Consider the snappish tenacity with
which they preach Christianity still. What are time and space to
Christianity, eighteen hundred years, and a new world? - that the
humble life of a Jewish peasant should have force to make a New
York bishop so bigoted. Forty-four lamps, the gift of kings, now
burning in a place called the Holy Sepulchre; - a church-bell
ringing; - some unaffected tears shed by a pilgrim on Mount
Calvary within the week. -
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, when I forget thee, may my right hand
forget her cunning."
"By the waters of Babylon there we sat down, and we wept when we
remembered Zion."
I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ,
or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches. It is
necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and
significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have
hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my
Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their
Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I
like him too. "God is the letter Ku, as well as Khu." Why need
Christians be still intolerant and superstitious? The
simple-minded sailors were unwilling to cast overboard Jonah at
his own request.
