Born Again. Alfred W. Lawson
selfishness from all human beings and the earth win be heaven."
Oh, dear reader, go over those few words again, and again; ten times; fifty times; one hundred times if necessary to thoroughly impress their full meaning upon your intellect. Study them; practice them; teach them; sing them to all the world. Take them for your everlasting motto and you will have no need for all the stupid theories ever created by man. "Eradicate selfishness from all human beings and the earth will be heaven."
And now I observed that great numbers of these little men were being unloaded from the various ships in the harbor, and upon landing started immediately in a northerly direction. I understood the reason. Gold had been discovered in the Transvaal, and thousands upon thousands were coming from every quarter of the globe in anticipation of getting some of this metal. And what is there about gold that caused people to go such vast distances and bear many hardships and even risk their lives in desperate efforts to obtain it? Is there more real value to gold than other metals? Not at all. There is no more intrinsic value to gold than brass, but centuries ago, a semi-savage glutton discovered that he could not eat all the swine he could raise nor legally steal all his contemporaries could breed, so he originated a plan whereby he could secure for himself what others had produced through the agency of a financial system in which gold could be used as a medium of exchange. He found that he could get other and less crafty savages to go and dig the gold for him in return for swine. He also found that the breeders would exchange swine for gold. So he started by giving the diggers one swine for ten ounces of gold and the breeders one ounce of gold for ten swine. This transaction he called business. This system of business has been handed down from generation to generation until it has become a part of man's very nature. He knows very little of anything else. Gold being the financial medium of business he is taught to crave it in his infancy and as he grows older gold becomes his idol--his God. In order to gain possession of gold or its equivalent man forgets his soul and sells his honor. He is willing to crush the weak, cheat, steal or even murder his fellow beings to obtain it. And no matter whether he has little or much of it he considers any person insane who dare suggest the abolition of the financial system which permits individual accumulation and breeds selfishness and crime.
With a change of mind, I landed thousands of miles further north into the interior of uncivilized Africa, the home of wild beasts. Here something occurred which caused me to think that after all, perhaps Arletta was right in classing my species with the lower animals. Under ordinary conditions I should not have given the incident a second thought, but now my mind being directly connected with hers, I was, no doubt, impressed in the same manner as she while viewing these things.
A party of English gentlemen were on a hunting expedition. They appeared to be intelligent beings of aristocratic birth. Men whom the average individual would take as examples to emulate. But here they were in Africa, thousands of miles from home, with the sole purpose of killing something for pleasure. A short distance away was a family of lions; a male, female and several cubs. The lion and lioness lay close together, apparently casting loving glances at one another and enjoying the antics of the little ones who were playing together nearby. Occasionally the little ones would run over and kiss their elders in a most affectionate way, which seemed to greatly please the parents. Never have I seen a family of human beings display so much real affection toward each others as this family of lions. But alas, their happiness was at an end. Man's appetite for killing must be appeased. One of the hunters had caught sight of the happy little family, and slinking behind a tree before his presence became known to the lions he signaled to his comrades, who sneaked forward from tree to tree until they were within easy range of their prey. Then fixing their rifles and taking deliberate aim at the unsuspecting victims, and without giving them any chance to defend themselves or little ones, these so-called brave and civilized hunters pulled the triggers and the happy old lion and the lioness simultaneously expired, pierced by a dozen bullets. And what became of the little ones? The sight was too pitiable to describe. After the effects of the first fright, caused by the noise of the shots, had passed, they instinctively rushed to their parents for protection. Oh, the anguish depicted upon the faces of these little things when they discovered that their loving progenitors were no more. Their looks and moans were heartrending. But there were others made happy. A sudden shout of joyousness burst forth from the throats of a dozen civilized men who eagerly rushed from behind their fortresses to view the work of destruction. They had displayed fine marksmanship and were greatly pleased. Good shooting, said one of the brave fellows. Splendid, exclaimed another. But what shall we do with the cubs? asked the third. Better finish them also, remarked a fourth, as I am very fond of cub meat, and would like nothing better than a broiled steak from one of their little carcasses. After a few minutes' parley a decision was reached that it would be uncivilized to allow the little ones to wander about the jungle alone for fear that they might become the prey for other wild animals, so they killed them also; and filled their stomachs with them. And after they were through, a flock of vultures descended and finished the work. Men and vultures are somewhat alike in this respect; they both eat the flesh of carcasses. But a good word can be said for the vultures, however; they never kill.
CHAPTER IX
It is not my intention to give a full descriptive account of my peculiar journey around the world with Arletta, nor to recount the many strange things witnessed. Suffice it to mention that we visited nearly every country on the globe through the power of mind sight, and I was enabled to see any terrestrial occurrence as well as if having been on the spot in person. In fact, being under the direct influence of Arletta's perception, conditions appeared much more comprehensive to me than ever before and I felt like some great judge looking down upon the earth and its inhabitants with an impartial eye. And somehow these inhabitants did not seem to impress me as being in such a high state of intelligence as I had formerly been led to believe they were. Everywhere human beings were fighting and snarling amongst themselves like ferocious beasts. Their universal law granted the right of the strong to victimize the weak either through the power of physical or mental force. In fact it was considered a divine right for men of superior intellects to receive more of the fruits of the earth than those of smaller mental capacity. One-half of the world was over-fed while the other half was under-fed. Aside from a slight difference in political and religious theories, the characteristics of all the peoples of the world were the same; the predominant features being greed, vanity, egotism, intemperance, gluttony, fraud, theft, bribery, deceit, brutality, murder, superstition and filth. Even America, the much boasted land of the free, the country which God in his infinite wisdom had taken from the bad English and given to the good Americans, contained people with these traits, and the so-called great men of this country appeared like a lot of silly little pigmies engaged in an eternal quarrel over a few trinkets. Few of them could see further than their own noses unless it was to see something that would increase their own selfish desires. Equality, of which these people boasted so much, existed merely in their imaginations. The actual meaning of equality, as the Americans understood it, was that the physical and mental gladiators and weaklings alike were put into one great prize ring and given an opportunity to fight for their lives and nature's gifts. Those who were capable of battering down and trampling upon their adversaries were legally entitled to all the luxuries the earth provided and more than they could use, but those who were unfortunate enough to have been born weaklings and were unfit to cope successfully with the huge monsters in the ring, were crushed in the struggle.
Fraud was the slogan of the government officials and nearly all of them practiced it, from the highest to the lowest functionary. Money was the power behind the curtain and he who had the largest bank account was catered to like an over-grown hog surrounded by a lot of suckling pigs. "God helps those who help themselves" was their accepted motto. In other words, God helps the strong and not the weak. If the Creator gives any of His attention to the innumerable bickerings of these earthly microbes He must feel greatly flattered by having this splendid motto thrust upon Him, for according to it, one was supposed to go to the assistance of the man who could swim, while he who could not, must be left to drown.
A certain so-called great American, one Mr. Moundbuilder by name, expressed great faith in this doctrine. By employing thousands of his fellow