The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-10-08
THE HEART OF RELIGION
the International Sunday School Les
son for October Is is Clean and
Mclean" Mark 7:l-23

on the shore Of the Lake Of Galilee.
Its nth is memorable even after ex-
perlence with hundreds Of oriental
communities. Two sects Of ultra
orthodox Spanish Jews make Tiber-
las their headquarters maintaining
schools of the rabbis there The
curls hanging In front of the ears
and the distinctive raiment of the
tradition-observing Jew are more
marked in Tiberias than anywhere
else in the whole land. Here the
Jealous wait for the Messiah to rise
from the waters of the Lake, accord
ing TO their tradition, and to choose
ms disciples from their midst, pro-
ceeding to Safed on yonder hill to set
up his earthly kingdom. Now all this
religious zeal and orthodoxy and
soiicitude for ceremonial has no re-
iatlon whatever to real cleanliness.
This divorce between traditional
hOhneS and common decency
seems to characterize many sacred
places. Thus Benares, the holy city
OF the HinduS. is 50 sacred that even
If an infdel dies on its soil he has
hopes Of paradise. Yet Benares, the
city, is fairly nauseOus. Mecca, to-
ward which every Moslem turns when
he prays, and whittier two hundred
thousand pilgrims go every year, is
the greatest breeding place for
cholera known to medical science.
There all represent, IKE the faStjd-
1ouSneSs Of the pharisees, the religion
Of ceremonia!isin. Rites and obser-
vances are exalted to first place. The
old Jews Of the time Of Christ had
overland the law Of Moses with their
traditions until religion had become
a burden too hcaHy to be borne. The
exactions Of the rabbits ran down into
every department of human interest
and into every hour of the life of the
faithful.
Thc Reformer Dissents.
Clearly and fearlessly Jesus took
issue with all this. He knew that The
tendency Of all religion is to deterior-
ate into a set of formal o~bservances.
The heather faiths that environed
Israel. even as the heather faiths of
today, prescribed practices and ritual
instead of spiritual faith. So the
brave Teacher from Nazareth did not
hesitate 10 indiCt the experts in religi-
Gus "ceremOnialisn as blind guides
WIN hig disdain he dismissed the
pharisees and their claims as teachers
In this, as always, the principles He
laid down hold for all time.
The platform of the lietormer upon
which all the race will one day come
to stand. is God is a spirit. and they
that woul worship Him must WOr-
SHIN Him in spirit and in truth
Lip religion is not life religion
Seeming right is less important thar
being right. The fundamental con
sideration for every life is hat thu
heart shall be right with God. This
is not effect by religious demeanol
and prescribed practices; on the con
trary out Of the heart flow the fruit:
of q true religion.
Clean Hands or Clean Lives.
The debate which is set forth il
this present Sunday School Lessor
arose from the fact that the disciple
OF Jesus did not observe all the Stric
pharisaical ituals. In truth, nowher
in the world do the busy, out-of-doo
folks, the plain people, follow all tn
minutiae Of all the ritual OF their re
ligiOus teachers. The peasant wome
in Moslem lands go about unveiled.
The ordinary Arab does not say hi
five prayers daily nor perform tn
prescribed additions; the Chimes
peasant neglects his god-shelf. and tn
Japanese farmer is delinquent in dali
offerings before the Shrines. Thes
peasant fishermen who followed JeSu
We're neglectful of the etiquette of tn
conventional religious leaders.
The question was not one Of &C
tually clean hands, but of
ADDITIONS. The details Of these re
ligious washings are really incredibl
to us. | have ridden with MoSler
pilgrims on the Mecca railway an
found them a filthy crew, Who's
filthinesS was not altered by the fac
that they washed certain portions {
their bodies FIVE times a day. Cel
tain of the Moslem sects were dis
tinauished by the way they lave
their fOrearms,- whether from tn
elbow toward the hand, or from tn
hand toward the elbow. There al
scores Of these ceremonial practice
in Islam, all of them ~aSSiduOusly Gu
tivated by the men on pilgrimage, y
The immortality of the pilgrims
Mecca may not be told IN Enghs
speech. Neithe Jesus nor His frient
would bind themselves by similar pc
ty regulations concerning the usag'
prescribed by the rabbis and tt
pharisees.
When Religion is Not Righteousness
One clever dodge Of the Jews Of II
time of Christ vas to escape the SUI
port of their aged parents by decla