On re-reading my protest, which I honestly think much needed,
against our heathen idolatry of mere ablution, I see that it
may possibly be misread. I hasten to say that I think washing
a most important thing to be taught both to rich and poor.
I do not attack the positive but the relative position of soap.
Let it be insisted on even as much as now; but let other
things be insisted on much more. I am even ready to admit
that cleanliness is next to godliness; but the moderns
will not even admit godliness to be next to cleanliness.
In their talk about Thomas Becket and such saints and heroes
they make soap more important than soul; they reject godliness
whenever it is not cleanliness. If we resent this about remote
saints and heroes, we should resent it more about the many saints
and heroes of the slums, whose unclean hands cleanse the world.
Dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth; but the fact remains
that the classes that wash most are those that work least.
Concerning these, the practical course is simple; soap should
be urged on them and advertised as what it is--a luxury.
With regard to the poor also the practical course is not hard
to harmonize with our thesis. If we want to give poor people
soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries.
If we will not make them rich enough to be clean,
then emphatically we must do what we did with the saints.
We must reverence them for being dirty.
This book has been accessed more than 3205 times since June 3, 2009.
