Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/352

 makest a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed because they have not the means of making thee a recompense. For thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just" (Lu. xiv. 12-14). Nobody can object to charitable individuals asking poor people or invalids without rank to dinner at their houses; indeed, it is to be wished that the practice were more common than it is. But we cannot admit that this kind action ought to be rendered obligatory, to the exclusion of other modes of conduct. Society, properly speaking, cannot exist except by reciprocity. That sort of friendly intercourse between equals which constitutes society implies giving and taking; and it is eminently desirable that we should do exactly what Christ would forbid us doing, namely, invite our neighbors and be invited by them as circumstances may require. The fear that we may receive a recompense for the dinner-parties we may give is surely chimerical. Pleasantness and mutual advantage are alike promoted by this reciprocity, which, moreover, avoids the discomfort produced when the obligation is wholly on one side. Jesus, in fact, overlooks entirely the more intellectual side of society, and dwells exclusively on the moral side. What he wishes to establish, is not converse between men, but charity. So that a person acting on his views would be excluded from the society of those who might benefit him either materially or morally, and would be confined to those whom he might benefit. Such an arrangement would not in the end be good either for the benefactors or the benefited.

His conceptions of justice are seemingly not more perfect than his conceptions of social arrangements. The parable of the laborers is intended to justify the deity in assigning equal rewards to those who have borne unequal burdens, and also to illustrate his doctrine that the first will be last, and the last first. A householder hires a number of laborers to work in his vineyard; some of whom he engages in the morning, others later in the day, others towards its close. All of them receive a denarium in payment, though some had worked the whole day, and others only an hour. At this result the class which had worked the longer time grumble; but the householder defends himself by appealing to the strict terms of his contract, by which he had