Thor had no moral code; the Greeks were unmoral. Jehovah at first asked only
fear, reverence, and worship. This gives no guide to life. Most codes are directed
against a foe and against pain. Truth, mercy, courtesy—these were slowly added
to reverence; then sanitary rules, hence castes. Two codes, those of Christ and
Buddha, tower above all others. They are the same in praising not wealth,
greatness, or power, but purity, renunciation of the world, as if one fitted one's
self for one by being unfitted for the other world.
Is heaven a bribe? Its ideals are those of children, of girl angels, white wings,
floating dresses, no sheep, but lambs. "Surely there is nothing in all the world so
babyish." One can hardly imagine a man with a deep voice, with the storm of life
beating his soul, amid those baby faces. If happiness in any act or attitude is
perfect, it will last forever. Where is due the weariness or satiety? But if
happiness be perfect, this is impossible; so life would be monotony akin to
annihilation. But life is change, and change is misery. There is effort here; but
there will be none in the great peace that passes understanding; no defeat,
therefore no victory; no friends, because no enemies; no joyous meetings,
because no farewells. It is the shadows and the dark mysteries that sound the
depths of our hearts. No man that ever lived, if told that he could be young again
or go to any heaven, would choose the latter. Men die for many things, but all
fear the beyond. Thus no religion gives us an intelligible First Cause, a code or a
heaven that we want. The most religious man is the peasant listening to the
angelus, putting out a little ghi for his God; the woman crying in the pagoda.
Thus we can only turn to the hearts of men for the truth of religion.
Biographies and autobiographies furnish many photographic glimpses of the
struggles and experiences of early adolescent years.
Anthony Trollope's autobiography[33] is pitiful. He was poor and disliked by
most of his masters and treated with ignominy by his fellow pupils. He describes
himself as always in disgrace. At fifteen he walked three miles each way twice a
day to and from school. As a sizar he seemed a wretched farmer's boy, reeking
from the dunghill, sitting next the sons of big peers. All were against him, and he
was allowed to join no games, and learned, he tells us, absolutely nothing but a
little Greek and Latin. Once only, goaded to desperation, he rallied and whipped
a bully. The boy was never able to overcome the isolation of his school position,
and while he coveted popularity with an eagerness which was almost mean, and