brethren, and might have nought in common
with the likeness of the Elohim; they
who gave up the deeds of charity for the
endless repetition of masses and vespers, and
who thought to do God better service by
mumbling masses in a cowl, than by living
among their fellows, loving, aiding, and
improving—were not all these followers in the
train of Diogenes?—if not in the dirt, then in
the bile; if not in the garb, then in the heart.
Denouncers, condemners; narrowing, not
enlarging; hating, not loving; they were traitors
to the virtue of life, while dreaming that they
alone held it sacred.

And now, have we no snarling Cynics, no
Pharisee, no Inquisitor? Have we taken to
good heart the divine record of love, of faith,
which an æsthetic age has sublimated into
credos, and left actions as a caput mortuum?
Have we looked into the meaning of the
practical lesson which the Master taught
when he forgave the adulteress, and sat at
meat with the sinners? or have we not rather
cherished the spiritual pride which shapes
out bitter words of censure for our fellows,
and lays such stress on likeness that it
overlooks unity? The question is worthy of an
answer.

The world is wide. Beasts and fishes,
birds and reptiles, weeds and flowers which
here are weeds, and there are flowers, according
to local fancy—the dwarfed shrub of the
Alpine steeps, and the monster palm of the
tropical plains; the world is wide enough to
contain them all, and man is wise enough
to love them all, each in its sphere, and its
degree. But what we do for Nature, we
refuse to Humanity. To her we allow diversity;
to him we prescribe sameness; in her
we see the loveliness of unlikeness, the
symmetry of variation; in him we must have
multitudes shaped by one universal rule;
and what we do not look for in the senseless
tree, we attempt on the immortal soul.
Religion, philosophy, and social politics, must
be of the same form with all men, else woe
to the wight who thinks out of the straight
line! Diagonal minds are never popular, and
the hand which draws one radius smites him
who lines another equal to it in all its parts,
and from the same centre point. The Catholic
denies the Protestant; the Episcopalian
contemns the Presbyterian; the Free Kirk is
shed like a branching horn; the Independent
denounces the Swedenborgian; the Mormonite
is persecuted by the Unitarian. It is one
unvarying round; the same thing called by
different names. Now all this is the very
soul of Diogenism. Cowl, mitre, or band
distinctive signs to each party all are lost
in the shadow of the tub, and jumbled up
into a strange form, which hath the name of
Him of Sinope engraved on its forehead.
Separatism and denunciation against him
who is not with thee in all matters of faith,
make thee, my friend, a Cynic in thy heart;
and, though thou mayst wear Nicoll's paletots
and Medwin's boots, and mayst prank thyself
in all imaginable coxcombries, thou art still
but a Diogenite, a Cynic, and a Pharisee;
washing the outside of the platter, but leaving
the inside encrusted still, believing falsely,
that thou hast nought to do with a cause,
because thou hast not worn its cockade.

Yet, are we going past the Tub School,
though it lingers still in high places. We see
it in party squabbles, not so much of politics
to-day, as of the most esoteric doctrines of
faith. We hear great men discussing the
question of " prevenient grace," as they would
discuss the composition of milk punch, and
we hear them mutually anathematize each
other on this plain and demonstrable
proposition. We call this Diogenism, and of
a virulent sort, too. We know that certain
men are tabooed by certain other men; that
a churchman refuses communion with him
who is of no church, or of a different church ~,
and that one Arian thinks dreadful things of
another Arian. We call these men Pharisees,
who deny kindred with the Samaritans—but
we remember who it was that befriended the
Samaritans. We know that monks still exist,
whose duty to man consists in endless prayers
to GOD, (in using vain repetitions as the
Heathens do); who open their mouths wide,
and expect that Heaven will fill them; who
hold the active duties of life in no esteem;
and separate themselves from their fellows
in all the grandeur of religious superiority.
We cannot see much difference between these
men, the Hindoo Fakirs, and the unsavoury
gentleman of the Grecian tub. They are all
of the same genus; but, Heaven be praised!
they are dying out from the world of man,
as leprosy, and the black plague, and other
evils, are dying out. True enlightenment will
extirpate them, as well as other malaria. If
Sanitary Commissions sweep out the cholera,
acknowledged Love will sweep out all this
idleness and solitary hatred, and make men
at last confess that Love and Recognition are
grander things than contempt and intolerance;
in a word, that real Christianity is better than
any form whatsoever, of the Diogenic
philosophy of hatred.

On September 29th was published, price 5s. 6d., neatly
bound in Cloth,
THE THIRD VOLUME
OF
"HOUSEHOLD WORDS."
Publishing Monthly, price 2d., Stamped 3d.,
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF CURRENT EVENTS.

** This Monthly Supplement of " Household Words,"
containing a history of the previous month, is issued
regularly (pending the decision of the Barons of the
Exchequer as to whether it be liable, in law, to the Stamp
Duty) with the Magazines. The FIRST VOLUME, being a
Record of the Public Events of the Year 1850, is still to
be had of all Booksellers.