Daily Kennebec journal., 1910-06-20

agreeable but not to the Sisaereea h,e
us purity not being grounded in . doc,
ana tender reverence fo- nerso,.,it
ann all that has to do with the c.crod
soufce OF life. does not go behind ar.
"''u Word to thought and feeling: and
81 gives way under temptations IT'S
tnoroughness does reach the things
"hlch no one else will ever 600 n,
Know It's honesty is not scrunu,ouy
ABOUT those corporate forms of fra,,d
these conventional types of graf
whose evil effects will be scattered toC
lar and wide ever to be traced to the
,hol'iuual thief or the corporate rob
Der, Secondhand Christianity is shall
low and superficial and therefore weak
ana yielding at every point of strain
where public opinion, or social expec-
tation, or legal penalty is not available
for support.
Next below the secondhand Chris
tan is the man who is frankly un-
christian. He sees no good in this
benevolent business: He proposes to
have his fun. no matter whom it hurts,
to make his pile nc matter whom he
takes it out of. Heartless in his cruel
pleasures: trampling women in the
mire; ruthless in business, driving
competitors and creditors, and de-
tenceless workman to the wall: un-
5Crupulous in finance; wreckins SOUND
md promoting unsound enterprises,
he un-Christian man keeps within the
etter of the law to save his own skin;
,ut violates it's spirit every chance he
Gets, to the degradation of woman, the
Generalization of business, the corrup-
ion of politics. and the undermining
Of society
Thi:: hard and brutal un-Christian
nan has played large part in the
'Volution of society; until two thou
sand years ago he was almost the only
type, and in vast portions of the world
'nmains the dominant type today. He
rears large families; does the worlds
)ioneerwork:' and makes an effective
soldier. But his coarse pleasures are
)ought at such tremendous cost of
misery to his victims; his winnings
represent such fearful losses to inno-
cent investors and honest workers.
that this cruel un-Christianity which
,neers at benevolence as sentimental
ity, and chafeS at morality as super
stition stands today as discredited
and transcribed stage of human de-
velopment.
The brilliant literary apostle of this
un-Christian attitude. refusing to as
sumo the slightest responsibility for
either his half dozen bastard children
or their abandoned mothers; the finan-
cier whose ostentatious palace rests
IN thousands of humble lives and
homes crushed and broken by his
.hrewd dishonesty. reveal, like Watts
picture on Mammon, the brutality ana
cruelty that are inseparable from any
character which cuts loose from the
spirit of good will, which is Christianity.
For the essential mark of the Chris
ian man is this contemplate willing
ness to get everything he can, out of
anybody he can. in any way he can.
provided he himself escapes the pain
eul consequences of his conduct, and
shifts them onto others.
Next comes the anti-Christian; the
nan who bitterly hates and unspar-
ingly denounces Christianity. In our
lay, at least here in America this
70 hate and denounce the spirit of
universal good will is we'll nigh i'm
possible: and would be the unpardon-
lble sin. Anti christianity attacks
some perversion or misrepresentation
of Christianity, which it confounds
With Christianity itself. Voltaire. and
Bradlaugh and Ingersoll. and their less
brilliant imitatorS are usually men
who have been reared in some poor
counterfeit or caricature of Christian
ity; and have come to confound Chris
tanity with some insincere or IRA
tional doctrine. some vain ecclesasti-
cal pretenSiOn. some Inconsistency OF
selfish living. some folly of ascetic re-
striction; and then striven to stamp
out this really infamous thing which
they suppose to be Christianity.
The chief blame in such cases rests
not on the anti-Christian so much as
on the false Christians which have so
Christianity to him.
The protest of the anti Christian US
ually bears witness to sincerity and
oarnestness which is much closer to
the heart of real Christianity than the
hard and disingenuous orthodoxy. the
formal and complacent ecclesiasticism.
which it ressts. AS in the case of the
prosecuting Saul, the bitter intensity
of opposition to what appears false is
the measure of latent devotion to the
true.
The worst and last of the four types
that enter by the wide gate is the
pseudo Christian. At his worst. which
is rare. he is the conscious and delib-
crate hypocrite. Who then, short of
the deliberate hypocrite. is the pseudo
Christian? He is the person who,
without gratefully recognizing the
Fathers good will at the heart of the
world, and striving to make that good
will his own principle of life. has got
into his head a set of doctrines; per-
forms or has performed for him Ger
tain ceremonies: reads the Bible and
saws his prayers and goes to church;