RELIGIOUS WORRIES AND WORRIERS
Misunderstandings, misconceptions, and ignorance in regard to what
really is religion have caused countless millions to mourn--and worry;
indeed, far more to worry than to mourn. Religion should be a joyous
thing, the bringing of the son and daughter into close relationship
with the Father. Instead, for centuries, it has been a battle for
creeds, for mental assent to certain doctrines, rather than a growth
in brotherhood and loving relationship, and those who could not see
eye to eye with one another deemed it to be their duty to fight and
worry each other--even to their death.
This is not the place for any theological discussion; nor is it my
intent to present the claims of any church or creed. Each reader must
do that for himself, and the less he worries over it, the better I
think it will be for him. I have read and reread Cardinal Newman's
wonderful _Pro Apologia_--his statement as to why and how he entered
the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, and it has thrilled me with
its pathos and evidence of deep spiritual endeavor. Charles Warren
Stoddard's _Troubled Heart and How It Found Rest_ is another similar
story, though written by an entirely different type of man. Each
of these books revealed the inner thought and life of men who were
worried about religion, and by worry I mean anxious to the point of
abnormality, disturbed, distressed unnecessarily. Yet I would not be
misunderstood. Far be it from me, in this age of gross materialism and
worship of physical power and wealth, to decry in the least a proper
degree of solicitude for one's personal salvation. The religious life
of the individual--the real, deep, personal, hidden, unseen, inner
life of a human soul--is a wonderfully delicate thing, to be touched
by another only with the profoundest love and deepest wisdom. Hence I
have little to say about one's own inner struggles, except to affirm
and reaffirm that wisdom, sanity, and religion itself are _all_
against worrying about it. Study religion, consider it, accept it,
follow it, earnestly, seriously, and constantly, but do it in a
rational manner, seeking the essentials, accepting them and then
_resting_ in them to the full and utter exclusion of all worry.
But there is another class of religious worriers, viz., those
who worry themselves about _your_ salvation. Again I would not be
misunderstood, nor thought to decry a certain degree of solicitude
about the spiritual welfare of those we love, but here again the
caution and warning against worry more than ever holds good. Most of
these worriers have found comfort, joy, and peace in a certain line of
thought, which has commended itself to them as _Truth_--the one,
full, complete, indivisible Truth, and it seems most natural for human
nature to be eager that others should possess it. This is the secret
of the zeal of the street Salvationist, whose flaming ardor is bent
on reaching those who seldom, if ever, go to church. The burden of his
cry is that you must flee from the wrath to come--hell--by accepting
the vicarious atonement made by the "blood of Jesus." In season and
out of season, he urges that you "come under the blood." His face is
tense, his brow wrinkled, his eyes strained, his voice raucous, his
whole demeanor full of worry over the salvation of others.
Another friend is a Seventh Day Adventist, who is full of zeal for the
declaration of the "Third Angel's Message," for he believes that
only by heeding it, keeping sacred the hours from sunset on Friday
to Saturday sunset, in accordance with his reading of the fourth
commandment, and also believing in the speedy second coming of Christ,
can one's soul's salvation be attained.
The Baptist is assured that his mode of baptism--complete
immersion--is the only one that satisfies the demands of heaven, and
the more rigorous members of the sect refuse communion with those
who have not obeyed, as they see the command. The members of the
"Christian" Church--as the disciples of Alexander Campbell term
themselves--while they assent that they are tied to no creed except
the New Testament, demand immersion as a prerequisite to membership in
their body. The Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Nazarene,
and many others, are "evangelical" in their belief, as is a large
portion of the Church of England, and its American offshoot, both of
which are known as the Episcopal Church. Another portion, however, of
this church is known as "ritualistic," and the two branches in England
recently became so involved in a heated discussion as to the propriety
of certain of their bishops partaking in official deliberations with
ministers of the other, but outside, evangelistic churches, that for a
time it seemed as if the whole Episcopal Church would be disrupted by
the fierceness and anger gendered in the differences of opinion.
