Heavenly Discourse by Charles Erskine Scott Wood

Author:Charles Erskine Scott Wood
Language: dan
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Discourse 26

Censorship

(God is resting on an easy throne in the Cerulean Portico. A Child Seraph comes in.)

Child Seraph: Father—Father.

God: Eh—what? What's the matter?

Child Seraph: Gimme a ride.

God: A ride? You seem to think I've nothing in the universe to do but give you rides.

Child Seraph: Gimme a ride.

God: Get on my toe.

(Child Seraph mounts God's foot and God gives her a ride.)

Child Seraph: Father, what is a censor?

God: O, for my sake—where did you get that infernal word?

Child Seraph: I heard Peter tell Gabriel you said he was a censor. He seemed worried.

God: He ought to be. Get off now,

(Child Seraph dismounts). What else did he say?

Child Seraph: Said he was only looking after people's morals.

God: Exactly. That's what they all say. Nobody seems to understand that in my sight everyone's morals are each one's own affair.

Child Seraph: What are morals?

(Voltaire, Rabelais, Margaret Fuller, Mary Wollstonecraft, Robert Ingersoll, Mark Twain, Carrie Nation, and Ben Franklin come in.)

God (to the Newcomers): Welcome! (to the Child Seraph): What did you say?

Child Seraph: What are morals?

God: Customs, that's all. It is moral in China and Turkey to have several wives—but very immoral in the United States of America—earth—to have more than one.

Mark Twain: Openly.

God: Yes, yes. Anything is moral anywhere if it is concealed.

Mary Wollstonecraft: But isn't concealment contemptible?

God: Of course—cowardly, contemptible—shabby. Don't think I am approving. Myself forbid—I am only trying to give this pure young angel an idea of earthly morals. I don't think she'll get it.

Child Seraph: Yes, I will, if they are pure and true.

God: Ah, but they are not.

Child Seraph: Well, go on.

God: At one time it is very immoral for a woman to show her ankles. At another time in the same country it is perfectly moral to show her knees. In the United States it is moral for her to show her beautiful legs on the street but immoral to show her beautiful back and bosom bare. It is moral to bare her back and bosom at a dinner party but not moral to bare her legs at a dinner party. It is moral to be nearly naked on a beach but not in a parlor. Sometimes there is a clash in morals. Very good people —Methodists, Baptists, Catholics— think it is immoral for women to show bare legs, bosoms, backs at all— women are supposed to be terrapin, drawing neck and legs and arms under cover,

Child Seraph: I certainly don't understand. I think you are making fun of me.

God: O, no — not of you. It used to be immoral for women to smoke — now it is moral. Morals are chiefly concerned with sex. The very best morals is not to know the difference between a man and a woman or how babies are created—or if you do know, you must never allude to it. Keep it dark. Let no one find out. Now do you understand?

Child Seraph: No, I think it is stupid and very vulgar.

God: So do I.

Child Seraph: What is a censor?

God: I thought you had forgotten that.

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