HERE are two ways: The narrow way along which the selfish go in single
file, not wide enough for husband and wife to walk side by side
while children clasp their hands. The narrow road over the desert of
superstition "with here and there a traveler." The narrow grass-grown
path, filled with flints and broken glass, bordered by thistles and
thorns, where the twice-born limping walk with bleeding feet. If by this
path you see a flower, do not pick it. It is a temptation. Beneath its
leaves a serpent lies. Keep your eyes on the New Jerusalem. Do not look
back for wife or child or friend. Think only of saving your own soul.
You will be just as happy in heaven with all you love in hell. Believe,
have faith, and you will be rewarded for the goodness of another. Look
neither to the right nor left. Keep on, straight on, and you will save
your worthless, withered, selfish soul.
This is the narrow road that leads from earth to the Christian's
heartless heaven.
There is another way--the broad road.
Give me the wide and ample way, the way broad enough for us all to go
together. The broad way where the birds sing, where the sun shines and
the streams murmur. The broad way, through the fields where the flowers
grow, over the daisied slopes where sunlight, lingering, seems to sleep
and dream.
Let us go the broad way with the great world, with science and art, with
music and the drama, with all that gladdens, thrills, refines and calms.
Let us go the wide road with husband and wife, with children and friends
and with all there is of joy and love between the dawn and dusk of
life's strange day.
This world is a great orange tree filled with blossoms, with ripening
and ripened fruit, while, underneath the bending boughs, the fallen
slowly turn to dust.
Each orange is a life. Let us squeeze it dry, get all the juice there
is, so that when death comes we can say; "There is nothing left but
withered peel."
Let us travel the broad and natural way. Let us live for man.
To think of what the world has suffered from superstition, from
religion, from the worship of beast and stone and god, is almost enough
to make one insane. Think of the long, long night of ignorance and fear!
Think of the agony, the sufferings of the past, of the days that are
dead!
I look. In gloomy caves I see the sacred serpents coiled, waiting for
their sacrificial prey. I see their open jaws, their restless tongues,
their glittering eyes, their cruel fangs. I see them seize and crush in
many horrid folds the helpless children given by fathers and mothers to
appease the Serpent-God. I look again. I see temples wrought of stone
and gilded with barbaric gold. I see altars red with human blood. I see
the solemn priests thrust knives in the white breasts of girls. I look
again. I see other temples and other altars, where greedy flames devour
the flesh and blood of babes. I see other temples and other priests and
other altars dripping with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves.
I look again. I see other temples and other priests and other altars on
which are sacrificed the liberties of man. I look. I see the cathedrals
of God, the huts of peasants, the robes of priests and kings, the rags
of honest men. I look again. The lovers of God are the murderers of
men. I see dungeons filled with the noblest and the best. I see exiles,
wanderers, outcasts, millions of martyrs, widows and orphans. I see the
cunning instruments of torture and hear the shrieks and sobs and moans
of millions dead.
I see the dungeon's gloom, I hear the clank of chains. I see the fagot's
flames, the scorched and blackened face, the writhing limbs. I hear the
jeers and scoffs of pious fiends. I see the victim on the rack, I hear
the tendons as they break. I see a world beneath the feet of priests,
liberty in chains, every virtue a crime, every crime a virtue,
intelligence despised, stupidity sainted, hypocrisy crowned and the
white forehead of honor wearing the brand of shame. This was.
I look again, and in the East of hope's fair sky the first pale light
shed by the herald star gives promise of another dawn. I look, and
from the ashes, blood and tears the heroes leap to bless the future and
avenge the past. I see a world at war, and in the storm and chaos of the
deadly strife thrones crumble, altars fall, chains break, creeds change.
The highest peaks are touched with holy light. The dawn has blossomed.
I look again. I see discoverers sailing across mysterious seas. I see
inventors cunningly enslave the forces of the world. I see the houses
being built for schools. Teachers, interpreters of nature, slowly take
the place of priests. Philosophers arise, thinkers give the world their
wealth of brain, and lips grow rich with words of truth. This is.
I look again, but toward the future now. The popes and priests and kings
are gone,--the altars and the thrones have mingled with the dust,--the
aristocracy of land and cloud have perished from the earth and-air, and
all the gods are dead. A new religion sheds its glory on mankind. It
is the gospel of this world, the religion of the body, of the heart
and brain, the evangel of health and joy. I see a world at peace,
where labor reaps its true reward, a world without prisons, without
workhouses, without asylums for the insane, a world on which the gibbets
shadow does not fall, a world where the poor girl, trying to win bread
with the needle, the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast
of the poor," is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death,
of suicide or shame. I see a world without the beggar's outstretched
palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the
pallid face of crime, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.
I see a race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the
married harmony of form and use, and as I look life lengthens, fear
dies, joy deepens, love intensifies. The world is free. This shall be.