Chapter V: Part II: Modern Christianity (2)

Looking back over the wars of the United States, there are few that would stand the acid test of Jesus' judgment.

The war of the Revolution was due, in the last analysis, to the fact that there were a large number of prominent men in the colonies determined on independence at any cost. If war was a necessary means to attain that end, these leaders were for war, without shilly-shallying over the moral justification for the conflict. The men of that generation were rather fond of attitudinizing, and were prone to the use of high-sounding phrases like "no taxation without representation," "give me liberty or give me death," etc. The Declaration of Independence starts out with one of those phrases--"All men are created equal, and endowed with inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This was at that time such a palpable untruth and hypocrisy, that one wonders if our forefathers had no sense of humor. Of course, to be true, the sentence should have been added, "except certain persons of African descent, whom we hold and propose to hold as slaves."[56]

Stripping the grievances of the colonists of their heated and declamatory rhetoric, their real sufferings under the misrule of Great Britain were far less than those of the Jews under the Romans, when Jesus said, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." Many of the foremost statesmen in England supported the justness of the colonists' claims, and most of the obnoxious taxes were repealed before the Declaration of Independence. With time and patience the difficulties between the two countries could probably have been adjusted without war, as was the case with Canada, except for the underlying desire of the Americans for independence.

To avoid misunderstanding, it should be added, that, before the bar of Nature--under the laws of the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest--the colonies were fully justified in taking up arms when they did. The pigheaded obstinacy of George III in insisting on his "prerogatives," and the blind stupidity of his ministers in urging measures of little value to England, but irritating to the colonies, wounding their pride and making them apprehensive of future, more serious encroachments on their liberties, furnished ample warrant for ceasing longer to turn the other cheek.

Furthermore, before Nature's forum, the plea that the end justifies the means, is always of controlling force. History proves that the independence of the United States was sure to come sooner or later, and that it was better for both countries and for the world that the two nations should be under separate governments, and each work out its own destiny.

The war of 1812 was, before the bar of Jesus, without any excuse, and, like the Crimean war, was futile of results. The main questions at issue between the United States and England, and about which the war started, were not even mentioned in the final treaty of peace. The American grievances were real enough, but a very moderate exercise of Christian forbearance on England's part would have avoided any necessity of war. These grievances, bad as they were, had been endured by the United States for some twelve years, and a delay of some two years more would have brought a natural end to them with the fall of Napoleon. This war should never have occurred between two Christian peoples, and is unjustified by any good results that followed from it.

The war with Mexico in 1848 was simply an aggressive, land-grabbing, politicians' war, and will always be a blot on the Christianity of the United States. The lands of which Mexico was robbed were of course of great material value to the United States, but the less said about the justness of their acquisition the better.

The question of the Civil War is complicated by the moral issue of the abolition of slavery, underlying the political issue of the right of the South to secede, which was the ostensible cause of the war. Slavery in the United States was an evil, both ethically and economically, and, as its abolition was a result of the war, that war is justifiable both in the court of Jesus and in that of Nature. But that result was an incident of the war, and the North would never have taken up arms on the simple issue of forcing the abolition of slavery on the South.

On the ostensible, political issue which started the war--the right of the South to secede from the Union--there is room for much difference of opinion. Despite the technical and labored constitutional arguments of Von Holst and others, it is rather difficult to understand why, if the South believed that its happiness and prosperity were being imperiled by a further continuance of its union with the North, it had not the same right to break that union in 1861 as the colonies had the right to break their union with England in 1776. At the outbreak of the war, there were many in the North, beside Horace Greeley and Vallandingham, who thought it morally wrong to compel the South by force to remain in a union that had become hateful to it.

A great writer on American history (Sumner) has said that whenever some geographical section of our country becomes saturated with the idea that its material interests are being sacrificed to the interests of other parts of the country, and it sees no hope of redress, it will begin to talk secession. It was true of New England at the time of the Hartford Convention. It was true of the South in 1820, 1831 and 1860. It was true of the Pacific States shortly after the Civil War, when they feared that Congress would not pass their desired Chinese Exclusion Acts.

