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Vol. VI.—No. 21.
RALEIGH, N. C., MAY 23, 1912
One Dollar a Year.
1
A NEW RELIGION
ELBERT HUBBARD, in June Cosmopolitan.
HERE is a new religion. It has come without blare of brass, without fanfare of words,
without shoutings, without arguments, agitation, or violence. This new religion is
slowly and surely conquering the world. It is being preached from every pulpit in
Christendom, and is being advocated by all rabbis, priests, preachers, and teachers.
It is so reasonable, so gentle, so simple, so obvious, that it is being accepted without
opposition—aye, without the realization that it exists.
In form, the old creeds still remain, but their soul has been honeycombed by doubt. The old is
being construed in the light of the new. The ruin of the past is a quarry to which we go for ma
terial to build the temple of the new.
This new religion assumes that what is good in this life is good in another. It deals with but
one world at a time. The object of its adoration is humanity. It does not try to make peace with
the skies; it teaches man that his success lies in making peace with his neighbor. It is a religion of
self-preseivation, and thus has it engaged as counsel the strongest passion of the human heart.
Curiously enough, the men who have done most to bring this religion about are not aware that
they are religious in their tendencies, actions, or mode of thought. The new religion is not a “re
vealed” religion, in the sense that it has been whispered by the Infinite to one or two. It has been
born to the multitude; and the business men of the world are its chief promulgators. It requires no
interpretation, explanation, 6r defense. It came with the one-price system; It was accepted when
honesty was discovered to be an asset. It recognizes the Brotherhood of Man, and is built on the
solid bedrock of the solidarity of the race.
Lies lead straight to limbo. Nothing pays but truth. In all transactions, of every kind and
nature, both sides must profit.
This new religion tends to eliminate fear, doubt, hate, prejudice. It has sympathy, imagination,
hope, faith, and love. It has the power to put itself in the place of the other person. In it there is
no tyranny, no force, no threat. It wins only by the virtue that it possesses. Those who practise it
thrive. Through it the world is being redeemed. Sickness, distress, regrets, misunderstanding,
sorrows, before it flee away. The chief characteristic of this new religion is its antiquity. It has
always been known by the elect few. But now the masses, the many, are accepting and practising
it in their lives. It is taught in all public schools, in business colleges, in shops, stores, factories,
banks, and in the market-places of the world. It is taught on railroad trains, in sleeping-cars, day-
coaches, in the caboose, on the farms, by chauffeurs, by the men who sow and reap.
It is the Religion of Common Sense. Its tenets are industry, economy, efficiency, expediency,
reciprocity, appreciation, good cheer, mutuality, co-operation, all illumined by love.