About People/Chapter 4

Loyalty and liberality are habits of thought transmuted into modes of action. In the modern desire to be free from prejudice we are losing loyalty; because truth is so multiform, we forget that its purpose is single; we wish to be broad, and we become vague; we dislike partisanship, and we grow indifferent. We think of loyalty as a patriotic virtue, and forget that it is the outcome of all intense conviction; we even feel it to be a mark of illiberality, while yet the want of it is impoverishing our natures, and is pauperizing society. We are so afraid lest we be called sectarian that, in our insistence upon all possible good in ​others, we hesitate to affirm what is good in our own opinion, our very charity often causing our disloyalty.

Loyalty involves the relations between ourselves and some truth or duty. Liberality the relations between ourselves and persons. Both demand courage; one demands breadth. Each should keep equal pace in growth, for each is the complement of the other. Loyalty is faithfulness and adherence to one's country, friend, faith, duty, or opinion, by open acknowledgment in word and act. It is always free and generous, and seeks to strengthen whatever it deems worthy of belief. It gives persistence and enthusiasm to character. It is a certainty of faith, which may or may not be a heritage of joy. In either case it may cause separation in thought or act from those who have other objects of fealty. It should include the propagation of one's belief just so far as such spreading of it does not entail persecution. About any unit of thought, environed by ​loyalty, cluster action, organization; the thought crystallizing into creed and deed. Unquestioning enthusiasms and friendships develop loyalty at an early age, when its declarations are apt to be those of unreasoning prejudice rather than of calm, intense conviction based on thought and experience. It cannot exist in its nobler, permanent aspects until it has fortified itself by liberality.

Liberality must always be born of knowledge, for though, like Loyalty, it may spring largely from sentiment or kindliness, it would fail in many of life's emergencies unless it also possessed wisdom. It is the power to look at events, persons, and thoughts from another stand-point than our own, which requires sympathy, created by insight and comprehension. But we fancy that at times special occasions justify us in terming another's ideas absurd; because we are sure we know, and that the possession of such knowledge should necessitate moral obligation in action; thus including ​the idea of ought in that of liberality, as if our right ought to prove another's wrong, and to compel him to adopt our ideas. Liberality must adjust the equation of ought between ourselves and others. The extent of the application of our ought to some one else establishes the foundation of social relations. Though the world teems with individual and organized efforts for the conversion of others to some one's notion of ought, their attempts should never bear the red mark of persecution, as they have borne it in the past.

Many people consider liberality as a product of the heart. They fancy that definite opinion excludes liberalism, and fear that, the more they know, the less certain will they be of arriving at conclusions; yet they vaguely feel that mental decisions are necessary. Though definite opinions can abide with appreciation of another's convictions, people like to be freed from the burden of making up their mind. Much that passes muster for liberality is sham, ​or indifference, which latter is the tempter's own device for cheating one into laziness. Clear, definite convictions result from the union of liberality and loyalty. When loyalty stands upon some narrow point of opinion, liberality surrounds it with proofs that truth also lies elsewhere, and intellectual somersaults are the result, leaving the mental acrobat on one and another rock instead of on the table-land of thought.

Every one should know what he believes, and why, in religion, politics, social affairs, moral obligations, and philosophical considerations. Ignorance is no excuse for accepting results from another without the trouble of examining them. Such questions cannot be answered by books alone, as they need one's own life-experience and that of others. If the reply corresponds to one's needs then search ceases, for salvation cometh when belief is fraught with strength and honesty. Negation often is as definite and noble as assertion; the ​agnostic may be as loyal as the Christian. The arrogance of an exclusive sectarianism demands omniscience, but patience and humility constantly say, "Not yet;" and refuse acceptance of any dogma until convinced. It is hard to persuade zealots that loyalty can call for negation without a corresponding assertion. Their little science teaches them that a vacuum must be filled, and, when their opponent expresses his dissent from their views, they imperiously demand what is believed; and cannot comprehend why some idea has not rushed into the mind to take the place of what, in their opinion, should have occupied it. Unknown to the thinker, as to them, crystals of thought may be forming, although his habit of self-restraint forbids their taking definite shape, until they have absorbed all they need from the surrounding elements. It is hard for ultra-minded people to believe that liberality does not belong to any one sect or party. They leave conversative, expedient ​organizations, and form minor associations with the false battle-cry of liberality.

When liberality is considered as a product of the heart, as a gift of temperament and intuition, it lacks that permanent force which results from knowledge and experience. Intuitions may be safe, but as they are not conscious, logical processes, they should not be regarded as authoritative. Imbibing by a process of faith is uncertain ground for conviction. Under its guidance the kindly heart cannot reach unto the depths of suffering or joy in another which self-experience has never probed. Intuition may be safely followed through average ordeals, but experience leads open-eyed and clear-minded amid unusual perplexities.