It would be difficult to justify the Spanish War of 1898, in the court of Jesus. It was mostly the work of the newspapers and politicians. Nine-tenths of the people of the United States were ignorant of suffering great grievances from Spain, until the Jingo journals demonstrated the fact to them. It is safe to say that this war would never have occurred if Spain had been a great naval power like Germany or Great Britain. The same assertion may be made of the war against Mexico in 1848. In studying the Jingo spirit which encourages wars, it will usually be found that the strength of this spirit varies in the inverse ratio to the supposed war-strength of the other party to the fight. Nations are much like school boys in this respect. It is quite probable that the war of 1812 would not have been brought on, except for the mistaken idea of Henry Clay and his hot-headed followers from the West that the United States could easily overrun Canada, and dictate peace to England in Halifax.

Our participation in the Great War of 1914 was forced upon us, and was amply justifiable, both in the court of Jesus and in that of Nature. When Germany sunk our ships on the high seas, it struck at our independence as a nation, as vitally as though it had invaded and seized a part of our territory. On this issue we had waged war with England in 1812, and with the Algerine pirates in 1815. To have yielded this point to Germany would have been the first step toward international slavery.

But the war itself was utterly unjustifiable. The fact that it could occur nearly 2,000 years after the death of Jesus, only illustrates how little actual progress the teachings of Jesus inculcating peace had made against the forces of nature urging nations into conflict with each other.

To the impartial student of our history, it must be apparent that the Sermon on the Mount, so far as preventing wars, has been practically a dead letter. The condemnation of war has been superficial and insincere--nothing better than simple hypocrisy. It has been a service of the lip and not of the heart. The outside of the cup has been kept clean with a great parade of noble humanitarian sentiments, but the inside has been full of corruption.

Except among some numerically small bodies like the Quakers and a few others, there has never been any strong living, effective public sentiment in the United States condemning wars as unrighteous, save as a last extremity. This is well illustrated by our two disputes with England over the Maine and Oregon boundaries. These boundary disputes were most intricate and complicated, the evidence was uncertain and conflicting, no question of principle was involved, and they were eminently matters to be settled by negotiation, mutual compromise, or arbitration. But in each case the Jingo clamor for war spread over the whole country. Polk's campaign cry in 1844 was, "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight." But there was no organized, effective opposition on the ground that this war would be unrighteous and un-Christian. If England had been as weak as Mexico, or if Tyler and Polk had been "fire-eaters," like Andrew Jackson, we would, beyond doubt, have had war in each case, although there could have been no justification for it in the court of Jesus.

Every war, whether right or wrong, has been not merely condoned, but fully approved by the vast majority of the religious people of our country. Success in war has been the best stepping stone to the Presidency, as is shown by the instances of Jackson, Harrison, Taylor and Grant. There is no record of any Jingo statesman being punished by his constituents for precipitating the United States into unnecessary and unrighteous wars, and the supreme hypocrisy of all is, that, in every war, whether morally justifiable or not, the followers of Jesus crowd the churches to pray for His assistance, and to thank Him for victory when won, as though He were sanctioning these infractions of His Sermon on the Mount.

The late President Roosevelt has expressed his views on our wars, and he may certainly be taken as fairly representative of a large portion of the American people. He was a devout Christian, but singularly free from hypocrisy. He was given to "speakin' out in meetin'," on occasions with a frankness that was embarrassing to his followers, and even later to himself.[57]

In his life of Thomas H. Benton, American Statesmen Series, page 261, he says, in treating of this boundary dispute with Canada:

"The matter was sure to be decided in favor of the strongest; and, say what we will about the justice and right of the various claims, _the honest truth_ is, that the comparative _might_ of the different nations, and not the comparative _righteousness_ of their several causes, was the determining factor in the settlement. Mexico lost her northern provinces by no law of right, but simply by the law of the longest sword--the same law that gave India to England."[58]

On page 262 he says: "It would be untrue to say that Nations have not at times proved themselves capable of acting with great disinterestedness and generosity towards other peoples; but such conduct is not very common at the best, and although it often may be desirable, _it certainly is not always so_. If the matter in dispute is of _great importance_, and if there is a _doubt_ as to which side is right, then the strongest party to the controversy is pretty sure to give itself the benefit of that doubt; and international morality will have to take tremendous strides in advance before this ceases to be the case."[59]

On page 268 he says: "No foot of soil to which we had any title[60] in the Northwest should have been given up; we were the people who could use it best, and _we ought to have taken it all_. The prize was well worth winning, and would warrant a good deal of risk being run."

