tragic. It has not been "damned with faint praise," but made ineffective by universal praise. Its commandments are lifted so high that nobody feels under obligations to act on them. Only small sections of the Christian Church have taken the sayings on oaths, non-resistance, and love of enemies to mean what they say and to be obligatory. Yet all feel that the line of ethical and social advance must lie in the direction traced by Jesus, and if society could only climb out of the present pit of predatory selfishness and meanness to that level, it would be heaven. Do you and I believe in it? Do we believe that it is not enough to keep out of the spiritual hell and damnation of adultery, but that a clean mind would be the most efficient and cheerful mind? Do we believe that a man who forgives and keeps sweet is happier and safer than a man who always resents things and stirs the witches' caldron of hate in his soul? If a man loved his enemy and turned the other cheek, would he be everybody's door-mat or everybody's temple of refuge? Suppose we mark for the present those parts which we are willing to accept as our own standards of action. If there are portions which do not seem practicable, let us post them in our minds as debatable propositions, as points to be tested by the experience of coming years, or as working hypotheses in the science of living. But whatever we may think of single points, let us stick to the leading thought of Jesus, that every advance toward the Kingdom of God, that is, toward the true social order, involves a raising of the ethical standards accepted by society. This is a principle of social progress which every leading intellect ought to know by heart. III When Jesus offered his six sample cases of ethical progress, he had no intention of exhausting the principle of advance which he laid down. The
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89  
90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

progress

 

social

 

ethical

 

advance

 

leading

 
standards
 

praise

 

points

 

platform

 
present

principle

 
Sermon
 

society

 

efficient

 

cheerful

 

temple

 

damnation

 

adultery

 

Suppose

 

forgives


refuge

 

happier

 

things

 

caldron

 

turned

 

witches

 

resents

 

debatable

 

involves

 

raising


accepted

 
single
 

thought

 

Kingdom

 

intellect

 
intention
 

exhausting

 

sample

 

offered

 

practicable


portions

 

accept

 

action

 

propositions

 

science

 

living

 
hypotheses
 

working

 

tested

 

experience