Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman (ebook and pdf reader TXT) đ
- Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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She made a sort of chart, superimposing the different religions as I described them, with a pin run through them all, as it were; their common basis being a Dominant Power or Powers, and some Special Behavior, mostly taboos, to please or placate. There were some common features in certain groups of religions, but the one always present was this Power, and the things which must be done or not done because of it. It was not hard to trace our human imagery of the Divine Force up through successive stages of bloodthirsty, sensual, proud, and cruel gods of early times to the conception of a Common Father with its corollary of a Common Brotherhood.
This pleased her very much, and when I expatiated on the Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and so on, of our God, and of the loving kindness taught by his Son, she was much impressed.
The story of the Virgin birth naturally did not astonish her, but she was greatly puzzled by the Sacrifice, and still more by the Devil, and the theory of Damnation.
When in an inadvertent moment I said that certain sects had believed in infant damnationâ âand explained itâ âshe sat very still indeed.
âThey believed that God was Loveâ âand Wisdomâ âand Power?â
âYesâ âall of that.â
Her eyes grew large, her face ghastly pale.
âAnd yet that such a God could put little new babies to burnâ âfor eternity?â She fell into a sudden shuddering and left me, running swiftly to the nearest temple.
Every smallest village had its temple, and in those gracious retreats sat wise and noble women, quietly busy at some work of their own until they were wanted, always ready to give comfort, light, or help, to any applicant.
Ellador told me afterward how easily this grief of hers was assuaged, and seemed ashamed of not having helped herself out of it.
âYou see, we are not accustomed to horrible ideas,â she said, coming back to me rather apologetically. âWe havenât any. And when we get a thing like that into our minds itâs likeâ âoh, like red pepper in your eyes. So I just ran to her, blinded and almost screaming, and she took it out so quicklyâ âso easily!â
âHow?â I asked, very curious.
âââWhy, you blessed child,â she said, âyouâve got the wrong idea altogether. You do not have to think that there ever was such a Godâ âfor there wasnât. Or such a happeningâ âfor there wasnât. Nor even that this hideous false idea was believed by anybody. But only thisâ âthat people who are utterly ignorant will believe anythingâ âwhich you certainly knew before.âââ
âAnyhow,â pursued Ellador, âshe turned pale for a minute when I first said it.â
This was a lesson to me. No wonder this whole nation of women was peaceful and sweet in expressionâ âthey had no horrible ideas.
âSurely you had some when you began,â I suggested.
âOh, yes, no doubt. But as soon as our religion grew to any height at all we left them out, of course.â
From this, as from many other things, I grew to see what I finally put in words.
âHave you no respect for the past? For what was thought and believed by your foremothers?â
âWhy, no,â she said. âWhy should we? They are all gone. They knew less than we do. If we are not beyond them, we are unworthy of themâ âand unworthy of the children who must go beyond us.â
This set me thinking in good earnest. I had always imaginedâ âsimply from hearing it said, I supposeâ âthat women were by nature conservative. Yet these women, quite unassisted by any masculine spirit of enterprise, had ignored their past and built daringly for the future.
Ellador watched me think. She seemed to know pretty much what was going on in my mind.
âItâs because we began in a new way, I suppose. All our folks were swept away at once, and then, after that time of despair, came those wonder childrenâ âthe first. And then the whole breathless hope of us was for their childrenâ âif they should have them. And they did! Then there was the period of pride and triumph till we grew too numerous; and after that, when it all came down to one child apiece, we began to really workâ âto make better ones.â
âBut how does this account for such a radical difference in your religion?â I persisted.
She said she couldnât talk about the difference very intelligently, not being familiar with other religions, but that theirs seemed simple enough. Their great Mother Spirit was to them what their own motherhood wasâ âonly magnified beyond human limits. That meant that they felt beneath and behind them an upholding, unfailing, serviceable loveâ âperhaps it was really the accumulated mother-love of the race they feltâ âbut it was a Power.
âJust what is your theory of worship?â I asked her.
âWorship? What is that?â
I found it singularly difficult to explain. This Divine Love which they felt so strongly did not seem to ask anything of themâ ââany more than our mothers do,â she said.
âBut surely your mothers expect honor, reverence, obedience, from you. You have to do things for your mothers, surely?â
âOh, no,â she insisted, smiling, shaking her soft brown hair. âWe do things from our mothersâ ânot for them. We donât have to do things for themâ âthey donât need it, you know. But we have to live onâ âsplendidlyâ âbecause of them; and thatâs the way we feel about God.â
I meditated again. I thought of that God of Battles of ours, that Jealous God, that Vengeance-is-mine God. I thought of our world-nightmareâ âHell.
âYou have no theory of eternal punishment then, I take it?â
Ellador laughed. Her eyes were as bright as stars, and there were tears in them, too. She was so sorry for me.
âHow could we?â she asked, fairly enough. âWe have no punishments in life, you see, so we donât imagine them after death.â
âHave you no punishments? Neither for children nor criminalsâ âsuch mild criminals as you have?â I urged.
âDo you punish a person for
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