Must and ought are the adjuncts of illiberality, which is the hinderance of another in his pursuits and opinions. Even the force of personality should be careful in imposing itself upon others to such a degree that their free ​will is destroyed. The freedom we claim for ourselves is owed in return. Each finds the practical answer by his own gauge of intuition and experience. The world-wide relations of every person are settled in concentric rings, ever widening from their first or innermost circle. The idea of ought, as opposed to or mingled with the conception of liberality, finds its first circle of decision, embraces those of its own household, the final circle including the brotherhood of humanity.

The manner in which people and events are spoken of in early home-life creates the first impressions, received unconsciously, which will affect the child's future way of thought and action. Soon he notices the variance between words and deeds; he hears his mother say that a certain course of proceeding coincides with her idea of right, and, at the same time, he sees her help a friend in ways averse to her expressed opinion. He ​does not yet know whether to characterize her words and acts as inconsistent or liberal. The puzzle has begun which will haunt him for years, until he, too, has learned that a broad outlook and a fervent faith necessitate each other. School-life soon teaches him to be loyal to truth and honor, in withholding from mean and doubtful ways with such pleasantness that he attracts his fellows into right observance rather than repels them from the circle of his friendship. College and boarding-schools enforce these lessons with a power that each one knows best for himself.

Church life again presents them. Within a hundred years religion in America has burst the shackles that fettered it. After State conventions had ceased to support the church by public tax, creed tests were still retained, belief in which was evidence of eligibility for holding office. Not only must Protestantism be accepted, but, in Delaware, belief in the Trinity; in Pennsylvania, belief ​in God and the inspiration of the Bible. When the Constitution was framed, in 1787, it read: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Religion, though freed from State control, is still in bondage to the church. The communion is oftener a test act than a memorial service. Narrow convictions have led to the founding of new sects, the separation within the division, each based on a point more or less broad, from whose contracting influence humanity perpetually escapes, for the law of progress ever makes the liberality of to-day the sectarianism of to-morrow. Earnest belief, tempered with comprehension of other creeds, has been the fulcrum which has lifted church-life into the philanthropy of humanity. Contrast Loyala, the sectarian alone, with Fénélon, the sectarian and the liberal; Edwards with Channing, Wesley with Wilberforce, John Knox with the author of ​"Theologia Germanica," the schoolmen and priests with Columbus and Galileo.

In the reaction from mysticism and church theology the claim to eternal life has been founded on doing to such an extent that one is ready to shout with the revivalist, "Doing is a deadly sin." What has become of rapt absorption in the thought of something which is not of concrete apprehension? Where now are the faces that should make a Sistine Madonna and a St. Jerome? A loyal, liberal faith takes not meanness as a synonyme for deacon, nor petition for prayer, and finds the equivalent terms for religious and political economy in the text-book of life. The reconciliation of science and religion is the finding and the worshipping.

Many are so liberal up to a certain point that it is almost thought that they have the breadth of universal sympathy; but suddenly they reach a bound beyond which they refuse fellowship. Many find it hard to be fair and ​generous towards those who, in a spirit of reverence to all truth, feel they have not yet proved a God. If one, himself, holds a steadfast belief in Him, and wishes to make others feel as he does, can he not yet see that certain minds must have what they deem facts as proofs? Can he not wait? Must others believe instantly because he does? His God must be a very small God if his impatience can hurry others into belief. To wait, and to plan while waiting, is the secret of liberality's action. The weakness of human nature is nowhere seen more strongly than in the involuntary presentation to the childishly finite mind of the infinite questions of the existence and abode of God, and of immortality. What it can never answer it first asks. Because our lives are all aglow with the hope of immortality shall we scorn another who looks upon it simply as a reward for striving here, or shall we shudder at him who looks bravely into immensity and sees nothing nearer than the ​divine obligation to love one another on earth? It is hard to do neither, but the more we know the easier will it be. One's own mental strength should facilitate comprehension of others' doubting or waiting attitude.

Words, like symbols, acquire special meanings, and are the keys to sectarian as well as to scientific storehouses. The kindly deception that permits one person to use a word in a mythical sense which another accepts as a statement of fact is incompatible with accurate thinking. Rather say: Your fact is my symbol; to you the fact, to me the symbol, is God's call to both to make the thoughts of each definite and clear. An Episcopalian clergyman preached for a Baptist parson. At the close of the sermon the Baptist said: "I am sorry I cannot ask you to partake of the Lord's Supper, but you are not a close communicant." — "Oh," replied the churchman, "even if you should ask me, I could not stay; for I cannot receive the bread and wine from one ​who has never been ordained." A very narrow distinction, exclaim those who stand outside; a very real one, say those who stand within.

