Is it not a grotesque civilization which sends missionaries across the sea to save the souls of the heathen, and yet permits conditions at home that debauch the children at our very doors?
Interpretation
This quote critiques the hypocrisy of a society that is eager to assist others abroad while neglecting its own issues.
Edwin Markham's quote highlights the absurdity of a civilization that prioritizes sending missionaries to 'save' distant populations while turning a blind eye to the moral and social decay occurring within its own borders, particularly as it affects vulnerable children. It urges reflection on the values of society and questions the sincerity of its philanthropic efforts when local problems remain unaddressed.
In practice
In a speech about community service, one might introduce this quote to discuss the importance of addressing local social issues.
Greed and Gain, grim guardians of the great god Mammon, continually cry in the ears of the poor, 'Give us your little ones!' And forever do the poor push out their little ones at the imperious ukase, feeding the children to a blind Hunger that is never filled.
Sorrows come to stretch out places in the heart for joy.
There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.
The crest and crowning of all good, life's final star, is Brotherhood.
He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him In ! From the poem " Outwitted
The sequoias belong to the silences of the milleniums. Many of them have seen a hundred human generations rise, give off their little clamors and perish. They seem indeed to be forms of immortality standing here amoing the transitory shapes of time.
At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right
After all, if freedom of speech means anything, it means a willingness to stand and let people say things with which we disagree, and which do weary us considerably.
Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.
Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.
Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be ADOPTION THROUGH PROPITIATION, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.
No matter how much we try to run away from this thirst for the answer to life, for the meaning of life, the intensity only gets stronger and stronger. We cannot escape these spiritual hungers.
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