One of the standing delights of the American nation in these days is John D. Rockefeller, junior’s,Ⓐapparatus note Bible Class adventures in theology. Every Sunday young Rockefeller explains the Bible to his class. The next day the newspapers and the Associated Press distribute his explanations all over the continentⒶapparatus note and everybody laughs. The entire nation laughs, yet in its innocent dulnessⒶapparatus note never suspects that it is laughing at itself. But that is what it is doing.

Young Rockefeller, who is perhaps thirty-five years old, is a plain, simple, earnest, sincere, honest, well-meaning, commonplace person, destitute of originality or any suggestion of it. And if he were traveling upon his mental merit instead of upon his father’s money, his explanations of the Bible would fall silent and not be heard of by the public. But his father ranks as the richest man in the world, and this makes his son’s theological gymnastics interesting and important. The world believes that the elder Rockefeller is worth a billion dollars. He pays taxes on two million and a half. He is an earnest uneducated Christian, and for years and years has been Admiral of a Sunday-school in Cleveland, Ohio. For years and years he has discoursed about himself to his Sunday-school and explained how he got his dollars; and during all these years his Sunday-school has listened in rapture and has divided its worship between him and his CreatorⒶapparatus note—unequally. His Sunday-school talks are telegraphed about the country and are as eagerly read by the nation as are his son’sⒺexplanatory note.

As I have said, the nation laughs at young Rockefeller’s analyzations of the Scriptures. Yet the nation must know that these analyzations are exactly like those which it hears every Sunday from its pulpits, and which its forebearsⒶapparatus note have been listening to for centuries without a change of an idea—in case an idea has ever occurred in one of these discourses. Young John’s methods are the ordinary pulpit methods. His deductions of golden fancy from sordid fact are exactly the same which the pulpit has traded in for centuries. Every argument he uses was already worn threadbare by the theologians of all the ages before it came in its rags to him. All his reasonings are like all the reasonings of all the pulpit’sⒶapparatus note stale borrowings from the dull pulpits of the centuries. Young John has never studied a doctrine for himself; he has never examined a doctrine upon its real merits; he has never examined a doctrine for any purpose but to make it fit the notions which he got at second-hand from his teachers. His talks are quite as original and quite as valuable as any that proceed from any other theologian’s lips, from the Pope of Rome down to himself. The nation laughs at young John’s profound and clumsy examinations of Joseph’s character and conduct, yet the nation has always heard Joseph’s character and conduct examined in the same clumsy and stupid way by its pulpits, and the nation should reflect that when they laugh at young John they are laughing at themselves. They should reflect that young John is using no new whitewash upon JosephⒺexplanatory note. He is using the same old brush and the same old whitewash that have made Joseph grotesque in all the centuries.

I have known and liked young John for many years, and I have long felt that his right place was in the pulpit. I am sure that the foxfire of his mind would make a proper glow there—but I suppose he must do as destiny has decreed and succeed his father as master of the colossal Standard Oil Corporation. One of his most delightful theological deliverances was his exposition, three years ago, of the meaning—the real meaning, the bottom meaning—of Christ’s admonition to the young man who was overburdened with wealth yet wanted to save himself if a convenient way could be found: “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”Ⓔexplanatory note Young John reasoned it out to this effect:

“Whatever thing stands between you and salvation, remove that obstruction at any cost. If it is money, give it away, to the poor; if it is property, sell the whole of it and give the proceeds to the poor; if it is military ambition, retire from the service; if it is an absorbing infatuation for any person or thing or pursuit, fling it far from you and proceed with a single mind to achieve your salvation.”

The inference was plain. Young John’s father’s millions and his own were a mere incident in their lives and not in any way an obstruction in their pursuit of salvation. Therefore Christ’s admonition could have no application to them. One of the newspapers sent interviewers to six or seven New York clergymen to get their views upon this matter, with this result: that all of them except one agreed with young Rockefeller. I do not know what we should do without the pulpit. We could better spare the sun—the moon, anyway.

