About the interest which is shown for my cause
In one way this interest is great enough; what I write has a large circulation, in a certain sense almost more than I could wish, although naturally I must in another sense desire the greatest possible circulation, but of course without being willing to employ in the very least the expedients which might in the remotest degree resemble the well-known tricks of politicians, quacks, and press gangs. People read what I write, many read it with interest, with great interest — that I know.
But with so many people this perhaps is all it comes to. The next Sunday they go to church as usual; they say, "What K. writes is substantially true, and it is exceedingly interesting to read how he shows that the whole official worship is making a fool of God, is blasphemy — but after all we are accustomed to do this, we are unable to emancipate ourselves from it, we lack the power to do so. But certain it is that what he writes we shall read with enjoyment; one can't help being impatient to get a new number and to learn something more about this prodigiously interesting criminal case, as it undeniably is."
This interest, however, is really not gratifying, rather it is distressing, one more dolorous proof that not only does Christianity not exist, but that men in our times are, as I would put it, not even so much as in a condition to have religion, but are strange to, unacquainted with, the sort of passion which every religion must require, without which one cannot have any religion, least of all Christianity.
Let me illustrate what I want to say by a parable. In one sense, I employ it very reluctantly, for I do not like to talk about such things; but I choose it and use it deliberately, yea, I think that I am not justified in not using it, for the seriousness of the case requires that every means be employed to make him who stands in need of it thoroughly disgusted with his situation, thoroughly disgusted with himself.
There is a man whose wife is unfaithful to him, but he doesn't know it. There is one of his friends who (as a dubious proof of his friendship, perhaps many will say) informs him of it. The husband replies, "It is with lively interest I have listened to you talk, I admire the acumen with which you have been able to discover an infidelity so prudently concealed, and of which I really had no suspicion at all. But that for this cause, now that I know it to be true, I should get a divorce from her, no, that I cannot make up my mind to do. After all, I am now so accustomed to this domestic ease that I cannot do without it. Besides she has property, and I cannot do without that either. On the other hand, I do not deny that with the most lively interest I shall listen to what further information you can give me about this situation. For — not meaning to pay you a compliment — it is exceedingly interesting."
To have in that way a taste for the interesting is a frightful thing. And so also it is a frightful thing to know, under the form of interesting knowledge, that one's worship is blasphemy, and then to continue it, because after all one is used to it. Essentially this is not so much to despise God as to despise oneself. One finds it despicable to figure as a husband and yet not be one, though this may innocently befall a man through a wife's unfaithfulness. One regards it as pitiable to put up with such a relationship and remain in it. But to have religion in that way (which cannot possibly befall a man except by his own fault), that a man knows his worship is blasphemy, and yet is willing to figure as having that religion — this in the profoundest sense is to despise oneself.
Oh, there is something more deplorable than that which men are inclined to regard as the most deplorable fate that can befall a man, there is that which is more deplorable! There is an imbecility with respect to character, a drivel of characterlessness which is more dreadful than that of the understanding, perhaps also more incurable. And the most deplorable thing perhaps that can be said of a man is that he cannot be elevated, uplifted, his own knowledge cannot lift him up. Like the boy who lets his kite fly aloft, so does he let his knowledge mount on high; to follow it with his eye he finds interesting, prodigiously interesting, but. ..it does not lift him up, he remains in the mud, more and more crazy about the interesting.
Wherefore, whoever thou art, if such be the case with thee — shame upon thee, shame upon thee, shame upon thee!