A Worn Out Creed
have a letter from an "orthodox
Christian," who says the only hope
for humanity lies in the "old-
fashioned religion."
The he proceeds to tell me
how carefully he has studied hu-
man nature, "in business, in social life, and in
himself," and that he finds it all vile--selfish--
sinful.
Of course he does, because he studies it from
a false and harmful standpoint, and looks for
"the worm of earth" and the poor, miserable
sinner," instead of the divine man.
We find what we look for in the world.
I have always been looking for the noble
qualities in human beings, and I have found them.
There are great souls all along the highway
of life, and there are great qualities even in
the people who seem common and weak to us
ordinarily.
One of the greatest souls I know is a man
who served his term in prison for sins committed
while in drink.
He was not "born bad", he simply drifted
into bad company and formed bad habits.
He paid the awful penalty of five years behind
prison bars, but the divine man within him
asserted itself, and today I have no friend I feel
prouder to call that name.
Mr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central
Howard Association, of Chicago, writes me regard-
ing his knowledge of ex-convicts:
According to my experience with a number of
men of this class during the last two years, more
than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the most
cordial support and assistance.
If this can be said of men who have been
criminals, surely humanity is not so vile as my
"orthodox" correspondent would have me believe.
A "Christian" of that order ought to be put
under restraint, and not allowed to associate with
mankind.
He carries a moral malaria with him, which
poisons the air.
He suggests evil to minds which have not
thought it.
He is a dangerous hypnotist, while pretending
to be a disciple of Christ.
The man who believes that all men are
vicious, selfish and immoral is projecting perni-
cious mind stuff into space, which is as dangerous
to the peace of the community as dynamite bombs.
The world has been kept back too long by this
false, unholy and blasphemous "religion."
It is not the religion of Christ--it is the
religion of ignorant translators, ignorant readers.
Thank God, its supremacy is past. A whole-
some and holy religion has taken its place with
the intelligent progressive minds of the day,
a religion which says: "I am all goodness, love,
truth, mercy, health. I am a necessary part of
God's universe. I am a divine soul, and only
good can come through me or to me. God made
me, and He could make nothing but goodness
and purity and worth. I am the reflection of all
His qualities."
This is the "new" religion; yet it is older than
the universe. It is God's own thought put into
practical form.
The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Chicago : The Psychic Research Company, c1902.
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