To my own mind, all this worry was much ado about nothing. Each man's
brain and conscience must guide him in matters of this kind, and the
worry, fret, stew, evolved out of the matter, seem to me a proof that
real religion had little to do with it.
Recently one good brother came to me with tears in his voice, if not
in his eyes, worried seriously as to my own religious belief because I
had asserted in a public address that I believed the earnest prayer
of a good Indian woman reached the ear of God as surely as did my own
prayers, or those of any man, woman, minister, or priest living. To
him the only effective prayers were "evangelical" prayers--whatever
that may mean--and he was deeply distressed and fearfully worried
because I could not see eye to eye with him in this matter. And a
dear, good woman, who heard a subsequent discussion of the subject,
was so worried over my attitude that she felt impelled to assure me
when I left that "she would pray for me."
I have friends who are zealous Roman Catholics, and a number of them
are praying that I may soon enter the folds of "Mother Church," and
yet my Unitarian and Universalist friends wonder why I retain my
membership in any "orthodox" church. On the other hand, my New Thought
friends declare that I belong to them by the spirit of the messages I
have given to the world. Then, too, my Theosophist friends--and I have
many--present to me, with a force I do not attempt to controvert, the
doctrine of the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind, and urge upon
me acceptance of the comforting and helpful doctrine, to them, of
Reincarnation.
Not long prior to this writing a good earnest man buttonholed me
and held me tight for over an hour, while he outlined his own slight
divergencies from the teachings of the Methodist Church, to which he
belongs, and his interpretation of the symbolism of Scripture, none
of which had the slightest interest to me. In our conversation, he
expressed himself as quite willing--please note the condescension--to
allow me the privilege of supposing the Catholic was honest and
sincere in his faith and belief, _but he really could not for one
moment_ allow the same to the Christian Scientist, who, from his
standpoint, denied the atonement and the Divinity of Christ. I suppose
if he ever picks up this booklet and reads what I am now going
to write, he will regard me as a reprobate and lost beyond the
possibility of salvation. Nevertheless, I wish to put on record that
I regard his attitude as one of intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, and
impudence--sheer, unadulterated impertinence. Who made him the judge
of the thoughts and acts of other men's inner lives? Who gave to him
the wisdom and power of discernment to know that _he_ was right and
these others wrong? Poor, arrogant fool. His worries were not the
result of genuine affection and deep human sympathy, the irrepressible
and uncontrollable desires and longings of his heart to bring
others into the full light of God's love, but of his overweening
self-confidence in his own wisdom and judgment. And I say this in no
personal condemnation of him, for I have now even forgotten who it
was, but in condemnation of the spirit in which he and all his ilk
ever act.
Hence, my dear reader, if you are of his class, I say to you
earnestly: Don't worry about other people's salvation. It may be they
are nearer saved than you are. No man can' be "worried" into accepting
anything, even though _you_ may deem it the only Truth. I have known
men whom others regarded as agnostics who had given more study to the
question of personal religion than any ten of their critics. I can
recall three--all of whom were men of wonderful mentality and great
earnestness of purpose. John Burroughs's first essays were written
for his own soul's welfare--the results of his long-continued mental
struggles for light upon the subject. Major J.W. Powell, the organizer
and director for many years of the United States Geological Survey and
Bureau of American Ethnology, was brought up by a father and mother
whose intense longing was that their son should be a Methodist
preacher. The growing youth wished to please his parents, but was
also compelled to satisfy his own conscience. The more he studied the
creeds and doctrines of Methodism, the less he felt he could accept
them, and much to the regret of his parents, he refused to enter the
ministry. Yet, in relating the story to me, he asserted that his whole
life had been one long agony of earnest study to find the highest
truth. Taking me into his library, where there were several extended
shelves filled from end to end with the ponderous tomes of the two
great government bureaus that he controlled, he said: "Most people
regard this as my life-work, and outwardly it is. Yet I say to you in
all sincerity that the real, inner, secret force working through all
this, has been that I might satisfy my own soul on the subject of
religion." Then, picking up two small volumes, he said: "In these two
books I have recorded the results of my years of agonizing struggle.