On page 289, in speaking of the final compromise and settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute, he says: "Yet as there was no particular reason why we should show any generosity in our diplomatic dealings with England, it may well be questioned whether it would not have been better to have left things as they were until we could have taken all. Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided, but they are far better than certain kinds of peace. Every war in which we have been engaged, except the one with Mexico, has been justifiable in its origin, and each one, without any exception whatever, has left us better off, taking both moral[61] and material considerations into account, than we should have been if we had not waged it."

These citations, reflecting, as they undoubtedly do, prevalent American sentiment in the past and present, establish the utter hypocrisy of any claim that the Sermon on the Mount has had any practical, effective power in determining the actions of our nation concerning wars, whether justifiable or not.

(b) SUNDAY AND THE SABBATH

It is uncertain just when Sunday (the first day of the week) began to be generally observed among Christians as a holy day. The early Gentile converts were naturally averse to all Jewish rites and ceremonies, including circumcision, Sabbath-day observances, etc. It would seem that, in St. Paul's time, more or less of them held the position that all days of the week were alike, and no one of them especially holy (Romans XIV:5, 6; Col. II:16, 17). But at least two or three centuries had elapsed after Jesus' death, before Sunday was established as a day holy to the Lord, and began to have attributed to it the sanctity with which the Jews surrounded their Mosaic Sabbath.

Jesus never sanctioned the observance of the first day of the week as a holy day. No text can be cited from the Old Testament, or the four Gospels, that gives even color of authority to this observance. Sunday is a purely human institution, established by the Christians of the first five centuries, to suit their own convenience, or satisfy their anti-Jewish prejudices. As a Biblical festival, it is no more sacred than Monday or Tuesday, or any other day.

This matter is not commented on because of its practical importance, since it would now be inadvisable to change our legal day of rest to correspond with the Biblical Sabbath. But it affords a fair illustration of the prevalent cant and hypocrisy of the day. How frequently do the modern Pharisees denounce the man, who, for instance, goes fishing or hunting on Sunday, instead of going to church, as a contemner of Jesus, a violator of God's holy laws, etc., when in fact they have not the slightest authority from Jesus to do so. Would it not be well for them to consider the beam in their own eye? On this point, the Seventh-day Baptists and others like them are the consistent followers of Jesus, and not the Roman Catholics and the great bulk of the Protestants.

(c) THE HYPOCRISY OF DIVORCE

Under the Mosaic law a husband, dissatisfied with his wife, could "write her a bill of a divorcement" if he had found "some uncleanness in her" (Deut. XXIV:1; Matt. XIX:7).

According to Matthew, Jesus condemned divorce except for the cause of "fornication" (Matt. V:32; XIX:9).

According to Mark and Luke, He condemned divorce for any cause (Mark X:11; Luke XVI:18).

All the States of our Union, except New York and South Carolina, authorize divorce on other grounds than adultery. In New York divorces are granted only on the ground of adultery, and in South Carolina no divorces are granted. (World's Almanac, 1920, pp. 369-371.)

In 1916, there were 1,040,778 marriages and 112,036 divorces in the United States, of which about 11 per cent were on the ground of "unfaithful." (World's Almanac, 1920, pp. 151-152.)

But the marriages of the Roman Catholics, about 1-7 of our population (World's Almanac, p. 484), should fairly be excluded, since divorce is practically non-existent among them. This would leave 890,000 marriages to 112,000 divorces.

There was then, in 1916, something more than one divorce to every ten marriages among our total population, or, excluding Roman Catholics, something more than one divorce to every eight marriages.

In the face of these figures, it must be conceded that this prohibition of Jesus has become practically a dead letter among the Protestant Christians of the United States.

To the innocent party to a divorce, little, if any, stigma attaches either in business, social or religious circles, and nothing but a temporary condemnation is visited on the guilty party. The plain truth is, that divorce has become a matter of everyday life, regrettable but not sinful, and that, on this point, the followers of Jesus (excepting the Roman Catholics) have simply substituted their ideas of right and wrong for His.

