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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 48

The Gospel of Good Health

The Gospel of Good Health,

and I believe in the gospel of good living. You cannot make any God happy by fasting. (Laughter.) Let us have good food, and let us have it well cooked; it is a thousand times better to know how to cook it, than it is to understand any theology in the world. (Loud applause.)

I believe in the gospel of good clothes. I believe in the gospel of good houses; in the gospel of water and soap. (Laughter.) I believe in the gospel of intelligence; in the gospel of education. The school-house is my cathedral; the universe is my Bible. (Loud applause.) I believe in the gospel of justice,—that we must reap what we sow. I do not believe in forgiveness. If I rob Mr. Smith, and God forgives me, how does that help Smith? (Laughter.) If I by slander cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers away like a blighted flower, and afterwards I get forgiveness, how does that help her? If there is another world, we have got to settle; no bankrupt court there. (Laughter and applause.) Pay down. Among the ancient Jews if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep; now they say, "Charge it. (Laughter.) Put it on the slate." (Renewed laughter.) It won't do. For every crime you commit you must answer to yourself and to the one you injure. And if you have ever clothed another with unhappiness as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you hadn't done that thing. (Applause.) No forgiveness; eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice—that is what I believe in. And if it goes hard with me, I will stand it. (Laughter.) And I will stick to my logic, and I will bear it like a man. (Applause.) And I believe, too, in the gospel of liberty,—of giving to others what we claim. And I believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more liberty you give away the more you will have. In liberty extravagance is economy. Let us be just, let us be generous to each other. I believe in the gospel of intelligence. That is the only lever capable of raising mankind. Intelligence must be the saviour of the world. (Applause.) Humanity is the grand religion. And no God can put a man into hell in another world who has made a little heaven in this. (Applause.) God cannot make miserable a man who has made somebody else happy. God cannot hate anybody who is capable of loving his neighbour. So I believe in this great gospel of generosity. "Ah," but they say, "it won't do. You must believe." I say no. My gospel of health will prolong life; my gospel of intelligence, my gospel of loving, my gospel of good-fellowship will cover the world with happy homes. My doctrine will put carpets upon your floors, pictures upon your walls. My doctrine will put books upon your shelves, ideas in your mind. My doctrine will relieve the world of the abnormal monsters born of the ignorance of superstition. My doctrine will give us health, wealth, and happiness. That is what I want. That is what I believe in. (Applause.) Give us intelligence, and in a little while a man will find that he cannot steal without robbing himself; he will find that he cannot murder without assassinating his own joy. He will find that