Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/151

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nefarious privileges of a few, one can see no reason why the press and pulpit should have opposed him. What had he done? He had only preached that the fundamental doctrine of Christianity was sound, and, as much as a man may in so complex a civilization, he had tried to practice it. He had taught kindness and tolerance, and pity and mercy; he had visited the sick, and gone to those that were in prison; he had said that all men are free and equal, that they have been endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. He had said that it is wrong to kill people, even in the electric chair, that it is wrong to take from the poor, without giving them in return. He had not said these things in anger, or in bitterness; he had never been personal, he had always been explicit in saying that he, as a part of society, was equally to blame with all the rest for social wrongs. The only textbooks he ever used in his campaigns were the New Testament, the Declaration of Independence, and, of course, his beloved Walt Whitman. And yet the pulpits rang every Sunday with denunciations of him, and the newspapers opposed him. Why was it, because a man endorsed these old doctrines upon which society claims to rest, that society should denounce him?

I think it was because he was so utterly and entirely sincere, and because he believed these things, and tried to put them into practice in his life, and wished them to be more fully incorporated in the life of society. Society will forgive anything in a man, except sincerity. If he be sincere in charity,