Three years ago I went with young John to his Bible Class and talked to itⒺexplanatory note—not theologically, that would not have been in good taste, and I prefer good taste to righteousness. Now whoever—on the outside—goes there and talks to that Bible Class is by that act entitled to honorary membership in it. Therefore I am an honorary member. Some days ago a Bible Class official sent me word that there would be a quinquennial meeting of these honoraries in [begin page 423] their church day after to-morrow evening, and it was desired that I should come there and help do the talking. If I could not come, would I send a letter which could be read to those people?

I was already overburdened with engagements, so I sent my regrets and the following letterⒺexplanatory note:Ⓐapparatus note

I sent that letter privately to young John himself, and asked him to make himself perfectly free with it, and please suppress it if it seemed to him improper matter to be read in a church. He suppressed it—which shows that he has a level Standard Oil head notwithstanding his theology. Then he asked me to go to the meeting of honoraries and talk and said I might choose my own subject and talk freely. He suggested a subject which he had been experimenting with himself before his Bible Class, a couple of months ago—lying. The subject suited me very well. I had read the newspaper reports of his discourse and had perceived that he was like all the other pulpits. He knew nothing valuable about lying; that, like all other pulpits, he imagines that there has been somebody upon this planet, at some time or other, who was not a liar; that he imagines like all other pulpits——however I have treated this matter in one of my booksⒺexplanatory note, and it is not necessary to treat it again in this place.

It was agreed that young John is to call at the house day after to-morrow evening and take me to his church, I to be free to talk about lying, if I like, or talk upon some freshly interesting subject instead, in case there should be a person there capable of starting a fresh subject in such an atmosphere.

But, after all, I can’t go. I am fighting off my annual bronchitis, and the doctor has forbidden itⒺexplanatory note. I am sorry, for I am sure I know more about lying than anybody who has lived on this planet before me. I believe I am the only person alive who is sane upon this subject. I have been familiar with it for seventy years. The first utterance I ever made was a lie, for I pretended that a pin was sticking me, whereas it was not so. I have been interested in this great art ever since. I have practisedⒶapparatus note it ever since; sometimes for pleasure, usually for profit. And to this day I do not always know when to believe myself, and when to take the matter under consideration.

I shall be unspeakably sorry if the bronchitis catches me, for that will mean six weeks in bed—my annual tribute to it for the last sixteen years. I shall be sorry because I want to be in [begin page 426] condition to appear at Carnegie Hall on the night of April 10th and take my permanent leave of the platform. I never intend to lecture for pay again, and I think I shall never lecture again where the audience has paid to get in. I shall go on talking, but it will be for fun, not money. I can get lots of it to do.

My first appearance before an audience was forty years ago, in San FranciscoⒺexplanatory note. If I live to take my farewell in Carnegie Hall on the night of the 10th, I shall see, and see constantly, what no one else in that house will see. I shall see two vast audiences—the San Francisco audience of forty years ago and the one which will be before me at that time. I shall see that early audience with as absolute distinctness in every detail as I see it at this moment, and as I shall see it while looking at the Carnegie audience. I am promising myself a great, a consuming pleasure, on that Carnegie night, and I hope that the bronchitis will leave me alone and let me enjoy it.

General Fred Grant sent a gentleman over here a week ago to offer me a thousand dollars to deliver a talk for the benefit of the Robert Fulton MemorialⒶapparatus note Association of which he is the President and I Vice-PresidentⒺexplanatory note. This was the very thing, and I accepted at once, and said I would without delay write some telegrams and letters from Fred Grant to myself and sign his name to them, and I would answer those telegrams and letters and sign my name to them, and in this way we could make a good advertisement and I could thus get the fact before the public that I was now delivering my last and final platform talk for money. I wrote the correspondence at once. General Grant approved it, and I here insert itⒺexplanatory note.