WRONG ACTION OF MIND, AND ITS RESULTS IN THIS LIFE.

Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People by Catharine Esther Beecher, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. WRONG ACTION OF MIND, AND ITS RESULTS IN THIS LIFE.

CHAPTER XXVI. WRONG ACTION OF MIND, AND ITS RESULTS IN THIS LIFE.

We have examined into the causes of the wrong action of mind, and have found them to consist in the want of knowledge, want of habits, want of social influences from other minds, and want of a right governing purpose, all of which, so far as reason and experience teach, alone could be secured by perfect and infallible teachers and educators in a perfect commonwealth.

We are now to inquire in regard to the wrong action of mind and its results in this life.

The first point to be noticed is the fact that from the first there is in every intelligent mind a sense of entire inability to obey the laws of the system in which it is placed.

This is true not merely in reference to that breach of law which is the inevitable result of ignorance, but of that also which involves a violation of conscience. Where is the mother who has not heard the distressed confession, even from the weeping infant, that he was happier in doing right than in doing wrong, that he wished to do well, and yet that he was constantly doing evil? Where is the parent that has not witnessed, as one little being after another passed on from infancy to youth, and from youth to manhood, the perpetual warfare to sustain good purposes and oft-broken resolutions? And where is the conscious spirit that can not look back on its whole course of existence as one continued exhibition of a conflict that gives unvarying evidence of this truth? Men feel that it is as impossible for them to be invariably perfect in thought, word, and deed, as it is to rule the winds and waves.

The testimony of mankind through every period of the world, in regard to their own individual consciousness, attests a sense of the same fatal inability. If we go back even as far as to the heathen sages of antiquity, we gain the same acknowledgment. Thus we find Pythagoras calls it "the fatal companion, the noxious strife that lurks within us, and which was born along with us." Sopator terms it "the sin that is born with mankind." Plato denominates it "natural wickedness," and Aristotle "the natural repugnance of man's temper to reason." Cicero declares that "men are brought into life by Nature as a step-mother, with a naked, frail, and infirm body, and with a soul prone to divers lusts." Seneca observes, "We are born in such a condition that we are not subject to fewer disorders of the mind than of the body; all vices are in men, though they do not break out in every one." Propertius says that "every body has a vice to which he is inclined by nature." Juvenal asserts that "nature, unchangeably fixed, runs back to wickedness." Horace declares that "no man is free from vices, and he is the best man who is oppressed with the least." He adds that "mankind rush into wickedness, and always desire what is forbidden;" that "youth has the softness of wax to receive vicious impressions, and the hardness of rock to resist virtuous admonitions;" that "we are mad enough to attack Heaven itself, and our repeated crimes do not suffer the God of Heaven to lay aside his wrathful thunderbolts."

This testimony of individual experience is verified by the general history of mankind. All the laws and institutions of society are founded on the principle that mankind are prone to wrong, infirm of purpose in all that is good, and that every possible restraint is needed to prevent the overbreaking tide of evil and crime. When we read the history of communities and of nations, it is one continued record of selfishness, avarice, injustice, revenge, and cruelty. Individuals seem equally plotting against the happiness of individuals, and rejoicing to work evils on society. Communities rise against communities, and nations dash against nations. Tyrants fill their dominions with sorrow, misery, and death; bloody heroes, followed by infuriate bands, spread havoc, ruin, and dismay through all their course, while superstition binds in chains, racks with tortures, and sacrifices its millions of victims.

In tracing along the history of mankind, there is no period which we can select when mankind have not seemed as busy in destroying their own, and the happiness of others, as the lower animals are in seeking their appropriate enjoyments. At one time we behold Xerxes pouring forth all Asia upon Europe, where three million beings were brought to be slaughtered by the Greeks. At another time the Greeks, headed by Alexander, return upon Asia, and spread over most of the known world, pillaging, burning, and slaughtering. Then we behold Alaric, at the head of barbarous hordes, desolating all the Roman empire, and destroying the monuments of taste, science, and the arts. Then we see Tamerlane rushing forth, overrunning Persia, India, and other parts of Asia, carrying carnage and the most desolating cruelty in his course, so that it is recorded that he would cause thousands of his prisoners to be pounded in mortars with bricks to form into walls.

From Europe we behold six millions of Crusaders rush forth upon the plains of Asia, with rapine, and famine, and outrage attending their course. Then come forth from Eastern Asia the myrmidons of Genghis Khan, ravaging fifteen millions of square miles, beheading 100,000 prisoners at one time, shaking the whole earth with terror, and exterminating fourteen millions of their fellow-men. Then from the northern forests are seen swarming forth the Goths and Vandals, sweeping over Europe and Asia, and bearing away every vestige of arts, civilization, comfort, and peace. At another time we see the professed head of the Christian Church slaughtering the pious and inoffensive Albigenses, sending horror into their peaceful villages, and torturing thousands of inoffensive victims.