It is in minor matters of social life that our illiberality constantly surprises us. Reforms are most notable examples of it. As, for instance, those who do not wear mourning can appreciate neither the protection it affords nor its graduated hues. A violent anti-tobacconist refuses the name of gentleman to a smoker; a teetotaler deems a glass of sherry a sign of inebriation; even puddings must lose their flavor under reformatory zeal, and silver tankards of the past must be termed "christening bowls;” a man who smokes and drinks may be fit for heaven, but not for marriage or society.

Unconventionality brands conventionality as narrow. The longer one lives, however, the more is the safeguard of ceremony valued. As almost every social convention had its ori​gin in some use or fear, the outward utility of politeness, though not yet making its valuations aright, must keep pace with inward recognition of equality. The American knows no fear, but as often loves to praise as to peck at his superior. Witness the adulation offered our political heroes and our friends, as well as the slander cast upon them.

Are those out of society liberal towards those in it? Many a fashionably dressed and handsome girl has to suffer the reputation of being frivolous and haughty, when she has only a youthful capacity for enjoyment and a love for pretty things. Unkindness is often shown in the feelings towards a popular person It indicates, at least, self-command and tact to be popular, yet a popular person or lecturer is regarded as suitable for the masses. Such narrowness includes self-denunciation; we are part of the masses.

Women, especially, formulate conventional judgments, graduated by approximation to a ​certain standard of manner and dress. They accept or outlaw one another by the number of buttons on gloves, the shape of bonnets, and a Greek or French "tournure." Externals are generally a good basis for primary opinion, but never a reason for illiberality towards those whom taste does not approve. To refuse to associate with others because their manners are not suited to our liking is provincial, and provincialism is the essence of illiberality, while cosmopolitanism is the essence of liberality. Business and preoccupation cannot be offered as excuses for illiberalism and provincialism. An unknown or queer person is invited to a family dinner. An estimable woman who wore greens and purples of bygone shades, who lounged rather than sat, and who had lived in Boston for several years, excused her shortcomings by explaining that she had never been invited to a meal where she met any other lady than the hostess. Who has the courage to stop ​and speak first? The one who is most liberal, who knows that cordiality takes no more time than rudeness.

Want of liberality and excess of loyalty to one's surroundings introduces a comic aspect into charities. Rich people often prefer to employ a missionary to visit the poor, rather than to go themselves, because "such an one is more like the poor's own kind." The Associated Charities tries to leap the gulf of inequalities by saying, "Visitors and Visited." The gulf of difference is there; insight and liberality cannot merely span it, but fill it up. The poor are too proud to say they are poor; the rich, too anxious to escape any imputation of nouveau riche or aristocracy. A liberal spirit accepts classifications as outwardly true, and then, through sympathy, forgets them in action.

Housework and children are common ground for all women, politics and trade for all men. The poor are as interested in the ​wealthy as the latter are in them. A certain old lady, who in her days of eyesight had been in a printer's office and later was supported by charity, said: "Young girls nowadays dress dowdy when they come to see us poor folks, and call it equality. If it were, they wouldn't make such a fuss to hide it. I'd like to see their silks and satins, and hear about their beaux. It's as good as a love story, even if you haint ever had the chance to get married; but they just talk about my rheumatism and how to cook oatmeal till they don't do one a bit of good."

The demands of socialism in all its various phases can never be adjusted until capital and competition put themselves in thought at the stand-point of wages and coöperation. Comprehension, not of their wrongs so much as of what they think are their wrongs, is the only way in which one can meet, by argument or by law, the requirements of the working-classes. House-keepers have to contend with ​one form of ignorant, aggressive demand. The I-am-as-good-as-you-are feeling is the root of the claim for more wages and of impudent answers. Our servants are our children; home is a missionary field; insight understands why our cook grows tired of always being a cook. We go off to our parlor she stays by the cooking-stove.

All have not yet learned to be actively liberal towards colored people. A formal and touching protest came from certain of them, begging for more equal chances in the struggle for self-support. The city gave their children, it said, the same instruction as it offered those who were white; but when colored girls at the North graduated they must either be washer-women, or marry and bring more children into this unequal world; while white girls found places in shops or as teachers, they were rejected, because other employés or school-children disliked them, and all black maidens did not wish to go South as instructors. ​The colored girl of the same ability as the white has not the same chance in earning a livelihood. If nature establishes the limits of color, it also permits educated labor to succeed, yet custom forbids. A friend found a vase, black in hue, placed on an end of his mantelpiece and a white one on the opposite corner. He looked at them shudderingly, uttered the word, "miscegenation," and ordered them removed. His feeling about the blacks could not even tolerate the mismated vases.

