On re-reading my protest, which I honestly think much needed, against
our heathen idolatry of mere ablution, I see that it may possibly be
misread. I hasten to say that I think washing a most important thing to
be taught both to rich and poor. I do not attack the positive but the
relative position of soap. Let it be insisted on even as much as now;
but let other things be insisted on much more. I am even ready to admit
that cleanliness is next to godliness; but the moderns will not even
admit godliness to be next to cleanliness. In their talk about Thomas
Becket and such saints and heroes they make soap more important than
soul; they reject godliness whenever it is not cleanliness. If we resent
this about remote saints and heroes, we should resent it more about the
many saints and heroes of the slums, whose unclean hands cleanse the
world. Dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth; but the fact remains
that the classes that wash most are those that work least. Concerning
these, the practical course is simple; soap should be urged on them and
advertised as what it is--a luxury. With regard to the poor also the
practical course is not hard to harmonize with our thesis. If we want
to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them
luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then
emphatically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence
them for being dirty.
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