A person is growing thinner every day and is wasting away. What
may the trouble be? For surely he is not suffering want! "No,
sure enough," says the doctor, "that is not the trouble. The
trouble is precisely with his eating, with his eating in season
and out of season, with his eating without being hungry, with
his using stimulants to produce an appetite, and in this manner
ruining his digestion, so that he is wasting away as if he suffered
want."
The same is true in religion. The worst of all is to satisfy
a craving which has not as yet made its appearance, to anticipate
it, or--worse still--by the help of stimulants to produce something
which looks like a craving, which then is promptly satisfied. Ah,
the shame of it! And yet this is exactly what is being done in
religion where people are in very truth fooled out of the real
meaning of life and helped to waste their lives. That is in
very truth, the effect of this whole machinery of a state church
and a thousand royal officials who, under the pretense of being
spiritual guides for the people, trick them out of the highest
thing in life, which is, the solicitude about one's self, and
the need which would surely of itself find a teacher or minister
after its own mind; whereas now the need--and it is just the
growth of this sense, of a need which gives life its highest
significance--whereas now this need does not arise at all, but
on the contrary is forestalled by being satisfied long before
it can arise. And this is the way, they claim, this is the way
to continue the work which the Savior of Mankind did begin--stunting
the human race as they do. And why is this so? Because there
happen to be a thousand and one royal officials who have to
support their families by furnishing what is called--spiritual
guidance for men's souls!