great deference to the opinions of the Great and Good men of the past and of the present. Do not be hasty to adopt new opinions. Never reason for the sake of reasoning: "Let not reason stifle charity." 6. Never conceal your opinions, nor be ashamed of your faith. To conceal a truth is as bad as to proclaim a falsehood. 7. Study Nature, that your faith may be founded on fact, that you may escape superstition and be able to distinguish words from things, reality from appearance. 8. Study your own character. Find out where you are at fault and strive in the opposite direction. Guard against the vice you most lean to: be it sloth and sensuality, anger and ill-temper, covetousness and dishonesty, untruth and meanness, cowardice and apathy, pride and egotism, fashion and frivolity. This is the maxim that came down from heaven: Nosce te ipsum.1 9. Reverence your parents.2 Respect old age, and look up to all who are stronger, braver, more learned, or more devoted than yourself. Especially seek to follow the example of heroic characters of the Great and Good, such as Socrates, Christ, and Epictetus. Seek out what is good and beautiful in the lives of the persons and peoples who have preceded us, and reproduce it in your own life (Krause and Tiberghien). 10. Reflect, at least once a day, how short is your stay in this world and think of the Great Spirit from whom you came, and to whose presence you must return. : MOSAIC DECALOGUE I take the following revised version from a most interesting "Life of Moses," published 1 Socrates, in "Xenophon," Mem. iv. 2, 24. 2 Socrates, in "Xenophon,” Mem. ii. 2; and Exodus xx. 12. anonymously by a devout and philosophical German Jew: i. Believe in God Almighty, Ruler of earth and heaven. Worship and revere Him only. ii. Take not God's name in vain, nor treat with levity anything that is sacred. iii. Rest every seventh day from hard and from unnecessary work, and devote that day to your edification in God, and to the recreation of your mind and body. iv. Respect and love your parents: love also your husband or wife, your children, your relatives, your neighbours, and all human beings: you must love even the animal that serves you. v. Injure and destroy no useful or beautiful thing, alive or not alive for all things good and beautiful are God's. vi. Be moderate and temperate; commit no immorality: for an immoral man is a scourge to himself and a plague to those around him. vii. You must not take, or even covet, anything that is your neighbour's: the good man's poverty is better than a bad man's luxury. viii. Be pure in mind, in thought, in speech; be clean in body, in garment, and in habitation: for cleanliness is an image of perfection. ix. Rulers and teachers, live in the fear of God; you who are ruled or taught, obey and respect those whom you have chosen to direct you: for out of harmony alone can harmony arise.1 x. Improve your ways from day to day: obey the commandments of God: ponder the fate of men and nations who forsake His everlasting laws. COMMINATION OR WARNING i. A traitor to Truth is he who accepts pay or profit for teaching or preaching Religion. 1 This rule, if taken to imply passive and unreasoning obedience, would destroy both liberty and enlightenment, ii. Tainted with falsehood is the soul of him who supports an institution which he knows to be corrupt. And false is he who conceals any truth that is revealed to him, or who shuts his eyes to an inconvenient truth. iii. Vile is the man who associates Reform and Progress with any form of sensuality. He shall turn many from the path, and shall be turned back himself from the gates of life. iv. Shun all those teachers who claim for themselves any special revelation or any supernatural powers. Avoid also those impostors who pretend to communicate with the spirits of the departed, and those who practise necromancy or any kind of divination or magic. v. Cursed is the man who persecutes his fellows in the name of Religion. And cursed also are they who torture any helpless creature in the name of Science. Cursed is he who kills and calls it "sport." vi. Woe to him who takes advantage of his neighbour's ignorance, weakness, or folly. His gain shall turn to loss: his prosperity shall end in perdition. vii. Woe to those who pollute the minds of children with superstition, or their bodies by inoculation, for they fight against God and Nature, and the evil which they work shall recoil upon themselves. viii. Woe to those who labour to defend a lie, who gild and beautify a falsehood, and adorn it with art and eloquence: zealous slaves of a master who will slay them. ix. Blind is the guide who teaches that the upward path is an easy or a pleasant one. "I offer you a bitter draught," says Epictetus the master. x. Lost are all they who deny God in their lives: but they who deny Him with their lips shall be forgiven. |