There is also the illiberality of the classical against the scientific tendency in education. A Greek scholar denounced President Eliot as prejudiced because he favored the introduction of more scientific studies, which the erudite speaker thought were best fitted for laboring people, and a president of a Western college characterized Harvard as only suitable for an aristocratic community. Graduation at Cambridge or Yale is equivalent to a mark of social superiority, supposed to be incomparably ​better than any mental results which may follow from careful, individual work in a Western or Southern college; the graduates from such an one, on the other hand, are sometimes anxious to conceal the name of their Alma Mater.

And is there nothing to be said about the illiberality of those of the regular school toward homeopaths, and of the latter towards the former? Surely each man honestly believes he is right. Does loyalty to a conviction that a "pathy" is wrong compel quibbles in order to escape coöperation in social or benevolent work? Does it justify the charge of "intellectual dishonesty"? Another school may be stupid, but not immoral. Personal morality, as affecting his mental or medical uprightness, should, at least, be granted to an opponent.

There is a liberality to be observed in personal habits, even in food. If children are trained to take what is on the table, they are ​taught a virtue which will serve them in after years, when exposed to the chances of restaurants and a friend's kitchen. A vegetarian is a terrible guest. An Englishman, at a breakfast served in his honor, declined dish after dish. At last the hostess said, "You will try some potatoes?" — "Yes, thanks," was his glad assent; but, as he beheld them baked in their brown coverings, he observed, "I never eat them unless boiled." Two tired ministers were invited to tea at the house of a millionnaire. The weary guests fed on dainty viands and drank water; "for," explained the host, in uncertain tone, "my wife finds that as tea disagrees with her, it must also be of no benefit to others."

Leadership and union in work need liberality, for there can be no hearty acceptance of another's guidance without it. Then the intelligent and the unintelligent, those who are conventional and those who are earnest, can work together for the sake of a common ​good. Mutual peculiarities are, however, to be understood and avoided; thinking of them is amusing, speaking is dangerous; capacities are to be recognized, claims adjusted, self-seeking avoided. When will men and women be large enough to accept another's valuation of them which does not place them where they put themselves? How many are there who are willing to lead until fitter persons are found, and who then will withdraw, feeling grateful that they have done some good, and still more grateful that others can accomplish better results than they? How many are there who are brave enough to accept the mandates of a liberality that gives one measure and refuses another; that understands weakness and strength? Clubs, unions, societies, organizations of all kinds, political, social, reformatory, or beneficent, will never reach their highest consummation, nor will society be a broad, deep channel of usefulness and pleasure, until liberality is the patent ​mark of each; until we can bear to hear the truth about ourselves; until we can be brave enough to utter it about our fellow-workers.

It is a blessed fact that life compels us to work together, though in our thoughts and with our words we stand far off from each other. Is my neighbor wrong because I am right? No one yet can say he has attained unto absolute truth. The truth is absolute just so far as it is each man's duty to do only that which he believes is his present truth; but that truth may be relative to another person. Relativity of truth is the fundamental equation between our differing beliefs. Its relativeness is no excuse for not believing something, and no excuse for not wishing that others might arrive at our stand-point; while it is the reason for acknowledging the why and wherefore of another's belief, and for liberality in our thought and treatment of them; as variety is a divine law of human nature. Do we ever know each other or ourselves? Is not the best of our ​natures unknown or dim to us? That glory, almost was within our grasp, has it gone? Was it our fault; or could not we reach it?

Shall we merely tolerate each other? That is too small a word. We are to comprehend another in his truth, as he understands us in ours. The larger unity to come must be one of purpose; for the faith and hope of each person will sing themselves into a creed. With reverent spirit for others' purpose must we all approach any offered feast of friendship. Another's thought is not alone to be transformed into our experience, but to be transubstantiated. It thus becomes a vital, individual product again in some one else. Fundamental agreements are deeper than surface contradictions.

​Through loyalty shall we never feel that truth has been lessened by our cowardice, for having established its convictions, upon carefully examined premises, they have become data of assured action. Loyalty never shrinks from its own statement; it feels its truth is the only truth worth living for, but it does not rush towards instant fulfilment, for, while believing, it is willing to work and wait quietly. Loyalty stands by the falling friend, while liberality understands why he falls. Loyalty takes Recognition for its motto, clings fast and sees wide. Because it is the reverent worship and advancement of the true, it feels deference towards others' reverence; yet

and still,

The river of human sympathy, of liberality.