but for their OWN sake–primarily. The DUTY was JUST THE SAME,
and just as imperative, when they were clerks, mechanics, raw
recruits, but they wouldn’t perform it for that. As clerks and
mechanics they had other ideals, another spirit to satisfy, and
they satisfied it. They HAD to; it is the law. TRAINING is
potent. Training toward higher and higher, and ever higher
ideals is worth any man’s thought and labor and diligence.
Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to
the stake rather than be recreant to it.
O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content
the spirit that is in him, though it cost him his life. Another
man, just as sincerely religious, but of different temperament,
will fail of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and
grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content the spirit
that is in him–he cannot help it. He could not perform that
duty for duty’s SAKE, for that would not content his spirit, and
the contenting of his spirit must be looked to FIRST. It takes
precedence of all other duties.
Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private
morals who votes for a thief for public office, on his own
party’s ticket, and against an honest man on the other ticket.
O.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public
morals; he has no private ones, where his party’s prosperity is
at stake. He will always be true to his make and training.
IV
Training
Young Man. You keep using that word–training. By it do
you particularly mean–
Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a
part of it–but not a large part. I mean ALL the outside
influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the
grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is under
training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands
ASSOCIATION. It is his human environment which influences his
mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on
his road and keeps him in it. If he leave that road he will find
himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and
whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of
his nature he takes the color of his place of resort. The
influences about him create his preferences, his aversions, his
politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion. He creates none
of these things for himself. He THINKS he does, but that is
because he has not examined into the matter. You have seen
Presbyterians?
Y.M. Many.
O.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not
Congregationalists? And why were the Congregationalists not
Baptists, and the Baptists Roman Catholics, and the Roman
Catholics Buddhists, and the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers
Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and the
Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus Atheists, and the Atheists
Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists Agnostics, and the Agnostics
Methodists, and the Methodists Confucians, and the Confucians
Unitarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans
Salvation Warriors, and the Salvation Warriors Zoroastrians, and
the Zoroastrians Christian Scientists, and the Christian
Scientists Mormons–and so on?
Y.M. You may answer your question yourself.
O.M. That list of sects is not a record of STUDIES,
searchings, seekings after light; it mainly (and sarcastically)
indicates what ASSOCIATION can do. If you know a man’s
nationality you can come within a split hair of guessing the
complexion of his religion: English–Protestant; American–
ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South American–
Roman Catholic; Russian–Greek Catholic; Turk–Mohammedan; and so
on. And when you know the man’s religious complexion, you know
what sort of religious books he reads when he wants some more
light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get
more light than he wants. In America if you know which party-
collar a voter wears, you know what his associations are, and how
he came by his politics, and which breed of newspaper he reads to
get light, and which breed he diligently avoids, and which breed
of mass-meetings he attends in order to broaden his political