Born Again. Alfred W. Lawson
to do the hard work while he sat in an easy chair and confiscated the difference between what they earned and what he paid them, he accumulated several hundred million dollars for his own use. About the time he was ready to die he learned to his great sorrow that it was necessary to leave all this wealth behind. So he decided to bequeath it to only those who were sufficiently strong and willing to continue his policy of crushing the weak and incidentally erect some monuments to his own memory. After much consideration as to how the strong would derive the most benefit from his ill-gotten goods, he concluded that the weak-minded and sickly creatures who were bred from the system he abetted and the over-worked and under-fed laborer would have no opportunity to read books, so he established hundreds of Moundbuilder libraries and Moundbuilder universities in all parts of the world. To those who were already strong enough to reach a position where they could enter a university and did not really need his aid, the idea was a grand one, as it would help to increase their strength, thereby making it much easier for them to confiscate what the weaklings could produce in the future. Thus the plan to make the strong stronger, the weak weaker, and Moundbuilder immortal, would be perpetuated. But the cherished hopes of Mr. Moundbuilder in this respect will never be realized, for the day is not far distant when earthly mortals will be able to reason and then he will be recognized simply as a vain-glorious old humbug.
Another celebrated American who was classed among the great men of the day was a certain Mr. Porkpacker. This individual conducted an establishment where thousands of animals, bred for the purpose, were slaughtered daily. He had accumulated millions of blood-stained dollars in this way, and was generally conceded to be a man of great business ability. He was pointed out to the rising generation as one of the most successful men in the country whose example should be followed. Just pause a moment and think of it. Here was a man who directed a business where thousands of living things were murdered daily, set forth as a good example to follow just because he had secured millions of dollars by the operation. Oh, ye mortals! Man considers the wolf a blood-thirsty beast because he kills and eats the flesh of human beings for subsistence. What kind of a bestial monster would the wolf consider man if it saw him in his slaughter-house killing thousands of innocent beef, sheep and hogs daily? Or what would it think of civilized man if it saw him shooting myriads of tame and harmless pigeons for amusement, or broiling lobsters alive to satisfy his gormandizing desires? Perhaps the wolf would set man below its grade, if interrogated upon the subject. But tyrannical man, intoxicated by his own egotism and clinging to an elastic religion which allows him to act as he pleases, feels that his god created all these things for his special benefit. If the wolf could be questioned about the matter, it too might claim that its god permitted the killing and eating of man. Mr. Porkpacker was considered both great and good by his fellow beings, for each year he gave thousands of dollars for the erection and maintenance of the church and likewise contributed largely toward his pastor's salary. Would it be good policy then for the pastor to believe that it was wrong to kill sheep, when one of the large contributors was earning money in that business? No, no. So the church upheld the slaughter-houses and proved by the scriptures that they were simply doing what the savages had done thousands of years previously according to divine right.
Once I listened to my father preach a sermon on the beautiful innocence and purity of the lamb. For an hour he spoke feelingly of the many virtues contained by this gentle little creature and after he was through he immediately went home and filled his stomach with roasted lamb for dinner. Good Christians are anxious to know when the time will arrive that the lion and lamb will lie down together in peace and harmony. Possibly the lamb would like to know if the time will ever come when its carcass will not be utilized to appease the voracious appetite of the Christian.
In looking over the so-called great business men and financial swindlers of America they certainly presented a motley collection of physical and mental monstrosities. They spent so much of their time in the mad rush for dollars and how to spend them, that physical and mental improvement received very little attention. Their brains became stagnant for the want of proper training and their bodies were allowed to rot and become useless for the need of exercise. Some were so fat they could not walk, while others were too lean to stand. A great many of them used either canes or crutches as an aid to hobble along or vehicles to convey them from place to place. Nearly all were cripples, more or less; rheumatism, gout, paralysis and numerous other ailments being the cause of their helplessness. Few of them seemed able to understand that all these infirmities were directly caused by the want of proper exercise and from the gluttonous habit of overloading their stomachs with foods of many kinds and meat especially. Apparently it was beyond their comprehension that nature commanded them to improve their physiques for the benefit of coming generations. Men who professed to be athletes when they were past the age of thirty were considered childish, while the exponents of physical culture were generally looked upon as cranks. Eating, drinking and smoking were adapted as the best modes of recreation, while fishing and shooting pigeons, quail, squirrels and other harmless living things were regarded as good, healthy amusements. Of all the brutal methods of diversion ever adopted by man, fishing is perhaps the most cruel. If the reader does not think so, just stop for a moment and imagine yourself being hooked to a great line by the mouth and your body being drawn far up into space and into another atmosphere, there to strangle slowly to death. You would not like it, would you? Then why should the fish be treated so? Do you not suppose that the fish have feelings like yourself? Oh, if all my fellowmen could only have taken that trip around the world with Arletta and seen things as I saw them, cruelty in all its various forms would be a thing of the past. That trip and my subsequent experience with her proved to be the best education I could have received from any source. It taught me the real meaning of the word kindness, without which, not only toward human beings, but toward all living things, man will never rise above the savage state.
CHAPTER X
We were just twenty-four hours making our journey around the world, when suddenly I found myself once more gazing into the beautiful eyes of Arletta. While she bestowed a kindly look of sympathy toward me, her features plainly showed that her gentle nature had received an awful shock from the terrible and degrading sights we had witnessed. And there was much reason why this pure and lovable woman should be shocked at what we had seen, for even I, a worthless and hardened vagabond, had become thoroughly disgusted with my own species.
"And what do you think of your highly civilized people now?" she inquired sadly. "They are a race of tail-less monkeys and filthy beasts with myself included," responded I, with vehemence, and then I began a tirade of abuse against the entire human family.
"Stop," exclaimed Arletta, "you must not allow malice to enter your mind against any living creature, no matter how beastly or brutal it may be. Hatred will not make the world better; it needs love. No living being is responsible for what it is any more than you or I are accountable for being in existence. But while each individual inherits the good or bad instincts of its predecessor, still it has the power to make better or worse its own condition. Love will not only make better your own condition, but that of your fellow beings as well. Do not expect to find in others that which you do not possess yourself. It is your duty to set a good example, not wait for others to accomplish what you have not done yourself. So begin right now with love. Cast away all unkind thoughts and never allow another to enter your mind, no matter what the provocation might be. I admit that the Apeman of today is no better, in fact, in many respects is much inferior to the Apeman who lived over four thousand years ago, but that is because he took the wrong road in trying to reach real manhood. He is still on the wrong path, but must be turned about and started in the right direction. He must be taught that Heaven is here on earth, if he will only make it so. But the earth will never be a paradise, so long as he allows a grain of selfishness to remain in his system. In yonder picture you can see what real men were like. Study their countenances carefully and see if you can read that any one of them ever committed a selfish act or even permitted an unkind thought to enter his mind, for if he had, you could plainly read it from his features, the face being the mirror of our thoughts and actions, and no matter what we do or what we think from the time we are born until we die, every act and thought is indelibly stamped upon our faces and can never be erased until the material of which we