The Jericho Road, page 119 by W. Bion Adkins
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t ignore. If I were alone, I would do as the patriarchs of old did, erect a little altar of stone, rude and unsightly, and bow myself down before it and commune with Deity. But here we find that different types of men have different religious views, and different spiritual aspirations, and so churches must be erected; and while all tend to the same end, each hopes to reach it by a different route. I must respect all these views. Only one can be my view, but my social surroundings are such that all have rights which I am bound to yield some obedience to.
Again, if I were alone there would be no need of law, because both good and bad would be represented in my personality. There could be no murder, no crime, no punishment; but with all the manifold people with different tendencies, there must be law, or the social fabric would go to pieces by the strong trampling on the weak. Hence I must stand with reference to the law on the right side or the wrong side, and all humanity regardful of each other's rights must line up on one side or the other. In addition to our churchly ties and duties, we have family duties, and there begins the first of duty, first of government, first of obligations as citizens. And so I say we live in relation to those who surround us, and we can not live unmindful of them. We are touched by humanity everywhere, and walk elbow to elbow down the vale of life, supporting or destroying, and whether our pilgrimage be long or short we can not destroy the facts as they exist.
It must be seen with only a hasty glance that with the varying conditions of men, with their different mental dispositions, moral ideas and social status, that a crying demand comes all the time for some organization where men can unite on a common level--some place where a divergence of political or moral views do not bar an entrance, where the family ties remain sacred, and more sacred because of the organization. It seems that men groped about for just such an organization, and men's wants are necessities, an