In a discussion with a lady, recently, upon the Sunday question, after the
various pros and cons had been set up and bowled down, she exclaimed: “For
mercy’s sake, don’t say any more against the sabbath. Why, if it were not
for Sunday, most people would never wash themselves nor change their
clothes.” Sunday, then, is to be established for the sake of cleanliness.
The command for keeping the sabbath should therefore read: Six days shalt
thou labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh day wash thyself and
change thy clothes. If people will not keep clean without a divine
command, we are in favor of cleanliness. We do not know of any better use
to put God’s name to. Sunday is certainly the cleanest day of the week. If
people will make themselves clean and neat only for God’s sake, we are
willing to endure a little superstition for the blessing of cleanliness.
But is there any ground for the assertion of the lady? As everyone knows,
religion has produced the filthiest specimens of humanity that ever
offended the senses of man. Dirt, and not cleanliness, was deemed next to
godliness by the saints of old. The filthier a human being became, the
holier he grew. It was regarded in the middle ages, that is, in the ages
when everything was sacrificed to religion, as almost a sin to keep clean.
It was waste of time to care for the body. It was taught that it was
holier to worship than to wash. Nor did these dirty old saints of old go
nasty entirely on their own authority. They were nasty for Christ’s sake.
They went unclean because Jesus had encouraged nastiness. He believed more
in clean hearts than in clean hands. He taught his disciples that “to eat
with unwashed hands defileth not a man.” Dirty Christians are still
plenty, but civilization prevails over superstition and the reign of dirt
is doomed. The follower of Jesus quotes his master to defend his filthy
condition in vain to-day. The gospel of decency has been preached, and
what is manly and womanly is honored more than what is godly and pious.
Clean infidelity is preferable in good society to nasty piety. There may
be honor in rags, but there is none in dirt. Soap and water cost less than
religion, but are worth a thousand times as much to the world. If Romanism
required its devotees to take a bath instead of going to mass, it would
confer a greater boon upon the world.
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No man gets estimated for exactly what he is, and it is lucky he doesn’t.
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A great many men and women are remembered for what somebody has said about
them.