FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   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   >>   >|  
god or of another world. I do not know anything about "a land that is fairer than day." I do know that women make shirts for seventy cents a dozen in this one. I do know that the needs of humanity and this world are infinite, unending, constant, and immediate. They will take all our time, our strength, our love, and our thoughts; and our work here will be only then begun. Why not, if you believe in a God at all, give him credit for placing you where he wanted you? Why not give him credit for giving you brains and sympathies, as well as the courage to use them. Even if Eve did eat that apple, why should _we_ insist upon having the colic? SELF-CONTROL WHAT WE NEED. I want to see the time come when mothers won't have to explain to their children that God has changed his mind about goodness and right since he used to incite murder; that eighteen hundred years ago he was a criminal with bloody hands and vile, polluted breath; that less than three hundred years ago his greatest pleasure was derived from witnessing the agony of pure young girls burning alive, whose only crime was beauty of face or honesty of thought.* * See Gage, "History of Woman Suffrage," p. 766. I want it so that she won't allow her children to hear and believe such a statement as Bishop Fallows made not long ago. He said, in effect, that sins of omission are as heinous as those of commission: that Saul committed two sins in his life, and that one of them was a refusal to commit a coldblooded murder! He spared the life of a conquered enemy! Out of a whole nation he saved one life--and that was a crime, a sin! Bishop Fallows said that God expressly commanded Saul to utterly exterminate that whole nation, and not only the nation but its flocks; and that God took Saul's kingdom from him because he saved the life of one fallen enemy. That story, I think, is a libel; and I believe that if there is a God he was never such a fiend! And I want it so that no mother will allow her child to hear such an infamous travesty of the character of a Deity who is called good, I want it so that all the lessons of the week, all the careful training of a wise father or a good mother, will not be antagonized on Sunday by such a statement as the Rev. Mr. Williamson made at a large church convention recently. Speaking of prayer, he said: "We should offer to God, by prayer, our virtue, our purity, and our pious aspirations" (so far I do not object, for if it
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
nation
 

hundred

 
credit
 

mother

 
prayer
 
children
 
murder
 

Fallows

 

statement

 

Bishop


commanded

 

expressly

 

effect

 

omission

 

commission

 

refusal

 

committed

 

utterly

 

coldblooded

 

spared


heinous

 

commit

 

conquered

 

Sunday

 
Williamson
 
antagonized
 

father

 

careful

 

training

 

object


purity

 
virtue
 
aspirations
 

church

 

convention

 

recently

 

Speaking

 

lessons

 

called

 
fallen

kingdom
 
flocks
 

travesty

 

infamous

 
character
 

Suffrage

 

exterminate

 

brains

 

giving

 
sympathies