It should be added again, to avoid misunderstanding, that it is not the intention hereby to condemn our present divorce laws. On the contrary, it is quite probable that, if Jesus were legislating for the complex societies of today, instead of for the comparatively simpler civilization of His day, He would materially modify His stringent views on divorce, in a sane concession to the weakness and frailty of human nature. Certainly, to one who has seen many ill-mated couples seeking relief in the divorce courts, and subsequently making happy marriages, to the mutual benefit of themselves, their children, their friends and society in general, divorce laws cannot seem all evil. The children, if there are any, are the main factor to be considered, and no conditions of life are likely to be much worse for them than to be brought up by two mutually unloving, unsympathetic parents, and, as usually happens, in an atmosphere of continual bickering and quarreling.

(d) THE HYPOCRISY OF PRAYER

This subject has already been treated under Note 22, _supra_, page 23, and it has been shown that Jesus clearly condemned public prayers, long prayers and frequent prayers (Matt. VI: 5, 8).

The evils of the prayer-habit (as a public ceremony) are many and obvious.

(1) It is a useless waste of time and energy that had better be expended on works of mercy. God already knows what things we need, and will grant them, if advisable, without prayer (Matt. VI:8). For instance, how much time has been spent by the human race in praying for things which subsequent events proved were, or would have been, injurious instead of beneficial? How many there are, who, in looking back over their lives, can see that the realization of one of their (at the time) dearest wishes turned out later to be the most unfortunate thing that ever happened to them.

(2) It encourages the formation of a low and unworthy conception of God as a being to be propitiated and placated, like the deities of barbarous peoples. Insensibly the idea grows that the more frequent and the more zealous the prayers, the more likely they are to be granted. An instance of this will be found in the custom started during the Great War of every one on the streets and everywhere, praying exactly at noon for the success of our armies. The idea underlying this was apparently that of "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together," although the latter requirement was hardly fulfilled, since the prayers in New York were several hours old before those in San Francisco were begun. Nothing could be imagined much more inconsistent with Jesus' regulations on the subject of prayer.

Furthermore, the prayer-habit begets a sickening tone of servility in the worshipper, coupled with the ascription to the Deity of an equally sickening love of adulation. In many prayer meetings the speakers seem to vie with each other in seeking terms of humility and self abasement for themselves (miserable worms being rather a favorite) and the most exaggerated titles of honor for the Deity. One would think they were a lot of grovelling slaves, prostrating themselves before the throne of some barbaric despot. Take the "Te Deum," which is a prayer in the form of a hymn. Can it be supposed that the fulsome adulation with which it is filled can be pleasing to the God of the universe? And yet, why is it sung, except on that supposition? What respect would we have for an earthly father who delighted in having his children assemble every morning, and chant their praises of his goodness, his excellence, his power, etc.? And yet should not the ideal of the heavenly Father be higher than that of the earthly father?

(3) The prayer-habit tends to emasculate the moral strength of its devotees. It is much easier to pray to God for help and, so to speak, shift the responsibility on Him, than to work out one's own troubles by one-self. There is an old saying--Pray, but with thy hand on the plough. Too much praying tends towards neglect of the plough, or, to use Cromwell's phrase, the keeping one's powder dry.

(4) Another evil is that it tends to encourage a self-righteousness on the part of its devotees (Luke XVIII:11). When prayer is regarded as a duty, the sequel to a prayer-meeting is a feeling of satisfaction in duty well performed. God has not only been well pleased by a display of humility on the part of His worshippers, but has also been intelligently advised on a variety of subjects, about which He may have been in uncertainty.

Compare the prayer meeting of today with one according to Jesus' precepts. There would be no long prayers (Matt. XXIII:14; Luke XX:47). The meeting would open with the Lord's Prayer. Then, as each one thought over his various sins of omission and commission, and repented of them, he would arise and say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke XVIII:13). The peace and silent meditation of such a gathering would tend to produce the humble and contrite heart, which is the offering pleasing to God.

(5) But the worst evil, as pointed out by Jesus, is that of substituting a false standard of righteousness, words for acts, sacrifice for mercy (Matt. XII:7). When prayers are regarded as a duty and their performance a meritorious act, their devotees are quite apt to become like the Pharisees, who paid "tithe of mint, anise and cummin," but neglected "judgment, mercy and faith" (Matt. XXIII:23).

