Gentlemen of the secular press dealt with the Rev. Mr. Sheldon not
altogether fairly. To some very relevant considerations they gave no
weight. It was not fair, for example, to say, as the distinguished
editor of the "North American Review" did, that in professing to conduct
a daily newspaper for a week as he conceived that Christ would have
conducted it, Mr. Sheldon acted the part of "a notoriety seeking
mountebank." It seldom is fair to go into the question of motive, for
that is something upon which one has the least light, even when the
motive is one's own. The motives that we think dominale us seem simple
and obvious; they are in most instances exceedingly complex and obscure.
Complacently surveying the wreck and ruin that he has wrought, even that
great anarch, the "well meaning person," can not have entire assurance
that he meant as well as the disastrous results appear to him to show.
The trouble with Mr. Harvey of the "Review" was inability to put himself
in another's place if that happened to be at any considerable distance
from his own place. He made no allowance for the difference in the point
of view--for the difference, that is, between his mind and the mind
of Mr. Sheldon. If Mr. Harvey had undertaken to conduct that Kansas
newspaper as Christ would have done he would indeed have been "a
notoriety seeking mountebank," or some similarly unenviable thing, for
only a selfish purpose could persuade him to an obviously resultless
work. But Mr. Sheldon was different--his was the religious mind--a mind
having faith in an "overruling" Providence who can, and frequently does,
interfere with the orderly relation of cause and effect, accomplishing
an end by means otherwise inadequate to its production. Believing
himself a faithful servant of that Power, and asking daily for its
interposition for promotion of a highly moral purpose, why should he not
have expected his favor to the enterprise? To expect that was, in
Mr. Sheldon, natural, reasonable, wise; his folly lay in believing in
conditions making it expectable. A person convinced that the law of
gravitation is suspended is no fool for walking into a bog. Mr. Harvey
may understand, but Mr. Sheldon can not understand, that Jesus Christ
would not edit a newspaper at all.
The religious mind, it should be understood, is not logical. It may
acquire, as Whateley's did, a certain familiarity with the syllogism as
an abstraction, but of the syllogism's practical application, its
real relation to the phenomena of thought, the religious mind can know
nothing. That is merely to say that the mind congenitally gifted with
the power of logic and accessible to its light and leading does not take
to religion, which is a matter, not of reason, but of feeling--not of
the head, but of the heart. Religions are conclusions for which the
facts of nature supply no major premises. They are accepted or rejected
according to the original mental make-up of the person to whom they
appeal for recognition. Believers and unbelievers are like two boys
quarreling across a wall. Each got to his place by means of a ladder.
They may fight if they will, but neither can kick away the other's
support.
Believing the things that he did believe, Mr. Sheldon was entirely right
in thinking that the main purpose of a newspaper should be the salvation
of souls. If his religious belief is true that should be the main
purpose, not only of a newspaper, but of everything that has a purpose,
or can be given one. If we have immortal souls and the consequences of
our deeds in the body reach over into another life in another world,
determining there our eternal state of happiness or pain, that is the
most momentous fact conceivable. It is the only momentous fact; all
others are chaff and rags. A man who, believing it to be a fact, does
not make it the one purpose of his life to save his soul and the souls
of others that are willing to be saved is a fool and a rogue. If he
think that any part of this only needful work can be done by turning a
newspaper into a gruelpot he ought to do so or (preferably) perish in
the attempt.
The talk of degrading the sacred name, and all that, is mostly nonsense.
If one may not test his conduct in this life by reference to the highest
standard that his religion affords it is not easy to see how religion
is to be made anything but a mere body of doctrine. I do not think the
Christian religion will ever be seriously discredited by an attempt to
determine, even with too dim a light, what under given circumstances,
the man miscalled its "founder" would do. What else is his great example
good for? But it is not always enough to ask oneself, "How would Christ
do this?" One should first consider whether Christ would do it. It is
conceivable that certain of his thrifty contemporaries may have asked
him how he would change money in the Temple.
If Mr. Sheldon's critics were unfair his defenders were, as a rule,
not much better. They meant to be fair, but they had to be foolish. For
example, there is the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, whose defence was published
with Mr. Harvey's attack. I shall give a single illustration of how this
more celebrated than cerebrated "divine" is pleased to think that he
thinks. He is replying to some one's application to this matter of
Christ's injunction, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth."
This command, he gravely says, "is not against money, nor against the
making of money, but against the loving it for its own sake and the
dedicating of it to self-aggrandizing uses." I call this a foolish
utterance, because it violates the good old rule of not telling an
obvious falsehood. In no word nor syllable does Christ's injunction give
the least color of truth to the reverend gentleman's "interpretation;"
that is the reverend gentleman's very own, and doubtless he feels
an honest pride in it. It is the product of a controversial need--a
characteristic attempt to crawl out of a hole in an enclosure which
he was not invited to enter. The words need no "interpretation;" are
capable of none; are as clear and unambiguous a proposition as language
can frame. Moreover, they are consistent with all that we think we know
of their author's life and character, for he not only lived in poverty
and taught poverty as a blessing, but commanded it as a duty and a means
of salvation. The probable effect of universal obedience among those who
adore him as a god is not at present an urgent question. I think even so
faithful a disciple as the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst has still a place to lay
his head, a little of the wherewithal to be clothed, and a good deal of
the power of interpretation to excuse it.