ways and means. A working head is quite essential to any organized plan of accomplishment. The main executive may have duties more like those of a business manager than a paid example—and be quite relieved by the change. Those communities too poor in worldly goods to properly afford an efficient head would better struggle bravely on in self-reliant co-operation, rather than continue the present plan of slowly starving some unfortunate cleric. Even where mistaken self-abasement rests content without complaint, the common honesty which likes to pay in full for services rendered should prevent the sacrifice. Many an under-fed minister is expected to furnish a continuous example of high thinking and noble living for pay that would be scorned by an indifferent bricklayer. His fee for uniting man and woman for life may be less than that charged for tuning a piano or putting a washer in the kitchen pump. Were custom to allow these public servants to render a better equivalent, the error of their recompense would penetrate the general mind with greater force. Courses of sermons are desirable only when actually of interest to those listening. Such instruction, or entertainment, should rest entirely on its merits, without the false support of those who now bore themselves in the fancied spirit of duty. Human interest can always be aroused by legitimate methods. If an appeal awakens no response, the fault is in its substance or manner of delivery. The new religion that reveres truth will despise the deceit which often seems to sanction an annoyance. Even the altruism that pretends to enjoy, in order to fool those needing a lecture, adopts a rather forced method. The pose of complacent examples incites the jeer of the scoffer oftener than the admiration of the derelict. It is impractical to assume that unvarying method may be used for all places, times and peoples. The Church may have a social utility in some communities while others have too much of social function without it. We should be allowed perfect freedom in the expression of religious feeling, and the results are not necessarily to be noted on Sundays alone. A present church is open to anyone who wishes to enter, thus presenting a social pathway for the pushing stranger and the ambitious female. Such laxity is by no means logical and not always wise. While one imperfect individual might be bettered by association with many of higher development, it is also true that one rotten apple will corrupt a whole bin. A well meaning religious community once deliberately assumed the reformation of a poor yet pretty fallen woman, thus saved from the further persecution of a large city. After several of the male members had eagerly endeavoured to win individual honour by active personal interest in the case, their wives sternly interfered and drove the luckless female back to her erstwhile haunts. The right of selection is a privilege authorized by Nature, and where is there a better authority? The right of expulsion is equally a necessity. The economical value of a correct start is often incalculable. The rudimentary constitution of a new organization should be so plain and practical as to prevent future chance for misconception. While majority rule is a good basis of adjustment in such a body, it were well that authority be given by its members to selected heads, confessedly more efficient than their average. The questions of means is next in importance to that of ways. Financial assistance becomes an acute necessity in this commercial age. Contributions to religious uses may not be forced, and a head tax could not possibly raise the necessary revenue. It might be well to allow those giving the greater sums to have a proportionate voice in the uses of the funds, to thus partially cancel the obligation. Many a well planned scheme fails for want of proper financiering. Most of the present churches lead a handto-mouth existence, being reduced at times to rather questionable methods of avoiding bankruptcy. Shiftlessness is always undignified, and generally demoralizing. While no voluntary association may be guaranteed a fixed income, it is possible to lay aside a certain sum each year for an emergency fund, providing the payment to the reserve be made from the first yearly receipts rather than from a surplus, possibly left over at the end. If such a sum were rigidly kept intact as an incomeyielding investment, the accumulation would in time. provide the entire revenue required. The world has seen much danger in the past from wealth acquired by religious bodies, but we may have possibly gained more wisdom in the meanwhile. None should object to the amassing of sufficient competence to at least insure the self-respect of comfortable means. And when this new church shall be organized, let its object be the gaining of new knowledge, and not the driving of rusty falsities into penetrable brains. Let free discussion clear the truth rather than allow any one chosen dictator to lay down the law. The old cocksure assertive method must give way to the modesty that knows we learn anew each day. But let not planned effort fade while strength is wasted in mere mental speculation. One thing accomplished is worth more than a thousand theories about the way it should be done. Consultation should result in activity. The world is slave to those who do, being led like a bull by a nose ring if pulled with unflinching persistence. The wish to elevate and educate and interest is well advised, but cultivation is purposeless if not creative of utility. We may then fairly conclude that a new faith should be Free from restraint or dogma Without compulsory forms- With expedient constitution- Honest aims, unfettered by form, superstition or timidity, may even within our day start a church toward which a man may wend his way, free from the fear of that inward judge so long accustomed to call him humbug. Another century of enlightenment should eliminate that Sunday pose, that mark my goodness air, put on in the morning with the clean shirt and the black coat. Some day we shall be ready to let the world see us as we are-but not until we have cast aside pretence and dethroned impossible ideals. Perhaps it were well to analyze yet further in the realm of inherited thought, before being sure that all that incommodes us has been swept away. |