The average, easy-going Christian can without difficulty square his account with God through numerous prayers, or even rest easy in his conscience with a slight balance in his favor. But it must be almost impossible for the believer in, and faithful adherent of, prayer-meetings to rise to the sublime conception of the Almighty, voiced not only by Jesus, but by the later prophets of the Old Testament.

"Bring no more vain oblations (prayers or fasting): incense (prayers and fasting) is an abomination to me. The new moons and Sabbaths (ceremonial church services), the calling of assemblies (prayer-meetings), I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them."

"Learn to _do_ well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah I:13, 14, 17).

"And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God" (Micah VI:8).

(e) THE HYPOCRISY OF FASTING

This subject also, has already been discussed under note 20, _supra_, but for convenience, reference is again made to the passages in which Jesus condemns public fasting, or fasting as a ceremony (Matt. VI:16, 17, 18; Matt. IX:14; Mark II:18; Luke V:33; Luke X:7).

Nearly everything which has been said under the last subhead concerning public prayers applies with equal force to ceremonial fasting, and need not be repeated here.

(f) SUNDAY BLUE LAWS

Assuming there is to be ascribed to the modern Sunday the same sanctity as a holy day that should be accorded to the Sabbath which Jesus observed, His views on the proper observance of the day are summed up in the one sentence: "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark II:27).

The basic idea of the old Puritan Sunday was the direct opposite of that of Jesus. Following the old Mosaic law, which Jesus combatted, the Puritans planned their celebration of the day for the "honor and glory" of God, and not for the benefit of man. Conceiving this _God_, not as a loving Father, but as a stern, austere Judge, who, according to Jonathan Edwards, had reserved the bulk of mankind for burning, who demanded "sacrifice" and not "mercy," and was therefore to be propitiated and placated, the Puritan ministers succeeded, while they had the power, in imposing on their congregations a most atrocious travesty of the Sabbath of Jesus. Religious services were piled up like Pelion on Ossa, and every movement of the day was marked by gloom and austerity. No wonder that William Lloyd Garrison said of the observance of Sunday at a much later date: "The Sabbath, as now recognized and enforced, is one of the main pillars of priest-craft and superstition, and the stronghold of merely ceremonial religion."

Jesus did not object to the Jewish observance of the Sabbath on the ground that it was too "lax" (to use a modern term), but on just the opposite ground--that certain of their restrictions on man's freedom of action on that day were unnecessary. But the Sabbath of that time, as the Jews celebrated it, and as, from all the accounts in the four Gospels, Jesus celebrated it, was a day of joyous rest and recreation, and in no sense a day of spiritual maceration.

"The same character of cheerfulness, of happy rest from the toil and turmoil of the world's business; of quiet and peaceful return unto one's self; of joyous communion with friends and kindred over good cheer--in short, of mental and bodily relaxation and recreation that strengthens, braces, pacifies, and maketh the heart glad, while the sublime ideas which it symbolizes are recalled to the memory at every step and turn seems to have prevailed at all times down to our own, among the Jews."

"Suffice it to reiterate that in every class, every age and every variety of Jews, from first to last, the Sabbath has been absolutely a day of joy and happiness, nay, of dancing, of singing, of eating and drinking, and of luxury."

International Cyclopædia, Sabbath, Vol. XII, p. 857.

This is the kind of a Sabbath which the Gospels picture Jesus as celebrating, attending feasts in the houses of His friends, walking in the fields with His disciples, or meeting with them in public places, and healing the sick when occasion offered (Matt. XII:1; Mark II:23; Luke VI:1; Luke XIV:1; John V:1, 2, 9; IX:1, 14).

Hard as it may be for Anglo-Saxon prejudice to admit, yet it seems to be true, that the Spanish Sunday--mass in the morning and a bull-fight in the afternoon--is nearer than the Puritan Sunday to Jesus' ideas of the proper observance of the day, although He would probably approve, as little as we do, that particular form of amusement.

There is at the present time a strong and perhaps growing tendency towards enacting Sunday Blue Laws. By this is meant legislation restricting man's freedom of action on that day, which is based, not on any benefit to the individual or society, but on the old Mosaic idea of the supposed sanctity of the day--that it is holy to the Lord and He will be pleased by a ceremonial observance of it, different from other days.

