...there has been a queer habit among the English of always siding against the Europeans, and representing the rival civilization, in Swinburnes phrase, as sinless; when its sins were obviously crying or rather screaming to heaven. For Carthage also was a high civilization, indeed a much more highly civilized civilization. And Carthage also founded that civilization on a religion of fear, sending up everywhere the smoke of human sacrifice. Now it is very right to rebuke our own race or religion for falling short of our own standards and ideals. But it is absurd to pretend that they fell lower than the other races and religions that professed the very opposite standards and ideals. There is a very real sense in which the Christian is worse than the heathen, the Spaniard worse than the Red Indian, or even the Roman potentially worse than the Carthaginian. But there is only one sense in which he is worse; and that is not in being positively worse. The Christian is only worse because it is his business to be better. -- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 15:12:40 +0000
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