The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-04-30
TOT ST: A REVIEW OF HIS BOOK,
/ my RELIGION ~
+ Written
Written for The Journal.

50 many years we can only deal with
his foundation conceptions and must
pass by many of the refinements Of his
teachings.
Hhis chief trait is his cold FLOODED
realism, naked truth and nothing else.
Having come to the conviction finally
that whatever is is not right, he took
up his parable against ancient wrong,
and began at the church. His sketches
written from the army at Sebastopol,
while he was an officer, depicted so
graphically the horrors of war that
they admitted him at once into the
front rank Of pen-masters. He held
up the show heroes versus the real
ones, and when he came to take up his
mission in religion he followed the
same vein, and held up to ridicule the
sham in all religion, Orthodox, Catho-
lie and Protestant, and then sought to
show in contrast the simplicity and
power Of the pure teachings of Christ.
Like any earnest man on sinking
vessel, he naturally threw out some
valuable truths along with the rubbish,
but his effort was all inspired by an
intense zeal for the truth.
He became fascinated with the
ethics in the sermon on the Mount,
and in the five commands of Jesus he
saw q rule Of life which would If prac-
| ticed make all humanity happy. He
took these commands in their simplest
and most literal meaning. With him
| these five laws of Christ superseded
entirely the law Of Moses, and con-
tanned in essence all that Christ wish
ed to teach.
He now undertook to practice these
Of religion doD and then he interpret
ed them for all men everywhere.
Judge not" he found to mean the
doing away with tribunals Of all sorts.
What he saw to be Christian virtue
for him he believed the state should
take up and make of universal appli-
cation. He naturally imbibed this
idea of state religion with his moth
er's milk, and never knew. anything
else. He came afterward to see that
the church, that the state and all ex-
listing institutions hindered instead Of
helping the development Of the in
dividuaL But he had the autocratic
idea OF the government and would ap-
ply this in religion, never seeming to
have entirely been able in his mind
to separate religion from the state.
He saw with the vision OF a seer the
rottenness which had been produced
by this union, but expected row that
this rotten mass should cleanse itself
Wholesale, but the mass only excom-
municated him, as 1t does with all Of
its prophets.
His most famous exposition Of Re
IL - - l.
make statewide practice. He caught
the vision of an ideal kingdom on
earth. Rarely" he says, innocently,
did find any one to agree with me"
He seemed not to realize that he was
a prophet and living for future time.
That he was but a forerunner, and
that there would have to be many
peace congresses before the war drum
would be silent for ever, and before
men should beat their swords into
pruning hooks. But with an unfalter-
ing faith he took up his task of con-
vincing his own age. His argument
was that all human punishment was
artificial and man-made and contrary
to the teachings Of Christ. If men
would accept the teachings Of Christ
all law would fall away and be use
i 1CSS. SAE1SL CdAI1C " dDAOSdlC TIC ia w
Of Moses, and the church holds on to
the law of Moses and denies or ignores
the simple law of Christ. This is
why" he says, after eighteen hundred
years, it so singularly happened that
I had discovered the meaning of
Christ's teaching as some new thing.
But no, did not discover it; did
simply what all men have done and
must do who seek after God and his
law; found what is the eternal law of
God amid all that men call by that
name"
He came to the teaching about
adultery and divorce" and found
that the eternal law which Christ
came to teach, made the very first
union of any man with any woman. a
marriage, and that to depart from that
union was to commit adultery. This
was a far cry from the accetped doc
trine Of the church among the men OF