If we imagined human society as consisting of a billion immortal creatures, whose number could neither increase nor decrease, where should we be, what would become of us, great Lord! We should doubtless become a thousand times more learned, but also a thousand times more evil.
Blessed be childhood for the blessing it gives in itself, and for the good it unwittingly effects by compelling and permitting us to love it. Only thanks to childhood do we see a little of Paradise here on earth. Blessed be also Death. Angels need no birth or death to live, but mankind imperatively, inevitably requires both. Amiel,
4. Marriage is justified and hallowed only through children, inasmuch as though we have failed to do all God wants us to do, we still can serve the cause of God through.
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 139
our children, if we train them right. Therefore, that marriage wherein the contracting parties desire no children is worse than adultery and any depravity.
5. Among the rich children are often looked upon as hindrance to enjoyment, or an unfortunate accident, or as a certain sort of sport if they are born in a predetermined number, and they are brought up not with any regard to those problems of human life which they must face as beings endowed with love and reason, but solely from the point of view of pleasure which they can yield to their parents. Such children are generally brought up by their parents not with any care to prepare them for a worthy activity, but to increase their height, keep them outwardly clean, fair of skin, well fed, handsome, pampered and sensual (and the false science called medicine supports the parents in this attitude). Fine apparel, entertainments, theatres, music, dances, sweetmeats, the entire order of life from pictures on boxes to novels and poems still further excite sensuousness, so that the filthiest sexual vices and diseases are the usual conditions in the youth of these unfortunate children of the rich.
6. The significance of bearing children is lost for people who look upon carnal love as a means of gratification. Instead of being the purpose and the justification of marital relations, they become a hindrance to an agreeable continuance of pleasures, and therefore both in and out of marriage the employment of means of preventing women from having children has grown apace. These people do not only deprive themselves of the sole pleasure and the only redeeming feature of marriage as afforded by the children, but also lose human dignity and semblance.
7. In all animal life, particularly in the bringing forth of children, man ought to be above the animals, but cer-
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
tainly not beneath them. But people are just in this one particular the inferior of animals. In the animal world the male and the female come together only when issue may result. But people, man and woman, come together for pleasure, without thinking whether it will lead to the birth of children or not.
8. It is not our business to argue whether the birth of children is or is not a blessing. Our business is to carry out with regard to them all of the obligations which their birth, fur which we are responsible, imposes upon us.
SLOTH
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SLOTH
It is unjust to receive from people more than the iaho which you give them. But since you cannot gauge exacti whether you give more than you receive, and since furthe you may at any moment lose your strength, fall prey t disease and be compelled to receive instead of giving, er deavor, while you have the strength, to labor for others a little as possible.
I
If a Man Avails Himself of the Labors of Others, withou Laboring Himself, He Sins Grievously
1. He who will not work, neither let him eat.
Apostle Paul.
2. In making use of anything, remember that it is th \ product of human labor, and if you waste, spoil or destro
anything you waste labor, and sometimes, even human lift
3. He who does not feed himself by his own labo) but compels others to support him, is a cannibal.
Eastern Wisdom.
4. The entire code of Christian morality, in its pra< fe tical application, consists in considering all men as brother
being equal to all, and to carry this out in practice, first с all you must cease inducing others to labor for you, an in the present order of the world you must reduce to minimum your use of the labor and the products of other meaning things procured with money, spend as little mone as possible and live as simply as possible.
5. Do not let another do what you can do yoursel Let every one sweep before his own door. If every ma will do this, the street will be clean.
\
6. What is the sweetest food? The food which you have earned with your own labor. Mohammed,
7. It is a very good thing for a rich man to leave, though it be for a short season, his life of luxury, and to live, though for a brief time, as a laborer, performing with his own hands the tasks usually performed for rich men by hired servants. Let a rich man do this but once, and he will soon realize the great sinfulness of his former ways. Let him live in this fashion for a season and he will realize fully the wrongfulness of the life of the rich.
8. Men have in the habit of considering cooking, sewing and nursing children a task for women and something shameful for a man to engage in. Yet, on the contrary, it is a shameful thing for an idle man to fritter away his time with trifles and to do nothing, while a weary, frequently a weakly woman, on the threshold of childbirth, is cooking, washing and nursing children for him.
9. People living in luxury cannot love others. They cannot love others, because the things they use were made by people whom they compel to render them service, and this service is rendered unwillingly, through sheer necessity, frequently with curses of resentment. If they would love others let them first cease torturing them.
10. A monk was seeking salvation in the desert. Unceasingly he read his prayers, and twice each night he arose from his bed to pray. A peasant supplied him with food. And a doubt entered his mind whether such life was good. And he sought out an aged saint to ask his counsel. He came to the aged saint and told him all about his life, how he prayed, what words he used, how he was wont to break his sleep and lived on alms and asked the saint whether he was doing well. And the saint replied: "All these thou doest well, but go thou and look how the
peasant liveth, the one who brings thy food. Perhaps thou canst learn something from him."
The monk sought out the peasant and spent a day and a night with him. The peasant arose early in the morning and all his prayer was: "O Lord!" Then he labored all day, plowing. At night he returned home and on retiring again uttered his prayer: "O Lord!"
The monk watched the peasant's life for a day and said to himself: "There is nothing that I can learn from him." And he marveled why the saint had sent him to the peasant.
Then he returned to his adviser and told him that he had been to see the peasant, but found nothing instructive. "He does not think of God, and mentions Him only twice a day."
The saint replied: "Take this cup of oil and walk around the village, then come back, but see thou spill not one drop."
The monk did as he was bid and when he returned the saint questioned him:
"How many times didst thou remember God while bearing the cup?"
The monk admitted that he had not remembered him once. "I was only watching to see that I spilt no oil."
And the saint reproved him: "This one cup of oil so engrossed thy mind that thou didst not once think of God. The peasant feeds his family, himself and thee with his labor and care and yet twice he remembered God."