At one period of history the whole known world seemed to be one vast field of carnage and commotion. The Huns, Vandals, and other Northern barbarians were ravaging France, Germany, and Spain; the Goths were plundering and murdering in Italy, and the Saxons and Angles were overrunning Great Britain. The Roman armies under Justinian, together with the Vandals and Huns, were desolating Africa; the barbarians of Scythia were pouring down upon the Roman empire; the Persian armies were pillaging and laying waste the countries of Asia; the Arabians, under Mohammed, were beginning to extend their conquests over Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain. Every nation and kingdom on earth was shaking to its centre. The smoke and the spirits of the bottomless pit seemed coming up to darken, and torment, and affright mankind. The most fertile countries were converted to deserts, and covered with ruins of once flourishing cities and villages; the most fiendish cruelty was practiced; famine raged to such a degree that the living fed upon the dead; prisoners were tortured by the most refined systems of cruelty; public edifices were destroyed; the monuments of science and the arts perished; cruelty, fraud, avarice, murder, and every crime that disgraces humanity, were let loose upon a wretched world. Historians seem to shudder in attempting to picture these horrid scenes, and would draw a veil over transactions that disgrace mankind.

If from ancient times we look at the present state of the world, at its present most refined and enlightened period, the same mournful evidence is discovered. Cruelty and tyranny have changed some of the fairest provinces of Persia to deserts. The Turk long ago turned the land of the patriarchs and prophets to a wilderness, and drenched the shores of Greece with the blood of slaughtered victims, while Syria, Kurdistan, and Armenia for ages have been ravaged with injustice and rapine. China and Japan have been shut out from the world by a cold and jealous selfishness. In Tartary, Arabia, and Siberia, the barbarous tribes are prowling about for plunder, or engaged in murderous conflicts. In Africa, the Barbary States are in perpetual commotion; the petty tyrants of Benin, Ashantee, and other interior states are waging ceaseless wars, murdering their prisoners, and adorning their houses with their skulls; and on its ravaged coast the white man-stealer, for hundreds of years, has been prowling, and bearing off thousands of wretches as a yearly offering to the avarice of the most refined and Christian nations on earth. In North America, we have seen the native tribes employed in war, and practicing the most fiendish barbarities, while in South America, its more civilized inhabitants are engaged in constant political and bloody commotions. In the islands of the ocean thousands of human beings have been fighting each other, throwing darts and stones at strangers, offering human sacrifices, and feasting on the flesh of their enemies.

If we select Europe for the exhibition of human nature as seen under the restraints of civilization, laws, refinement, and religion, the same evils burst forth from bonds and restraints. In Europe, for ages, the common people, in slavery and ignorance, have been bowing down to a grinding priesthood, or an oppressive nobility or monarchical tyranny. Incessant heaving of the troubled nations portends desolation and dismay, as man seems waking from the slavery of ages to shake off his fetters and call himself free.

If we look to our own boasted land of liberty and religion, what toiling of selfish and discordant interests—what mean and low-lived arts to gain honor and power—what shameful attacks on fair reputation and unblemished honor—what collisions of party-strifes and local interests! Here also the curse of slavery brings the blush of shame to every honest man that, from year to year, on the anniversary of the national liberty, hears the declarations of rights this very nation is trampling under foot. Millions of slaves, deprived of the best blessing and the dearest rights of humanity, are held in the most degrading bondage by a nation who yearly and publicly acknowledge their perfect and unalienable rights.

The same melancholy view is no less clearly witnessed in the opinions and moral sentiments of mankind. The mind of man is formed to love happiness, to be pleased with what promotes it, and to detest that which tends to destroy it, yet the long reign of selfishness has seemed to pervert and poison even the taste and moral sentiments of men. Who is the hero sung by the poet, eulogized by the statesman, and flattered by the orator? Who is it presented in classic language to the gaze of enthusiastic childhood, and pictured forth in tales of romance to kindling youth?

It is the man who has given up his life to the gratification of pride, and the love of honor and fame; the man who, to gain this selfish good, can plunge the sword into the bosom of thousands, and stand the unpitying spectator of burning cities, widowed mothers, orphan children, desolated fields, and the long train of ills that he wantonly pours on mankind, that he may gain the miserable pittance of gaping admiration and dreadful renown which rises amid the tears and cries of mankind. It is the man who, when injured, knows not how to forgive—whose stinted soul never knew the dignity and pleasure of giving blessing for ill—who deems it the mark of honor and manhood to follow the example of the whining infant, that, when he is struck, with the same noble spirit will strike back again.

Meantime, the calm forbearance and true dignity of virtue, that would be humbled at recrimination and can not condescend to retaliate, is put in the background as unworthy such honors and eulogy. Thus, also, we find intellect, which the Creator designed only as the instrument of securing happiness, though perverted to vice and folly, applauded and admired; and even some of those admired as among the wisest of mankind have often placed true virtue and goodness below the fancied splendors of genius and learning. All the maxims, and honors, and employments of mankind develop the perverted action of the noblest part of the creation of God in all its relations and in all its principles and pursuits.

It is into such a world as this that every new-born mind is ushered without knowledge to guide, without habits to strengthen, without the power of forming a ruling purpose to do right which shall control all subordinate volitions.

Instead of meeting perfect educators to instruct in the laws of the system, to form good habits, and to exert all the powerful social, domestic, and civil influences aright, every one of these powerful principles are fatally wrong. Parents, teachers, companions, and rulers, to a greater or less extent, teach wrong, train wrong, and set wrong examples, while the whole moral atmosphere is contaminated and paralyzing.

In these circumstances, it is as impossible for a young mind to commence existence here with perfect obedience to law, and to continue through life in a course of perfect rectitude, as it is for it, by its feeble will, to regulate the winds of heaven, or turn back the tides of the ocean.

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books.

This book is part of the public domain. Catharine Esther Beecher (2017). Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/55531/pg55531-images.html

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.