By J. W. McGarvey (1829-1911)
The early Christians were not aware that among the manifold objects of God’s creation and providential care there was a countless host of the little bugs that now pass under the name of microbes. This fact was left, like destructive criticism, to be discovered in our own scientific age. Now the microbes are as well known as gnats and mosquitoes. It is known, too, that they are widespread and are exceedingly dangerous, for they float in the air, they swim in the water, and we drink them in with our mother’s milk. When they once get in us they begin to eat our vitals, and they bring on all diseases. If we could only keep them out, we might live forever, unless somebody kills us. The doctors have warned us not to spit on the sidewalks, lest our microbes, swarming up from the spittle, be swallowed by some passer-by to the utter ruin of his constitution, and they object to horses and other animals being allowed on the streets, unless we sweep up after them with great care.
This is not all. Revolutions, we have learned, never go backward. When the wheels of progress once get up steam behind them, they are going to roll on, and the man who gets in the way will be run over. Upon further reflection about these microbes, we have been forced to observe that there is just as much danger of swallowing other people’s microbes when we pinch a piece from the same bread from which they have pinched, as when we drink from the same cup. Microbes come from the tips of the fingers when they are a little soiled or a little sweaty, and we are not going to run the risk of eating any of these. We have not yet completed our plans for avoiding this imminent peril to our lives; but as we have already secured the manufacture of tiny little individual cups, we shall probably have the bread cut up into nice little cubes, which will be dropped into the little cups, so that we can swallow both at once. This device will charmingly harmonize with the time-saving device which some of us who hate long services have already adopted, of passing bread and wine both at once.
Don’t be alarmed and cry out “innovation,” “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” “heretic,” or anything of that nature, till you hear us a little further. It is a fact, a very alarming fact, strangely overlooked hitherto, that there is a great deal more danger of these microbes when we were baptized in the same water with other people; and we are bound, in all honor and consistency, as well as by a supreme regard to life and health, to put a stop to that.
Here we shall encounter some difficulties; but difficulties are made to be overcome, and we must meet them courageously. At first thought someone may propose, as a remedy, to dispense with baptisteries, and go to outdoor pools and streams; but it only requires a moment’s consideration to be reminded that dead dogs, dead cats, and other things are constantly thrown into these outdoor waters, and that the very worst of microbes emanate from these. Moreover, frogs, tadpoles and snakes frequent these waters, while horses, cows and hogs go there to drink, and we might get some microbes if we are baptized in such places. The remedy seems to be, to retain the baptistery, but to have it washed, rinsed and scoured and fumigated after every individual baptism. This can be done very easily in some of our churches, especially where the preacher is a scientific critic whose cases of baptism, like angels’ visits, are few and far between.
There is another imminent peril to which church people are exposed, and for which science, in God’s own good time, has furnished a remedy. It is the peril consequent on a large number of persons being shut up together for an hour or two in the same room and breathing the same air. On such occasions a swarm of these mischievous microbes keeps rushing out of every man’s mouth with every breath he exhales, and the air gets so full of them that sometimes we can smell them. This is far more perilous than drinking of the same cup, breaking pieces from the same loaf of bread, or being baptized in the same water. This must be remedied; and the heaven-sent remedy to which I have made reference is the telephone. We will supply every family with one of these instruments, so that they can assemble in their own parlors at the appointed hour and listen while the preacher, alone in his parlor—for we shall need no meeting house then—stands in the middle of the floor and talks into the other end of these instruments.
There may be some defects in this scheme as yet; for all schemes, even those invented by inspired men and by Christ himself, are found by experience to need improvement as men become more enlightened; but progress is the law of religion as well as of nature, and we cannot doubt that in the progress of religious evolution all defects will finally be removed and the fittest will survive.
Good-bye to the old conceit of restoring primitive Christianity!
