This book will be denounced from one end of Christendom to the
other as the work of a blasphemous infidel. Yet it stands in the
direct line of the Christian tradition: written by a man who was
brought up in the Church, and loved it with all his heart and
soul, and was driven out by the formalists and hypocrites in high
places; a man who thinks of Jesus more frequently and with more
devotion than he thinks of any other man that lives or has ever
lived on earth; and who has but one purpose in all that he says
and does, to bring into reality the dream that Jesus dreamed of
peace on earth and good will toward men.
I will go farther yet and say that not merely is this book
written for the cause of Jesus, but it is written in the manner
of Jesus. We read his bitter railings at the Pharisees, and miss
the point entirely, because the word Pharisee has become to us a
word of reproach. But this is due solely to Jesus; in his time
the word was a holy word, it meant the most orthodox and
respectable, the ultra high-church devotees of Jerusalem. The way
to get the spirit of the tirades of Jesus is to do with him what
we did with the early church fathers--translate him into
American. This time, since the reader shares the secret, it will
not be necessary to disguise the Bible style, and we may follow
the text exactly. Let me try the twenty-third chapter of Matthew,
omitting seven verses which refer to subtleties of Hebrew
casuistry, for which we should have to go to Lyman Abbott or St.
Alphonsus to find a parallel:
Then Jesus mounted upon a soap-box, and began a speech, saying,
The doctors of divinity and Episcopalians fill the Fifth Avenue
churches; and it would be all right if you were to listen to what
they preach, and do that; but don't follow their actions, for
they never practice what they preach. They load the backs of the
working-classes with crushing burdens, but they themselves never
move a finger to carry a burden, and everything they do is for
show. They wear frock-coats and silk hats on Sundays, and they
sit at the speakers' table at the banquets of the Civic
Federation, and they occupy the best pews in the churches, and
their doings are reported in all the papers; they are called
leading citizens and pillars of the church. But don't you be
called leading citizens, for the only useful man is the man who
produces. (Applause). And whoever exalts himself shall be abased,
and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Catholics, hypocrites! for
you shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men; you don't go in
yourself and you don't let others go in. Woe unto you, doctors of
divinity and Presbyterians, hypocrites! for you foreclose
mortgages on widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long
prayers. For this you will receive the greater damnation! Woe
unto you, doctors of divinity and Methodists, hypocrites! for you
send missionaries to Africa to make one convert, and when you
have made him, he is twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
(Applause). Woe unto you, blind guides, with your subtleties of
doctrine, your transubstantiation and consubstantiation and all
the rest of it; you fools and blind! Woe unto you, doctors of
divinity and Episcopalians, hypocrites! for you drop your checks
into the collection-plate and you pay no heed to the really
important things in the Bible, which are justice and mercy and
faith in goodness. You blind guides, who strain at a gnat and
swallow a camel! (Laughter). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity
and Anglicans, hypocrites! for you bathe yourselves and dress in
immaculate clothing but within you are full of extortion and
excess. You blind high churchmen, clean first your hearts, so
that the clothes you wear may represent you. Woe unto you,
doctors of divinity and Baptists, hypocrites! for you are like
marble tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside
are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you
appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity. (Applause). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and
Unitarians, hypocrites! because you erect statues to dead
reformers, and put wreathes upon the tombs of old-time martyrs.
You say, if we had been alive in those days, we would not have
helped to kill those good men. That ought to show you how to
treat us at present. (Laughter). But you are the children of
those who killed the good men; so go ahead and kill us too! You
serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the
damnation of hell?
At this point, according to the report published in the Jerusalem
"Times", a police sergeant stepped up to the orator and notified
him that he was under arrest; he submitted quietly, but one of
his followers attempted to use a knife, and was severely clubbed.
Jesus was taken to the station-house followed by a riotous
throng, and held upon a charge of disorderly conduct. Next
morning the Rev. Dr. Caiaphas of Old Trinity appeared against
him, and Magistrate Pilate sentenced him to six months on
Blackwell's Island, remarking that from this time on he proposed
to make an example of those soap-box orators who persist in using
threatening and abusive language. Just as the prisoner was being
led away, a detective appeared with a requisition from the
Governor, ordering that Jesus be taken to San Francisco, where he
is under indictment for murder in the first degree, it being
charged that his teachings helped to incite the Preparedness Day
explosion.