I don't suppose ten men have ever read them through, or, perhaps,
ever will, but these are the real story of the chief work of my inner
life."
I am one of the few men who have read both these books with scrupulous
care, and yet were it not for what my friend told me of their profound
significance to him, I should scarcely have been interested enough in
their contents to read them through. At the same time, I _know_ that
the men who, from the standpoint of their professionally religious
complacency would have condemned Major Powell, never spent
one-thousandth part the time, nor felt one ten-thousandth the real
solicitude that he did about seeking "the way, the truth, and the
life."
Another friend in Chicago was Dr. M.H. Lackersteen, openly denounced
as an agnostic, and even as an infidel, by some zealous sectaries.
Yet Dr. Lackersteen had personally translated the whole of the Greek
Testament, and several other sacred books of the Hebrews and Hindoos,
in his intense desire to satisfy the demands of his own soul for
the Truth. He was the soul of honor, the very personification of
sincerity, and as much above some of his critics--whom I well knew--in
these virtues, as they were above the scum of the slums.
The longer I live and study men the more I am compelled to believe
that religion is a personal matter between oneself and God and is more
of the spirit than most people have yet conceived. It is well known
to those who have read my books and heard my lectures on the Old
Franciscan Missions of California, that I revere the memory of Padres
Junipero Serra, Palou, Crespi, Catala, Peyri, and others of the
founders of these missions. I have equal veneration for the goodness
of many Catholic priests, nuns, and laymen of to-day. Yet I am not
a Catholic, though zealous sectaries of Protestantism--even of the
church to which I am supposed to belong--sometimes fiercely assail
me for my open commendation of these men of that faith. They are
_worried_ lest I lean too closely towards Catholicism, and ultimately
become one of that fold. Others, who hear my good words in favor of
what appeals to me as noble and uplifting in the lives of those of
other faiths of which they do not approve, worry over and condemn my
"breadth" of belief. Indeed, I have many friends who give themselves
an immense lot of altogether unnecessary worry about this matter. They
have labelled themselves according to some denominational tag, and
accept some form of belief that, to them, seems incontrovertible and
satisfactory. Many of them are praying for me, and each that I may see
the TRUTH from _his_ standpoint. For their prayers I am grateful. I
cannot afford to lose the spirit of love behind and in every one of
them. But for the _worry_ about me in their minds, I have neither
respect, regard, toleration, nor sympathy. I don't want it, can do
without it, and I resent its being there. To each and all of them I
say firmly: _Quit Your Worrying_ about my religion, or want of it.
I am in the hands of the same loving God that you are. I have the
promise of God's Guiding Spirit as much as you have. I have listened
respectfully and with an earnest and sincere desire to see and know
the Truth, to all you have said, and now I want to be left alone. I
have come to exclaim with Browning in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_:
Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me. We all surmise,
They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?
For myself I have concluded that no one shall choose my religion for
me, and all the worrying in the world shall not change my attitude.
And it is to the worrying of my friends that they owe this state of
mind. For this reason, I found myself one day counting up the number
of people of different beliefs who had solemnly promised to pray for
me. There were Methodists, Campbellites, Baptists, Roman Catholics,
Episcopalians, Seventh Day Adventists, Presbyterians, Nazarenes,
Holy Rollers, and others. Then the query arose: Whose prayers will be
answered on my behalf? Each is sure that _his_ are the ones that can
be effective; yet their prayers differ; they are, to some degree,
antagonistic, and insofar as they petition that I become one of their
particular fold, they nullify each other, as it is utterly impossible
that I accept the specific form of faith of each. The consequent
result in my own mind is that as I cannot possibly become what all
these good people desire I should be, as their desires and prayers for
me controvert each other, I must respectfully decline to be bound by
any one of them. I _must_ and _will_ do my own choosing. Hence all the
worry on my behalf is energy, strength, and effort wasted.
