Such Has Been My Experience With
The New Testament.
I have not yet got to the crucifixion, I have
read it over so many times.
I should love dearly to read it
aloud to my friends, some of whom are seriously inclined; it is
so good, and I am sure that they have never heard it, it fits
their case exactly, and we should enjoy it so much together, - but
I instinctively despair of getting their ears. They soon show,
by signs not to be mistaken, that it is inexpressibly wearisome
to them. I do not mean to imply that I am any better than my
neighbors; for, alas! I know that I am only as good, though I
love better books than they.
It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with
which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the
bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown
to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it
deals. I know of no book that has so few readers. There is none
so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To Christians,
no less than Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness and a
stumbling-block. There are, indeed, severe things in it which no
man should read aloud more than once. - "Seek first the kingdom of
heaven." - "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth." - "If
thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." - "For what is a
man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" - Think
of this, Yankees! - "Verily, I say unto you, if ye have faith as a
grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove
hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
impossible unto you." - Think of repeating these things to a New
England audience! thirdly, fourthly, fifteenthly, till there are
three barrels of sermons! Who, without cant, can read them
aloud? Who, without cant, can hear them, and not go out of the
meeting-house? They never _were_ read, they never _were_ heard.
Let but one of these sentences be rightly read, from any pulpit
in the land, and there would not be left one stone of that
meeting-house upon another.
Yet the New Testament treats of man and man's so-called spiritual
affairs too exclusively, and is too constantly moral and
personal, to alone content me, who am not interested solely in
man's religious or moral nature, or in man even. I have not the
most definite designs on the future. Absolutely speaking, Do
unto others as you would that they should do unto you, is by no
means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest
man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to
have any rule at all in such a case.
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