Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/225

 others. Exclude him from church membership? "Why, for goodness sake," the clergyman will say, "what would things come to if we excluded a single paying member?" The brothel-keeper dies and gets a funeral oration with a panegyric in proportion to the amount he pays. And after having earned his money in a manner which, from a Christian point of view, is as filthy and base as can be (for, from a Christian point of view it would be more honorable if he had stolen it) the clergyman returns home. He is in a hurry, for he is to go to church in order to deliver an oration or, as Bishop Martensen would say, "bear witness."

But if Christianity demanded honesty and uprightness, and doing away with this swindle, the change which really came about was this: the swindling has remained just as in Heathendom, "every one (every Christian) is a thief in his own line"; only, the swindling has taken. on the predicate "Christian." So we now have "Christian" swindling—and the "clergyman" bestows his blessing on this Christian community, this Christian state, in which one cheats just as one did in Heathendom, at the same time that one pays the "clergyman," that is, the biggest swindler of them all, and thus cheats one's self into Christianity.

And if Christianity demanded seriousness in life and doing away with the praise and approbation of vanity— why, everything has remained as before, with just this difference that it has assumed the predicate "Christian." Thus the trumpery business with decorations, titles, and rank, etc. has become Christian—and the clergyman (that most indecent of all indecencies, that most ridiculous of all ridiculous hodge-podges), he is as pleased as Punch to be decorated himself—with the "cross."" The cross? Why, certainly; for in the Christianity of "Christendom" has not the cross become something like a child's hobby-horse and tin-trumpet?

And so with everything. There is implanted in man no stronger instinct, after that of self-preservation, than the instinct of reproduction; for which reason Christianity seeks to reduce its strength, teaching that it is better not to marry; "but if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." But in Christendom