Insofar as the professed followers of Jesus urge the enactment of such Blue Laws, it seems clear that they are not following Jesus, but going contrary to His precept and example.

(g) TEMPERANCE vs. PROHIBITION

There can be no possible doubt as to the position of Jesus on this question.

At the outset of His prophetic career, He drew the line sharply between Himself and John the Baptist in this matter.

John drank no wine and practiced fasting.

Jesus drank wine and condemned ceremonial fasting.

Each by word and example inculcated these different ideas on his respective followers (Matt. XI:18, 19; Luke V:33).[62]

At the marriage in Cana, He furnishes wine for the guests when the supply runs out (John II:1, 2). In His instructions to His apostles He tells them to eat and _drink_ such things as are set before them (Luke X:7). He uses wine in the celebration of the Last Supper, and promises His apostles to drink with them of the "fruit of the vine" in heaven (Matt. XXVI:29; Mark XIV:25; Luke XXII:18, 30).

When Mahomet appeared, he followed the example of John the Baptist, and prohibited the drinking of wine. Since his time, on two points the line has always been sharply drawn between the Gospel of Jesus and that of Mahomet. The orthodox Christian could eat pork and drink wine, while the orthodox Mohammedan could do neither.

The majority of professed Christians have presumably supported the recent prohibition legislation in the United States. In so doing, they are not following Jesus, but going directly contrary to His precept and example. They are in effect saying that, on this point, Mahomet knew better than Jesus what was for the best good of the human race.

(h) SACRIFICE vs. MERCY

Under the term "sacrifice," Jesus included all ceremonial religious worship, and tried constantly to impress on His followers that this was not the offering pleasing to God, but, rather, deeds of mercy (Matt. IX:13; XXIII:23).

Realizing how strong is the tendency in human nature to impute to itself righteousness on account of its "tithes of mint and anise and cummin," He carried His condemnation of ceremonies into the smallest details. This is well illustrated by His enjoining His apostles not to wash before eating (Matt. XV:1, 2 and 20; Luke XI:37, 38). As He states, His objection was not to washing in itself, but because the Pharisees had made a religious ceremony of it.

Simplicity is the marked characteristic of all Jesus' acts of devotion. While it was His custom to preach in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, yet, so far as appears in the four Gospels, Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, Luke's Sermon on the Plain, the Lord's Prayer, and most of Jesus' important discourses were delivered, not in the synagogue and on the Sabbath day, but wherever time and place suited His convenience--from a ship, on a mountain, on a plain, in His own house, etc. (Matt. V:1; X:1; XII:2; XVIII:1; XXIII:1; XXIV:3; Mark IV:1; X:1; Luke V:3; VI:17; X:1; XI:1; XII:1; John III:2; IX:40; XII:22, 23; XIV; XV; XVI; XVII).

To demonstrate how far modern Christianity has traveled from the ideas of Jesus, it is only necessary to attend some ceremonial service in an Episcopalian or Catholic Cathedral, or some protracted prayer meeting of one of the Evangelical denominations.

Out of the fruitful field of Pauline theology, there sprang, even within a few centuries after the Crucifixion, a plentiful crop of the direst evils that have ever afflicted mankind--creeds and definitions of belief. Fortunately, disputatious theologians are now limited to the weapons of pen and ink, but in the Middle Ages oceans of blood were spilt over these religious quarrels.

If we could suppose the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Augsburg Confession to be submitted to Jesus for His approval, it is easy to imagine the substance of His answer: "I don't know what all this stuff means. I do not understand your terms--pre-destination, fore-ordination, trans-substantiation, infant damnation, etc. There is nothing here that I ever preached. I have given you a simple standard of righteousness, which every one can understand and follow, viz., right living. Have you forgotten my saying, that 'all the law and the prophets were contained in the two commandments to 'Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,' and to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' (Matt. XXII:37-40). These creeds of yours may be true, or partly true, or wholly false. But the important fact for you to remember is, that they are unnecessary to salvation--are non-essentials. If this sort of logomachy pleases you as an intellectual exercise, well and good, if it goes no further. But, beware that, in following this _ignis fatuus_, you do not neglect the only one main essential to God's favor--'to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'"