Of moral qualities or
conduct they made no mention.
Bad as this was, it was a step in advance, inasmuch as they did hold out
a future state of some sort, and I was shocked to find that for the most
part they met with opposition, on the score that their doctrine was based
upon no sort of foundation, also that it was immoral in its tendency, and
not to be desired by any reasonable beings.
When I asked how it could be immoral, I was answered, that if firmly
held, it would lead people to cheapen this present life, making it appear
to be an affair of only secondary importance; that it would thus distract
men's minds from the perfecting of this world's economy, and was an
impatient cutting, so to speak, of the Gordian knot of life's problems,
whereby some people might gain present satisfaction to themselves at the
cost of infinite damage to others; that the doctrine tended to encourage
the poor in their improvidence, and in a debasing acquiescence in ills
which they might well remedy; that the rewards were illusory and the
result, after all, of luck, whose empire should be bounded by the grave;
that its terrors were enervating and unjust; and that even the most
blessed rising would be but the disturbing of a still more blessed
slumber.
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