The Pernicious Sophistry of Hypocrisy

Book excerpt: While every vice is hid by hypocrisy, every virtue is suspected to be hypocrisy. Christian societies roll around the mire of hypocrisy, steeped in false pretence. Deceit and hypocrisy are at work for dear self’s sake, in every nation as in every individual. Selfishness, whether it breeds ambition for aggrandizement of territory, or competition in commerce at the expense of one’s neighbour, can never be regarded as a virtue. The middle classes are honeycombed with false smiles, false talk, and mutual treachery. For the majority, religion has become a thin veil thrown over the corpse of spiritual faith. Our century is a boastful age, as proud as it is hypocritical; as cruel as it is dissembling. There are more hypocrites in a square yard of our “civilized soil” than antiquity has bred of them on all its idolatrous lands. Instead of courtesy and sincerity, we have feigned politeness and falsification on every plane; falsification of moral food, and the same falsification of eatable food. Sanctimonious hypocrisy has stifled genuine religious spirit, which is now regarded as madness.