Let me repeat, then, to the worrier about the salvation of others: You
are in a poor business. _Quit Your Worrying_. Hands off! This is none
of your concern. Believe as little or as much and what you will for
your own soul's salvation, but do not put forth _your_ conceptions as
the _only_ conceptions possible of Divine Truth before another soul
who may have an immeasurably larger vision than you have. Oh,
the pitiableness of man's colossal conceit, the arrogance of his
ignorance. As if the God of the Universe were so small that one
paltry, finite man could contain in his pint measure of a mind all the
ocean of His power, knowledge, and love. Let your small and wretched
worries go. Have a little larger faith in the Love of the Infinite
One. Tenderly love and trust those whose welfare you seek, and trust
God at the same time, but don't worry when you see the dear ones
walking in a path you have not chosen for them. Remember your own
ignorance, your own frailties, your own errors, your own mistakes, and
then frankly and honestly, fearlessly and directly ask yourself
the question if you dare to take upon your own ignorant self the
responsibility of seeking to control and guide another living soul as
to his eternal life.
Brother, Sister, the job is too big for you. It takes God to do that,
and you are not yet even a perfect human being. Hence, while I long
for all spiritual good for my sons and daughters, and for my friends,
and I pray for them, it is in a large way, without any interjection of
my own decisions and conclusions as to what will be good for them.
I have no fears as I leave them thus in God's hand, and regard every
worry as sinful on my part, and injurious to them. I have no desire
that they should accept my particular brand of faith or belief. While
I believe absolutely in that which I accept for the guidance of my own
life, _I would not fetter their souls with my belief if I could_. They
are in wiser, better, larger, more loving Hands than mine. And if
I would not thus fetter my children and friends, I dare not seek to
fetter others. My business is to live my own religion to the utmost.
If I must worry, I will worry about that, though, as I think my
readers are well aware by now, I do not believe in any kind of worry
on any subject whatever.
Hence, let me again affirm in concluding this chapter, I regard worry
about the religion of others as unwarrantable on account of our own
ignorances as to their peculiar needs, as well as of God's methods of
supplying those needs. It is also a useless expenditure of strength,
energy, and affection, for, if God leads, your worry cannot possibly
affect the one so led. It is also generally an irritant to the one
worried over. Even though he may not formulate it into words he feels
that it is an interference with his own inner life, a nagging that
he resents, and, therefore, it does him far more harm than good;
and, finally, it is an altogether indefensible attempt to saddle
upon another soul your own faith or belief, which may be altogether
unsuitable or inadequate to the needs of that soul.
There is still one other form of worry connected with the subject
of religion. Many a good man and woman worries over the apparent
well-being and success of those whom he, she, accounts wicked! They
are seen to flourish as a green bay tree, or as a well-watered garden,
and this seems to be unfair, unjust, and unwise on the part of the
powers that govern the universe. If good is desirable, people ought
to be encouraged to it by material success--so reason these officially
good wiseacres, who subconsciously wish to dictate to God how He
should run His world.
How often we hear the question: "Why is it the wicked prosper so?" or
"He's such a bad man and yet everything he does prospers." Holy Writ
is very clear on this subject. The sacred writer evidently was well
posted on the tendency of human nature to worry and concern itself
about the affairs of others, hence his injunction:
Fret not thyself because of evil doers.
In other words, it's none of your business. And I am inclined to
believe that a careful study of the Bible would reveal to every
busybody who worries over the affairs of others that he himself has
enough to do to attend to himself, and that his worry anyhow is a
ridiculous, absurd, and senseless piece of supererogation, and rather
a proof of human conceit and vanity than of true concern for the
spiritual good of others.